by Jeff Wheeler
“Why should we?” Brandis asked. “I want to be your suitor, Estenna. I’m surprised you don’t have several, but with such a guardian as Gervase, maybe it’s not a shock. I will send Roshaun tomorrow to find other lodgings. This is a vast city. Surely he’ll find something. I will not be far away.”
She brightened. “I wasn’t sure you felt the same way I did,” she said, flushing. Then she leaned up and kissed his cheek and the dimple by his ear. “Send Roshaun to the coliseum. I’ll leave notes for him where we can meet next.”
Brandis’s heart was racing with wonderment. “I’ll come. I promise.”
And he kissed her again.
And again.
* * *
Brandis’s sleep was blissful. The bed cushions cradled him like feathers, and his dreams were of a soft mouth and eyes as shining as stars. Then his sleep was violently ripped away. A leather hood was dragged over his face, and burly men grabbed his ankles and wrists. He tried to wrestle, tried to yell, and a fist slammed into his stomach, doubling him over. Chains were fixed to his wrists and ropes bound his legs to the knees. He wriggled and struggled, panting, frightened out of his wits.
“He’s a strong one,” coughed a voice.
“All of the ’thropes are strong,” breathed another.
Brandis felt the suffocation start because of his lack of air under the hood.
Then he heard Gervase’s voice. “Take him to the coliseum.”
He lost all sense of direction except that he felt them jogging down stairs. Was it night? Was it day? He hadn’t been able to tell before the hood made it impossible. The bindings secured him and he finally quit struggling as his strength exhausted itself. The men abducting him were curt and uncommunicative. He was bundled away in a cage. He felt the metal floor and the bars pressing against his back. Then the cart jolted as the cage trundled down the road. Terror writhed inside his chest. He tried to banish it, tried breathing slowly. It was no use.
Hours later, Brandis found himself in a cell. The hood was finally ripped away and he glared at his captor, one of the coliseum guards who looked at him in disdain.
“You’ll make a great one in the arena,” the guard said coldly. “You’ve got the build.”
“I am not a lycanthrope,” Brandis said, his voice leathery. “What examination have you done? What pretext is this? Free me at once.”
“A lycanthrope is easier to capture before he’s bitten,” the soldier sneered. His eyes were knowing. There was a stadium of spectators to appease. “Send word to the sorcerer that he’s secure.”
Brandis’s stomach had compressed to the size of a walnut. He was hungry and fearful, his plight beyond imagining. Who would believe him in a city accustomed to werewolves in captivity? Even the legend of the founders of Vaud had been about werewolves. It permeated their culture. There were laws for such arrests, he’d been told. Was that merely deception? The gladiator games were a business, and men like Gervase held sway. Brandis had been utterly foolish and completely unprepared for the malice.
More time passed. The bonds chafed his arms. His resentment and fury built. It was murder. Sending him into the arena was murder. Putting him in a cage with a werewolf was just as vile. How was Gervase capable of something like that? How had Brandis not seen it in his eyes?
Time meant nothing in the dark. But eventually, there was the sound of locks and then Gervase stood outside the bars, staring at him as yet another specimen. None of the guards were there.
“Why are you doing this?” Brandis said.
Gervase’s brow wrinkled. “Are you so daft as to even utter that question? There are two reasons and both are equally compelling. My sister, strangely, has fallen in love with you. Well, what she considers that emotion to feel like. She was sobbing at the manor for a while this morning. Quite hysterical. Her lover from the Black Forest was a werewolf in disguise. It couldn’t be. Now she’s determined to free you. She’s at the gate right now with your servant trying to bribe one of the guards to admit her into the underground. They won’t, I assure you. They’ve tolerated all her little speeches because of my work.” He gave Brandis a cold smile. “But then last night I had the epiphany. Watching the two of you look at each other. Watching the bud of the flower open as you gazed adoringly at each other. It’s rather sickening to an observer. But watching that, now I understand what causes lycanthropy. And it was you who taught me.” He shook his head in amazement. “Not wittingly. You lack the knowledge and education. As I saw the way you looked at each other, it came to me. One of the philosophers’ quotes. One I heard as a child. I haven’t thought on it for years. The light of the body is the eye. If the light in your eye is darkness, how great is that darkness!” He started pacing in front of the cage. “Don’t you see it, princeling? I couldn’t deduce why some were spared and others not. It was in their eyes all along! It is always in their eyes! That is the key. How does a medusa turn someone into stone? Why was a weaver turned into a spider? Because she made things more beautiful than a goddess’s! Jealousy, fear, lust—all exist in the eye. That is the answer to the riddle. A lycanthrope devours the good. It spares the evil.”
Brandis was horrified. “I am not evil. What I feel for Estenna cannot be called that!”
Gervase shrugged, impassive. “What are feelings anyway? Truly, do you know? Can anyone know? We are controlled by them, like leashes. Except for me. I know the cure for lycanthropy now. I tested it on Moughton. The silver no longer burns him. The bite mark is gone. But what good will it do to overturn this order now?” Gervase stopped and stared down at him coldly. “I’ve spoken to the coliseum masters. They grow weary of the mundane, are always seeking something more exciting. And so I will give it to them. Wolves are not the only creatures that man can be transformed into. It wouldn’t work for you anyway. A lycanthrope would devour you if I put you in a cage with one. Your motives are not the same as theirs. No, you will be the best gladiator in the arena when I am finished with you. What beast causes fear in all others? You wore the crest on your lapel when I first met you. A lion. That is what you really are, princeling. And you will rule this coliseum and rid us of the mad wolves.”
He began an incantation.
“No!” Brandis said in despair. He squirmed against the bonds, but they were immovable. Unbreakable. He felt something inside his skin, something worming to get out. Gervase’s hands began to glow as he continued the spell. He stared fixedly into Brandis’s eyes.
Brandis tried to turn his head away, tried to shut his eyes, but he could not break Gervase’s gaze. He felt his insides heaving, twisting, wrenching. He wanted to scream but couldn’t find the breath. He was chuffing loudly, unable to groan, unable to express the agony as his limbs began to twist and contort. The pain was unbearable. He was stretching, each muscle twitching in spasms. His old life ripped apart, his sense of himself was gone in the chaos of rage and betrayal.
Gervase’s eyes widened with awe, with glory, with exultation. “Look at you,” he whispered reverently, magic darting across his fingers. “Look what I’ve made.”
Brandis’s chest swelled, his lungs filling with stagnant air. He needed to scream, to unleash the feelings inside of him. He opened his mouth to bellow.
And out came a roar.
The look of triumph in Gervase’s eyes glazed away by sudden terror. The power inside Brandis was growing, equaling the rage, the ferocity. The metal was bending. Then it snapped.
Gervase staggered backward, falling to the floor, scrambling to get back, to get away. He heard a woman scream. There were footsteps running down the stairs, voices familiar and now totally incomprehensible. He stared down at his digits and saw the stubs of claws pressing out from the skin.
Darkness washed across Brandis’s mind. He remembered no more.
* * *
Brandis awoke lying on the forest floor, nestled in pine needles. The sound of birds chirping came from overhead. He could hear every one of them in a glorious symphony. His stomach rumbled with hung
er. Opening his eyes, he blinked. The colors—everything was new. He could see things he had never seen before. The colors were vivid, leaving trails before his eyes as he turned his head. Grunting, he shifted and tried to sit up.
Then he saw the fur on the back of his hands. His hands were bigger, the fingertips ending in pointed claws. Panicking, he started to breathe, filling his massive chest with air. His forearms were corded with muscle and tawny fur. Nearby was a small stream. His pants were shredded, his shirt was in tatters. He stood and felt the power of his leg muscles. There were no boots, only padded feet ending in claws. Brandis staggered to the edge of the brook and gazed down into the water.
A lion’s face gazed back at him. Memories began to flash through his mind. A girl and a kiss. What was her name? He couldn’t remember. But she had hair the color of fire. There was a man, a young man, shrinking in terror, gibbering, red slashes of blood on his chin, throat, and chest.
Brandis felt himself breathing fast.
How had he gotten to the woods? Where was he? He couldn’t remember those details. But he did know some things. He was the Prince of Hennland. He was from the Black Forest. Where was he now? He stared at his paw-like hand, at the pads that were leathery and rough. Hands that had tried to kill.
Then he remembered. Gervase. Estenna. The cure.
Rage rumbled inside of him. Rage exploded inside of him and he lifted his face to the sky and he roared, and all the birds stopped singing.
About Jeff Wheeler
Jeff took an early retirement from his career at Intel in 2014 to write full-time and is now a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. He is, most importantly, a husband and father, a devout member of his church, and is occasionally spotted roaming hills with oak trees and granite boulders in California or in any number of the state's majestic redwood groves. He is also the founder of Deep Magic: the E-zine of Clean Fantasy and Science Fiction
A THEFT OF WORDS
By D.K. Holmberg | 13,800 Words
Novan the Historian secured the rope to the stone carving, wrapping it tightly before dropping the rope to dangle along the side of the building. If everything went as planned, the window would still be unlatched. Unfortunately for him, very little had gone as planned.
Checking that his pack remained clasped tightly to his back, he started down the rope. From the rooftop, he did not need to descend far. Not yet. That climb would be for later. He prayed his cloak disguised him, thankful for the cloudy night obscuring the sliver of moon. At least the darkness would shroud him.
As he climbed down the rope, his face pressed against the damp stone, which smelled of mold and the recent rain. His hands ached from clutching tightly to the rope, but he dared not relax for fear of falling. And then the historian would have to answer for his presence. He didn’t dare risk drawing their attention, not until he knew for certain.
When he reached the window, he put a foot onto the protruding sill and carefully checked the window. It swung out. Some of the nerves he felt untangled then, and he sighed.
Novan climbed through the window, dropping to the stone floor on his soft leather soles. As he did, he froze.
Two lanterns still flickered in the library.
At that time of night, the library should have been empty. Nils, the ancient librarian, should have retired for the evening to his quarters on the second floor of the library. Had he simply forgotten to douse the lights? Novan brushed off that thought. The librarian would not simply forget to expunge the lanterns. That meant he was still there.
Novan looked back to the window. He didn’t think that he could climb back up the rope—down had been hard enough. But with the rope left behind, the alarm would be raised. He would not get another chance at this. That meant it had to be tonight.
He crept along a row of shelves. Novan had been on this level before, but always accompanied by Nils, never left alone. A sign of Gomald’s distrust of the guild. Rare that a historian would not be left alone to examine the works within the library, but it was also rare that a library possessed as many dangerous works as the Great Library of Gomald.
The lantern light flickered. Too late, he realized that he had failed to pull the window closed. A soft cool breeze gusted through the open window, carrying the scent of damp earth to mix with the musty odor of the ancient texts stored on the shelves.
He had to act quickly. Nils would know something was amiss. The librarian might be old, but he was astute and protective of the library like a merahl with her cubs.
Hurrying toward the back of the library, he found Nils straightening his back from where he was bent over a book. A lantern rested on the corner of the tall desk. The light flickered. Ink stained Nils’s long face and hands, and the long quill angled in his arthritic hand bobbed on the page.
He looked up as Novan approached. Bushy eyebrows rose and a frown crossed his narrow lips. “Novan?” His voice carried a hint of confusion that turned to anger. “You shouldn’t be here!” He shouted the last, loud enough that Novan suspected it could be heard near the guarded lower door of the library.
“I’m sorry, Nils,” Novan said. He slipped his hand into the pocket of his cloak and grabbed the short knife he kept there.
As Nils backed away, he grabbed one of the books and turned as if to run. The old librarian was too frail to move quickly. That he tried made Novan wonder what it was he thought to protect.
Novan caught him and spun him. “Come sit. Be quiet and I will be done quickly.”
“Is this how the guild operates now, Novan?” Nils asked. “You steal what you seek from the great libraries?”
Novan snorted. “Careful what you accuse me of,” he said, flicking his eyes toward the stacks of books. Nils’s eyes widened slightly. “Yes. I recognized most of these works. None should have been in Gomald. Few should have existed outside the guild.” That they had was a different issue, though one Novan would need to discover. The guild normally protected the original copies—those annotated by the historians themselves—but here, Gomald had a trove of such works. Either they were copies—rare enough, though known to occur on occasion—or there was another answer.
“These are the property of Gomald,” Nils contested.
Novan sniffed, pulling Nils back toward the desk. That Nils didn’t struggle should have raised Novan’s alarm. “Property is interesting, isn’t it, Nils? One can claim ownership as long as there is no objection. Interesting that the guild has not objected before now.”
Nils narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
“Now, sit. I am not interested in that row of stolen documents.” Nils looked at him, waiting. “But there are a few texts here that I am interested in.”
Nils trembled. “And then you will leave?”
Novan nodded. “And then I will leave. The guild will learn of this collection, Nils. I will not be the only historian you will see.”
“You think the guild does not know of this collection?”
Novan hesitated. The tenor to Nils’s voice left him wondering. Could the guild know of this collection? He found the prospect unlikely, especially considering the fact that one of the works he had found came from Alaiht, and he knew that those had not been given to Gomald. That narrowed the options. But then, Novan wasn’t exactly popular with the guild these days. Too many questions, and of the wrong variety.
“What I think is irrelevant,” Novan answered. He knelt next to Nils and pulled a small roll of twine from one of the inner pockets of his cloak. Unspooling a few feet, he wrapped it around Nils’s wrists and ankles, binding him tightly. “But there are a few texts that I need, so I will be borrowing them from the library. As we both know, they do not belong to Gomald, I do not expect you to come looking for them.”
Nils frowned, his wrinkled brow darkening. “It is not me that you need to fear, historian.”
As he said it, a loud rapping came from the door at the front of the library.
Novan jerked his head around, one hand gripping Nils’s arms. The
small man shouted.
Hating that he had to do it, Novan rapped Nils on the back of the head with the handle of the knife. He slumped to the ground, sprawled out.
He would have little time. Once the door opened, he would need to sprint toward the window and climb down the rope. Novan did not think he had enough time, not for what he had to do.
Starting toward the hidden stack, he glanced briefly at the book Nils clutched in his hand. His unconscious body was slumped atop it and Novan nudged him, sliding him over to reveal the small book. Pages of thick parchment were bound in stiff leather. Black ink appeared faded on the page, scrawled in symbols and runes that Novan had not seen before. The words written alongside the runes were familiar, though written in a tongue most had long forgotten. He wondered if Nils had recognized the words.
Novan grabbed the book. Not what he had come for, but he would look through it later. There were just too many questions for him to answer.
He jumped behind the tall desk and made his way to the stack along the back wall, hidden from the others. This was the reason he had come in the first place, the stack he’d struggled to get Nils to admit existed. Only after plying him with wine and hints of bribes had the old librarian admitted that he might have seen the works Novan sought. Novan had no confirmation until now.
A small shelf tucked into a wide stone pillar held seven books. None looked particularly special, and after glancing at the contents of the first few, some of them weren’t. Three were. Each written in a tight hand that he hadn’t seen in nearly a decade, with cryptic notes along the margins, making it clear to Novan that they were the originals. As far as Novan knew, no copies existed.
He grabbed them just as the door thundered open.
Novan sprinted past where Nils lay motionless, darting toward the window at the opposite end of the library. If he could reach it, he could throw himself out and down, slide down the rope and into the night.