[Mkguild] Healing Wounds in Arabarb (34 of ?)

[C. Matthias]

Healing Wounds in Arabarb
By Charles Matthias



Calephas had promised him that he wouldn't freeze 
to death, but Lindsey still shivered as he 
pressed his knees to his chest and alternately 
leaned from one side or the other to warm his 
arms still bound in shackles on either side. 
Occasional gusts of warm air billowed up the long 
chimney to console him, but most of the time all 
he felt was the cold stones against which his 
naked body was pressed. Everything was dark and 
he could hear nothing but the gurgling of water far below.

At first, he tried to close his eyes and will 
himself to enter a slumber as a surcease from his 
anguish. But the litany of horrors paraded itself 
through his mind as if they were marching in a 
circle through the town square and he was locked 
in a stockade with no choice but to watch. 
Calephas towered over him as he lay sprawled on a 
bed whose satin comforts felt more like a 
thousand nails pressed against his back. He 
wanted to flinch away as that man's long fingers 
stroked across his naked flesh, massaging it as 
if it were a hunk of beef flank at the market. He 
could hear that monster's vile speech cajole him 
and taunt him as well with predictions on how his 
body would betray him and enjoy everything that was done to him.

Seeing that monster's image disperse with the 
throaty growl of Gmork was for a moment a blessed 
relief. But then the creature that melted from a 
man-like visage to one that almost seemed the 
noble countenance of a wolf Keeper began to 
speak. Not to Lindsey, but to his friends. Lined 
up against a wall were the three birds, each with 
one of those golden baubles placed in front of 
them. Lubec's was already glowing, but after a 
minute of badgering and bludgeoning their minds 
with his long, blood-red tongue, the baubles 
before Quoddy and Machias became brilliant bronze 
beacons and their eyes slavish and utterly devoted.

Lindsey cried and shook his head from side to 
side as his mind fixed on the image of each of 
the birds one by one throwing themselves at 
Gmork's slavering jaws while cawing in ecstasy.

Then he was in Calephas's alchemical laboratory, 
his father Alfwig before him. Calephas stood 
behind him, lifting the hammer high as Alfwig 
spoke of his love for the dragon who was 
Lindsey's mother. Lindsey shouted in terror and 
only just made the image vanish before the hammer came crashing down.

He beat his head against his arm and cried. Words 
of prayer danced upon his lips but seemed to die 
before they took voice. So many other names and 
faces flashed before him, Pharcellus, Strom, his 
mother Elizabaeg, his lost brother Andrig, 
Vysterag, Gerhard, and then his many friends from 
Metamor, Jessica, Charles, Michael, James, Kayla, 
Lance, Tathom, and so many more. Nor could he 
forget the others who had accompanied him on his 
journey to Marzac, Jerome, Andares, Abafouq, 
Guernef, Qan-af-årael. All of them took their 
place and then vanished into a chaotic maelstrom churning about him.

And with all of those images in mind, the 
frightened little boy descended into sleep.


Lindsey was a man again, and around him were 
strange halls and vaulted walls with tapestries 
and bright colors. Metamor Keep. He saw no one 
else as he started to walk down the long passage. 
Little alcoves hid suits of armor suited for 
humans or statues of old rulers or dignitaries 
from centuries past. The few windows he saw 
showed an expanse covered in a blanket of soft 
snow, with homes that seemed more typical of 
Arabarb than Metamor but homes nevertheless. No 
smoke trailed from their chimneys, and no one 
dared go outside. Was there anyone even here?

Lindsey began running down the hall, glancing out 
every window and checking every alcove, but he 
found nothing more than he had already seen. 
After counting twenty statues, each more beastly 
in appearance than the last, he finally realized 
that the hallway had neither turn nor 
intersection. He stopped in his run, and glanced 
behind him. The hall continued forever in that direction too.

He pulled at his bread in thought for a moment. 
Why was Kyia keeping him in this endless hall? 
Was there something he wasn't supposed to see? 
The Keep had never stymied him like this in the 
past. He remembered Charles describing a tunnel 
underneath the Keep and the Valley that had 
seemed to him completely straight and that had 
run for several miles without offering any sign 
that it actually ended. He had also described a 
room with no doors and in which up and down could 
no longer be discerned. Could this be something 
like that? But why trap him here?

And just how had he come here anyway?

Lindsey turned to the nearest window and felt 
against the stone. The window was a long narrow 
slit, one that he could slide his arm through, 
but nothing more. He felt cold and ice outside 
along the walls, but nothing that he could grasp. 
He grunted as he struggled and pushed, pressing 
his face into the narrow crevice as if it could squeeze through like lard.

“You cannot get out that way.”

He stiffened at the sound of the voice, and tried 
to turn around. His elbow caught in the crack and 
he grunted and pulled, twisting this way and 
that, until, scraping the skin, he finally 
managed to dislodge his arm from the window. But 
when he turned around he didn't see anyone in the hall.

“I'm here.”

Lindsey spun again but still there was nothing. “Who are you? Show yourself!”

“You'll see me when you know me.”

Lindsey grunted and growled under his breath as 
he stalked down the hallway, looking anew in 
every corner, and checking behind himself every 
few paces. The suits of armor, he quickly 
realized, were exactly the same. He took the 
helmet off its stand and carried it with him. 
Each alcove seemed to be about fifty paces apart. 
One would hold the armor and the next a statue 
that had at first been human but now seemed to be 
of a man turning into a beast.

When he reached the next suit of armor, his eyes 
narrowed in suspicion. This suit of armor had no 
head. He glanced down at the helmet he carried, 
and then placed it back on the suit, but 
backwards. After securing the straps, he 
continued on his way, moving at a brisk pace. He 
ignored the statue in his haste. The next suit of 
armor was complete but with the helmet turned backward.

“What is this place/” Lindsey asked. “Kyia! Why are you doing this to me?”

“Kyia? Would she do this to you?”

“Who else?” he asked as he spun on his feet. As 
before, the speaker, whose voice vacillated 
between humor and a deep gurgling rumble, was 
invisible. “Who else would trap me here?”

“Trapped? Or hiding?”

Lindsey scowled, grabbed the helmet, strode over 
to the window opposite, and repeatedly dashed the 
helmet against the stone. Long white score marks 
rent the gray granite blocks in a way that could 
not be mistaken. He then tossed the helmet back 
into the alcove and continued on his way.

A hundred paces later he saw beneath the window 
those same marks defacing the wall. And in the 
alcove was a set of armor whose head lay nestled 
between its metal feet. Lindsey roared in 
frustration. How could he walk a hundred paces 
and end up back where he had begun? How could 
this be? He yanked the arm off the armor and beat 
it against the breastplate until the entire suit 
crashed to the ground in a resounding clangor 
that echoed from either direction.

“Now do you feel better?”

Lindsey threw the arm down and stomped back into 
the main hallway. His head tilted back and he howled, “Where are you?”

“Keep looking.”

Lindsey glanced at the alcove, hoping briefly 
that there might be some secret revealed behind 
it, but all he saw was more of the granite blocks 
so typical of Metamor. He pressed against it with 
one hand, and then continued on his way in the endless hall.

He wished that any of his friends were here. Even 
if they did not know a way out, they could at 
least help him think through what he contented 
against. The suits of armor did not change, and 
the windows were too narrow to escape through, 
not to mention showing him a town that was 
apparently empty and far less prosperous than he 
knew Metamor to be. What did that leave?

Lindsey turned to the next statue he came to and 
studied it. The legs were bent like an animal 
Keeper with claws on four-toed paws, suggestions 
of soft, thick fur in the stone. A long canine 
tail pointed down from his waist, flush with 
smoky gray fur. The arms were tipped with claws 
and held at his sides as if he were stalking 
toward prey. The face though was not completely 
that of a Keeper, as it retained some human 
dimensions, though the snout was pronounced and 
tear marks were against the eyes. They seemed to gleam at him.

Lindsey stared for several seconds before the 
horror gripped him and he stumbled backward. “Gmork!”

The voice was behind him and he felt those hands 
curl over his shoulders. “The same. Welcome back. Your Father has missed you.”

Lindsey tried to spin about but the grip on his 
shoulders was so tight that all he managed to do 
was press his skin against long claws. Blood 
drained from where he'd been pierced, and to his 
horror, fur began to sprout too. Gmork's voice 
was lush with sultry exuberance. “I am your Father!”

“Nay!” Lindsey swung his head back but struck 
nothing. The claws pressed deeper and the blood 
dribbled down his chest. Lines of fur began to 
spring up everywhere the blood touched.

“You are my pup. You listen to my voice. You love the sound of my voice.”

He shook his head, and tried to grab those paws 
to wrench them free, but his arms were stiff and 
didn't want to move like that. The alcove with 
the statue of Gmork began to recede before him as 
he felt his body begin to warp.

“My beloved pup, my son. I am your Father and you 
love me. You feel it, that same hunger I do. That 
same joy , that revelry in being a beast.” The 
voice growled deeply and it made Lindsey's chest 
throb as the fur continue to spread no well past 
where his blood had drained. He gasped as his 
legs began to twist and his feet swell. His toe 
nails hardened and grew long and sharp. His heel 
vanished away as the fur spread in disordered 
patches across graying flesh. The fur was a 
bright red just like his hair and his blood.

“That hunger swells in you, grows.” Gmork's voice 
now came slowly, as if he savored every word like 
a juicy piece of meat. “That hunger, that need, 
is something you cannot deny. Something you do 
not want to deny. Something you will never deny. 
It is... It is you. My pup. My son. Your Father's 
whelp and delight. Your brother's brother. A 
beast. True. Need. Hunger. Flesh. Flesh.”

Lindsey gasped as he felt swelling inside him a 
deep hunger, a desire to feast and thrust his 
jaws into a kill and tear out every sinew and 
gorge himself on entrails and the screams of 
death. His tongue pressed against the back of his 
teeth, sharper and longer, as his face began to 
stretch. He turned it to one side and lapped at 
the blood, its iron making his body shudder and sprout even more fur.

“Oh child of mine. Welcome back to me. Who am I?”

Lindsey gasped, a tail wriggling out between his legs, “Father!”

The claws left his shoulders, and the beastly 
Gmork came around his side, oddly balanced on all 
fours, grinning with golden light in his eyes. “Come.”

Lindsey rolled onto all fours and loped after his 
father, so very, very hungry. The statue had now 
receded so far that a new passage had opened. 
Through this they came into Metamor's audience 
chamber. The throne where Duke Thomas met his 
subjects to hear their needs was draped in 
Gmork's fine furs and around it lounged his other 
children as they gnawed on the flesh of that 
self-same equine lord. Yet though they ate, 
Thomas did not seem to die. His eyes were wide 
and lost, his lips opening and flecking as if his 
body were being massaged with exquisite tenderness.

The hall was fouled with so many other bodies and 
other Keepers waiting in bowed adoration toward 
the dozen or so pups who all turned and lifted 
their heads at Gmork's arrival. Lindsey saw them and recognized them.

The first he saw had a very long tail now coated 
in disparate patches of wiry, brown fur, though 
the rest of it remained scaly. His face bore a 
swollen black nose over a pair of still 
pronounced incisors, but they were nothing 
compared to the massive tusks that had become of 
his fangs. A black patch covered one feverish 
dark eye, and his fur-covered ears turned with 
devilish delight at the coming of their father. 
He sank his fangs and incisors into Thomas's hank 
and the blood smeared across his face and snout.

Beside him was another pup whose tail was marked 
with rings and his face a dark mask, but they 
were the only vestiges of the animal whose nature 
the curse had shared with him. The rest of him 
was a coal-black wolf; even the blood that 
splattered his body seemed to darken until it had no color left at all.

Across from them was another pup, this one whose 
fur was wide and thick, almost like feathers, and 
whose snout came to a hard point at its tip. 
Golden eyes wide as saucers seemed to piece the air like a thousand knives.

And then beside her was another pup with long 
wide tail with a white stripe down the back. 
There was even a littler pup whose face was 
darkened and suggested a human form but not quite.

Lindsey knew their names, or what had been their 
names, but could not draw a single one of them to 
mind. He saw the horse flesh and salivated with a 
hunger that could not be appeased. He felt a 
slight touch from his father's tail and bolted 
forward, driving his fangs into Thomas's neck. 
The horse whinnied in pleasure before his throat 
was torn free and the blood coursing over his face.

Gmork reclined in the throne, allowing his 
deformed legs to dangle across the dais, toes 
stretching out as if to bless his children who 
gorged before him. With a wave of his hand, 
several of the mesmerized Keepers came forward, 
crawling on their bellies. Lindsey saw Michael 
the plaid beaver, Tathom the bull, and other from 
the timber crews., as well as Nahum the fox and 
Tallis the rat from the Writer's Guild. Their 
voices moaned in supplication, each of them 
begging to be a feast for Gmork's pleasure.

Gmork gestured with one finger toward the beaver. 
“You. Give yourself to my newest son.”

The beaver exuded delight as he crawled over 
toward Lindsey, long tail slapping at the ground 
in excitement. Lindsey lifted his snout from 
Thomas's ruined neck and saw the vacant 
effervescence in the beaver's face. He could not 
discern the individual words dribbling across the 
rodent's tongue, but the raw need to be a meal 
for his former friend was an agony to him as long as it was delayed.

Lindsey leaped and buried his fangs in the 
beaver's side, yanking him over onto his back. 
The tail began to slap the floor with delight as 
Lindsey tore at the plaid beaver's insides. Past 
the cream colored flesh he saw that his once time 
friend's innards were also a mix of black and red 
squares. Michael sang a song, a paean to Gmork 
who reclined with the air of a sadistic god as 
all of Metamor's audience chamber was stained 
with their effulgence. His voice exuded irony. 
“And why were you hiding from all of this?”

Lindsey drove his head into the chest cavity and 
ripped free the still beating heart in his jaws. 
This he chewed and splattered across the floor, 
before tipping back his head and howling with conscienceless delight.



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

Charles Matthias


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