by B N Miles
“Soon, the Godling races began to fight with each other. And more than that, they began to rip apart the balance that the gods had worked so hard to create. They rerouted streams, leveled mountains, hunted entire animal species into extinction. And because they never died, they continued to grow in numbers, slowly pushing back all other life around the planet.
“The Urspirit was angry. He hated what was happening, and he alone was the only god that hadn’t created his own Godlings. He was so angry that he told his brother and sister gods that they had to fix their mistake, or else their great gardens would be destroyed one day.
“But the gods couldn’t do it. Their Godlings were their children, and for the first time in a millennium, they didn’t feel so alone.
“So, the Urspirit took matters into his own hands. He split himself first, ripping great strips of godly flesh and blood from his bones, and formed those strips into the first Humans. He gave them life, but he also gave them something else, something that had never been done before: he gave them death.
“From there, he worked a great magic, a magic that had never been seen before or since. He sacrificed his physical body, broke it into bits and chunks and pieces, and used the power within to give death to all the Godlings. And so the Urspirit no longer exists in our world, and Humans are all pieces of him and return to him when they pass away from their physical bodies, just like he did.
“But all the Godling races were given the curse of death, all except for the Elves. Danua knew what the Urspirit was doing, and she protected her children with her magic. And so as all other Godlings and Humans must die, the Elves walk the earth, never changing and immortal. The great gardens were saved for a time, but nothing ever stays the same forever.”
Miuri finished speaking and continued to stare at the sky. Cam watched her face, the sharp lines and angles, and he felt compelled to reach out and touch her golden hair as it softly shimmered in the moonlight.
“I’ve never heard that story before,” he said. “Well, I heard a version of it.”
“What happens in yours?” she asked.
“The parts about the Urspirit,” he said. “About him sacrificing his body to make Humans. But I didn’t know the part about him giving death to all the other Godlings.”
“Ah,” she said, a smile on her lips. “I can see how your people might not like that part of the story.”
“Is it true?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I wasn’t alive back then, although there are some Elves that were. I suppose we could find them and ask, but I’m not sure they’d be able to tell us.”
“Why not?” Cam leaned on one elbow and studied her face.
She turned to look at him and smiled.
“Imagine trying to keep thousands and thousands of years in your head,” she said. “That’d be enough to drive anyone crazy.”
He felt a strange chill run down his spine as she turned away from him again and looked back up at the stars. They stayed like that in silence for a little while and he let the implication of what she just said sink deep into his bones.
Miuri wouldn’t die. He knew she was immortal, and he knew that had implications for her and for their relationship, but he didn’t think beyond that. He continued on as if things were normal and didn’t matter, and for a while, that was enough.
But he couldn’t help imagining what she would be like in a thousand years, or two thousand years, when he was gone and back with the Urspirit. She’d never see him again, and slowly, as the centuries passed, she’d begin to lose him.
Nobody could keep an entire life that long in their heads.
He couldn’t imagine slowly losing pieces of himself, not from becoming old and infirm, but simply from the passing of time. It would be like chunks of his flesh sloughing off and dropping into the sea.
He moved back down and rested his head on his furs.
“We should sleep,” he said.
“We should,” she agreed.
He was quiet for another minute. He wanted to say something to her, to ask if she’d forget him one day when he was gone, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak the words out loud.
Instead, he rolled onto his side, shut his eyes, and willed sleep to overtake him for a few hours at least.
9
Cam woke with Miuri looming over him. She was silhouetted by the soft light of the smoldering coals and the distant, cold white of the moon.
“Time to play,” she whispered.
He blinked and came to himself. He’d been dreaming of his skin bubbling and melting. He kept trying to shove it back on, but it kept slipping away, and soon he was just walking bones and muscle.
Miuri moved away as he pulled himself from the bedroll. The camp was quiet and everyone was asleep. He spotted two of Frew’s men on watch, leaning on their spears, each with a long beard just like their Elder. He looked back over at his girls and saw Key already tucked away in her bedroll, cuddled up next to Felin, though he didn’t think she was asleep yet.
He picked up his sword and belted it on before joining Miuri at the edge of camp. He took a few deep breaths to steady himself, and though he still felt half asleep, he knew he’d wake up soon.
Miuri looked up at the trees and tilted her head to the side before gliding forward into the forest.
“Come,” she said. “This way.”
Cam followed her. The Elf moved like a shadow, flitting from one tree to the next, seeming to disappear for long stretches. It was like the moonlight warped itself around her, and he knew she was using her Elf magic, though he wasn’t sure why. She led him away from the camp and toward a thick grouping of pines set in a rough oval. The ground sloped slightly, and Cam had to work to avoid stepping on dry twigs and leaves, though he made much more noise than Miuri did.
“Here,” Miuri said, drifting in between the pines and into the small clearing in their center. A large boulder jutted from the earth, like the last vestiges of the mountain, the tip of its tiny finger.
“What are we doing, Miuri?” he said.
“I’m going to sit in a tree nearby,” she said. “And you’re going to sit on that rock right there.”
Cam glared at her. “You’re using me for bait, aren’t you?”
She laughed and walked over, hips shaking. She reached out and touched his face.
“Come on, shaman,” she said. “You’re not afraid of some wolves, are you?”
“At least give me a light,” he said.
“No, no light,” she said, shaking her head. “You need to be able to see, and the light won’t help.”
“It’ll draw the wolves.”
She took a breath and looked around. “I don’t think it will,” she said. “That’s how our last ambush worked, remember? But I think they’ll have learned.”
Cam opened his mouth to argue, but he was still tired and sore from sleeping on the ground, so he shut it again. He gave her an annoyed look then stomped over to the rock and sat back on it, positioning his sword so that it was in easy reach.
Miuri laughed, a delighted little noise.
“Stay there,” she said. “You have a good view of the forest, so even if they don’t come tonight, you’ll still be keeping watch.”
“And you’ll be up in a tree,” he said. “Safe and sound.”
“And invisible,” she said. “So don’t be surprised if you can’t see me. Pretend like I don’t exist.”
“Fine by me,” he said.
She laughed again and walked over to the largest of the pines. She gripped the lowest branch and looked back at him.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “There are wolf tracks all over these woods. I saw them the second we stepped onto the switchbacks, and they’ve only increased as we got closer to the valley floor. They’ll come tonight, no doubt in my mind. They’re watching us.”
She pulled herself up into the tree and disappeared.
Cam watched her go and grunted. He was annoyed that she was throwing him into
her little trap without so much as asking him about it, but he had to admit, it seemed like a decent enough plan. He hadn’t noticed any prints around them, but he never was that good at tracking, and Miuri had an incredible eye that he couldn’t hope to match.
If anyone could read the forest floor like a map, it was Miuri, he had no doubt about that. If she said there were wolves around, he believed her.
He leaned back on the rock, glanced up into the tree, saw nothing but sky and moonlight, then took a deep breath and forced himself to meditate.
He’d been neglecting his meditation again. Back in the village, when he was younger and his father was trying to teach him how to touch the priori, Cam would have to meditate for hours every day. Sometimes, his father would make him sit in the middle of the village square at the busiest time of the day under the hot sun and force him to drop into his trance. Cam would sit there while the whole village passed by, staring and making comments, and he had to somehow find that dark, calm place inside.
There were days when it wouldn’t come at all. His father was frustrated with him, and Cam turned to training his physical body instead. He excelled at that, got big and strong and was the most skilled fighter in the village, but he never could manage to touch magic.
At least until a little over a week ago, during the battle with the wolves, when he finally felt it and let it flow through him.
He knew the magic was as important as his fighting skills, if not more so. He should’ve been meditating every day, but as soon as they reached the Mansion, he slipped back into old habits. Training his body felt like real progress, but sitting around and thinking about nothing felt like wasting time.
Still, he knew it was for his own good, so he took deep breaths and followed the routine his father had taught him, relaxing each muscle in his body from his toes up through the muscles in his face. He dipped deeper into himself and found that black calm, just there at the core of his self.
Lingering just at the edges of his self, buzzing and roiling like a massive ocean, was the priori. When he’d meditate before, there’d be nothing, just stretches of silence and black and his own thoughts coming and going. Now, though, ever since he first touched it, the priori was always there when he reached this state. It was just within reach, and he was always tempted to draw power within himself.
He knew it would feel like pure heavenly lightning in his veins.
But there’d be no use for it. He knew one Urspell, one shape for the power, and it was fire. He could burn this forest to the ground if he wanted, and that had its uses in battle.
It wasn’t so great for setting an ambush, though.
Minutes slipped past and turned into hours. He kept his calm wrapped around him, though it was a struggle at times. Like any muscle, his mental powers would be stronger if he trained them, and Cam decided midway through that he was going to meditate more often and work on his magic as much as he could.
The moon was large and bright and would be full the following night. His little clearing was bathed in moonlight, allowing him to see all around him. He knew Miuri was in the tree, waiting patiently and quietly, cloaked in her Elven magic. His trance came and went, but he didn’t judge himself for his failings, he simply reached back for the calming black and fell deeper again.
Just over halfway through his watch, there was a movement at the edge of his awareness. It was a slight movement, and he probably would have missed it if he weren’t so deep in his trance and so in tune with the noises around him. He could feel the breeze, taste the soil and leaves, feel the branches drifting around him and the rock beneath his body. The movement was just a shadow, something flitting from one bush to a fallen tree. He felt his trance lift and the world came slamming back into place as his eyes locked on the log about fifty feet from where he was sitting.
Nothing happened, but he knew he saw something. It could have been a fox, or maybe a raccoon, but he wasn’t so sure. He shifted forward on the rock and realized his right foot had fallen asleep. He moved it, stood up, stretched his back to try and get some blood flowing again. Pins and needles tingled up his toes and shin, and for a second his attention was pulled away from the downed tree.
That was when shadows exploded from the underbrush and threw themselves at him.
10
Cam shoved himself up from the boulder and ripped his sword free. Four wolves came at him as shadows in the moonlight, racing through the underbrush with a surprising grace. The first was on him just as he cleared his sword from its scabbard.
He barely had time to swipe at the wolf, catching the creature in the side and batting it away. He felt his blade slide a shallow cut along it’s flank as it hit the ground and bounded back to its feet.
The next wolf lunged as he brought his sword back. This time he sliced it across the second wolf’s muzzle. It growled and yelped as the blade tore through skin and teeth, cutting its face nearly in two. Blood flowed from its mouth and it gagged and shook its face violently, sending droplets of blood splattering across the forest floor. It staggered away from Cam and began to morph, its body cracking and breaking, its fur sucking into its body as its shape began to elongate.
Cam didn’t have time to watch. The next wolf was on him, and he swung twice, forcing the creature back. He stepped back against the rock and kept it close as the three remaining wolves circled him.
As the creatures prepared to pounce, he reached down for that black calm again and found it just at the edge of his awareness. His heart was racing but he forced that calm around him like a cowl, and as soon as he felt it descend on his mind, he grabbed for the power that lingered at its edges.
The priori flowed into him like a river. He gasped with joy as he formed the Urspell in his mind. The wolf to his right lunged, feigned its attack, and pulled back as the two wolves to his left came for his throat.
It didn’t matter. Flames spouted along the length of his sword as he formed and directed the heat. It was orange-blue and rolling along the sword’s length, spilling off the tip and slicing through the air. Steam bubbled from the ground as dew evaporated.
The lunging wolves screamed as Cam’s fire caught them and flung them to the side. They landed on top of each other, a tangled mass of growing, barking, burning wolf. Fur sizzled and Cam could smell cooking meat. He sliced his sword to the right, barely missing the other wolf as it attacked, but more flame spouted from his weapon.
The grass and leaves and pine needles burned beneath him as the fire wrapped around the final wolf and closed in on it like a trap. The creature screamed and howled and tried to run as the fire consumed it, turning its body to ash in a matter of moments, the heat sending waves of energy up into the air.
Cam turned to the left as one of the wolves tried to get up. Its fire was mostly burned off, and its skin was bubbled and black. He saw it begin to shift shapes, back to its Human form, its bones elongating and cracking, its skull growing. If the wolf finished its shift, the wounds would heal, and Cam couldn’t allow that. He stepped forward, stomping over a still-burning wolf corpse, and brought his father’s flaming sword down through the wolf’s half-Human face. Its body convulsed then stopped moving, and it slumped to the ground in some grotesque half shape, neither Human nor wolf, hairless and burned and twisted beyond recognition, a lump of flesh and teeth and bones in horrifying, impossible angles
He ripped his sword free as blood spouted from the twisted thing. He turned and scanned the clearing, looking for the first wolf that had started shifting.
And found Miuri holding her sword to a naked man’s throat.
“Don’t move,” Miuri said, her voice the sound of wind through leaves. The Were’s eyes went wide but his body tensed and froze in place.
He was thin, with long, ropey muscles and veins scattering his body. His chest was covered in dark hair and he was completely naked, his penis dangling in a forest of dark, tangled pubes. His hair was wild and black and his eyes were dark brown. His nose was hooked and crooked, and his rig
ht ear looked like the top half had been bitten off and left to scar.
“What is this?” the wolf said. “What are you?”
“She’s an Elf,” Cam said, walking over to where the wolf stood with Miuri’s sword to his throat. “And I’m a Human.”
“That fire,” he said. “You’re a shaman. But Lycanica, she said you were all gone.”
Cam tilted his head. “We’re far from gone,” he said.
He could feel the Need beginning to roar in his mind, a screaming, violent, monstrous craving for more magic. Normally, he would push it away until he could sleep with one of his girlfriends, which would purge the magic from his body and release his mind from the Need. But now he gave in to its call and materialized a small flame in the palm of his off-hand.
The wolf stared at it, his eyes wide in the dancing firelight.
“Your goddess doesn’t know everything,” Miuri said in his ear.
“What do you want?” The wolf’s voice was low and wavered ever so slightly.
Cam stood in front of him. “You’re holding Humans captive,” he said.
The wolf looked surprised. “The cattle?” he asked.
Cam tensed. “Humans,” he said.
“That’s what I mean.” The wolf stared at the fire then back into Cam’s eyes. “The cattle. They’re being held a day from here.”
“Tell me where,” he said. “Tell me how many guards and the best way to get inside. And I’ll let you live.”
The wolf blinked like he could barely believe what Cam was saying.
“What would you want with them?” the wolf asked. “They’re all useless creatures. Lycanica will accept them as her sacrifice. Some will be made to work for her in the great poppy fields, and others will be killed so that their blood can bless our cities. They’re useless as anything else.”