Third Power

by Robert Childs

  She nodded, her eyes softening. “Maybe some things were not meant to.”

  “I know there is nothing I can say, goddaughter, that would make you change your mind; and even if I could, there is no way to undo what has already been done. Like it or not, this once-human has undergone the ritual.”

  “So what will you say to your father?” he asked of her.

  Kurella did not answer immediately, only glanced briefly in Scott’s direction and then away from them both. “I was hoping you would help me speak to him.” She raised her eyes to meet Argos’s own. “Please, Argos, it is why I came to you. I knew I could trust no other with this.”

  He looked dubious. “I do not know, Kurella.”

  “Please! My father listens to you. He values what you say above all others.”

  Argos looked disgusted. “Do you realize what it is you are asking me to do? You want me to defend your decision to your father—my friend—to claim a human consort, a decision of which I do not even approve. Your father’s hatred for the humans is hardly a secret, and you know his resolve in this will be most strong.”

  “You know me, Argos. You, who taught me most everything I know. You know I would never have done this if I did not believe with all my heart, and I have never been one to start what I could not finish. I love Scott, and he loves me, and it is you who is to thank—or to blame—for all that has happened tonight.”

  Argos looked startled and incredulous both. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Since the time my father first began to encourage me to choose a consort, it was you who always said, ‘you will know him when you see him’. Well, I have seen him, Argos, and I have loved him, and I have taken him as my consort. Now I need you to help me defend the decision that you have helped me to make.”

  Argos eyed her with arms folded across his chest. He waited as her temper, having gotten the better of her, receded and then he said, “You are every bit your father’s daughter, do you know that?”

  “But I have the lessons of your wisdom.”

  Argos blinked slowly and shook his head with a chuckle. “Very well, I will offer what help I can—but I make no promises. And do not expect it to sway your father.”

  Kurella threw her arms around him. “I knew I could count on you!”

  Argos hugged her back. “Just remember, I only support your right to choose a consort, not the choice you have made.”

  “I understand.”

  A tired moan reached their ears and Kurella went immediately to sit beside Scott on the bed. The young man stirred, grimacing, and then as though even the pale torchlight hurt his eyes he opened them ever so slightly. He took in his strange surroundings looking a little confused.

  “Where are we?” he asked in a rough whisper, allowing his eyes to close again against the yellow light.

  Kurella moved to cradle his head in her lap. “The change has nearly run its course. Your exhaustion will pass soon.”

  Scott shook his head, a movement that would have been impossible only a moment ago. “Where are we?” he asked again.

  The wolf girl paused and Scott opened his eyes to look at her. “We are in a castle below ground,” she said. “My home, below the swamps of the Granar.”

  “You brought me here,” Scott replied; it was not a question. “Did anyone see you?”

  “Only a few.”

  Scott moved to sit up and, with Kurella’s help, he managed it, draping his legs over the side of the bed. “Then your father will be here soon.”

  “I will say one thing for him,” Argos said, his tone of voice revealing his prejudice, “he has a firm grasp of the obvious.”

  Scott raised his head to look at the man before him. “Who’s this guy?”

  Kurella opened her mouth to answer when Argos replied, “The name is Argos, whelp. Forego your introduction. I already know who you are.”

  Scott appeared unimpressed. “Spare me the macho werewolf attitude, all right? It’s been a rough night as it is.”

  The touch of a smile reached the corners of Argos’s mouth but he did not speak on the remark. Instead, “Kurella has asked that I help defend your position before her father.”

  “I heard that much,” Scott replied, already looking stronger. With one hand, he gingerly felt around the area of his throat where the flesh remained reddened after its regeneration. He looked himself over and noted the remainder of his clothing was reddish-brown with his own dried blood intermingled with earth.

  “Yes,” Argos said, “you are alive, but even that may change before the next sunset. I told Kurella I would help defend your position, not your life.”

  Scott raised his gaze to the man, clearly tired but defiant. “You’ve got an awful lot of attitude toward someone you know nothing about. If my presence so offends you, please feel free to go out and mark some trees—or whatever it is you do in your off time.”

  “You will want my protection before this is over, pup. Gouroth is hardly what you would call a patient spirit, and when he comes you can bet it will not be to congratulate you for bedding his daughter.”

  “I see you too have a firm grasp of the obvious,” Scott replied with the elder wolf’s own words.

  “Scott,” Kurella said placing a hand on his shoulder, “how are you feeling?” Though her words carried genuine concern, the question was obviously meant to stop their bickering.

  Scott looked to her and his expression softened. “Better, thanks. My strength is coming back, but my head’s still buzzing like a hornets’ nest.”

  “It will pass,” she told him.

  “You both have more important things to worry about,” Argos told them, “like what you will say to your father when the time comes.”

  The three of them turned their attention to the heavy pounding at the thick door of black willow. “Enter,” Kurella announced. Three guards, dressed in the knee length waistcloths of her father’s own personal guard, stepped into the room.

  “High Daughter,” the first said, “you and the human are to be escorted to the High Lord’s presence.” For a moment, nobody moved and then the guard added, “Immediately.”

  To Scott, Argos said, “I hope you are as agile of the mind as you are sharp of the tongue.”

  The guards marched them, taking a triangular formation around Scott and Kurella with Argos bringing up the rear. During his walk, Scott found it difficult to pay attention to anything of whom and what he passed, given his mind raced with a hundred possibilities that could come from this encounter—most of which, he admitted to himself, ended badly.

  They passed into a tunnel that descended several feet and then leveled out again, opening finally into a dark chamber lighted sparsely with torches burning in wall sconces. Other werewolves, in human form, sat against both walls in high-backed chairs fashioned from thick and gnarled, interwoven branches. And lastly, Gouroth, wearing a similar waist garment of deer hide, fastened about his waist with a gold wolf’s head buckle. The man wore an expression like a thundercloud from his seat upon the dais against the far wall of the chamber, where also sat two short, monkey-like slaves, one to either side.

  There was a low growl in Gouroth’s voice, ending simply with, “Speak.”

  Scott could see the yellow light reflected in the werewolf leader’s eyes and, were they capable, he knew they would have burned holes through his body.

  “What would you have me say?” Scott asked levelly. “Do you want to hear me beg for my life? Say I’m sorry for what I’ve done?” Scott waited but there was, surprisingly, no response. “That is not why I am here, sir. The fact of the matter is I love your daughter, and what we did tonight was so we could stay together. But I should have known better than to hope it would be enough to satisfy you.”

  Gouroth showed no anger, but he spoke slowly and his voice was dangerously low. “What is done does not make you wolf. You are still human where it matters,” he said tapping his temple with a forefinger. “And no human takes Gouroth’s daughter as consort.”

&n
bsp; “I am something more than human now, and I will be with your daughter.” Scott inwardly hoped that sounded braver than he felt under the intimidating gaze of the werewolf leader. But Kurella had warned him of the importance of showing no fear, and he pressed on, going for broke. “I have learned a few things with Kurella, and by your laws it is the female who chooses her mate—and she has done that. From her I have also learned you are stridently rigid in your beliefs, but even you will not go against your own laws.”

  Kurella moved up just behind Scott and slipped her hand into his own, the move bolstering his courage.

  Gouroth growled and stepped out of his carved, dark oak throne. “You quote laws to me?” he asked coming closer. He advanced on the young outsider and Scott, to his credit, barely flinched as the man approached. He stopped less than a foot away, breath brushing each other’s faces. “Gouroth is law here.”

  As Scott looked into the werewolf leader’s eyes, he could see the savage side hiding just beyond. And as he looked on, he could swear Gouroth was looking into him for the same.

  A few moments passed and then Gouroth smiled contemptuously in his face. “You are not wolf.”

  “You can’t see it because you don’t want to,” Scott replied.

  Gouroth snickered as he slowly turned and regarded the gathering, each of whom joined their leader in his mirth. When he completed a full circle he regarded the youth before him once more. “If wolf is there,” Gouroth began, and then deftly he struck Scott a blow to the head that knocked him to the ground, “show me.”

  Argos placed a cautious hand on Kurella’s shoulder, but the wolf girl did not move despite the corded muscles all across her back.

  Enraged, Scott searched within himself, trying to find and seize upon whatever it was that would initiate the change. His muscles tensed and his anger seethed, but still no wolf. In the next instant, he was on his feet with his dagger already in hand. The men seated against the walls were suddenly on their feet and a moment before Scott could lunge a hand came down upon his wrist. Scott turned his eyes to Argos, whose own expression was one of seriousness and concern.

  He shook his head slightly from side to side and muttered low, “You are brave, but here you will need more than your bravery and this knife.”

  Scott hesitated in indecision, his anger telling him one thing and common sense another, before finally relaxing with a nod. Argos released him and Scott returned the dagger reluctantly to its sheath.

  Gouroth turned and laughed as he walked away, returning to his throne and taking his seat once more. “You claim to be wolf,” he said, motioning the others to be seated as well, “but summon it you cannot. You have failed your test, human, but I will let you live.” He paused and with a grin he finished, “To serve as Gouroth’s slave.”

  “Not so long as I live!” Kurella shouted at him.

  Gouroth bared his teeth with a hiss. “Remember your place, Kurella!”

  “I know my place as well as I know the law, and the law says I will take the mate of my choice. You cannot ignore the law, Father!”

  “I am afraid, lord, she is right in this,” Argos said taking a step forward.

  Gouroth’s expression clearly showed he could not believe what he had just heard, and the low mutter that spread through the others seated was proof of their own surprise as well.

  “You defend her, Argos?” Gouroth asked.

  “In her choice for a consort I am appalled,” he replied, “but I defend the law that gives her the right to choose. I would consider carefully, lord, before making any final decision in this matter. Even the council knows the law cannot be ignored.”

  A low murmur of agreement ran through those seated to either side of Gouroth, causing the werewolf leader’s eyes to narrow.

  “Wait, lord,” one councilor said coming to his feet. Gouroth turned his eyes on him. “There is yet another way.”

  “Speak.”

  The council member’s eyes flashed briefly to Argos before returning once again to Gouroth. “There is a dispute such as this recorded in the histories, as recent as the time of our great, great grandsires, lord.”

  “Another chose a human mate?!” Gouroth declared incredulous. “Who? Which line?”

  “Mine,” Argos answered forthrightly.

  A gasp went through the room, and Kurella looked to him with eyes wide, shocked by this secret she had never known.

  “Yes,” Argos said unapologetically, “my blood is tainted with that of the humankind. I cannot make excuses for my ancestor’s lack of taste, but I will not say I am sorry for it either. Were it not the union made I would not be here today.”

  “I would never have mentioned it,” the councilman continued, “being the blood of the humankind has been so thoroughly diluted from our brother Argos since that time, but this situation demands it be told.”

  “Why relevant?” Gouroth asked, clearly eager to forget the blemish of the past of one of his most trusted advisers.

  “The relevance, lord, lies in the fact it is within the law for you to challenge this decision. As did the objecting werewolf then, so may you call for the ritual of Gurakuth.” The councilman’s steely eyes found Scott’s own and he said, “Known by humans as trial by combat.”

  Scott’s apprehension and fear of what was soon to take place kept him on his feet and pacing the isolated room in which he now resided. He argued with himself back and forth about the logic of his decision to meet Gouroth in the Gurakuth—as though he had a choice—for in actuality, under normal circumstances, he deemed it ludicrous to consider even fighting the werewolf chieftain at all, let alone to the death. But presently, the circumstances were far from normal, and whether Gouroth would admit it or not the spirit of the wolf was in him. He just needed to figure out how to call it forth.

  How was he going to call it forth? Scott ran the question over and over again in his mind. Unless he could discover the means to do so this fight would be over, quite possibly, the instant it started. Without the ability to at least bring the fight to equal terms Scott knew he didn’t stand a chance. With Haze’s skill and arsenal of weapons, perhaps; but, unfortunately, those were two things he sorely lacked. So, again, it was back to the question of how to call forth the wolf. All of his questions to Steve and Haldorum regarding magic, before Kurella had altered him, had been meant to help him understand and achieve that end.

  So now how do I make use of the wolf spirit now that I have it?

  Even if he found the way, Scott could not help but wonder if it would do little more than prolong the fight for Gouroth, for Scott knew the werewolf king to be the strongest of his kind. From Kurella he knew the individual strength of a werewolf is determined by how strongly the spirit of the great wolf flowed through him. And it seemed it favored Gouroth in abundance.

  “You’re not out of this yet,” Scott said to himself aloud. Still, he knew when the odds were stacked against him, as they certainly were now. Let’s face it, he thought, I couldn’t even bring myself to change when I thought Kurella was in trouble. When Gouroth called his right to Gurakuth the guards immediately seized and separated the two of them before another word could be spoken. Scott was then taken to this room and Kurella went who-knew-where.

  Scott wished desperately there were some way to contact Steve, some way to let him know where he was, for he could certainly use some help about now. The moment that thought finished Scott was angry with himself. How could he think so selfishly when Kurella had been prepared to give up everything to be with him? She would have left her home, her family, her very way of life just so the two of them could be together. And here he was now worrying over how he could save his own skin.

  “Damn coward!” he cursed, striking the wall with his fist. It did little to satiate his anger and he paced the rectangular slab of rock jutting out from the wall. Not knowing what else to do, he sat down hard on the unyielding stone. He would have run his hand through his hair but paused when he noticed the blackened edges along his fingerna
ils and the slightly darkened color of the tiny hairs across the back of his hand. He watched amazed as the tiny hairs slowly faded back to blonde, and his nails became translucent once more.

  “I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch!” he declared amazed. “It is in me!” Like a man desperate, Scott replayed his thoughts in those last instances of his anger, trying to pick out anything he could recognize that might have been the trigger for the slight change, continually monitoring the back of his hand he did so.

  Nothing.

  What was it then? Was it anger? Possible, he thought, but he had been angry when Gouroth struck him and yet there was no change then, so it couldn’t be that alone. So what was it then? How did a werewolf change?

  The answer, it seemed, would have to wait. Scott turned at the sound of the bolt pulling free of the door and then two men entered, ragged and rough-looking both. A beckoning gesture and an evil smile was all one man gave to indicate it was time.

  Scott’s eyes narrowed and he stepped toward them without hesitation, a move that clearly surprised the first man who had beckoned to him. The young man swore to himself that he would fight to the very last, for Kurella if not for himself.

  Steve enjoyed roaming the gardens of the castle fortress of King Gorium’s grounds late at night. He found the quiet and solitude a restful, and quite needed, break from the palace life the monarch and his daughter seemed to feel obligated to thrust upon him at every turn. Grooming him, he supposed, for the role he would have to take up as husband of a Jisetrian princess. So whenever possible Steve broke away from them all, as he did tonight, and walked the gardens in quiet, thinking on the topics he did not have a chance to ponder during the day. It had been days since he last set eyes on the Resistance camp at the base of the mountain, and he found he missed the tasks and responsibilities he shared with them.

  He often thought of Sonya as well. The past few days they had met for hours at a time to practice both the powers they knew and explore the limits of their individual magic. And even in so short a time, they had grown closer. There was just something comforting about the presence of someone who could understand the weight the role of a magic user thrust upon you—never mind the shared experience of being so far from the home they knew.