Healing Wounds in Arabarb
By Charles Matthias
Yajgaj kept his grimy hands wrapped about the guisarme as he watched
Baron Calephas and Gmork study the boy's body. He'd been waiting
outside Calephas's bedchambers for all of two minutes before the door
opened and he and his men were beckoned to carry the boy down three
flights of steps to one of the old prisons, but one that Calephas had
transformed into his personal laboratory. There Gmork joined him and
while the boy was securely bound to the table, the magical beast
performed whatever arts he possessed on the youth.
Yajgaj and his three clansmen stood watching and waiting for orders.
Both Calephas and Gmork had their backs to them. It was tempting, so
very tempting to strike them down and carry their heads back across
the pass into the Giantdowns as trophies for their clan. When he'd
been made a part of the Blood Harrow clan over a year ago he'd been
told the only way to reclaim his true name was to bring their heads.
How well he remembered the countenance of the ancient one, a master
of crafts and lores once prized by Nasoj himself, wreathed by the
winter lights dancing in the sky. There could be no refusing him, and
Yajgaj had never regretted accepting.
But unless he could strike clean and fast with neither the wiser, he
would not even reach for his blade. His blade, fashioned from the
bone of a cave bear he'd killed on his first hunt for the Blood
Harrow, he kept sharp, serrated, and crisp for the day he would
strike. But it would not be this hour. The Keeper slave Weaker was
there, standing to one side and though his head was lowered, those
golden eyes would not miss anything.
Yajgaj briefly let his dark eyes study the tiger. A murderer he'd
heard, contemptible amongst his people, and cast out. Now the
plaything of Calephas, a trained pet with no more will than a sword.
He would cry out and attack the moment Yajgaj moved, and then Gmork
would destroy him before he could even take a step.
And that he'd seen done before. Humans he would bend to his will.
Lutins he crushed like fish flopping in the bottom of a boat. Yajgaj
knew precisely what he was in this creature's eyes and would do
nothing to garner his suspicion. Gaoler for them both, and chief
hunter to the Blood Harrow in Fjellvidden, Yajgaj knew his place.
A waiter and a watcher, and one day soon, an assassin and hero to his
clan. And then his true name and place given back to him. Yajgaj
yearned for that day. Until then, he was patient.
He'd gotten close to Calephas once before and failed. He hadn't been
patient then. He never thought he'd have another chance but the Blood
Harrow clan had given it to him. Now he would risk no more mistakes
no matter the cost.
So Yajgaj stared and listened, hands wrapped tight about the guisarme
while the two he meant to kill examined the boy child.
For several minutes Calephas watched with his arms folded across his
chest while Gmork poked and prodded the boy with his twisted fingers
that Yajgaj had often wondered how good they'd look on his necklace.
But even the Baron's patience was not infinite. "So is he a Keeper?"
Gmork lifted his face, distended into a half snout and smiled, jowls
revealing sharp, yellowed teeth beneath. "He has definitely been
touched by the Curses of Metamor. But not once only. It appears he
has been touched by all three of the Curses."
"All three? How is that possible?"
Gmork ever so tenderly ran one hand down the sleeping boy's chest.
"It shouldn't be. But Nasoj didn't always understand the magic he was
using. And the counter curses complicated matters. But, there is more
magic on this boy than just the Curses."
"Like what?"
Gmork appeared to grab at something above the boy's chest, but Yajgaj
could see nothing there. "There are tethers here giving strength to
spells on this boy. I can see them. I know what they are. But I
cannot break them." He yanked on his arm and it looked as if he were
really pulling on something. "Magic beyond anything I've ever seen
Nasoj use is bound to this Keeper."
Calephas frowned at that and stepped around the table so that the
child and table were now between him and the Lutins. "What magic is
bound? The Curses? You've never seen anything like that before."
"Nay," Gmork agreed. "This I have never seen before. Metamor is very
serious. This assassin was prepared with very strong magics to avoid
detection. One of the spells bound to him masks the Curse and all
other magic on him. If I were not standing here next to him, I would
not be able to see it. That's why he was able to get to Fjellvidden
without us knowing."
"Without us knowing where and who he was," Calephas corrected. "We
knew he was here."
Gmork smiled again. "Nay, my Baron. I knew he was here. And I told you."
Yajgaj rolled the guisarme about in his hands, grinning ever so
slightly around his tusk-like canines. Was there anyone who liked
Calephas left?
The Baron sucked on one lip as he gazed with distinct irritation at
the deformed man. "What other magic has been cast on him?"
Gmork wrapped one finger around something the Lutin couldn't see. "I
believe there is a trigger spell here that will remove the portion of
the Curse keeping him a child."
"How old is he really?"
"I'm not sure. I'd have to remove the spell keeping him a child and
that means severing the connection." Gmork's eyes widened and his
tail began to wag. "Ah, this trigger spell is set to return him to
his normal age. Would you like me to make him older? Would it make it
easier for you?"
Calephas shook his head. "He'll be easier to manage as a child. Is
there anything more?"
"Quite a bit," Gmork said and rubbed his hands along the boy's chest.
Yajgaj stared at the boy's face and felt a disquieting familiarity
there. He returned his attention to the deformed man with snout,
tail, and now pointed ears. "There's another spell hiding beneath the
curses, but I cannot quite tell what it is. His magical core has been
badly damaged but I cannot tell by what. It looks..." Gmork blinked
and lifted his eyes to Calephas with the blankest expression Yajgaj
could ever remember seeing him have. His muzzle opened and his tongue
moved but it was several seconds before he managed any words.
"Something very powerful has touched this child. If you intend to use
him, you must be careful. But," Gmork pressed a claw into the boy's
chest until a bead of blood appeared at his claw tip. Gmork quickly
snatched his paw away. "His blood is... more to your liking than mine."
"Already?" The remark clearly surprised Calephas who dabbed up the
blood with his finger and slid it across his tongue. His face
trembled as if he'd tasted the most succulent and narcotic of
ambrosia. "This is... remarkable. He is mine, Gmork. I want him
brought to my laboratory immediately."
Yajgaj felt a sickening clench in his stomach. He knew what happened
to children that were taken to Calephas's laboratory. As foul as the
Baron's bed might be, it was a happier destination than that hellish chamber.
Gmork, though he no longer touched the child, continued to watch him.
"You may have him, but I suggest we interrogate him first to learn
what he knows. My sleep spell should wear off soon. He may be able to
tell us more about the Resistance and Metamor's plans for this land."
Calephas rubbed his chin with one hand as he pondered Gmork's
suggestion. He nodded after almost a full minute of pondering that
problem. "Do it. I'm going to prepare my laboratory for him. Come Weaker."
Yajgaj and his clansmen stepped out of Calephas's way. They also kept
clear of the tiger Keeper following Calephas. Once they were gone, He
felt Gmork's penetrating stare. That twisted mouth snarled to him,
"Go to my Listening Room and fetch my youngest. Tell him to bring
four baubles. And then wait at the bailey for the other Keeper's to
arrive. Have them all brought there."
The Lutin could not contain a sharp retort of surprise. "There's more?"
"Just now," Gmork replied with a lop-sided smile. "See to it."
Yajgaj grunted, beat his guisarme on the floor, and then led his
clansmen back down the hall to pass on the beastly mage's messages.
His chance would come. Soon.
----------
Pharcellus had followed Lindsey discreetly until the boy was taken
beyond the bailey wall and into the castle proper. He waited only a
minute before backtracking and entering the one church left standing
in Fjellvidden. He saw no priest about, and only a few townsfolk
kneeling in prayer before an altar lit only by a few candles. The
ceiling, though vaulted, only stretched to twenty feet at best. The
bell tower on the river-side was not much higher. As quietly as he
was able, Pharcellus slipped into the tower and climbed the old wooden stairs.
The bell tower had a single bell open to the air through four arches,
one in each cardinal direction. Phacellus ensconced himself within
one of the corners so that he had a good view of the castle and the
road leading up to the bailey doors and waited. From there, he was
hidden from anything except a bird that chose to land next to him,
and all the intelligent birds he knew in Fjellvidden were his friends.
There he waited watching the castle and huddling against the stone to
stay out of the cold wind. As a dragon that wind would not have
bothered him, but it made his human shape shiver. Humans may be for
the most part weak, but they were remarkably inventive and
infectious. His mother had counseled him not to love any one human
over much, but to care deeply for the families they befriended. He
hadn't yet lost a human friend to old age, but a part of him still
suspected his mother's advice was two parts guilt and one part
experience. And maybe, just maybe, a little bit of wisdom.
He settled down to wait as the day wore on to evening. Dragon's were
very good at waiting and so he managed to remain there moving only to
stretch his muscles from time to time.
Thus, when the troop of soldiers came up to the bailey bearing more
prisoners Pharcellus was completely alert. He focused his gaze on the
wagon surrounded by a dozen soldiers and three very familiar birds.
The gull and puffin were bound in a net, while the Cormorant squawked
at them from just outside the net. Beside them was a bound Strom.
Pharcellus crouched a little further out on the parapet and sucked in
his breath. This wasn't part of the plan. And why was Lubec not in
the net with his brothers? There wasn't anyone else in the wagon
which meant that Elizabaeg had not been captured. He had to find her.
Something had gone terribly wrong. Unless he was mistaken, Lubec had
betrayed them. The Baron's pet mage, Gmork? Pharcellus wasn't sure,
but it seemed as likely as anything else.
Slowly and just as quietly, Pharcellus climbed back down the
belltower stairs, slipped out of the church, and made his way through
the streets toward the south end of town. He doubted he'd find
anything at the paddocks except trouble, but he had to make sure that
Elizabaeg wasn't there first. He shuddered at the thought of
discovering her lying in a poll of her own blood, gasping for breath
and crying for Lindsey who she'd never see again.
Patrols were out in force roaming the streets so Pharcellus stuck to
the shadowed alleys. It took him a good fifteen minutes to navigate
back to the paddocks. The windows were all dark and he could see no
one nearby. There might be soldiers waiting for anyone to come
inside, so he went around the backside. The fields south of
Fjellvidden were empty and the sties were too. Pharcellus swallowed,
and then risked peering in the windows. Two soldiers sat in the dark
with their backs to him, watching the front entrance and blowing on
pipes. The sheep and pigs milled about in their pens. He saw nothing else.
Seeing there was nothing he could do, Pharcellus backtracked into the
city and made his way to the only other person he knew that could be
trusted. The sky darkened with each passing moment. Every second
stretched into an eternity as he hid from the thickening patrols. The
soldiers were noisy enough, banging on doors and demanding that the
dwellers show themselves. Their hopes rested on Lindsey's success,
but it was clear their presence had been discovered. What wasn't
clear was whether Lindsey's plans were discovered too. Pharcellus
offered a silent prayer that his legerdemain would end in swift success.
By the time he reached the shipbuilder's workshop the first of the
evening stars were sparkling in the sky. Soon the shimmering curtains
of light would dance through the heavens and bathe the city in an
aetherial rainbow. One more street remained, and he pressed his back
firmly against the alley wall, staying as far back in the
increasingly deep shadows as he could. Another patrol of soldiers was
coming, and from the way the stones glistened in back and forth, he
knew they were carrying lanterns.
Pharcellus crouched backward, eyes still on the Vysterag's shop. He
could see golden light peeking through the edge of the shuttered
windows. The soldiers, at least six of them, moved into the street,
converging on the workshop. Pharcellus ran his hands behind him until
he found the turn in the alley and slipped all but his head into the
sheltering passage.
One of the soldiers turned and shone their lantern down the alley.
The light brought out every bit of refuse and grime that clung to the
narrow walkway, but Pharcellus ducked back a moment before the light
revealed the turn. He hoped the soldier didn't come any further down.
But after a good fifteen seconds the light turned away. He could
vaguely hear Vysterag's voice as the shipwright answered the
soldier's questions, but they spoke too quietly for him to make anything out.
Eventually the soldiers did leave and with them their swinging
lanterns. Pharcellus waited another minute to make sure nobody else
was coming before darting across the street and moving around to the
river side. He slipped in through the smaller door there and closed
it quietly behind him.
"Master Vysterag," he called softly.
The tall, blond-haired man came around from behind a canoe hull he
had fixed in a frame for his work, and frowned when he saw him.
"Chellag," he said in a quiet voice. "What's happened?"
"The soldiers came to Strom's and took my friends captive. They've
been taken into the castle."
"But they didn't capture you," Vysterag pointed out as he came around
the front of the canoe still holding a heavy wooden mallet in one
hand. "You can rally the others still. Do you know where they are
staying? The others who've come to Fjellvidden."
Pharcellus shook his head and felt it prudent to lie for the moment.
"My aunt was our contact. Only she knew where they were hiding."
Vysterag's eyes went wide and paused just in front of the canoe. His
free hand tugged gently at the end of his tightly-wound braid. "Did
they capture her?"
"Blessed be the wyrms, nay!" Pharcellus heaved a sigh of relief.
Vysterag's frown deepened as he mused, "She'll probably go into
hiding with them."
"Do you know any others in the Resistance here?"
Vysterag grunted and turned his back to the doors. "Strom was one of the two."
"Then you'll need to go into hiding," the dragon said in a hushed whisper.
"How long ago was it that they took Strom and the birds into the
castle?" The shipwright turned back and around and took a couple
steps closer, beckoning with his free hand for Pharcellus to step
away from the river door.
The dragon complied. Pretending to be a human was definitely
beginning to show. His mother had always warned him that if he
masqueraded as a human he'd start to feel and fear like they did.
Though he'd always believed her based on her experience, Pharcellus
had never really understood just what that would be like until now.
For the first time since they had started this venture, he felt an
honest fear. It swelled in his gut and stewed, wrenching him into
knots that sent his thoughts scattering like a pack of rats down
every cranny and avenue. Yet stepping closer to the shipwright did
not allay his fears. For some reason they only multiplied.
After a moment's effort to focus his thoughts he managed to mutter,
"Not yet an hour. I would have been here earlier but the patrols are
even thicker and more determined than they have been the last two days."
"They always are when Calephas is looking for someone. But we
shouldn't need to be afraid here just yet. Gmork will need more time
to learn from Strom who we are. And he will learn. About Elizabaeg's
disguise too."
"We need to find her!"
"Aye, we do," Vysterag nodded and leaned in a little closer. "And all
of her friends." With a sudden thrust, he jabbed the wooden mallet
into Pharcellus's stomach and then into his chest. The dragon doubled
over and gasped for breath, trying to grab at the man's vest but
failing. "Sorry for that," he said in a rather sympathetic voice.
"But the soldiers will be back shortly and they will take you to my master."
Another jab on his shoulder forced Pharcellus to the ground holding
his arm. He could transform back into a dragon and escape, but
Vysterag didn't know he was a dragon. If he did, he'd never have
thought a wooden mallet would be enough to subdue him. The pain, the
human pain, was real enough. He pretended it was worse than it was.
"It was you," Pharcellus gasped and shook his head. What a moment
before had been so confusing was now as clear as the path of an arrow
leaping from the bow. "You knew where we were. You tried to find out
what we were going to do that night on the boat." He gasped every few
words to convince the traitor that he was too wounded to do anything.
"My master asked me to," Vysterag replied like a man in a daze. He
swung the hammer back and forth meaningfully. "He will be your master
soon. He is good to us who love him. Your younger brother and those
birds from Metamor, they will all love him as I do."
Pharcellus shifted his legs beneath him and was rewarded with another
blow to the side just beneath his arms. His ribs screamed with the
sudden jarring pain like a clatter of stones cascading down a
mountainside and a myriad precious jewels tossed across a bed of
golden coins. "How could you!" he snarled between the waves of pain.
His eyes blazed with a fierce anger, but the shipwright only smiled
with that half-befuddled look that had come over him.
"One day I was on the bay ice-fishing when I was escorted into the
castle. I met him," his voice become crooning and fawning. "I love
him, my master. He helped me see that. And he promised me, promised
me, that one day I would be allowed to feed him with my flesh, sinew,
and bone! When you and your friends have been brought before him and
this hateful Resistance over, then I know I will feed him and his
children. Maybe he'll let you feed him too."
Pharcellus stared in abject horror. The man standing before him ready
to turn him over to Calephas's soldiers wasn't a traitor. He was no
longer a man at all. The rumors of the mage Gmork were true. And
Vysterag was just one more victim.
Lindsey, Quoddy, Lubec, and Machias would not be that nightmare's victims too!
And if Vysterag had been Gmork's slave, that meant Lindsey had just
been handed into that foul mage's power. Pharcellus had to get into
the castle and rescue him.
He shifted backward to get his legs under him and managed to avoid
the mallet. But Vysterag was quicker than eh thought and had a meaty
hand around his collar which yanked him forward until his face was
pressed into the cold stone floor. He felt the mallet press against
the back of his neck. "No, Chellag, you need to wait and be still.
You'll be happy, oh so happy when you follow our master."
Pharcellus made a show of heavy breathing and pathetic squirming
beneath the mallet. With but a single thought he could swell in size
and girth and easily toss this slave aside without even scratching a
single gray scale on his hide. But that wouldn't get him inside the castle.
He tried to think of all the lessons in patience and in controlling
his draconic rage that his mother had taught him. He thought of the
elder wyrms and their inexorable confidence that came from longevity
and observing the rise and fall of hundreds of human empires
throughout the many centuries of their existence. And he thought of
Lindsey and the three brothers in the hands of the one who'd made a
slave of Vysterag. Pharcellus kept calm and even let his body sag in defeat.
Only a few minutes passed before the soldiers returned. There were
six of them, two bearing lanterns and all bearing swords. Their
leader was distinguishable by the slightly finer cut of his tunic and
cloak. A thick haired man with short mustache and eyes as green as a
Lutin's skin. He leered at Pharcellus who appeared to his eyes a
young man without hope.
"Sergeant Cajudy," Vysterag said in triumph, "this is Chellag, one of
the conspirators against our rightful liege. I trapped him before he
could warn anyone else."
Cajudy laughed quietly, and gestured for his men to pick Pharcellus
up and carry him between them. "Good work. And what of the third? I
am told there was another. A woman disguised as a man."
Vysterag scowled fiercely. "If she wasn't captured at Strom's, then
she has gone into hiding. Ture is the only other conspirator I know,
but she would not have gone to him."
"We'll check Master Ture after delivering this pathetic boy. Our
patrols are scouring the city. It won't be long before we have them
all, Gmork pet." The last was meant as an insult, but the look of
sheer delight that crossed the shipwright's face showed that he saw
it in a completely different light.
Pharcellus jostled a little in the grip of the two soldiers, but
stopped when the third put a blade to his back. Cajudy stepped in
front of him, looked him up and down and then spat in his face. "Come
on, little man." He turned around and walked quickly out the door.
The soldiers pushed Pharcellus forward. He stumbled his first few
steps but matched their pace a moment later. With one hand he wiped
the spit from his cheek and allowed himself to be led into the street.
With the brilliant shimmering lights overhead giving the streets a
ghostly cast, Pharcellus looked up at the castle. Torches limned it
in a vermilion fire. If they had killed Lindsey, he would contribute
his own until not one stone stood upon another.
----------
May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,
Charles Matthias
!DSPAM:4db886ab239161804284693!
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