The Sword
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In a sleepy village in the Western Hills, life was quiet and simple. A summer breeze blew in off the coast, and the rolling hills were painted blue and purple by wildflowers. Sheep nibbled across those hills, tended by a tall, broad-shouldered blonde woman. Only on closer inspection would her age be apparent, and while lines marked her face and white tinged her hair, her steps were confident and poised, and only much closer inspection would have revealed the fading scars and corded muscle of a warrior's youth. Her eyes were sharp and clear as she clucked about her flock, nudging and prodding errant sheep with her stout walking stick. As the sun sank into the harbor, she led her flock back down to her home at the edge of town, and she gave it a wistful gaze. The small town was aging, too. The longhouse hadn't been used for anything bigger than group dinners in a while, and most houses showed signs of disrepair. The people still left were her age or older, the young long since gone adventuring, spurred on by the stories they cajoled her into telling. The town and the lives in it were setting like the sun she watched. She shook off the maudlin thought and set to tucking her sheep away for the night.
Only those who had known her well would have recognized the change that took her as she turned towards her house. The subtle, focused shift in her stance, the tension that filled disused muscles. Her eyes turned steely as she fixed her gaze on the unexpectedly open back door of her modest stone home. Old tactical awareness and logic creaked to life: Neighbors wouldn't intrude, out of fear and respect. Petty thieves, most likely, but assassins had tried before. Not good ones, at least, or they'd have left no sign. A trap, perhaps? No, still more likely thieves. All this processed as she advanced on the house. Her gait changed as muscle memory returned, and her steps went silent. She did not hesitate on the threshold at all.
The first man, kneeling while he poked through her cupboards, had time to glance up and see her arrive, but not quite long enough to fully draw the knife from his ragged clothes. A swift kick set him on his back, and a knee dropped onto his stomach, forcing the breath out of him. She swatted the knife hand away, while a straight punch to the face rocked his head against the floor with enough force to crack the wooden floorboards. The knife clanged across the floor while the downed man reeled in shock at the force of her arrival, and for him, unconsciousness was a blessing. The noise drew the attention of the second man, who appeared in the doorway of her bedroom down the short hall. As she rose from the dazed man, she locked eyes with the second, hers filling with rage, his with fear. She charged as he scrambled for his knife, equally caught off guard as the first man. She collided with him like a wall, driving him from his feet, and they went down in a heap. Scrabbling for control, she felt his knife bite across her ribs, as old combat reflexes snapped into action. Her body remembered better than she did: Pressure applied there broke the grip. Pain applied here gained control of the joint. Force applied so broke the arm. A final, precise blow to the jaw, the soft click of delicate bones failing, and the fight was over.
As she sat back on the floor and looked down at her hands, the damage became apparent. Somewhere in the fight, several of her knuckles had broken. The slice across her ribs was shallow, but breathing stretched it painfully. Scrapes and bruises were in abundance. Her arms began to shake, and her eyes watered with unspent energy. She shook off the tears angrily, thrusting herself to her feet despite the protests of her aging joints. She set about her next task, as her mind returned to focus.
When the first man awoke, he found himself tied to a tree in the backyard. He tossed his head around in a panic, instantly regretting the motion as the pain of his head injury asserted itself. Through nausea and blurry vision he saw the powerful older woman sitting on a chair in front of him, the second man tied and on his knees at her feet. The intensity of her gaze brought him into quick focus. She spoke softly and calmly,
“Your friend has a broken jaw. He can't talk. That means he can't answer my questions. So let me be clear.”
One of their knives was in her hand. She drew the second man up by his hair, and he burst into consciousness from the pain, moaning through his shattered face. She never looked away from the first man as she smoothly slid the blade across the second man's throat. In the twenty seconds or so it took for him to finish dying, the first man had succumbed to fear and wet himself, his whole body trembling in terror of this woman who held his gaze. Her voice did not change.
“What were you looking for, and why?”
His voice shook and squeaked as he stammered,
“W-w-we were j-j-just supposed to find a sword! That was all!” Tears ran freely down his wide-eyed face. "W-we didn't know, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry! Please!”
Her eyes flashed as she sat unmoving, blood pooling in front of her.
“Supposed?” She said, “You were sent?”
The man nodded frantically,
“Yes! Yes! He wanted us to get a sword, nothing else!”
She remained silent. Panic gripped him further. His voice rose in pitch as he said,
“Back in Kilfanora, a man said he'd pay ten thousand for the sword, ten thousand!”
Her silence continued. Words spilled out of him as he tried to sink deeper into the tree,
“He never told us his name, just to meet him at his ship when we had it, The Crow, his ship was called The Crow!”
His breath caught as she abruptly rose, the bloody knife still in her hand. Silently, she turned and walked a short distance towards her shed, where she retrieved a shovel and a pair of heavy gloves. He watched with fear and confusion as she dropped the gloves in the dirt to his side, seemingly ignoring him. She sighed, looking off into the hills, contemplative. He opened his mouth to plead for mercy when she swung the shovel. She kept the shovel blade as sharp as a knife, and he died as quickly as the other man.
By the time she had finished the double-wide grave and buried them, the sun was long gone. She spent the night in well-deserved sleep, and morning came too quickly for her sore and aging body. She opened the hidden hatch in the kitchen floor and retrieved her worn but reliable armor, and her sword, the blade absent, merely a hilt. The handle was a complex looking mechanism, and as she finished girding herself in armor she twisted the sword hilt in the way only she knew. A crack of sudden fire filled the house, and a glowing blade lept up from the hilt, hissing and thrumming with contained power. She looked up towards the road that led to Kilfanora, her face cast in the harsh amber light of her blade. Svana was going to get answers.
Blood & Claw
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The cold drizzle was starting to make his teeth grind. He had been hunting this damned creature for almost three weeks, and it had rained the whole time. He pulled his soaked, dirty gray cloak tighter around his wiry frame, and kept walking. The creature wasn't hard to track - the huge prints and uprooted trees were easy to follow, but it was just so damned fast, and every ruined village and eviscerated body he found gnawed at his morale. The beast was moving due North, and the weather was getting steadily worse as the chase went on. Too many nights spent in a wet tent, shivering himself to sleep for a few hours before a measly breakfast, and all the while, the voices beat against his skull like a drum: “change, change, give in, submit, change.” He did his best not to listen, but as his body weakened so did his willpower. He knew how easy it would be to turn, to let the change come over him, to feel the soil under his claws and the hot, feral blood in his veins. His fingers curled in memory of the talons that would make him feel alive and powerful again, or the wings that could carry him over the dull hills that stretched out in front of him. He squeezed his eyes shut against the voices, drew a shuddering breath, and pressed on.
As he followed the devastation North, he saw a small cart moving quickly down the nearby road, fleeing the smoke on the horizon. Filled with momentary energy, he jogged to intercept the cart. Once it drew closer, he saw a old, wide-eyed man and an equally wide-eyed horse, the horse frothing and shaking with exhaustion, but it ran on without the man goading it. The cart was only half full, and various loose items rattled off the back and over the side, but the man sat staring forward, clearly in shock. As cart and traveler met, both drew abruptly to a halt, the old man wary, and the traveler just tired.
“Who’re you? Whadayya want?” screeched the old man, his voice reedy with stress.
The traveler raised his hands placatingly, “I’m just looking for information on what happened.”
The old man frowned, looking the bedraggled traveler up and down. The traveler sighed mentally, well aware of his appearance. Old, tattered clothes, unwashed and unkempt hair, and the wiry, scarred frame of a young man who lived a rough life. Not the image of a respectable authority figure, despite his past exploits.
“Please, I’m just trying to help. I’m hunting the thing that did this,” he said, gesturing towards the ruined treeline and smoky horizon.
The old man scoffed, “How ‘r you gonna help, boy? You think you can take it? Damn thing can’t be beat, don’t matter who tries. It’s one of those damn Reinn things.” He trailed off to a hiss at the end, afraid to speak the word. Even the horse seemed to twitch at the sound. The traveler took a deep breath and closed his eyes, as the voices beat their insistence against his skull.
“I have to try. I have a responsibility to try,” he said, as much to himself as to the old man. The old man eyed his suspiciously, and drew up the reins of his exhausted horse.
“Fine then. It’s still there, if yer in a hurry to get dead.” He jerked his head back towards the horizon.
“Go’on and see it. Last I saw it was pulling the dead apart for fun.” He shook the reins and the horse shakily set off again. The old man kept wary eyes on the traveler, muttering about crazy children as he passed further South. The traveler didn’t notice. His attention was fixed North, at the smoke and destruction. He drew a deep breath, his fists clenched. This was the closest he had gotten in weeks. He settled his pack across his shoulders and set off with renewed vigor.
The smell hit him first. His senses were sharper than most, and death is pungent. Even on the outskirts there were bodies, most unidentifiable piles of gore, or loose limbs still holding the basic farming tools the village had used to defend itself. He had seen this before, and as ever, he was struck by shame and guilt. And the sound of movement from the center of town, he froze. Something huge was shifting there, and a bass rumble passed through him. He dropped his pack quietly, unhooked his belt of tools and small weapons, and began to walk slowly towards the noise.
As he walked, he thought about the friends he had lost, the opportunities and paths he had sacrificed for this pledge. The voices raged in his head, screaming that he could have it all back if he would just change, change now and claim it all! Tears blurred his vision, and he was afraid. Not of death, but of losing himself to the change, to lose his identity and reality. But he had come this far already, and he had a promise to keep.
He arrived at the center of town. There, a huge creature sat, idly pulling a dead man apart by his arms. It was an abomination of flesh, a mismatched, discolored hulk. No one limb was in proportion to another, and the vaguely humanoid shape filled a space as large as most houses. Each ungainly limb ended in a different appendage, and extra pincers, claws, finger-like graspers, and disturbingly human hands dotted its body. The skin was broken, cracked, and bleeding, in some cases from recent damage, which was already scabbing over, but also from simple movement, where the discordant body tore itself. Tufts of dark hair burst at random across its shape, and its mouth was a scattered collection of teeth that ground and scraped across its own face, as it chewed idly on the thigh of the dismembered man it held.
The traveler was not surprised by any of this. He knew this creature well, and pitied it. He set himself in its line of sight, and its small, beady eyes snapped onto him, glittering with intelligence. Both stood still for a few seconds, considering the other.
The traveler spoke softly.
“Hello Nils. I'm here to keep my promise.”
It spun onto all fours and discarded the human remains with blistering speed. Fresh tears broke across its back, as muscles overpowered skin. Even as it paused those cracks began to heal. With simple, animal rage, the creature flung itself across the square at the traveler.
The traveler closed his eyes and let his body relax. In his mind, he reached out to the now panicking voices in his head that screamed for action, and said yes.
Submission was an ecstasy. The tension he had held for months fell away from him. Even in the pain of his bones breaking and stretching, his muscles swelling and changing, he was finally at peace. The voices were silent now, smug and content, and as his organs shifted and changed, he felt better than he could ever remember feeling. As the blood-red wings burst from his now scaly back, he had one last fleeting moment of fear for what he was losing before the reptilian thoughts took over. How dare this miserable beast challenge him? This puny, ugly thing? How dare.
In the scant seconds between the beast lunging and its arrival, the traveler had become a towering dragon-like creature, and they met in a clash of flesh and claw.
The fight tore through the remaining village structures like paper. Boiling hot blood spilt by the gallon, hunks of flesh torn off as the two bodies healed rapidly. Teeth bore down, digging for vital organs and bones, and both suffered terribly. Their bestial howls of pain and rage echoed across the countryside. The traveler lost a wing when trying to fly, and the creatures intestines were exposed and loose across the ground, steaming and writhing as they tried to repair themselves. For hours, the fight churned the village to mud and ash. The traveler slipped, and was pinned by the creature, as misshapen claws sank deep. His mind reeled from the shock of his injuries, and the audacity of such a lowly creature doing such a thing to the likes of him. He felt his strength falter, as the creature tore vital organs, and his vision, once crisp and precise through reptilian eyes, began to fade. Impossible, he thought, as his human mind panicked. But his reptile mind was the more cunning of the two. It saw the opportunity, and a precise strike of a spiked tail burrowed deep, severing the spine of the filthy creature on top of him. Shock registered in the glittering eyes above him, and as the creature went slack, a wet rumble rose from it.
“Thank you, Aydin.”
Two monsters rested on the battlefield, broken and dying. The imperious reptile brain retreated by degrees, as his human mind wailed, for the loss of his friend, and the now inevitable loss of self. The voices in his mind sang songs of triumph, as the fog rolled in from the nearby woods, unnaturally fast. It enveloped him like a warm blanket, and the voices blended into a single, malevolent presence. An almost tangible force of will slammed against his tired mind, dark tendrils creeping like roots past mental defenses. Deep in his own mind, Aydin crouched behind the layers he had built, determined to remain sane, even if his body betrayed him. He had known what the battle would cost, successful or not, and he had prepared for it. As draconic limbs twitched outside his control, he felt the presence grin. Either monster would have served, and now the Reinn had the stronger of the two. Aydin sat in his mental castle, walls upon walls to keep back the darkness, battlements blazing with lights of mental training to defend him, and watched one by one as the
lights
went
out.
As he followed the devastation North, he saw a small cart moving quickly down the nearby road, fleeing the smoke on the horizon. Filled with momentary energy, he jogged to intercept the cart. Once it drew closer, he saw a old, wide-eyed man and an equally wide-eyed horse, the horse frothing and shaking with exhaustion, but it ran on without the man goading it. The cart was only half full, and various loose items rattled off the back and over the side, but the man sat staring forward, clearly in shock. As cart and traveler met, both drew abruptly to a halt, the old man wary, and the traveler just tired.
“Who’re you? Whadayya want?” screeched the old man, his voice reedy with stress.
The traveler raised his hands placatingly, “I’m just looking for information on what happened.”
The old man frowned, looking the bedraggled traveler up and down. The traveler sighed mentally, well aware of his appearance. Old, tattered clothes, unwashed and unkempt hair, and the wiry, scarred frame of a young man who lived a rough life. Not the image of a respectable authority figure, despite his past exploits.
“Please, I’m just trying to help. I’m hunting the thing that did this,” he said, gesturing towards the ruined treeline and smoky horizon.
The old man scoffed, “How ‘r you gonna help, boy? You think you can take it? Damn thing can’t be beat, don’t matter who tries. It’s one of those damn Reinn things.” He trailed off to a hiss at the end, afraid to speak the word. Even the horse seemed to twitch at the sound. The traveler took a deep breath and closed his eyes, as the voices beat their insistence against his skull.
“I have to try. I have a responsibility to try,” he said, as much to himself as to the old man. The old man eyed his suspiciously, and drew up the reins of his exhausted horse.
“Fine then. It’s still there, if yer in a hurry to get dead.” He jerked his head back towards the horizon.
“Go’on and see it. Last I saw it was pulling the dead apart for fun.” He shook the reins and the horse shakily set off again. The old man kept wary eyes on the traveler, muttering about crazy children as he passed further South. The traveler didn’t notice. His attention was fixed North, at the smoke and destruction. He drew a deep breath, his fists clenched. This was the closest he had gotten in weeks. He settled his pack across his shoulders and set off with renewed vigor.
The smell hit him first. His senses were sharper than most, and death is pungent. Even on the outskirts there were bodies, most unidentifiable piles of gore, or loose limbs still holding the basic farming tools the village had used to defend itself. He had seen this before, and as ever, he was struck by shame and guilt. And the sound of movement from the center of town, he froze. Something huge was shifting there, and a bass rumble passed through him. He dropped his pack quietly, unhooked his belt of tools and small weapons, and began to walk slowly towards the noise.
As he walked, he thought about the friends he had lost, the opportunities and paths he had sacrificed for this pledge. The voices raged in his head, screaming that he could have it all back if he would just change, change now and claim it all! Tears blurred his vision, and he was afraid. Not of death, but of losing himself to the change, to lose his identity and reality. But he had come this far already, and he had a promise to keep.
He arrived at the center of town. There, a huge creature sat, idly pulling a dead man apart by his arms. It was an abomination of flesh, a mismatched, discolored hulk. No one limb was in proportion to another, and the vaguely humanoid shape filled a space as large as most houses. Each ungainly limb ended in a different appendage, and extra pincers, claws, finger-like graspers, and disturbingly human hands dotted its body. The skin was broken, cracked, and bleeding, in some cases from recent damage, which was already scabbing over, but also from simple movement, where the discordant body tore itself. Tufts of dark hair burst at random across its shape, and its mouth was a scattered collection of teeth that ground and scraped across its own face, as it chewed idly on the thigh of the dismembered man it held.
The traveler was not surprised by any of this. He knew this creature well, and pitied it. He set himself in its line of sight, and its small, beady eyes snapped onto him, glittering with intelligence. Both stood still for a few seconds, considering the other.
The traveler spoke softly.
“Hello Nils. I'm here to keep my promise.”
It spun onto all fours and discarded the human remains with blistering speed. Fresh tears broke across its back, as muscles overpowered skin. Even as it paused those cracks began to heal. With simple, animal rage, the creature flung itself across the square at the traveler.
The traveler closed his eyes and let his body relax. In his mind, he reached out to the now panicking voices in his head that screamed for action, and said yes.
Submission was an ecstasy. The tension he had held for months fell away from him. Even in the pain of his bones breaking and stretching, his muscles swelling and changing, he was finally at peace. The voices were silent now, smug and content, and as his organs shifted and changed, he felt better than he could ever remember feeling. As the blood-red wings burst from his now scaly back, he had one last fleeting moment of fear for what he was losing before the reptilian thoughts took over. How dare this miserable beast challenge him? This puny, ugly thing? How dare.
In the scant seconds between the beast lunging and its arrival, the traveler had become a towering dragon-like creature, and they met in a clash of flesh and claw.
The fight tore through the remaining village structures like paper. Boiling hot blood spilt by the gallon, hunks of flesh torn off as the two bodies healed rapidly. Teeth bore down, digging for vital organs and bones, and both suffered terribly. Their bestial howls of pain and rage echoed across the countryside. The traveler lost a wing when trying to fly, and the creatures intestines were exposed and loose across the ground, steaming and writhing as they tried to repair themselves. For hours, the fight churned the village to mud and ash. The traveler slipped, and was pinned by the creature, as misshapen claws sank deep. His mind reeled from the shock of his injuries, and the audacity of such a lowly creature doing such a thing to the likes of him. He felt his strength falter, as the creature tore vital organs, and his vision, once crisp and precise through reptilian eyes, began to fade. Impossible, he thought, as his human mind panicked. But his reptile mind was the more cunning of the two. It saw the opportunity, and a precise strike of a spiked tail burrowed deep, severing the spine of the filthy creature on top of him. Shock registered in the glittering eyes above him, and as the creature went slack, a wet rumble rose from it.
“Thank you, Aydin.”
Two monsters rested on the battlefield, broken and dying. The imperious reptile brain retreated by degrees, as his human mind wailed, for the loss of his friend, and the now inevitable loss of self. The voices in his mind sang songs of triumph, as the fog rolled in from the nearby woods, unnaturally fast. It enveloped him like a warm blanket, and the voices blended into a single, malevolent presence. An almost tangible force of will slammed against his tired mind, dark tendrils creeping like roots past mental defenses. Deep in his own mind, Aydin crouched behind the layers he had built, determined to remain sane, even if his body betrayed him. He had known what the battle would cost, successful or not, and he had prepared for it. As draconic limbs twitched outside his control, he felt the presence grin. Either monster would have served, and now the Reinn had the stronger of the two. Aydin sat in his mental castle, walls upon walls to keep back the darkness, battlements blazing with lights of mental training to defend him, and watched one by one as the
lights
went
out.
The Inquisitor
When Sgt. Peirsson told me an Inquisitor was coming, all I could think about was every petty crime I’d ever committed.
We had tracked down the sorcerer to some slums in the Ketka district. He was just a kid, a teenager, but way more powerful than we had expected. The magic he called up tore through the block, and we lost eight good men to hellfire; bolts of lightning, howling storms of darkness, all while he laughed at us. Sitting in our break room at the station, I shuddered at the memories, only two days old now. I remember standing next to Tors when he got hit. Lightning up close is different than a distant storm: it’s a bomb, a deafening explosion, a flash of light, your best friend dead at your feet. I stood there, ears ringing and my hair standing on end, stunned as I watched Hakan and Karl get engulfed in some kind of pitch-black cloud. At least Tors didn’t have to die screaming. In the cleanup that followed, we didn’t find a mark on their bodies. Dazed, I turned and saw the teenage sorcerer look at me, and figured it was my turn, when Sgt. Peirsson clubbed him over the back of the head. It felt wrong that someone so dangerous went down so simply. I fidgeted in my chair, thinking through it over and over, still somehow unsatisfied, incomplete.
We dragged him back in magic-suppressing chains, forged out of silver and carved with runes from our headquarters in far-off Varanas, and locked him in the cell we kept for dark mages like him. The senior officers had only seen that cell used once or twice. Given the amount of carnage one boy caused, I was glad to hear it. The cell was creepy enough.
I was in the main bullpen among the other officers that morning, all of us subdued and distracted, both from the loss of our friends, and the dangerous boy locked downstairs. Normal activity still flowed around the station, but the unease was getting worse, and we were all feeling the strain. Sgt. Peirsson had made an announcement that the head office at Varanas had been briefed, and were sending down a full-fledged Inquisitor to “address the problem.” Stories around the station didn’t vary much from the rumors on the street as to how Inquisitors “addressed” problems with rogue practitioners: if there was a person left when the Inquisitor was done, they were rarely sane or in one piece. They policed mages all across Atreus fiercely, without mercy, and carried the authority of the entire Varanan Guard. Even a city council would think twice before questioning a fully sanctioned Inquisitor. They could imprison and interrogate anyone they felt had violated the Laws of Magic, practitioner or otherwise. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be interested in me, but like everyone else at the station, I was nervous.
Around mid morning, a small, mousey man came into the station. He was dressed nicely, a multi-piece suit that was the modern fashion in Kilfanora these days, and he had little round-framed glasses atop a hooked, narrow nose. Along with his weathered face and thin, greying hair, he looked like a local businessman or politician. However, the Varanan Guard broach on his riding cloak and a well-worn satchel over his shoulder suggested otherwise. He was unassuming and bland enough that on any other day, it may have taken some time for him to get attention, but we were all on edge enough that the whole station stopped and stared. He coughed awkwardly and said a quiet hello.
"Can I help you, sir?" Guardsman Dalin asked stiffly. He had won morning desk duty by drawing the short straw earlier.
Shuffling through his satchel, the small man said,
“ah, yes, I was hoping to speak with a...” He drew a sheet of paper from his satchel, “... a Sgt. Peirsson?”
“Who should I say is asking, please?” Dalin said.
“My name is Paul Andals, I’ve been sent ahead from Varanas with some paperwork regarding your new prisoner.”
Dalin relaxed slightly. “Paperwork, you’re not the... I see.”
Andals smiled somewhat apologetically. “Just a few preliminary questions for the prisoner before the official interview, nothing serious.”
Dalin indicated the sergeants office. “Just this way, sir.”
“Very kind of you, thank you.”
As they moved off to Sgt. Peirssons office, we all roused ourselves, embarrassed, and tried to get back to work. After a few minutes Sgt. Peirsson and Andals left the office, chatting amicably. The sergeant flagged me down to join them, and as we made our way down to the holding cells, Andals asked me about my experience with the rogue mage. He had kind, bright eyes, and was very sympathetic to my story. I tried to recount it professionally, but I know my voice wavered at times. When we arrived at the cell, he turned and shook my hand, clasping it in both of his, and said,
“Son, you’ve been through a terrible thing, and I understand how you feel. Unfortunately, many other young Guardsmen have had experiences like yours. I’ve read a great many reports of similar events with these dark mages. A real shame, indeed.” As he turned towards the cells, he paused, and gave me an odd look over his shoulder. “You should stay and see my interview. It may help your feelings of irresolution.”
I blinked. I didn’t remember sharing that feeling.
Guardsman Dagne was posted at the cell, and opened the viewing hatch for Sgt. Peirsson and Andals. Our cell for mages was the only one like it at our station, and it was designed by Inquisition artificers exclusively for the restraint of magic. The whole thing was made of Riddarhold stone, more like a vault than a cell. There were runic carvings and symbols across the walls in a chaotic pattern, and a single lump of white stone sat at the center of the room, surrounded by lengths of metal rods set into overlapping diamond patterns in the floor. I’d heard that the squares could rotate and shift into patterns, or geometric designs, but we never found any mechanisms, and frankly, the room made us all uncomfortable, both by implication and by the strange, muffled acoustics it created. The rogue mage sat hunched on the stone, chained loosely, motionless since we put him there with a pained expression on his face. Sgt. Peirsson and Andals stood in the doorway, and Andals fidgeted through leaflets of notes.
“It’s perfectly safe,” said Sgt. Peirsson. “Whatever stuff your people put in there keeps mages shut down hard.”
Andals grimaced, and located his stylus. “Not my people, Sergeant. Inquisition architects. My people would rather solve these situations peaceably, instead of sealing mages away in cells like these.”
“Well, that’s all well and good, I’m sure, but this boy killed eight good Guardsmen. If it’s all the same to you I’d rather turn him over to the Inquisitor when he gets here. They know how to deal with monsters like him. Way I hear it, they’re mostly monsters themselves.”
Andals watched the boy impassively.
“Yes, Sergeant, they certainly are.”
Andals was provided a chair, and the rest of us crowded around the viewing port at the door to watch. Andals settled in to the chair, crossing his legs and propping up a writing pad across his knees. He adjusted his glasses and gave a polite cough. The boy twitched upright against his chains, shaggy dark hair blocking most of his face. His glassy eyes swept the room, and he struggled to focus on Andals who waited patiently. The boy’s gaunt frame was pale, and the clothes he wore still had a few patches of former finery showing through the mud and soot, likely stolen. He shuddered and stretched, squeezing his eyes tightly shut for a moment, and croaked.
“So, my interrogator,” he broke off in a painful coughing fit, “My interrogator finally arrives. Judge, jury, and executioner. Go on, get it over with.” He set his jaw and raised his head as high as he could. “I’m ready.”
Andals sighed. “My dear boy, I’m not who you think I am. I don't want to judge you. I only want to ask a few questions about your experience.” He raised an open hand, placatingly. “I may even be able to help you.”
The boy chuckled mirthlessly. “Ha, help me? Help me what? Be thrown into your wizards prison? No thank you, sir. I’m okay with dying.”
“You killed a great many people, son,” Andals said softly. “I’m afraid the Fylamenton is not an option for you. If you let me help, we can avoid a painful and destructive interrogation.”
The boy gulped, and tried to hide it by settling back into an attempt at a relaxed pose.
“May I at least know your name?” Andals asked.
“Tell me your name, old man, maybe you’ll get mine.”
“Paul Andals,” he said quickly.
“Inquisition lackey,” the boy drawled.
“Yes.”
“Inquisition paper-pusher.”
“Yes.”
“You write the death warrants for people like me and pretend the blood isn’t on your hands.”
“Yes.”
“...Jack.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jack.”
Jack raised his shackled hands. “Is it really?”
“As I said, Jack, I will do what I can for you. Now then,” Andals raised his stylus and began to take notes. “Do you have any family, Jack?”
Jack chuckled incredulously. “Is this what we’re going to do? You ask some stupid questions about my life, and then your Inquisitor friends come in the axe?”
“It won’t be an axe, Jack. It will be much worse. Please, let me help.”
Jack looked away, and said, “You really think a guy like me has family lying around, Paul?”
“I think it’s a polite question with which to start. I imagine that people have not been polite towards you in life, Jack. Are you in pain?”
“Well, you’re no mage, clearly.” Jack shut his eyes and hung his head. “This room, these things,” indicating his shackles and the metal rods in the floor, “they eat my magic. It’s like I’m drowning. I can barely reach it at all.” His voice began to rise in volume and speed. “You’ve never tasted magic, never felt it in your blood. It’s life, it’s air, it’s the only thing worth living for.” He surged upright, standing and straining forwards against his shackles, “and you’ve ripped it out of me! I want it back!”
Outside the cell, Dagne and I reached for weapons, but Sgt. Peirsson waved us off. His interest was on Andals, who had not reacted to the outburst. I did not share his confidence in the room’s restraints.
Andals wrote a line on his notes, and looked up at Jack who was still straining and breathing heavily. “Jack,” he said quietly, “tell me about Kullervo.”
Jack slumped, and sat on the floor, his back against the stone seat, shackles pooling around him. He stayed quiet for a long moment. “That’s it. That’s why you’re here. This is about finding him, not me.” He ran thin fingers through his thick, matted hair. “You don’t care about me.”
Andals uncrossed his legs, set his notes aside, and leaned down towards Jack, hands clasped.
“I do care, Jack. I care about sparing you any further pain. I care about stopping the man who did this to you.”
Jack tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. “He gave me magic,” he said, as if that was the only explanation that mattered. “He taught me what it felt like, how to touch it. He taught me everything.”
“He taught you how to invade minds, Jack. How to steal memories, mutilate souls, raise the dead and make them serve you.”
“You don’t know what it’s like, you can’t feel it. To finally feel like you can protect yourself and your friends, to have that power,” Jack said.
Andals leaned back and collected his notes. “Why wasn’t Kullervo there to help you when they came for you, Jack? Or your friends?”
Jack shook his head and closed his eyes, “It wasn’t like that. I know what you’re trying to do. He didn’t abandon me. I screwed up and got caught. It’s my own fault.”
Andals said, “Jack, I have seen many other young practitioners such as yourself, trained by Kullervo, used by him for his own ends, then left holding the bag, so to speak.”
Jack shook his head again, resolute. “No, it’s not like that. He teaches us, but we make our own decisions, our own mistakes. We have to live with the consequences.”
“His words, not yours.”
Jack stayed silent.
Andals rose, sliding his notes into his satchel. He took the chair and moved it to the corner of the room, placing his satchel on it, and turned back to Jack. He carefully cleaned his glasses before placing them into a lapel pocket. Paul stood over Jack at the edge of the metal squares that covered the floor, hands clasped in front of him. “Jack, I need to know what you know about Kullervo. Those other young practitioners very rarely lived to meet me. You are in the unique position of being able to recount his movements, plans, and last known location. I am at least three days behind him, and you need to help me now. I do not have the time to waste.”
Jack looked up at Andals, confused and angry. “Why would I help you?” He sneered, “You’re just going to fill out a form, and send in the goons to torture me to death.”
Andals looked down at Jack impassively, and said, “If you don’t help me now, Jack, it will be I who tortures you.”
Jack looked up at the old man in confusion, but then noticed that Andals had shaken his right wrist lightly, and a bracelet of metallic beads was now visible. Arcane symbols decorated each bead. Jack’s eyes flew wide, and he scrambled backwards up the stone seat away from Andals.
“Wait, you’re a..” He stammered.
Andals hand flung up and clenched into a fist. Across the floor, the metal rods sprang up with it in a blink, forming into an inwardly spiked cage, and Jack grabbed his head, screaming in pain.
Andals now spoke coldly, in clipped tones.
“You talk of magic being life, yet you’ve only ever used it for destruction and pain. You don’t deserve it, Jack. You complained about this room strangling your magic, but all it did was suppress it. This is what it feels like to have your magic strangled.”
Jack writhed and twisted on the stone seat, tearing at his head. Outside the cell, Dagne, Sgt. Peirsson and I drew back, dismayed. Wishing pain on the boy who had done so much harm was one thing, watching it was another. I heard Dagne mutter a quiet oath under her breath. Inside, Andals continued.
“Kullervo taught you how to rip information from an unwilling mind, Jack. He taught you how to break the first and most sacred Law of Magic. I have the authority and license of the Inquisition of the Varanan Guard to do the same to you.”
He raised his arm higher, palm open and facing up. Jack was lifted into the air by an unseen force, the metal rods rising and forming a fountain of sharp metal around him. He gasped, his arms stretched down towards the floor, pulled by his shackles.
“I give you one last chance, Jack.” Andals said, “You know the damage that can happen to an invaded mind, you’ve done it yourself. Tell me Kullervo’s current location.”
“I can’t,” Jack wheezed, “he won’t let me.”
“His magic can’t reach you in here,” Andals said, “you are under no compulsions but your own.”
“I can’t,” he repeated, “he did things to me, to my head. I can’t see him, I… he said it was to protect me.” Tears rolled down Jack’s cheeks.
Andals hand dropped slightly, and he sighed. “Oh, Jack. I’m sorry. If he has edited your mind, or left spells of protection against me, I must break them. I do regret this, I truly do.”
He raised his arm straight, his fingers aimed at Jack. The beads on his wrist glowed, and the floating metal rods now surrounded Jack in the air, rotating menacingly. Jack began to scream again.
Dagne looked away. Sgt. Peirsson and I shared a look, then turned our backs to the cell. I lost track of time amid the screams. Dagne left the room at some point. She had not been released from guard duty, but Sgt. Peirsson made no comment. He and I sat in the hall until Jack’s voice wore to shreds and failed. We could still feel the angry thrum from the metal rods in the room, reverberating out of the cell. At some point, they stopped, and we heard the crashing of chains, followed by a dull thud. The sergeant and I cautiously peered into the cell.
Andals was standing in the corner, writing notes, visibly unaffected by the ordeal. Jack was sprawled on the stone seat, his eyes bloodshot, drooling slightly and trembling. Andals glanced up at us. The friendly old man we had met earlier had been replaced. Now he seemed a stern and dangerous figure of righteous justice. He smiled briefly at us, and now it reminded me of some large reptilian predator. I pulled back from the door, involuntarily. Andals put down his notes and turned back to Jack. He stood over him, and tsked softly.
“I’m sorry Jack. I wish there had been other options. Do you remember now?”
Jack had flinched at Andals’ voice, and I watched him curl into a ball.
Andals spoke softly again.
“Do you remember what he made you do? What he did to you?”
Jack made a high-pitched keening sound and curled tighter. It was not a human sound.
Andals nodded sadly.
“You have done terrible things, my boy, and terrible things have been done to you. I wanted to do this earlier, without these greater sufferings.”
Andals drew himself up and took a deep breath. He spoke in a strong, official voice.
“By the authority granted to me by the Inquisition of the Varanan Guard, I, Inquisitor Paul Andals, find you guilty of violating the Laws of Magic. For your crimes, your access to magic must be permanently severed.”
He made a small gesture, and the metal rods began to spin, circling Jack low along the floor, spinning until they became a brassy blur. Abruptly, the rods froze, locked in midair. Jack burst up to his knees, eyes bulging in horror. His mouth open in a silent scream, every vein and muscle straining. Andals snapped his fingers, and the rods lashed out, striking Jack in the neck from every angle. I heard the sound of his neck breaking across the room. He fell dead to the floor, and the rods floated into their cradles like restful serpents. Andals stepped closer, crouching next to Jack’s body. He whispered, low enough that I struggled to hear.
“...and yet for your suffering I grant you a quick and easy death. I can give you that, at least.”
He patted Jacks head gently, then rose and turned away. Sgt. Peirsson and I flung ourselves away from the door, out of sight. From inside, Andals called out wryly. “Gentlemen, the door please.”
Sgt. Peirsson gave me a look that communicated our difference in rank, and I opened the cell. Andals stepped out and looked at us slowly, each in turn.
“Ah, Lord Inquisitor sir, about what I said earlier,” Sgt. Peirsson stammered.
“No, sergeant, what you expressed was accurate.” Andals said. He paged through his notes for a moment.
“I have what I need. My thanks to you and your Guardsmen, sergeant.”
Andals turned to me and locked eyes with me. I resisted the urge to bolt from the room, barely.
“Was that an acceptable resolution to your story?”
We had tracked down the sorcerer to some slums in the Ketka district. He was just a kid, a teenager, but way more powerful than we had expected. The magic he called up tore through the block, and we lost eight good men to hellfire; bolts of lightning, howling storms of darkness, all while he laughed at us. Sitting in our break room at the station, I shuddered at the memories, only two days old now. I remember standing next to Tors when he got hit. Lightning up close is different than a distant storm: it’s a bomb, a deafening explosion, a flash of light, your best friend dead at your feet. I stood there, ears ringing and my hair standing on end, stunned as I watched Hakan and Karl get engulfed in some kind of pitch-black cloud. At least Tors didn’t have to die screaming. In the cleanup that followed, we didn’t find a mark on their bodies. Dazed, I turned and saw the teenage sorcerer look at me, and figured it was my turn, when Sgt. Peirsson clubbed him over the back of the head. It felt wrong that someone so dangerous went down so simply. I fidgeted in my chair, thinking through it over and over, still somehow unsatisfied, incomplete.
We dragged him back in magic-suppressing chains, forged out of silver and carved with runes from our headquarters in far-off Varanas, and locked him in the cell we kept for dark mages like him. The senior officers had only seen that cell used once or twice. Given the amount of carnage one boy caused, I was glad to hear it. The cell was creepy enough.
I was in the main bullpen among the other officers that morning, all of us subdued and distracted, both from the loss of our friends, and the dangerous boy locked downstairs. Normal activity still flowed around the station, but the unease was getting worse, and we were all feeling the strain. Sgt. Peirsson had made an announcement that the head office at Varanas had been briefed, and were sending down a full-fledged Inquisitor to “address the problem.” Stories around the station didn’t vary much from the rumors on the street as to how Inquisitors “addressed” problems with rogue practitioners: if there was a person left when the Inquisitor was done, they were rarely sane or in one piece. They policed mages all across Atreus fiercely, without mercy, and carried the authority of the entire Varanan Guard. Even a city council would think twice before questioning a fully sanctioned Inquisitor. They could imprison and interrogate anyone they felt had violated the Laws of Magic, practitioner or otherwise. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be interested in me, but like everyone else at the station, I was nervous.
Around mid morning, a small, mousey man came into the station. He was dressed nicely, a multi-piece suit that was the modern fashion in Kilfanora these days, and he had little round-framed glasses atop a hooked, narrow nose. Along with his weathered face and thin, greying hair, he looked like a local businessman or politician. However, the Varanan Guard broach on his riding cloak and a well-worn satchel over his shoulder suggested otherwise. He was unassuming and bland enough that on any other day, it may have taken some time for him to get attention, but we were all on edge enough that the whole station stopped and stared. He coughed awkwardly and said a quiet hello.
"Can I help you, sir?" Guardsman Dalin asked stiffly. He had won morning desk duty by drawing the short straw earlier.
Shuffling through his satchel, the small man said,
“ah, yes, I was hoping to speak with a...” He drew a sheet of paper from his satchel, “... a Sgt. Peirsson?”
“Who should I say is asking, please?” Dalin said.
“My name is Paul Andals, I’ve been sent ahead from Varanas with some paperwork regarding your new prisoner.”
Dalin relaxed slightly. “Paperwork, you’re not the... I see.”
Andals smiled somewhat apologetically. “Just a few preliminary questions for the prisoner before the official interview, nothing serious.”
Dalin indicated the sergeants office. “Just this way, sir.”
“Very kind of you, thank you.”
As they moved off to Sgt. Peirssons office, we all roused ourselves, embarrassed, and tried to get back to work. After a few minutes Sgt. Peirsson and Andals left the office, chatting amicably. The sergeant flagged me down to join them, and as we made our way down to the holding cells, Andals asked me about my experience with the rogue mage. He had kind, bright eyes, and was very sympathetic to my story. I tried to recount it professionally, but I know my voice wavered at times. When we arrived at the cell, he turned and shook my hand, clasping it in both of his, and said,
“Son, you’ve been through a terrible thing, and I understand how you feel. Unfortunately, many other young Guardsmen have had experiences like yours. I’ve read a great many reports of similar events with these dark mages. A real shame, indeed.” As he turned towards the cells, he paused, and gave me an odd look over his shoulder. “You should stay and see my interview. It may help your feelings of irresolution.”
I blinked. I didn’t remember sharing that feeling.
Guardsman Dagne was posted at the cell, and opened the viewing hatch for Sgt. Peirsson and Andals. Our cell for mages was the only one like it at our station, and it was designed by Inquisition artificers exclusively for the restraint of magic. The whole thing was made of Riddarhold stone, more like a vault than a cell. There were runic carvings and symbols across the walls in a chaotic pattern, and a single lump of white stone sat at the center of the room, surrounded by lengths of metal rods set into overlapping diamond patterns in the floor. I’d heard that the squares could rotate and shift into patterns, or geometric designs, but we never found any mechanisms, and frankly, the room made us all uncomfortable, both by implication and by the strange, muffled acoustics it created. The rogue mage sat hunched on the stone, chained loosely, motionless since we put him there with a pained expression on his face. Sgt. Peirsson and Andals stood in the doorway, and Andals fidgeted through leaflets of notes.
“It’s perfectly safe,” said Sgt. Peirsson. “Whatever stuff your people put in there keeps mages shut down hard.”
Andals grimaced, and located his stylus. “Not my people, Sergeant. Inquisition architects. My people would rather solve these situations peaceably, instead of sealing mages away in cells like these.”
“Well, that’s all well and good, I’m sure, but this boy killed eight good Guardsmen. If it’s all the same to you I’d rather turn him over to the Inquisitor when he gets here. They know how to deal with monsters like him. Way I hear it, they’re mostly monsters themselves.”
Andals watched the boy impassively.
“Yes, Sergeant, they certainly are.”
Andals was provided a chair, and the rest of us crowded around the viewing port at the door to watch. Andals settled in to the chair, crossing his legs and propping up a writing pad across his knees. He adjusted his glasses and gave a polite cough. The boy twitched upright against his chains, shaggy dark hair blocking most of his face. His glassy eyes swept the room, and he struggled to focus on Andals who waited patiently. The boy’s gaunt frame was pale, and the clothes he wore still had a few patches of former finery showing through the mud and soot, likely stolen. He shuddered and stretched, squeezing his eyes tightly shut for a moment, and croaked.
“So, my interrogator,” he broke off in a painful coughing fit, “My interrogator finally arrives. Judge, jury, and executioner. Go on, get it over with.” He set his jaw and raised his head as high as he could. “I’m ready.”
Andals sighed. “My dear boy, I’m not who you think I am. I don't want to judge you. I only want to ask a few questions about your experience.” He raised an open hand, placatingly. “I may even be able to help you.”
The boy chuckled mirthlessly. “Ha, help me? Help me what? Be thrown into your wizards prison? No thank you, sir. I’m okay with dying.”
“You killed a great many people, son,” Andals said softly. “I’m afraid the Fylamenton is not an option for you. If you let me help, we can avoid a painful and destructive interrogation.”
The boy gulped, and tried to hide it by settling back into an attempt at a relaxed pose.
“May I at least know your name?” Andals asked.
“Tell me your name, old man, maybe you’ll get mine.”
“Paul Andals,” he said quickly.
“Inquisition lackey,” the boy drawled.
“Yes.”
“Inquisition paper-pusher.”
“Yes.”
“You write the death warrants for people like me and pretend the blood isn’t on your hands.”
“Yes.”
“...Jack.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jack.”
Jack raised his shackled hands. “Is it really?”
“As I said, Jack, I will do what I can for you. Now then,” Andals raised his stylus and began to take notes. “Do you have any family, Jack?”
Jack chuckled incredulously. “Is this what we’re going to do? You ask some stupid questions about my life, and then your Inquisitor friends come in the axe?”
“It won’t be an axe, Jack. It will be much worse. Please, let me help.”
Jack looked away, and said, “You really think a guy like me has family lying around, Paul?”
“I think it’s a polite question with which to start. I imagine that people have not been polite towards you in life, Jack. Are you in pain?”
“Well, you’re no mage, clearly.” Jack shut his eyes and hung his head. “This room, these things,” indicating his shackles and the metal rods in the floor, “they eat my magic. It’s like I’m drowning. I can barely reach it at all.” His voice began to rise in volume and speed. “You’ve never tasted magic, never felt it in your blood. It’s life, it’s air, it’s the only thing worth living for.” He surged upright, standing and straining forwards against his shackles, “and you’ve ripped it out of me! I want it back!”
Outside the cell, Dagne and I reached for weapons, but Sgt. Peirsson waved us off. His interest was on Andals, who had not reacted to the outburst. I did not share his confidence in the room’s restraints.
Andals wrote a line on his notes, and looked up at Jack who was still straining and breathing heavily. “Jack,” he said quietly, “tell me about Kullervo.”
Jack slumped, and sat on the floor, his back against the stone seat, shackles pooling around him. He stayed quiet for a long moment. “That’s it. That’s why you’re here. This is about finding him, not me.” He ran thin fingers through his thick, matted hair. “You don’t care about me.”
Andals uncrossed his legs, set his notes aside, and leaned down towards Jack, hands clasped.
“I do care, Jack. I care about sparing you any further pain. I care about stopping the man who did this to you.”
Jack tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. “He gave me magic,” he said, as if that was the only explanation that mattered. “He taught me what it felt like, how to touch it. He taught me everything.”
“He taught you how to invade minds, Jack. How to steal memories, mutilate souls, raise the dead and make them serve you.”
“You don’t know what it’s like, you can’t feel it. To finally feel like you can protect yourself and your friends, to have that power,” Jack said.
Andals leaned back and collected his notes. “Why wasn’t Kullervo there to help you when they came for you, Jack? Or your friends?”
Jack shook his head and closed his eyes, “It wasn’t like that. I know what you’re trying to do. He didn’t abandon me. I screwed up and got caught. It’s my own fault.”
Andals said, “Jack, I have seen many other young practitioners such as yourself, trained by Kullervo, used by him for his own ends, then left holding the bag, so to speak.”
Jack shook his head again, resolute. “No, it’s not like that. He teaches us, but we make our own decisions, our own mistakes. We have to live with the consequences.”
“His words, not yours.”
Jack stayed silent.
Andals rose, sliding his notes into his satchel. He took the chair and moved it to the corner of the room, placing his satchel on it, and turned back to Jack. He carefully cleaned his glasses before placing them into a lapel pocket. Paul stood over Jack at the edge of the metal squares that covered the floor, hands clasped in front of him. “Jack, I need to know what you know about Kullervo. Those other young practitioners very rarely lived to meet me. You are in the unique position of being able to recount his movements, plans, and last known location. I am at least three days behind him, and you need to help me now. I do not have the time to waste.”
Jack looked up at Andals, confused and angry. “Why would I help you?” He sneered, “You’re just going to fill out a form, and send in the goons to torture me to death.”
Andals looked down at Jack impassively, and said, “If you don’t help me now, Jack, it will be I who tortures you.”
Jack looked up at the old man in confusion, but then noticed that Andals had shaken his right wrist lightly, and a bracelet of metallic beads was now visible. Arcane symbols decorated each bead. Jack’s eyes flew wide, and he scrambled backwards up the stone seat away from Andals.
“Wait, you’re a..” He stammered.
Andals hand flung up and clenched into a fist. Across the floor, the metal rods sprang up with it in a blink, forming into an inwardly spiked cage, and Jack grabbed his head, screaming in pain.
Andals now spoke coldly, in clipped tones.
“You talk of magic being life, yet you’ve only ever used it for destruction and pain. You don’t deserve it, Jack. You complained about this room strangling your magic, but all it did was suppress it. This is what it feels like to have your magic strangled.”
Jack writhed and twisted on the stone seat, tearing at his head. Outside the cell, Dagne, Sgt. Peirsson and I drew back, dismayed. Wishing pain on the boy who had done so much harm was one thing, watching it was another. I heard Dagne mutter a quiet oath under her breath. Inside, Andals continued.
“Kullervo taught you how to rip information from an unwilling mind, Jack. He taught you how to break the first and most sacred Law of Magic. I have the authority and license of the Inquisition of the Varanan Guard to do the same to you.”
He raised his arm higher, palm open and facing up. Jack was lifted into the air by an unseen force, the metal rods rising and forming a fountain of sharp metal around him. He gasped, his arms stretched down towards the floor, pulled by his shackles.
“I give you one last chance, Jack.” Andals said, “You know the damage that can happen to an invaded mind, you’ve done it yourself. Tell me Kullervo’s current location.”
“I can’t,” Jack wheezed, “he won’t let me.”
“His magic can’t reach you in here,” Andals said, “you are under no compulsions but your own.”
“I can’t,” he repeated, “he did things to me, to my head. I can’t see him, I… he said it was to protect me.” Tears rolled down Jack’s cheeks.
Andals hand dropped slightly, and he sighed. “Oh, Jack. I’m sorry. If he has edited your mind, or left spells of protection against me, I must break them. I do regret this, I truly do.”
He raised his arm straight, his fingers aimed at Jack. The beads on his wrist glowed, and the floating metal rods now surrounded Jack in the air, rotating menacingly. Jack began to scream again.
Dagne looked away. Sgt. Peirsson and I shared a look, then turned our backs to the cell. I lost track of time amid the screams. Dagne left the room at some point. She had not been released from guard duty, but Sgt. Peirsson made no comment. He and I sat in the hall until Jack’s voice wore to shreds and failed. We could still feel the angry thrum from the metal rods in the room, reverberating out of the cell. At some point, they stopped, and we heard the crashing of chains, followed by a dull thud. The sergeant and I cautiously peered into the cell.
Andals was standing in the corner, writing notes, visibly unaffected by the ordeal. Jack was sprawled on the stone seat, his eyes bloodshot, drooling slightly and trembling. Andals glanced up at us. The friendly old man we had met earlier had been replaced. Now he seemed a stern and dangerous figure of righteous justice. He smiled briefly at us, and now it reminded me of some large reptilian predator. I pulled back from the door, involuntarily. Andals put down his notes and turned back to Jack. He stood over him, and tsked softly.
“I’m sorry Jack. I wish there had been other options. Do you remember now?”
Jack had flinched at Andals’ voice, and I watched him curl into a ball.
Andals spoke softly again.
“Do you remember what he made you do? What he did to you?”
Jack made a high-pitched keening sound and curled tighter. It was not a human sound.
Andals nodded sadly.
“You have done terrible things, my boy, and terrible things have been done to you. I wanted to do this earlier, without these greater sufferings.”
Andals drew himself up and took a deep breath. He spoke in a strong, official voice.
“By the authority granted to me by the Inquisition of the Varanan Guard, I, Inquisitor Paul Andals, find you guilty of violating the Laws of Magic. For your crimes, your access to magic must be permanently severed.”
He made a small gesture, and the metal rods began to spin, circling Jack low along the floor, spinning until they became a brassy blur. Abruptly, the rods froze, locked in midair. Jack burst up to his knees, eyes bulging in horror. His mouth open in a silent scream, every vein and muscle straining. Andals snapped his fingers, and the rods lashed out, striking Jack in the neck from every angle. I heard the sound of his neck breaking across the room. He fell dead to the floor, and the rods floated into their cradles like restful serpents. Andals stepped closer, crouching next to Jack’s body. He whispered, low enough that I struggled to hear.
“...and yet for your suffering I grant you a quick and easy death. I can give you that, at least.”
He patted Jacks head gently, then rose and turned away. Sgt. Peirsson and I flung ourselves away from the door, out of sight. From inside, Andals called out wryly. “Gentlemen, the door please.”
Sgt. Peirsson gave me a look that communicated our difference in rank, and I opened the cell. Andals stepped out and looked at us slowly, each in turn.
“Ah, Lord Inquisitor sir, about what I said earlier,” Sgt. Peirsson stammered.
“No, sergeant, what you expressed was accurate.” Andals said. He paged through his notes for a moment.
“I have what I need. My thanks to you and your Guardsmen, sergeant.”
Andals turned to me and locked eyes with me. I resisted the urge to bolt from the room, barely.
“Was that an acceptable resolution to your story?”
The Name in the Fog
I write this account under protest. What I have seen should not be described, lest it be invoked, or worse, sought out. For months now, I have lived in fear, often woken from indescribable nightmares by the sounds of my own hoarse screaming. The hovel I hide in is a creaking, hostile thing, and any sudden sound will send me into terrified rages. Many hours have I spent curled in the darkened corners, weeping in terror at the thought of the things I cannot, must not, comprehend. My only companions are these cold-eyed men who compel me to relive my horror, to see those dreaded memories. The bitter medicines they force me to take does nothing to still my shaking hands, or to quiet my shrieking when their questions brought the forbidden images back to the forefront of my thoughts. Only now, deep in the haze of doubled or tripled doses do my hands remain still enough to write, my mind sluggish enough to remember without breaking.
Damn them. Damn them and their medicine, and their so called ‘research.’ Damn them for tempting me with the bleak hope of an obliterated memory and relief from this hell. By all the gods you hold dear, be they family spirits, city deities, or older gods of earth and sea and sky, do not retrace my steps. There are worse horrors on the earth than death and madness, and they live deep in that abyssal forest.
I was once a respected archaeologist, a well-studied and experienced hand, a veteran of mighty digs and excavations. I have located Atreidae ruins others had thought lost forever, and my journals are circulated in all the holds and cities of Atreus, Many young hopefuls attended my lectures at the colleges of Harljaden and Kilfanora. I am a wise, focused, student of science, and these damnable shrieks that escape me even now will not restrain me! I will tell the truth, every horrific moment, and the quaking terror that shakes my hand will be quelled, by all the gods!
The earliest parts of our journey are the most comfortable to recall, even tinged with the dread of memory. An expedition from Varanas was forming, commissioned by members of several Varanan Guilds and Orders, to explore newly discovered ruins at the edge of the Vithyr forest, East of the Sallatun Boglands. The peat farmers there had risked superstition to venture into the woods and found what appeared to be an abandoned Ancient outpost: little more than arranged stones and petrified scraps of wood by their description, but the Varanans had taken an interest in the story, and I was the obvious choice to lead the expedition.
We sent out from Varanas in late Summer, hoping to strike at the site before cold and wet made the work too difficult. Among our troupe were Guildsmen from Varanan schools of architecture and design, historian Scribes, a contingent of Guardsman, a large manual labor force, and strangely, an Inquisitor with two mages in tow, ostensibly to prove that mages could be trusted in the field, and to practice their earth magic. My objections regarding the delicate nature of an archaeological excavation and the brute force of most young mages fell on deaf ears.
We brought supplies for six months: large wagons heaped with fresh timber, rope, pulleys, tents, and enough food for a small army, despite the relative proximity of the city of Nurmis. The Varanans and the Nurmites had a bitter rivalry, and I held my tongue on the matter. We arrived at the edge of the Vithyr forest without incident, on a foggy morning. The dense, old growth trees curled their way up into the steep mountains, and clouds blurred into the trees, leaving the air cold and damp around us as we set up camp. The site was only a few minutes walk beyond the treeline, which I found shocking; how had it gone undiscovered for so long? I consulted the locals we had recruited, and they answered with the normal degree of peasant superstitions about the Reinn. My digs rarely took me to the deep forests of Atreus, but this persistent story of the Reinn, the vicious spirits that supposedly inhabited all the old forests, was one I had encountered almost everywhere. I found them unhelpful in the extreme, as locals were never willing to cooperate or venture too deep into the old forests, and even lumbersmiths preferred to grow their own meagre tree farms over harvesting the old growth. Oh gods! If I had only died before crossing into that yawning abyss! Burn it! Burn it all and me with it!
The Varanan Order has given me more medicine now, and once again it is easier to write. They stand guard in and around this ruined house, and one of them knows a little magic. She has drawn some magic wards around my room, and the soft light of their glow is comforting, even if I doubt their efficacy. She helped me remove the barricades I had stacked against the windows, and now looking at the far distant forest merely causes wracking shudders, not blind panic. Fog swirls through the treetops like the medicinal haze in my mind. I feel recovered enough to resume.
We marched into the forest the day after setting camp at its edge, and located the ruins easily. There were several structures visible even without excavation, and we quickly uncovered several more. I was joyous to discover what appeared to be an actual settlement, not a monument or ancient shrine: There were several houses gathered around a central obelisk, which was remarkably preserved, and the text upon it allowed us to immediately confirm that the site was indeed an Ancient Atreidae settlement! We set about the laborious process of carefully unearthing the houses and larger structures, and discovered many artifacts, well preserved by the boggy soil. Some were familiar to me, but there were new designs, extremely primitive, which were the subject of great excitement. These were archaic charms made of some kind of bone, cut jagged with primitive tools, etched with twisting symbols that did not match the runic formats of other Atreidae excavations. Some of these bones were bound into humanoid shapes, though of fantastic design, many having extra limbs or inhuman proportions. Perhaps a local deity, we thought, or bizarre children’s toys. We cataloged and collected a great many.
We built foundations for the larger excavations, and began creating a more permanent encampment at the site. The local’s fears seemed unfounded, and the next two days passed without incident. The young mages assisted with the larger earth-moving operations, and were very enthusiastic assistants. One of them, a young man named Wadim, went on at length about his newfound understanding of earth magic. He told me that the forest seemed to hum with potential energy, and power leapt into his hands at the slightest touch. I humored him, perhaps too much, for the following day his attempt to unearth a large portion of the town square caused a muddy eruption that damaged some of our equipment and coated the work crew in thick, peaty soil. Wadim was deeply embarrassed and apologetic at first, but the Inquisitor, a dour-faced man called Rasmuss, was deeply troubled and angry. He immediately took Wadim back to the primary camp outside the forest edge. It was in the silence after that incident when I realized that we had not heard or seen any animals in the three days since we arrived.
The next morning, it was clear to me that the lack of wildlife and the pressing silence of the area was beginning to affect the expeditions morale. Breakfast was conducted in whispers and muffled movements, as if we were all afraid to breach the silence that the thick morning fog had swaddled around the camp. Wadim and Rasmuss had not emerged from their tent, and some of the Guardsmen muttered about corrupted mages, a concept with which I had little experience. The other mage sat in wide-eyed confusion, unsure how to behave without their watchful Inquisitor over their shoulder. We returned to the site to check on the progress of the night crew we had left behind to clean up Wadim’s mess.
When we arrived, the crew was gone. Not missing or absent, but truly gone, nonexistent. I cannot adequately describe this thought, and at the time, we could not admit it. We called out, we searched, we retraced the paths to camp, looking for the nearly dozen men left behind, but thinking on it now, I believe we all knew, somehow. We called out quietly, and not more than once or twice. We searched, but only a few steps beyond the site. We retraced the path to camp to rid ourselves of the reality. We had found tools, tracks in the mud, and many other signs of their presence, and all had simply stopped. I myself followed a trail of bootprints in the boggy soil, across the excavated square, to the obelisk in the center. The trail had stopped, and never continued. There was no sign of struggle or haste, and all signs indicated that the crew had been working one moment, vanished the next. Back at camp, we sat in restless, nervous silence. The locals abandoned us within the hour. We did not try to stop them.
As leader of the expedition, the burden of responsibility fell to me. Unwilling, or perhaps unable, to admit my fears and growing superstition, I rallied all hands at the camp for a second search, deeper into the woods if need be. Inquisitor Rasmuss and Wadim emerged as well, Wadim with his eyes downcast and remote, and Rasmuss alert and hawkish. I hoped that he would help maintain order with me. On the way out of camp, I caught one of the workers collecting the artifacts we had brought out of the site, and pocketing them. When I confronted him, he seemed confused, as if taking them back with us was somehow necessary. I feared for the fraying nerves of the party, and marched out in front, Rasmuss and the mages bringing up the rear, as we plunged into the oppressive fog of the forest.
With no tracks to follow, we spread into a loose column, moving slowly deeper. I had not insisted that we call out for the missing men, and no one chose to do so. Rasmuss was close to me now, and I shared my concerns. His alert eyes, ever moving, lit on me only briefly. I remember his words well.
“Your people sense magic, though they don’t understand it,” he said. “This place is saturated with it, and it carries a malevolence that presses on their minds.”
“Malevolence?” I whispered. “Are we in danger?”
He sneered dismissively. “All forests are dangerous, this one no less so. The magic is a threat to them, not you.” He jerked his chin at the mages. “If they linger here too long, they risk being infested with it.”
I glanced nervously between them. “Should they be here, then?”
Rasmuss’ face was cold. “Either they will resist it, and become trustworthy members of our Order, or they will die.” He turned his impassive face to me. “If I fail in my duty, you and the others must succeed in stopping them.”
“By the gods, man, just take them away! We can spare the bodies!”
“This is as good a test as any. And no, I don’t think you can.” Rasmuss turned his back to me and moved away, hovering ominously over the mages. I did not question him further.
As we spread in silence through the woods, the trees became thicker, their trunks growing as wide as houses, with labyrinthine branches curling into the dense cover above. Almost no light breached the high ceiling, and what did was absorbed by fog, casting the forest into a pale, ethereal twilight. Moving forward became an arduous task, and we traversed rootbeds that fell away to deep ravines, and patches of deep, sticky mud. Every sound and exertion made us wince, and the men were wild-eyed, sweating despite the cold air. I fell behind more than once, and each time sent shudders through my body. The camp behind us was long since out of sight.
As I caught up to the main body of our group, I saw that the daylight was brighter ahead, and that the men in front had stopped. Soon, all of our group stopped, spread around the edges of a circular clearing, and the daylight was a momentary relief. The open space contained a small hill, upon which stood an object made of wood. A circular disc, made of twisted branches, their spiked tips flaring outwards in a spiral, stood upright in the center of the hill, surrounded by further rings of wood laid upon the ground on and around the hill. The outer rings had thick wooden spines jutting out towards the treeline, like a defensive barrier, at even intervals. Near the great disc in the center, a family of deer grazed peacefully, taking no notice of us. The men stood in horrified, grim silence. Upon each of the spines on the outer ring was the impaled bodies of our missing men. Their clothes were gone, and bizarre sigils had been carved into their flesh. Their blood had poured down the wooden spines, and the reddened branches glistened.
We stood there for an indeterminate age, all of us unwilling to act, speak, or even move. In time, we stirred, and in unspoken agreement began to move away from the grisly scene, back towards camp, when the high canopy of leaves rustled in sudden noise, and the greasy fog in the clearing swirled. To us, so used to silence, the noise was deafening, and we cast around ourselves in confusion, gripped by an even greater fear. My whole body trembled, and I heard some of us whimpering. An ancestral drive to run filled me, but my limbs would not cooperate, and as I looked at myself, a new revelation pulled at my sanity: my clothes were still, not moving with the wind, for there was no wind. The fog in the clearing coiled around the monstrous structures like a serpent, the trees groaned and creaked, and the deer were staring at us. Oh gods, the deer stared at us.
We abandoned sanity. We scattered in all directions, shoving and clawing at each other to escape, to escape the feeling curling around our throats, to escape the grisly scene, to escape the fog and the deer. I tripped almost immediately, and heard a colossal thud in front of me. Something made of wood, plant life, bones, and a grotesque blend of flesh and sinew, landed before me like a great tree trunk. My gaze moved up to see that the trunk was a leg, attached to a being that brushed the treetops, a being of too many limbs, its head a giant skull of some hideous animal. Thorny spines burst from it in all directions, and its long, sinuous, creaking limbs swung wide, giant hands with fingers like spiked shovels sweeping up my scattering people. As I lay shaking in horror, it drew its hands towards its center, the torso pulling open to reveal a fleshy maw filled with jagged, uneven teeth. I gathered my legs under me and ran as the first man was inserted, the maw sealing behind him, and the muffled screaming began.
I did not run far before I saw more beings like the first, some smaller but with layers of spines, some writhing masses of tentacular branches, all rising from the earth or slithering from the trees to consume us. The fog itself participated, exposing men in hiding, thickening where men were fleeing, coiling sensuously around the beings, and moving through them. Screams of terror, pain, and death filled the forest, as well as a great writhing, growling sound, so deep it shook my bones. I had lost all sense of direction, running on animal instinct. I ran and ran, ignoring the pounding in my heart and head. I rounded a wide trunk and fell again, into a long, narrow, muddy ravine. I flailed in panic as I slid down the walls, then stumbling out one end, until a hand seized my shirt and pulled me to a stop. I shrieked and struck out, but Rasmuss turned my face towards his, a finger to his lips. He too was muddy, but blood was across his face and hands as well. Behind him I saw the body of the other mage, throat slit, clothes torn. Rasmuss did not explain, but pointed out into the forest. The fog swirled in great coiling arcs, and revealed Wadim, in the grasp of one of the beings.
This being was smaller than the others, only perhaps twice the size of a man, and with human proportions. The flesh and wood that made up its body was old, blackened and gnarled. Long tendrils swept back from its head like hair, rasping like dead wood. A great cloak of timber, woven with sinew and bone, stretched around it and out across the forest floor. From that cloak flowed fog, billowing like smoke from a chimney. Its face was a wooden slab of a mask, a malevolent caricature of a human, roughly hewn, mossy and broken. Deep in the holes where eyes should be were glowing embers of gold and green, ghostly whispers of energy leaking from the sockets. Its hands were almost delicate, sharp and narrow blackened bone, and they cradled Wadim’s head, as the being hunched down, eye to eye with him.
Wadim was not struggling, but he was shaking violently, his mouth silently working, tears streaming down his face. The being hissed, and the fog swirling like a gentle hurricane around it abruptly reversed direction. It stood upright, lifting Wadim by the neck, and encompassed his head with one of its hands. I saw the fingertips pierce his flesh, but he did not scream, eyes still locked with the being. I felt a guttural pulse move through the earth around me, the fog rippling with it, and the golden green energy of the being flowed outwards from it, down its arm, and into Wadim. His body shook and twitched as the energy permeated him, moving down through him and illuminating his veins. Where the light moved, blackness followed, and something thick and rootlike penetrated his body, greying his skin like a sudden disease. Woody protrusions distorted his dimensions, and I heard his bones breaking across the forest. Still, he gave no sound, and the being hissed again, softer, as if in pleasure. The monstrous transformation of Wadim continued, and Rasmuss and I watched.
When the foul change was finished, the being dropped what was once Wadim. Now, a grey-skinned, hulking shape stood on trunk-like legs, black veins writhing. It stood calmly, looking up at the being, which let out another pleased hiss. Rasmuss turned to me and held my gaze, silent. He slowly pushed me back into the entrance of the muddy ravine, his finger once again on his lips. Once I was hidden, he stepped towards Wadim and the being.
“Wadim!” he called out. The pair turned, the hulking shape that was once Wadim slowly, ponderously, the being with snake-like speed.
“Wadim,” he said softly. “We have both failed each other.”
I watched Rasmuss charge towards them, an amulet dangling from a silver chain clasped in his hand. A personal symbol of magic, perhaps, or a token of faith, it glowed with a silver light, growing more and more intense as he ran, the fog reeling back like waves parting before a mighty ship. He held it aloft, and the blinding silver light burned the fog from the surrounding forest. As I turned my face away, two embers of golden green light caught my eye.
It doesn’t matter. Rasmuss died, but I didn’t see it. I fled through the ravine, clawed my way out, ran on. I remember the glow of competing colors of light behind me, the golden green enveloping the silver. I remember the pounding tempo in my head as I ran. I don’t know how long I ran, or how I came to be back at the dig site, but I remember the words on the obelisk. The twisted, foul symbols that formed a word, a word my mouth cannot form but my mind can feel, a word that I know is a name. The obelisk glistened slickly with dew, and the golden green light at its core pulsed to the tempo in my mind, the tempo that formed a name. It doesn’t matter.
Sitting at this desk, I have looked at the forest again, just now. It is almost obscured by the fog that rushes towards me across the open bog. I can hear the Varanans calling out now, to each other and to me, but it doesn’t matter. The drumming in my head is a name, and it is coming for me. They are banging on the door now, but I have locked it. I hear their screams, their deaths, the same as all the rest that have tried to understand. The protective runes glow brightly, blue-silver, but I will shatter them now, and open the door. The fog is waiting to take me back, pressed flush around the house, the window before me, and in my head, the name is calling, knocking on my mind, and the door. I invite it in.
Damn them. Damn them and their medicine, and their so called ‘research.’ Damn them for tempting me with the bleak hope of an obliterated memory and relief from this hell. By all the gods you hold dear, be they family spirits, city deities, or older gods of earth and sea and sky, do not retrace my steps. There are worse horrors on the earth than death and madness, and they live deep in that abyssal forest.
I was once a respected archaeologist, a well-studied and experienced hand, a veteran of mighty digs and excavations. I have located Atreidae ruins others had thought lost forever, and my journals are circulated in all the holds and cities of Atreus, Many young hopefuls attended my lectures at the colleges of Harljaden and Kilfanora. I am a wise, focused, student of science, and these damnable shrieks that escape me even now will not restrain me! I will tell the truth, every horrific moment, and the quaking terror that shakes my hand will be quelled, by all the gods!
The earliest parts of our journey are the most comfortable to recall, even tinged with the dread of memory. An expedition from Varanas was forming, commissioned by members of several Varanan Guilds and Orders, to explore newly discovered ruins at the edge of the Vithyr forest, East of the Sallatun Boglands. The peat farmers there had risked superstition to venture into the woods and found what appeared to be an abandoned Ancient outpost: little more than arranged stones and petrified scraps of wood by their description, but the Varanans had taken an interest in the story, and I was the obvious choice to lead the expedition.
We sent out from Varanas in late Summer, hoping to strike at the site before cold and wet made the work too difficult. Among our troupe were Guildsmen from Varanan schools of architecture and design, historian Scribes, a contingent of Guardsman, a large manual labor force, and strangely, an Inquisitor with two mages in tow, ostensibly to prove that mages could be trusted in the field, and to practice their earth magic. My objections regarding the delicate nature of an archaeological excavation and the brute force of most young mages fell on deaf ears.
We brought supplies for six months: large wagons heaped with fresh timber, rope, pulleys, tents, and enough food for a small army, despite the relative proximity of the city of Nurmis. The Varanans and the Nurmites had a bitter rivalry, and I held my tongue on the matter. We arrived at the edge of the Vithyr forest without incident, on a foggy morning. The dense, old growth trees curled their way up into the steep mountains, and clouds blurred into the trees, leaving the air cold and damp around us as we set up camp. The site was only a few minutes walk beyond the treeline, which I found shocking; how had it gone undiscovered for so long? I consulted the locals we had recruited, and they answered with the normal degree of peasant superstitions about the Reinn. My digs rarely took me to the deep forests of Atreus, but this persistent story of the Reinn, the vicious spirits that supposedly inhabited all the old forests, was one I had encountered almost everywhere. I found them unhelpful in the extreme, as locals were never willing to cooperate or venture too deep into the old forests, and even lumbersmiths preferred to grow their own meagre tree farms over harvesting the old growth. Oh gods! If I had only died before crossing into that yawning abyss! Burn it! Burn it all and me with it!
The Varanan Order has given me more medicine now, and once again it is easier to write. They stand guard in and around this ruined house, and one of them knows a little magic. She has drawn some magic wards around my room, and the soft light of their glow is comforting, even if I doubt their efficacy. She helped me remove the barricades I had stacked against the windows, and now looking at the far distant forest merely causes wracking shudders, not blind panic. Fog swirls through the treetops like the medicinal haze in my mind. I feel recovered enough to resume.
We marched into the forest the day after setting camp at its edge, and located the ruins easily. There were several structures visible even without excavation, and we quickly uncovered several more. I was joyous to discover what appeared to be an actual settlement, not a monument or ancient shrine: There were several houses gathered around a central obelisk, which was remarkably preserved, and the text upon it allowed us to immediately confirm that the site was indeed an Ancient Atreidae settlement! We set about the laborious process of carefully unearthing the houses and larger structures, and discovered many artifacts, well preserved by the boggy soil. Some were familiar to me, but there were new designs, extremely primitive, which were the subject of great excitement. These were archaic charms made of some kind of bone, cut jagged with primitive tools, etched with twisting symbols that did not match the runic formats of other Atreidae excavations. Some of these bones were bound into humanoid shapes, though of fantastic design, many having extra limbs or inhuman proportions. Perhaps a local deity, we thought, or bizarre children’s toys. We cataloged and collected a great many.
We built foundations for the larger excavations, and began creating a more permanent encampment at the site. The local’s fears seemed unfounded, and the next two days passed without incident. The young mages assisted with the larger earth-moving operations, and were very enthusiastic assistants. One of them, a young man named Wadim, went on at length about his newfound understanding of earth magic. He told me that the forest seemed to hum with potential energy, and power leapt into his hands at the slightest touch. I humored him, perhaps too much, for the following day his attempt to unearth a large portion of the town square caused a muddy eruption that damaged some of our equipment and coated the work crew in thick, peaty soil. Wadim was deeply embarrassed and apologetic at first, but the Inquisitor, a dour-faced man called Rasmuss, was deeply troubled and angry. He immediately took Wadim back to the primary camp outside the forest edge. It was in the silence after that incident when I realized that we had not heard or seen any animals in the three days since we arrived.
The next morning, it was clear to me that the lack of wildlife and the pressing silence of the area was beginning to affect the expeditions morale. Breakfast was conducted in whispers and muffled movements, as if we were all afraid to breach the silence that the thick morning fog had swaddled around the camp. Wadim and Rasmuss had not emerged from their tent, and some of the Guardsmen muttered about corrupted mages, a concept with which I had little experience. The other mage sat in wide-eyed confusion, unsure how to behave without their watchful Inquisitor over their shoulder. We returned to the site to check on the progress of the night crew we had left behind to clean up Wadim’s mess.
When we arrived, the crew was gone. Not missing or absent, but truly gone, nonexistent. I cannot adequately describe this thought, and at the time, we could not admit it. We called out, we searched, we retraced the paths to camp, looking for the nearly dozen men left behind, but thinking on it now, I believe we all knew, somehow. We called out quietly, and not more than once or twice. We searched, but only a few steps beyond the site. We retraced the path to camp to rid ourselves of the reality. We had found tools, tracks in the mud, and many other signs of their presence, and all had simply stopped. I myself followed a trail of bootprints in the boggy soil, across the excavated square, to the obelisk in the center. The trail had stopped, and never continued. There was no sign of struggle or haste, and all signs indicated that the crew had been working one moment, vanished the next. Back at camp, we sat in restless, nervous silence. The locals abandoned us within the hour. We did not try to stop them.
As leader of the expedition, the burden of responsibility fell to me. Unwilling, or perhaps unable, to admit my fears and growing superstition, I rallied all hands at the camp for a second search, deeper into the woods if need be. Inquisitor Rasmuss and Wadim emerged as well, Wadim with his eyes downcast and remote, and Rasmuss alert and hawkish. I hoped that he would help maintain order with me. On the way out of camp, I caught one of the workers collecting the artifacts we had brought out of the site, and pocketing them. When I confronted him, he seemed confused, as if taking them back with us was somehow necessary. I feared for the fraying nerves of the party, and marched out in front, Rasmuss and the mages bringing up the rear, as we plunged into the oppressive fog of the forest.
With no tracks to follow, we spread into a loose column, moving slowly deeper. I had not insisted that we call out for the missing men, and no one chose to do so. Rasmuss was close to me now, and I shared my concerns. His alert eyes, ever moving, lit on me only briefly. I remember his words well.
“Your people sense magic, though they don’t understand it,” he said. “This place is saturated with it, and it carries a malevolence that presses on their minds.”
“Malevolence?” I whispered. “Are we in danger?”
He sneered dismissively. “All forests are dangerous, this one no less so. The magic is a threat to them, not you.” He jerked his chin at the mages. “If they linger here too long, they risk being infested with it.”
I glanced nervously between them. “Should they be here, then?”
Rasmuss’ face was cold. “Either they will resist it, and become trustworthy members of our Order, or they will die.” He turned his impassive face to me. “If I fail in my duty, you and the others must succeed in stopping them.”
“By the gods, man, just take them away! We can spare the bodies!”
“This is as good a test as any. And no, I don’t think you can.” Rasmuss turned his back to me and moved away, hovering ominously over the mages. I did not question him further.
As we spread in silence through the woods, the trees became thicker, their trunks growing as wide as houses, with labyrinthine branches curling into the dense cover above. Almost no light breached the high ceiling, and what did was absorbed by fog, casting the forest into a pale, ethereal twilight. Moving forward became an arduous task, and we traversed rootbeds that fell away to deep ravines, and patches of deep, sticky mud. Every sound and exertion made us wince, and the men were wild-eyed, sweating despite the cold air. I fell behind more than once, and each time sent shudders through my body. The camp behind us was long since out of sight.
As I caught up to the main body of our group, I saw that the daylight was brighter ahead, and that the men in front had stopped. Soon, all of our group stopped, spread around the edges of a circular clearing, and the daylight was a momentary relief. The open space contained a small hill, upon which stood an object made of wood. A circular disc, made of twisted branches, their spiked tips flaring outwards in a spiral, stood upright in the center of the hill, surrounded by further rings of wood laid upon the ground on and around the hill. The outer rings had thick wooden spines jutting out towards the treeline, like a defensive barrier, at even intervals. Near the great disc in the center, a family of deer grazed peacefully, taking no notice of us. The men stood in horrified, grim silence. Upon each of the spines on the outer ring was the impaled bodies of our missing men. Their clothes were gone, and bizarre sigils had been carved into their flesh. Their blood had poured down the wooden spines, and the reddened branches glistened.
We stood there for an indeterminate age, all of us unwilling to act, speak, or even move. In time, we stirred, and in unspoken agreement began to move away from the grisly scene, back towards camp, when the high canopy of leaves rustled in sudden noise, and the greasy fog in the clearing swirled. To us, so used to silence, the noise was deafening, and we cast around ourselves in confusion, gripped by an even greater fear. My whole body trembled, and I heard some of us whimpering. An ancestral drive to run filled me, but my limbs would not cooperate, and as I looked at myself, a new revelation pulled at my sanity: my clothes were still, not moving with the wind, for there was no wind. The fog in the clearing coiled around the monstrous structures like a serpent, the trees groaned and creaked, and the deer were staring at us. Oh gods, the deer stared at us.
We abandoned sanity. We scattered in all directions, shoving and clawing at each other to escape, to escape the feeling curling around our throats, to escape the grisly scene, to escape the fog and the deer. I tripped almost immediately, and heard a colossal thud in front of me. Something made of wood, plant life, bones, and a grotesque blend of flesh and sinew, landed before me like a great tree trunk. My gaze moved up to see that the trunk was a leg, attached to a being that brushed the treetops, a being of too many limbs, its head a giant skull of some hideous animal. Thorny spines burst from it in all directions, and its long, sinuous, creaking limbs swung wide, giant hands with fingers like spiked shovels sweeping up my scattering people. As I lay shaking in horror, it drew its hands towards its center, the torso pulling open to reveal a fleshy maw filled with jagged, uneven teeth. I gathered my legs under me and ran as the first man was inserted, the maw sealing behind him, and the muffled screaming began.
I did not run far before I saw more beings like the first, some smaller but with layers of spines, some writhing masses of tentacular branches, all rising from the earth or slithering from the trees to consume us. The fog itself participated, exposing men in hiding, thickening where men were fleeing, coiling sensuously around the beings, and moving through them. Screams of terror, pain, and death filled the forest, as well as a great writhing, growling sound, so deep it shook my bones. I had lost all sense of direction, running on animal instinct. I ran and ran, ignoring the pounding in my heart and head. I rounded a wide trunk and fell again, into a long, narrow, muddy ravine. I flailed in panic as I slid down the walls, then stumbling out one end, until a hand seized my shirt and pulled me to a stop. I shrieked and struck out, but Rasmuss turned my face towards his, a finger to his lips. He too was muddy, but blood was across his face and hands as well. Behind him I saw the body of the other mage, throat slit, clothes torn. Rasmuss did not explain, but pointed out into the forest. The fog swirled in great coiling arcs, and revealed Wadim, in the grasp of one of the beings.
This being was smaller than the others, only perhaps twice the size of a man, and with human proportions. The flesh and wood that made up its body was old, blackened and gnarled. Long tendrils swept back from its head like hair, rasping like dead wood. A great cloak of timber, woven with sinew and bone, stretched around it and out across the forest floor. From that cloak flowed fog, billowing like smoke from a chimney. Its face was a wooden slab of a mask, a malevolent caricature of a human, roughly hewn, mossy and broken. Deep in the holes where eyes should be were glowing embers of gold and green, ghostly whispers of energy leaking from the sockets. Its hands were almost delicate, sharp and narrow blackened bone, and they cradled Wadim’s head, as the being hunched down, eye to eye with him.
Wadim was not struggling, but he was shaking violently, his mouth silently working, tears streaming down his face. The being hissed, and the fog swirling like a gentle hurricane around it abruptly reversed direction. It stood upright, lifting Wadim by the neck, and encompassed his head with one of its hands. I saw the fingertips pierce his flesh, but he did not scream, eyes still locked with the being. I felt a guttural pulse move through the earth around me, the fog rippling with it, and the golden green energy of the being flowed outwards from it, down its arm, and into Wadim. His body shook and twitched as the energy permeated him, moving down through him and illuminating his veins. Where the light moved, blackness followed, and something thick and rootlike penetrated his body, greying his skin like a sudden disease. Woody protrusions distorted his dimensions, and I heard his bones breaking across the forest. Still, he gave no sound, and the being hissed again, softer, as if in pleasure. The monstrous transformation of Wadim continued, and Rasmuss and I watched.
When the foul change was finished, the being dropped what was once Wadim. Now, a grey-skinned, hulking shape stood on trunk-like legs, black veins writhing. It stood calmly, looking up at the being, which let out another pleased hiss. Rasmuss turned to me and held my gaze, silent. He slowly pushed me back into the entrance of the muddy ravine, his finger once again on his lips. Once I was hidden, he stepped towards Wadim and the being.
“Wadim!” he called out. The pair turned, the hulking shape that was once Wadim slowly, ponderously, the being with snake-like speed.
“Wadim,” he said softly. “We have both failed each other.”
I watched Rasmuss charge towards them, an amulet dangling from a silver chain clasped in his hand. A personal symbol of magic, perhaps, or a token of faith, it glowed with a silver light, growing more and more intense as he ran, the fog reeling back like waves parting before a mighty ship. He held it aloft, and the blinding silver light burned the fog from the surrounding forest. As I turned my face away, two embers of golden green light caught my eye.
It doesn’t matter. Rasmuss died, but I didn’t see it. I fled through the ravine, clawed my way out, ran on. I remember the glow of competing colors of light behind me, the golden green enveloping the silver. I remember the pounding tempo in my head as I ran. I don’t know how long I ran, or how I came to be back at the dig site, but I remember the words on the obelisk. The twisted, foul symbols that formed a word, a word my mouth cannot form but my mind can feel, a word that I know is a name. The obelisk glistened slickly with dew, and the golden green light at its core pulsed to the tempo in my mind, the tempo that formed a name. It doesn’t matter.
Sitting at this desk, I have looked at the forest again, just now. It is almost obscured by the fog that rushes towards me across the open bog. I can hear the Varanans calling out now, to each other and to me, but it doesn’t matter. The drumming in my head is a name, and it is coming for me. They are banging on the door now, but I have locked it. I hear their screams, their deaths, the same as all the rest that have tried to understand. The protective runes glow brightly, blue-silver, but I will shatter them now, and open the door. The fog is waiting to take me back, pressed flush around the house, the window before me, and in my head, the name is calling, knocking on my mind, and the door. I invite it in.
Ymir's Revenge
Piotr turned away from the battered wooden doorway, shielding his face from a blast of frigid, sleet-filled wind. He waved at Tarak, who had been standing guard, to head deeper into the hideout. The man was half frozen already, and you couldn’t see past the threshold in this weather anyway. Still, he closed up the entrance as tight as he could, and doused the lanterns. This was their last retreat, and more than half of the gang was already dead. If they were discovered here, it was over. Piotr muttered a curse at Ksavir, ran dirty hands across his scruffy face, and headed into the main hall.
The survivors huddled around a small fire, eating what was probably the last of their rations. The wind tore at the rafters, and snow sprinkled down from gaps in the high ceiling. Once a great longhouse, this particular hideout had fallen in disrepair long ago, and there wouldn’t be any time to repair it before they had to move again, even if Piotr wanted to try. Best not give any orders he knew wouldn’t be obeyed, he thought to himself. Watching them tear at their dry scraps of Hafrass jerky, they looked half feral. He was trying to maintain order, but they were getting slower to obey, and kept casting contemptuous looks at him when they thought he wasn’t looking. Being second in command meant less and less each day on their forced march away from the quarry. Being the leader wouldn’t mean much more, if they kept up this pace. The men looked at Ksavir the same way, and Piotr was having a hard time not sharing that feeling.
Ksavir sat apart from them, at the high table, or what was left of it. As usual, he was shoveling down food, greasy scraps falling to where his beard and belly had grown to meet each other. He glowered at the men below, and they kept their backs to him, well familiar with his anger. He kicked at the chair next to him, the scraping sound echoing through the hall. Piotr met his beady gaze, and Ksavir jerked his head at the chair. Piotr hesitated only for an instant before obeying. The men watched him pass by silently. He sensed he’d have to choose where he sat for good soon.
As he sat, Ksavir pushed an old plate his way, some hard bread with a slab of Hafrass meat, mostly blubber.
"Is that Tarak I see over there,” Ksavir growled quietly.
“The storm’s closed in. No point in standing guard when you can’t see your hand in front of your face.”
“I ordered Tarak to stand guard.”
“As soon as the storm breaks, he’ll go back.”
“You’ll take his place.”
Piotr took a slow bite, and nodded.
“Hard day tomorrow,” he said, “even if the storm breaks. Rations running low.”
“They’re my men,” Ksavir said. He slurped at a piece of blubber. “They’ll survive.”
“The ones that are still alive, that is.” Piotr had meant it as gallows humor, but it came out sharper. He had lost friends at the quarry.
Ksavir thumped a hairy palm on the table. “The strong survived. They obeyed me, and they lived. You lived too.”
Piotr could see the men watching them. They couldn’t hear the words, but they could see the tension. He still wasn’t sure which way they’d turn if it came to it. Not time yet. He turned his chair closer to Ksavir.
“Before the ambush, you called us a brotherhood. Now it’s ‘the strong survived?’” He pitched his voice a notch higher, for the crowd below. “We’re all quarriers together, aren’t we?” That caught their attention. Ksavir always set himself apart, acting like some kind of bandit aristocrat.
Ksavir picked at his teeth, and pushed away from the table, turning to face Piotr directly.
“Not just quarriers anymore,” he said. He spoke louder as well, for the men to hear. “We killed Grandmason Ymir. When we get our reward, we’ll be the richest quarriers alive. Richer still, with less of us.” He bared his teeth. “Rich enough to be whatever we want. How many generations a quarrier are you, Piotr?”
“Three.”
Ksavir scoffed. “Heh. Seven. My family lived and died in that quarry long before yours thought about a hard day’s work. All that time, we couldn’t even come close to the wealth of the Masons. I changed that, I made us rich.”
“Us? Half dead, half dying, and you talk about fewer shares? Was that the plan all along?”
Ksavir burst to his feet. “Plans, Piotr? Was it your plan that got us here? Your reforms and strikes and your appeals to the Masons?”
Piotr was on his feet now too. “No, your plan got us here!” He yelled, waving at the windy ruin around them.
Ksavir smiled a wolfish, mocking grin. “Oh, so brave, Piotr. Such spirit. Did you like how it felt to fight? The gift I gave you all?”
The amulet around Piotr’s neck felt like lead, and he felt it pulse like a drum, a tempo his heartbeat chased. They each wore one, a gift from Ksavir's strange allies. It had been purely symbolic, but when they had sprung his ambush at the quarry, the amulets had imbued them with ..something. An animal ferocity, a focused rage that made them move in tandem, like a wolf pack. It had been exhilarating, terrifying. He saw the men below standing as well, swaying gently, their own amulets pulsing to the same beat, as they watched Piotr and Ksavir on the stage. The drumbeat called for bloodshed. He shook his head against it, and said,
“I remember when the witch broke you.” Ksavir’s smile vanished.
“I remember when your plan fell apart. I remember when you ran.” Piotr grated.
Ksavir snarled, and they both reached for their blades.
A burst of icy wind from the hall entrance interrupted them. A woman stood there, wreathed in mist, a tall spear in her one hand, a sword in the other, her heavy armor laden with frost. Blonde hair whipped around her as she stood stoic in the doorway. The butt of her spear resounded on the floor. Her name and legend had haunted their minds ever since their failed ambush. Svana the Witch had found them.
The men held their breath, torn between two competing dangers. Ksavir and Piotr eyed each other. Ksavir stepped away first.
“Ahh, the witch,” he said, with a cruel laugh, swaggering towards her, “so strong and mighty, coming alone to face the evil bandits! The Masons probably clean your armor with their tongues, don’t they, you stupid bitc-”
A flash of blinding light, a deafening, instant roar. Piotr was knocked off his feet, his head ringing. He felt something wet hit his face, and blinked the spots from his eyes. It was hard to breathe, and he struggled up to his hands and knees. He looked up into the terrible gaze of the witch. He touched his face, his hands coming back bloody. The room was filled with red pieces of Ksavir, still smoking. It smelled of cooked meat. A singed hole in the roof marked the entry point of a lightning bolt. She had struck her spear against the floor again, and Ksavir had exploded.
Piotr and his men looked at each other, panting on the floor. Their amulets pulsed with fury, a madness rising in them. Surely she couldn’t stop all of them, the madness said. He clenched his fists, desperately planning, and reached for his blade.
The rage pulsing against his chest was driven away by a bass rumble that shook the room. Behind the witch, filling the doorway, now stood the largest polar bear he had ever seen. Nightmarishly muscular, its growl reverberated through them, and the amulets went abruptly silent. The witch rested her hand on the great bear’s head, both now watching Piotr, her crystal blue eyes joined by the glowing golden-green of the bear.
Piotr threw his blade to the floor, as did the rest of the gang. What else could they do?
The survivors huddled around a small fire, eating what was probably the last of their rations. The wind tore at the rafters, and snow sprinkled down from gaps in the high ceiling. Once a great longhouse, this particular hideout had fallen in disrepair long ago, and there wouldn’t be any time to repair it before they had to move again, even if Piotr wanted to try. Best not give any orders he knew wouldn’t be obeyed, he thought to himself. Watching them tear at their dry scraps of Hafrass jerky, they looked half feral. He was trying to maintain order, but they were getting slower to obey, and kept casting contemptuous looks at him when they thought he wasn’t looking. Being second in command meant less and less each day on their forced march away from the quarry. Being the leader wouldn’t mean much more, if they kept up this pace. The men looked at Ksavir the same way, and Piotr was having a hard time not sharing that feeling.
Ksavir sat apart from them, at the high table, or what was left of it. As usual, he was shoveling down food, greasy scraps falling to where his beard and belly had grown to meet each other. He glowered at the men below, and they kept their backs to him, well familiar with his anger. He kicked at the chair next to him, the scraping sound echoing through the hall. Piotr met his beady gaze, and Ksavir jerked his head at the chair. Piotr hesitated only for an instant before obeying. The men watched him pass by silently. He sensed he’d have to choose where he sat for good soon.
As he sat, Ksavir pushed an old plate his way, some hard bread with a slab of Hafrass meat, mostly blubber.
"Is that Tarak I see over there,” Ksavir growled quietly.
“The storm’s closed in. No point in standing guard when you can’t see your hand in front of your face.”
“I ordered Tarak to stand guard.”
“As soon as the storm breaks, he’ll go back.”
“You’ll take his place.”
Piotr took a slow bite, and nodded.
“Hard day tomorrow,” he said, “even if the storm breaks. Rations running low.”
“They’re my men,” Ksavir said. He slurped at a piece of blubber. “They’ll survive.”
“The ones that are still alive, that is.” Piotr had meant it as gallows humor, but it came out sharper. He had lost friends at the quarry.
Ksavir thumped a hairy palm on the table. “The strong survived. They obeyed me, and they lived. You lived too.”
Piotr could see the men watching them. They couldn’t hear the words, but they could see the tension. He still wasn’t sure which way they’d turn if it came to it. Not time yet. He turned his chair closer to Ksavir.
“Before the ambush, you called us a brotherhood. Now it’s ‘the strong survived?’” He pitched his voice a notch higher, for the crowd below. “We’re all quarriers together, aren’t we?” That caught their attention. Ksavir always set himself apart, acting like some kind of bandit aristocrat.
Ksavir picked at his teeth, and pushed away from the table, turning to face Piotr directly.
“Not just quarriers anymore,” he said. He spoke louder as well, for the men to hear. “We killed Grandmason Ymir. When we get our reward, we’ll be the richest quarriers alive. Richer still, with less of us.” He bared his teeth. “Rich enough to be whatever we want. How many generations a quarrier are you, Piotr?”
“Three.”
Ksavir scoffed. “Heh. Seven. My family lived and died in that quarry long before yours thought about a hard day’s work. All that time, we couldn’t even come close to the wealth of the Masons. I changed that, I made us rich.”
“Us? Half dead, half dying, and you talk about fewer shares? Was that the plan all along?”
Ksavir burst to his feet. “Plans, Piotr? Was it your plan that got us here? Your reforms and strikes and your appeals to the Masons?”
Piotr was on his feet now too. “No, your plan got us here!” He yelled, waving at the windy ruin around them.
Ksavir smiled a wolfish, mocking grin. “Oh, so brave, Piotr. Such spirit. Did you like how it felt to fight? The gift I gave you all?”
The amulet around Piotr’s neck felt like lead, and he felt it pulse like a drum, a tempo his heartbeat chased. They each wore one, a gift from Ksavir's strange allies. It had been purely symbolic, but when they had sprung his ambush at the quarry, the amulets had imbued them with ..something. An animal ferocity, a focused rage that made them move in tandem, like a wolf pack. It had been exhilarating, terrifying. He saw the men below standing as well, swaying gently, their own amulets pulsing to the same beat, as they watched Piotr and Ksavir on the stage. The drumbeat called for bloodshed. He shook his head against it, and said,
“I remember when the witch broke you.” Ksavir’s smile vanished.
“I remember when your plan fell apart. I remember when you ran.” Piotr grated.
Ksavir snarled, and they both reached for their blades.
A burst of icy wind from the hall entrance interrupted them. A woman stood there, wreathed in mist, a tall spear in her one hand, a sword in the other, her heavy armor laden with frost. Blonde hair whipped around her as she stood stoic in the doorway. The butt of her spear resounded on the floor. Her name and legend had haunted their minds ever since their failed ambush. Svana the Witch had found them.
The men held their breath, torn between two competing dangers. Ksavir and Piotr eyed each other. Ksavir stepped away first.
“Ahh, the witch,” he said, with a cruel laugh, swaggering towards her, “so strong and mighty, coming alone to face the evil bandits! The Masons probably clean your armor with their tongues, don’t they, you stupid bitc-”
A flash of blinding light, a deafening, instant roar. Piotr was knocked off his feet, his head ringing. He felt something wet hit his face, and blinked the spots from his eyes. It was hard to breathe, and he struggled up to his hands and knees. He looked up into the terrible gaze of the witch. He touched his face, his hands coming back bloody. The room was filled with red pieces of Ksavir, still smoking. It smelled of cooked meat. A singed hole in the roof marked the entry point of a lightning bolt. She had struck her spear against the floor again, and Ksavir had exploded.
Piotr and his men looked at each other, panting on the floor. Their amulets pulsed with fury, a madness rising in them. Surely she couldn’t stop all of them, the madness said. He clenched his fists, desperately planning, and reached for his blade.
The rage pulsing against his chest was driven away by a bass rumble that shook the room. Behind the witch, filling the doorway, now stood the largest polar bear he had ever seen. Nightmarishly muscular, its growl reverberated through them, and the amulets went abruptly silent. The witch rested her hand on the great bear’s head, both now watching Piotr, her crystal blue eyes joined by the glowing golden-green of the bear.
Piotr threw his blade to the floor, as did the rest of the gang. What else could they do?