[Mkguild] Healing Wounds in Arabarb (23 of ?)

[C. Matthias]

Healing Wounds in Arabarb
By Charles Matthias



For a Lutin, Yajgaj was oddly gentle with him. He didn't say anything 
more to him as he guided him through the halls of the castle, down 
three flights of stairs to where there was an obvious mildew scent to 
the walls. Lindsey wondered how close they were to the river door, 
but didn't have the heart to ask. Pharcellus had escaped with Quoddy 
and Machias. Right now that was all that mattered.

Still, he felt so raw and numb that he couldn't have cried if he 
wanted to. And he did want to.

"You go to Baron Calephas now. He not kill you," Yajgaj told him in a 
strangely soft voice. "Yajgaj know that."

Lindsey looked back at the Lutin as they came to a solid, iron door. 
In a timorous voice he asked, "Do you want me to feel better?"

The Lutin paused and studied him intently, yellow eyes narrowing with 
a scrutiny that made Lindsey feel strange more than afraid. He looked 
him up and down for a moment, ran his hand through Lindsey's hair, 
and stared at his ears and face, and especially eyes. "Yajgaj want 
you to go see Baron now." He tapped the tip of the guisarme on the 
iron door three times, and then rested his free hand on the bone 
knife at his side. In a very quiet voice he added, "These not for you."

Lindsey blinked, but he ceased wondering as soon as the iron door 
creaked open and the almost mundane looking Baron Calephas stood 
there staring down at him with his soft blue eyes. "There you are. 
Did Gmork get anything useful out of him? It didn't sound like it down here."

Yagjag tapped the wooden end of the guisarme on the floor and shook 
his head. "He not talk to Gmork. Then big dragon show up and kill one 
of Gmork's whelps. We chase him away; we'll find him and kill him if 
he comes here again."

Calephas's expression widened in surprise for only a moment before 
resuming its contemptuous cast. "A dragon? So that's what it was. I 
told him to take those damn birds two months ago. Never mind. Come 
in, Andrig. Is that you're real name?"

Lindsey nodded as he stepped inside the room. Yajgaj waited in the 
doorway behind him. The room beyond was pristine and nearly every 
stone shined as if polished to glass. A broad oaken table with 
beakers and bottles stacked in complex rows lined the wall to his 
right. Behind this stood the tiger Keeper he'd seen in Calephas's bedchambers.

Chained to the left wall was what must have been a boy about his own 
age. But the boy, naked as he was, was not a boy anymore. His flesh 
had been warped in strange ways, producing odd deformities in nearly 
every part of his body. From his backside something like a sickle 
jutted out, and a long tail stretched between his twisted legs that 
were pressed out from the side rather than descending straight from 
his back. His face was contorted into a mock snout from which dangled 
a long red tongue. His eyes were red and vacant, while his side was 
covered in a million overlapping scabs a rich purple in hue.

Lindsey stared at the boy for one moment before his mind was able to 
comprehend what he was seeing. Then he thrust himself backward only 
to bounce off the Lutin's chest and fall to the floor as he started 
to scream. A hand grabbed him by his collar, lifted him up and shook 
him until he stopped. "I know you're an adult, Andrig. Stop screaming."

With a shove, Calephas tossed Lindsey into the corner next to the 
table and the door. "You call yourself Andrig. I once had an Andrig 
in my service but he betrayed me and turned me over to the 
Metamorians living in Glen Avery. Are you that Andrig? Did you stay 
there and let the Curses do this to you? Gmork says that it is 
another spell keeping you young, but I know the cleverness and 
craftiness of the Keepers. Who are you really?"

Lindsey glowered at him but said nothing. After watching Gmork's pup 
devour Strom while still alive, he knew that nothing Calephas could 
do would shock him any worse.

"Well, in that case, I suppose I may as well make use of you." He 
moved to the far wall and undid the chains holding the boy in place. 
The boy slumped and quivered a little, but did not try to get up. 
Calephas grabbed him by one arm and dragged him out into the middle 
of the room. He stroked across the smooth and twisted face, gently 
placing his lips against the boy's still human forehead, before 
letting him slump against the floor.

He turned to Lindsey, grabbed him by the wrist, and yanked him over 
to the wall. Lindsey struggled a little, but Calephas was far too 
strong. Soon the boy was shackled to the wall and could only watch. 
The man walked around the collapsed boy in half circles, always 
keeping Lindsey in view. "You see, I have been performing some 
experiments. This boy has provided much important information to me 
so that I might perfect my potions. Very soon, and I mean, very soon, 
I will have it perfected. You, I hope, will be the last child I ever 
need to test my potions on."

He nudged the still quivering but unresisting boy with his foot. 
"This one, well..." he glanced at the tiger, who handed him a large 
metal hammer. Lindsey shook his head and struggled against the 
chains. The boy glanced up with red eyes at the hammer as Calephas 
lifted it over his head. The Baron did not smile. "I don't need him anymore."

Calephas swung the hammer down onto the boy's twisted head, crushing 
it down into the floor. The body and especially the long tail jerked 
upward then fell back down twitching. The Baron lifted the hammer 
again and swung once more, into his chest this time. Lindsey screamed 
until his throat was raw. But Calephas kept swinging until the body 
was a ruined crumpled mess that did not move at all.

He leaned the hammer against the wall, while the tiger carried to him 
a rolled-up carpet. Taking the carpet in both hands, he threw it over 
top of the unrecognizable corpse, spread out the ends so that they 
were flush, and then laid down, using the lumps as if they were a set 
of pillows. "Now," Calephas continued, "you say your name is Andrig. 
Who are you really?"

Lindsey yanked his arms against the chains again and again, but he 
couldn't even make them groan. He spat and tried to turn his face 
away from the utterly calm and calculating man. "You monster! You're 
going to burn in Hell forever. Forever!"

Calephas sighed and gestured to the tiger. "We don't need this sort 
of useless posturing. Weaker, please procure for me some of his blood."

The tiger, with head bowed low, took a small glass dish from the 
worktable and held it firmly amidst the sharp claws of his left hand. 
He then strode silently on leather pads next to the struggling boy 
and bending over, grabbed his arm with his right hand. He extended 
his thumb claw, slitted eyes fiercely holding Lindsey's terrified 
gaze, before pricking him sharply. Blood began to dribble from the 
wound, and then into the glass dish. And though the pain was slight 
compared to many wounds he'd endured, he still gritted his teeth as 
the numbness spread across his arm.

When the bottom of the dish had been covered with his blood, the 
tiger pressed the wound shut and held his arm tightly for several 
long seconds. A faint growl lay beneath each of the beaten Keeper's 
breaths. Lindsey stared at him, feeling a sudden certainty that he 
had seen this Keeper before. But no name came to him. He was too 
terrified to think that clearly.

Once the wound stopped bleeding, Weaker carried the small dish over 
to the table and set it down. He then backed off to his corner to 
wait Calephas's next command.

"You may be wondering why I care about your blood," Calephas said as 
he rolled back to his feet and climbed off the blanket. He walked to 
the table and after picking up a small vial, he proceeded to drop 
some blue liquid into Lindsey's blood. "I need to know," he said as 
he swirled the liquid and blood together, "where we're starting from."

Calephas was standing so that Lindsey could watch and so he did, not 
feeling as if he could do anything more. The mixture quickly turned a 
vibrant purple before fading into a more solemn gray. The Baron could 
not conceal the look of surprise on his face. It melted into a very 
bitter laugh. "Well that perhaps explains some things. Interesting."

He set the dish aside and turned to the Lutin still standing guard. 
His voice cracked with impatience. "Yajgaj, retrieve the old man from 
the dungeons. I have need of him."

The Lutin nodded and quickly departed. Calephas stared after him for 
several seconds, lost in his own thoughts, before he he turned to the 
chained boy completely naked. His eye slid across Lindsey's body and 
he shuddered as if an eel were swimming across his flesh. "If I had a 
few months to devote to you little boy, I could break you like I've 
broken Weaker. You are stout, but you are weak. Weaker here once 
killed a Keeper by tearing out his neck with his fangs. Now, he is mine."

Lindsey scowled at him but kept his tongue behind his teeth.

Calephas smiled. "Gmork has nothing to do with Weaker's loyalty. And 
if I had time, he wouldn't have anything to do with yours. But... I'm 
afraid I'm going to have to kill you once I'm finished with you."

"No bargains?" Lindsey asked. "No threats of reprisals?"

"No." Calephas shrugged and reclined on the carpet again. "Why 
bother? I'm not interested in you for what your tongue can tell me. 
Your blood has done that for me." His blue eyes ran across Lindsey's 
flesh one more time, lingering in places that Lindsey wished he could 
hide but couldn't twist against the chains enough to conceal. "It is 
a pity. You are such a handsome boy. Ah well."

And as they waited for Yajgaj to return, Calephas raped Lindsey with his eyes.

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Four wolves and a creature that resembled a wolf but still had the 
vestiges of human form, loped through the forests, relying on their 
nose and ears to guide them through the night dark woods. The alpha, 
gray of fur and larger than the rest, led them on their chase. 
Through dense brambles and across fields of pine needles freshly 
unearthed after a long winter's blanket of snow, they ran on all 
fours and apart from the strange amalgam that was the fifth, they 
were indistinguishable from real wolves.

At several points the alpha would stop, tilt his head back and sniff 
the air curiously. His golden yes peered into depths visible even in 
the night, strands and traces of magic that were disturbed in the 
dragon's passage. And then, noting the changing winds and the 
changing flow of energy, he would lope off in a slightly different angle.

The ground rose steadily the further east they ran, until they 
reached a plateau overlooking the Arabas. The pines clustered densely 
before abruptly thinning into a wide meadow with short cropped grass 
and wildflowers. All five beasts pressed their noses to the ground as 
they smelled the dry pungency of the dragon's scent. They circled 
around for a moment, before the alpha looked to the others, and in 
gnarled speech, growled, "He landed here, changed to his human 
disguise, and kept running. We will catch him."

His muzzle resumed its beastly shape and the five of them continued 
on their way through the thick forest. Now that their prey had taken 
to the ground, they could follow him more easily. He had a head 
start, but on weak human legs he was no match for their gait. The 
youngest of them, the one that could not quite become a full wolf in 
form, often had to slow himself to keep from getting too far ahead. 
That one was viciously eager for the hunt to come to its end. He 
thrashed through the underbrush and tore bushes from the ground in 
his wake until a disapproving glare from his alpha told him to move 
quietly. And that he did with such sudden alacrity and dexterity that 
his alpha and father felt a swell of delicious pride.

The path took them deep into the woods, always following the course 
of the river eastward. Even in human disguise, the dragon possessed a 
reservoir of endurance beyond the capability of any man. His path 
took them through crumbling stone, dense thickets, fallen trees, and 
twisted sloping ground that kept them from running at full speed. Yet 
their pursuit was unwavering, and each of them hungered to see this 
dragon dead.

The stars turned in their courses as they kept running, until even 
the few lights of Fjellvidden were long lost to sight and no scents 
from that city could ever reach them. The youngest and the one 
twisted in shape yipped suddenly and jumped on top of a large rock 
blocking their passage east. He shook his head and looked down at his 
brothers and his father. "This one is smart, Father," he said in his 
yipping speech. "He's leading us away from home."

Gmork stopped and rose into a more man-like shape. He gestured for 
his youngest to climb down and for the others to stop. He lifted his 
snout into the air and sniffed, trying to follow not just the 
dragon's human scent, but also the dragon's magical effluvia. The 
trail continued, and while he knew they were gaining, it would be 
hours yet before they captured him at his pace. The wounds he'd 
inflicted with his spells were not serious enough to kill him, only 
to bring him out of the air long enough to kill him.

But apparently not even that.

"That he is. But he won't leave Fjellvidden completely," Gmork 
glanced between each of his four pups and then back at the night sky. 
Midnight would be upon them soon enough. The men from the northern 
tundras would be arriving tomorrow to aid the Resistance. They had to 
be crushed as quickly as possible. And that meant learning where 
Andrig and the bird's last ally was hiding. The woman who dressed as a man.

But women smelled differently than men. Gmork's jowls flecked with 
spittle. "We will return to the castle and feast on that murderer's 
body. Then, you four will join the forces scouring the city for our 
enemies. But in pairs. Two resting at the castle and two in the city. 
A few hours of rest and then you will swap. I do not want any of my 
pups to die because they were too exhausted to notice a danger. There 
is time. Our enemies will not survive tomorrow."

His eyes stole to his youngest, who licked his jowls greedily and his 
golden eyes burned with beastly delight. With a bolt, all five of 
them began running back the way they came, every one of them loping 
on all fours.


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May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,

Charles Matthias


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