"Where did they go?" one of the archers asked as they peered at the shoreline. They both had nocked another arrow, but now they turned this way and then seeing only the trees. Jarl pulled his oar into the boat and hefted one of the small jars Elizabaeg had pressed into his hands. How was something like this supposed to help them against the pups? Luvig had been so serious about their preparation, but Jarl had seen none of it. Just what did that scrawny innkeeper's son know anyway?
"Keep your eyes open," Ture said as he guided the boat down the swift river, keeping them as close to the middle as he could. The water surface rippled and frothed, driving up in sharp divots a short distance to their left. Any further in that direction and they would up end. Any further to the right and the pups might be able to jump aboard. His hands were stiff and his knuckles as white as ice.
The river bent ever so slightly to the left and once they were around the bed they could see the long stone bridge. And standing in the middle waiting for them were the two pups. Jarl's heart froze in his chest as he swallowed heavily and pointed. "There!"
"We'll be on them any second now," Ture said grimly, keeping his oar in the water to steer them. "Fire as many as you can."
"They'll get us for sure!" one of the archers shouted as his hands began to tremble.
"No they won't!" Ture snapped with a deep rumble. "Now shoot!"
The archers let fly with their arrows, but each of them bounced off a violet shield that appeared only a few feet in front of the two men deformed with wolf features. One of them crouched at the edge of the bridge, his black robe glistening with a white oath-swearing human palm emblazoned on the left breast. That one let vicious jaws open wide, spittle glistening on his long red tongue. His legs looped around one of the pillars at the edge of the bridge and then the rest of his body flung forward, claws reaching out to grasp at them as he dangled.
The boat reached the bridge and the archers ducked down as low as they could, swinging their bows at the pup's head. His clawed hands grasped the bows and slashed the strings which snapped with a loud twang. Both men pressed against the bottom of the boat and still that beast's claws grasped at their cloaks. But the current was too quick and his grip too unsure to snatch either of them.
Jarl, eyes wide in horror as the beastly figure rushed toward him, threw himself into the bottom of the boat as well. A glint of golden eyes between a brow of auburn blended into a silvery-black mane thrust toward him with a ravening growl. He felt the jaws clench tight over his cloak and yank him upward. A scream of horror that may have come from his own throat resounded in his ears. He felt monstrous hands grasp him beneath his armpits and hoist him so that his legs no longer even touched the wood of the boat.
Instinct alone saved him. He swung his arms up to smack the beast's head, not remembering that he had one of the jars in the palm of his left hand. The pup, so confidant of success, did not even try to stop the blow. The jar shattered and a bright yellow powder smeared across the pup's face, sparkling with a white radiance that dazzled Jarl's eyes. And then he wanted to gag from the putrid stench of rotten eggs that assaulted him.
The pup's golden eyes widened in sudden horror and he spat the young man out, dropping him back into the boat as he clawed at his face to get the powder off. Ture, ducking low, swung his oar into the air and splashed the pup with cold water. Brilliant blue sparks echoed across his face where the powder had struck and the wolf-like creature howled in agony as he curled back onto the bridge.
A moment later they were swept past the bridge and out into the wider Arabas. The other pup stood at the end of the bridge and barked an obscenity after them but did not chase. Jarl lay in the boat, some of that powder smeared over his left hand, while his other held his cloak over his face as he gagged for breath.
"What was that?" one of the archers asked as he climbed out of the bottom of the boat.
"That was Eli's providence," Ture said as he covered his face with his cloak. "Here, let me wash that off." He took a small wineskin from within his cloak and gestured for Jarl to hold his arm over the river. The yellow and almost glowing white powder washed clean from his arm. Little sparks of flame danced beneath the river's surface where it washed away.
It still took a few moments before they dared to breath the air again. Jarl gasped and clutched his chest with his free hand as he stared at his wine-soaked left arm. The flesh stung but was otherwise unharmed. Jarl would never doubt Luvig's craftiness again.
"We still have one of them," Jarl said as he produced the other jar, thumb pressing against the wax stopper fitted so firmly that nothing could escape.
"But it doesn't look like they're chasing us," Ture said with a grunt. "They were supposed to chase us."
"What now?" the other archer asked as he fiddled with his useless bow.
"Now we get to shore and head right back there," Jarl declared as he sat back up. "Right now."
The archer looked past him to the red-haired tanner. "Ture?"
"Jarl's right," Ture said with a grunt as he began to paddle on his right side. "We need to find a place to moor the boat."
"There aren't any beaches along the Arabas for ten miles. It's why Fjellvidden is where it is."
"It's Spring thaw," Ture said with a grunt. "We'll find something. Row and bring us to the southern bank. We'll find something."
Since it was his idea, Jarl felt no compunction about doing exactly that. But first, he very carefully set the little jar somewhere it wouldn't be broken.
The doors at the top of the stairs and the end of the tunnel opened up between a stand of pines, framed by several granite sentinels that kept the door hidden from all but the most determined of hunters. Elizabaeg and the eight men with her all scrambled up and out of the tunnel eager to get away.
"We can crush them with this rock!" Brigsne said as he and three other men moved behind a slab of stone that had begun to crack off from the main section. They braced themselves between the rock wall and the slab and pushed with hands and legs.
"Just one moment!" Luvig said, as he looped the rope winch to open the doorway through the small handle of one of his jars.
"Hurry," Elizabaeg snapped as she moved back to where the men struggled. "I can hear them coming!"
And indeed they could hear the pounding of heavy paws as the two pups thundered down the tunnel after them.
"Just have to tie a knot..." Luvig muttered to himself, his eyes ever on the jar and not on the open pit into darkness before him. From out of that pit they could hear the barking snarls and slavering yips grow closer. And closer.
And then their hulking forms drove into view, slowing only a pace as they rounded the turn in the tunnel and started rushing up the long stone steps toward the light. Their golden eyes gleamed in the brightness of dawn's birth, and their fangs shone as bronze spears, like an ancient army marching to war in full regalia. They raced up the steps on all fours, wicked claws scraping away the stone.
"That's it!" Luvig cried, and then he swung the jar downward and ran away. The jar, tied to the end of the rope, swung in a long arc, just missing the stairs in front of the two pups, before shattering against the rock ceiling and showering a bright yellow powder over the two beasts. They stumbled and crashed into the steps, sneezing and clawing madly at themselves as the gagging stench rose up and assaulted them. The tunnel had became a demon's outhouse and the infernal beasts were trapped inside.
A loud crack echoed beside them as the stone slab broke free and rushed across the short space of grass and down the steps. The two pups yelped and ran back down the steps. The stone caught the rope and yanked the doors shut with a loud bang. The members of the Resistance looked at each other, the tunnel door, and then at Luvig.
"It worked..." Brigsne murmured in astonishment.
"I've never seen them run," Luvig almost crowed in his delight. "Two years of breaking bones and collecting piss, and they ran! Praise Eli!"
Elizabaeg looked at the scrawny man and shook her head. "I don't want to know any more about that. And I don't think it will stop them long. Let's hurry. They know we're here and once they get whatever that was off of themselves, they'll be following our trail."
"There's a stream not too far south of hear that cuts across to the east," Luvig pointed. "They'll have a wonderful time following us in that." He carefully hoisted his pack which held the rest of the jars. Each were sequestered in their own little pouch to keep them from jostling, but Elizabaeg was still amazed that none of them had broken in their run. "Trust me."
She grimaced but nodded. "Let's go. And let's hope the others find us too."
Gmork's youngest felt like somebody had dunked his head in a bucket of hot coals. He scraped at his face to get the burning stinking powder from his flesh and fur but it didn't seem to help at all. Fire seared him from a thousand different directions and his mind descended into a chaos of howls, barks, and whines. His fangs yearned to tear into something and rend it to a bloody ruin.
"Hold still!" his older brother snapped with a growl. He did his best, grasping at his calves and digging his claws into the fur there while his tail tucked up between his legs. He gritted his teeth and kept his eyes shut. He couldn't smell anything but a rotten flatulence coating the inside of his nostrils. He could hear his brother murmuring words to an incantation, and then a moment later he felt a strong wind driving through his fur. He couldn't tell where it was coming from and where it was going, but the agony of the putrescence was quickly leached away.
And with it too went the fire scalding his flesh. When the wind died away, he gasped and slumped on the bridge, looking at his clawed hands and rubbing it over his long snout, furred cheeks, ears and head. The fur had shriveled in a myriad tiny patches; he brushed little black balls of melted hair off of his face as he blinked and looked around.
His brother was glaring off to the north but didn't leave his side. After a moment he glanced back down and growled, "Father will need to know about this. Come."
They ran on two feet back to the mill and found their brothers climbing up a staircase hidden behind the inner waterwheel. They were drenched in wine and smelled of burned fur. They glowered and shifted into more human shapes so that they would not look as foolish.
"What happened?" the eldest of Gmork asked.
"Some strange yellow powder," the second pup replied as he squeezed wine from the fur tufts on his mostly human arm. "I've never seen or smelled anything like it. It was... horrible. They left a cask of wine down below and we washed it off with that."
"We only saw four," the youngest offered when he finally managed to stop pulling the melted fur balls from his face. "But I know I heard more. Where did they go?"
The second gestured to the south with a clawed finger. "The tunnel opened up somewhere in the woods. We'll find it and track them down. You two go back to Father. You need your rest."
"We will." The eldest wagged hi naked tail and his blue eyes gleamed with anger. "But first I want to find some of this powder. Father will want to see it."
The two wine-drenched pups growled and shook themselves. "There's plenty left at the end of the tunnel." They stepped out of the mill and let their snouts grow, black noses testing the air. "I never want to smell that again," he growled deep and angry. And then the two of them dropped to all fours and bounded away into the woods.
Gmork's youngest watched them go, and then wrinkled his nose. There was an odd bird scent inside the mill too. "Wait here," his older brother said through clenched teeth. "I will be right back."
He barked once in agreement and then scrambled up into the hayloft to study that scent. He pondered what it could mean as he'd never smelled a bird quite like that. And as he rummaged through the old hay, he hoped that his brother found something to mask that vile powder's odor.
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 beard 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.
Lindsey screamed as he finally thrust himself out of the dream and back into the cold, dark chamber in Fjellvidden. When only his own screams echoed back to him, he managed to stop. His breaths were ragged but they came. He licked his lips slowly, and was grateful that he did not taste blood on them.
After a few minutes of shivering, another gust of warm air passed him and he was able to think again. He pulled with both hands at his chains, but all he did was irritate his sore wrists further. He had no idea of the time nor how long he'd slept. His body was weary and exhausted.
The nightmare kept replaying in his mind and he shuddered at each image as it thrust itself before him. But his flesh was not erupting in fur, nor had Gmork ever set foot in Metamor. But could he? If Gmork destroyed the resistance and grew in power, could he turn his friends into monsters and sit on the throne of Metamor like some demonic god? Hadn't that been, after a fashion, what Yajakali himself had wanted?
Somehow, Lindsey was going to have to kill Gmork. He was more of a threat than Calephas ever had been or ever could be. But how could Lindsey ever hope to kill him if he was chained in this dark hole with no hope of escape?
He had to make his own escape. But how? Lindsey knew that he was stuck in the body of a child and was growing more child-like every day. Tears came far too quickly and his fears were multiplying with each passing day. How much he would rather be in some bright flowery field romping with Pharcellus and Andrig, laughing and marveling at the shape of clouds, the color of every little wildflower, or even a clover with four leaves.
But he had to focus if he didn't want to be a child. Lindsey pressed his chin to his knees and tried to gather what he knew. Jessica's spell was keeping him a child. The trigger that would have let him end that spell had been removed by Gmork. His father Alwfig had told him that he was hatched from a dragon's egg and that his dragon-half was hidden from him by his real mother afterward. Dragons, like his half-brother Pharcellus, all had some magical ability.
Which meant that he, Lindsey, had some magical ability. He'd never shown any signs of it, but it had to be there somewhere inside him. If he could find that, then perhaps he could remove the spell making him a child. The bonds holding him would never survive that change, of that he felt certain.
But how did he find that magical core to himself? How did he use his dragon nature, a nature he'd never even known existed?
Lindsey took several deep breaths and closed his eyes. Though there was nothing to see, the act of closing the eyes suggested to him a looking inward. He had to find that which was buried deep if he wanted to survive. Only by escape from Calephas could he hope to kill Gmork let alone the baron.
What did magic look like? He pondered that as he thrust aside all other thoughts and images. He wanted only to see his magic. He imagined himself as a man again, but also as a dragon like his brother. What would that be like?
When the next gust of warm air came, he imagined that it beat against his wings and that he could fly. Something inside him had to open up. It had to.
But sleep came first.
The shackles held him firmly against the wall, still a child and feeling no different despite the potion that he knew Calephas had made him drink. He knew this because the Baron himself stood over top of him with a bottle of purple fluid in one hand and a triumphant grin on his face. His eyes, blue and pure, were pure with malice.
"At last! At long last," he said with the savor of a man who'd just broken in a new prostitute. "This will make me a dragon true!" He lowered his eyes to Lindsey, still a boy and still bereft of all his clothes. "I'm not going to kill you just yet, Lindsey. You helped me do this. You helped me become a dragon. For that I will let you watch as I exercise my new power!"
"Choke on it you monster!" Lindsey shouted, before Weaker backhanded him and he started to cry. The tiger growled at him, green eyes burning with a fiendish delight as he struck him again and again with the back of his paws.
Calephas chided with a laugh as he unstopped the bottle and lifted it to his lips. A thin vapor wafted through the neck and almost sparkled in the air. "Now, now, Weaker. No sense giving him black eyes just yet. I want him to see this." Calephas tilted the bottle back and swallowed each gulp with a larger and thicker gorge. Halfway through the bottle, Calephas's clothes began to tear against his swelling body, his breeches especially where his new tail was trying to gain freedom. By the time he'd finished, an emerald tail swelled between his thickening legs, and his verdant hands were tipped with wicked black claws.
Calephas smashed the bottle against the wall and stretched out his jaws, a long, forked, red tongue flicking across sharpening teeth as his eyes became a coal-black emptiness smoldering with triumph. Lindsey pressed against the wall as Calephas's body continue to swell, the last of his clothes tearing free. Thick claws ripped through his boots which fell apart around heavy, green-scaled paws. His chest burst from his shirts and vests to reveal broad yellow plating that mottled into the green of his back. His cloak was caught on the wings that sprouted from his shoulders and knocked over all of his reagents and bottles arrayed across his worktable.
As an array of ten horns began to protrude from the back of his skull which rested on a neck already four feet in length, Calephas laughed a booming laugh, pressing his large tail and haunches against the door. The room grew very small and both Lindsey and Weaker pressed themselves against the walls to keep from being crushed.
Calephas swung his head down and stared at the two of them with his dead eyes. "This is intoxicating. I can swallow the boys whole even at this size! Can you imagine what I can do to them just with this tongue?" So saying he flicked out that tongue and brushed either side of the fork across Lindsey's face, coating it in a foul smelling mucus. "I don't need fear your precious Duke or that insufferable Nasoj anymore! I don't need anyone! All is mine!"
Weaker hissed at that, his tail lashing back and forth where he crouched. Calephas swung his large head over to the tiger and then grabbed him with one of his growing arms. The tiger gasped and tried to wriggle his arms free as his legs kicked at nothing. "And you, Weaker, are truly in the presence of a greater predator! Scream like the little impala you murdered! Scream!"
Weaker hissed with a vile hate, but could offer nothing more before Calephas drove his thumb claw into the tiger's neck and then pushed it all the way out the back. Blood poured from the wound, sluicing through the cracks between each green scale on the back of his hand. With a flick of that finger, Weaker's head popped off and was adroitly captured on the new dragon's tongue and swallowed. Lindsey watched a bulge slide down Calephas's neck before disappearing into his main torso.
"It's getting rather cramped in here," Calephas said with a rumbling laugh that made Lindsey's bones quiver like jelly. Still holding Weaker's body in one hand, the dragon slammed the side of his still growing body against the far wall and ceiling. He did this three times before the wall collapsed outward, revealing the town of Fjellvidden and all its populace assembled with swords and bows.
Stones rained down around his body, many of them crashing into the ground next to Lindsey, spraying him with tiny shards of granite. He closed his eyes and did his best to shield his face in his bound arms. He could hear the castle groaning all around him and the ground shook with Calephas's heavy stride. Lindsey chanced a glance upward and saw the mighty green dragon, still swelling in size, heave the castle backward as if he were thrusting a heavy weight from his shoulders. His long tail, thicker than any three trees Lindsey had felled, smashed the debris as towers and battlements collapsed and sundered upon one another. All of Fjellvidden castle was cast roaring into the river, sending thunderous waves against the docks and crushing every vessel berthed there beneath a watery grave.
Calephas roared and a gout of flame shot into the sky, scattering the clouds that had assembled like mourners at a Requiem. Dozens and dozens of arrows bounced off his hide as the townspeople began to scream and flee in terror. The dragon lowered his head and laughed, a sound that shook the ground like a rumbling mountain preparing to erupt in a fiery froth.
Calephas sucked in his breath, and then lowering his neck and body across the city, spewed flame that engulfed men, women, and children as they tried vainly to find some place to escape his wrath. Their screams were cut short as their bodies cooked to cinders and were scattered to nothing by the power of his blast. The fires that leaped across every building quickly consumed all the wood and thatch, until even the stones glowed and began to melt. Within seconds, a population of several hundred was reduced to millions of specks of ash that coated the distant trees like black snow.
Lindsey cried in agony at the sight, knowing that his mother had been there among them, and that his father was now crushed in the ruin of the castle. What had happened to the birds? And where was Pharcellus?
His question was answered only a moment later as a huge gray form dropped from the sky to grapple Calephas's back. Pharcellus was so much smaller than Calephas as from nose to tail tip he could only barely stretch from the green dragon's shoulder to his hips. Nevertheless, he bravely dug with his claws into the juggernaut's back and bit into the flesh beside the long spiked ridge moving down his spine.
Calephas roared and tucked his wings in close, before rolling onto his side. Pharcellus's blue eyes widened in horror as he scrambled to get off the green dragon's back. Lindsey saw his face and the look of horror there before his body disappeared beneath Calephas's broad back. The green dragon rolled around and shifted his frame back and forth, keeping his wings clear, smashing whatever was left of the town. A broad red smear coated and sizzled on the baked stones.
When the dragon stood, all that remained of his older brother was a smear of gray and red on the ground and dripping off of Calephas's broad back. Lindsey screamed as that massive head swung down. The long snout broke into a horrifying grin as the forked tongue pushed behind Lindsey and lifted him up, tearing through the chains and slicing the boy's wrists in the process.
As his blood drained down his arms and he felt his body going cold, the jaws opened and the tongue pulled him within a cavern sultry and dark. He slipped ever down and down into darkness, walls of slime and muck pressing and pushing him the whole way.
He woke slowly this time, huddled close against the wall until he realized that he was cold but dry. Lindsey's eyes flicked open and he pulled gently on his chains. They rattled but his hands were no looser than before. The skin was sore and cut, but he wasn't bleeding anywhere that he could feel.
The boy had no idea how much time had passed, or whether any time had passed at all. He knew only that when the dawn came Calephas would return and make him drink whatever potion he'd prepared.
It took him a long time to still his sobbing. Part of him didn't want to stop. Why fight what he couldn't fight? He was just a boy now. His father was a prisoner. Gmork was after his friends. And the Resistance had been betrayed and would not have the men they needed to assault the castle. What hope did he have really?
But Lindsey wasn't ready to give up just yet. To calm his nerves, he tried to recall those who he'd loved. How many happy times had he recalled ever since returning to Arabarb? Lindsey set his mind to work counting them and recounting them.
The home in which he'd lived, full of life as his father Alfwig had dressed kills, his mother sewing or preparing meat, while he and his brother played in the fields with Pharcellus, or learned the many woodland crafts they would need from their parents. He dwelt on games, on songs, on prayers, on stories, all of the things that made his home a true home, that formed him into the man he'd become.
Alfwig was so strong and sure, doting on them but teaching them where that strength came from, the heart and not the sinew. Elizabaeg showing them patience and that love comes through service. Pharcellus being for them a playmate and protector and an older brother he hadn't even realized he had. Andrig wanting nothing more than to get into mischief with his big sister. Lindsey smiled as he thought on them all.
And with the memories came more measured breaths and a weariness that could not be denied.
Lindsey was still a boy, but now he was being dragged by the Lutins through the castle walls. The cold stones bumped him and bruised him as he tried to get his feet under him, stubbing his toes and then tripping only to bounce on his thighs and rump again and again. "Where... ooof... are you... ugh... taking me?"
"You quiet now," the Lutins, neither of whom were the one who'd brought him to Calephas, laughed and kicked him before continuing on their way. He groaned and kept trying to get to his feet.
He managed it only a dozen paces before they turned into the same room where he'd first met Gmork. The monster was there, dressed in his fine northern furs and standing almost in the pose of a man. His nose was wide but mostly human, and his lips concealed teeth only slightly too long. His peppered black hair was drawn into a braid in mockery of the men of Arabarb. Still his ears were pointed and tufted with fur.
"Welcome Lindsey. Your family missed you." The creature grinned and swept a clawed hand to his left and Lindsey's eyes followed. He screamed and tried to run to them but the Lutins yanked him back.
There, chained to the floor were his father Alfwig, his mother Elizabaeg, and his younger brother Andrig. Set before each one of them were little baubles, all of them cold and dark. "Father! Mother! Andrig! It's me!"
"Lindsey, there's nothing you can do," Alfwig said softly in broken agony. "They've defeated us. Arabarb belongs to them now."
"I don't believe it!" Lindsey shouted as he struggled against his bonds. The Lutins kicked his legs out from under him and he fell to the ground, bruising his knees.
"It's true," his mother side with a weeping sigh. "They have all of us now. There's no one left."
"But, Pharcellus and the birds are out there! They'll bring help!"
Gmork laughed and leaned down over the bauble in front of his brother Andrig. "Oh, I think not. I killed him before coming back here." He smiled and drew a parcel wrapped in a leather satchel. "I made sure to bring back evidence of course, so that you would know that you have no friends left, Lindsey." He set it down in front of Andrig who stared at it with fierce hate. "Open it."
"Never!" his brother spat at the monster and glared. "I'll never do as you ask!"
Gmork leaned over and put one finger on the bauble, rolling it back and forth. "Never? You will do as I ask, boy. You can do nothing else."
A light flared inside the bauble and Lindsey pulled at his chains again. "Don't listen to him, Andrig! Don't listen to him! He's stealing your mind!"
"Listen to me, boy," Gmork said, his words an insistent growl as his face began to swell with the suggestion of a snout. "Listen to my words and my words only."
"No!" Lindsey cried, before one of the Lutins jabbed him in the gut with his fist. He coughed and gagged as the light inside the bauble flared brighter.
"I don't..." Andrig cried, face twisting in an anguish as his hate began to be replaced by a sick and vile love. "I don't... I listen... I listen..."
"Good. You like listening to my voice," Gmork crooned as the bauble flared brighter and brighter. Lindsey gasped in horror as his younger brother began to stare at the monster with adoration. By the time the boy had regained his breath, Andrig was obediently ripping the leather pouch open. From within he drew out a very familiar gray and red rimmed skull. A dragon's head - Pharcellus.
Gmork left his brother and moved next to his mother, reaching out with one fur-coated hand to stroke her cheek. She pulled away, but his voice whispered across a long, red tongue to tantalize her ears and mesmerize her mind. Lindsey shouted for it to stop, even as he wept over his older brother's death. But the bauble before his mother began to glow and glow brighter and brighter.
"You love me, don't you?" Gmork asked before bathing his mother's face in long strokes with his tongue as his definite snout brushed either side of her face with thin whiskers.
"I do my master!" Elizabaeg gasped with almost sensual delight.
Gmork glanced back at Lindsey, as he draped one arm over his mother's back. She buried her face into his chest and peppered his fur with kisses. "She isn't your real mother, but I am sure you would hate to see her give herself to me like a bitch begging for pups."
Alfwig rose form his torpor and lunged at Gmork, but his chains drew him just short. "Don't you dare touch her!"
Gmork laughed. "When I have finished with you, man, you will beg me to rape your wife. And you will beg me to rip out your son's throat while I'm doing it."
Lindsey tried to beat at the Lutins in his struggle to stop Gmork, but they pummeled him with their fists until his entire body felt like one large bruise. Purple blotches dotted his arms, chest, and legs as he lay there between them, gasping and wheezing in pain as he watched Gmork speak to his father. Alfwig's eyes burned with defiance but that softened with each new word, dwindling into confusion before finally surrendering to obeisance and complete capitulation.
"Now," Gmork said as he ran his paw-like hand beneath Alfwig's chin, "what do you wish me to do, my little pet?"
Lindsey wailed as his father spoke words that should never have come from his throat. But those wails did resolve themselves into words, objections, any thought that he could dredge from his misery and onto his tongue. "No, this cannot be! Alfwig is immune to you, Gmork! Just like I am! You can't make him your pet! You can't do that! I know you can't!"
Gmork glanced back at him, the jaws of a wolf spreading wide to reveal yellowed fangs and hideous breath. "But I have, little boy. I have. With the dragon dead at my paws I have greater power than before. And I will have you too as my little pet, boy!" He drew a fourth bauble from his cloak and set it down on the flagstones in front of Lindsey. "And now you will listen to me too."
Lindsey shook his head. "Nay! My friends from Metamor! They promised to rescue me. Misha promised to send help!"
Gmork's golden eyes widened in amusement. "Oh, you mean that axe-wielding fox? He did come. Oh, fox, come in here please!"
Through the doorway stepped a completely naked Misha, his eyes noticing nothing but Gmork. He dropped down to his four paws, still almost human in shape, but just low enough that he would keep his head beneath that of Gmork's. "What is it, my master?"
Gmork ran his paw through the fur on Misha's back, ruffling the deep red and and smiling as he studied it. "You have such beautiful fur. I would like for my own. Do you wish me to skin you and take your pelt, my pet?"
Misha gasped with hope and anxiety. "Oh, let me tear it off for you!"
"Nay, my enthusiastic pet, let me do this. Stay still now." Lindsey shouted Misha's name over and over, but the fox never even flicked an ear to listen to him. Gmork pressed his claw into the back of Misha's neck until it started to bleed, and then drew it straight down his spine until it met his tail. Then he moved it over Misha's left hip and down his leg until it was just above his hocks. He returned to Misha's front and did the same thing down his left arm. Blood welled along the cuts but the fox's expression was one of angelic rapture.
Lindsey tried to look away, but one of the Lutin's grasped his head and forced him to watch. His family were breathless in their excitement. Misha kept perfectly still as Gmork began to peel back the folds of flesh from his back, revealing the bright red muscle beneath. Everything was sticky and foul. Blood pooled at their feet. Gmork lifted Misha's limbs one by one and ripped the flesh right off, tearing out each claw as he went. Misha meekly set his ruined stumps back on the stones and offered no complaint.
Lindsey vomited by the time that Gmork made another incision across the fox's face before lifting the last of his pelt free. His friend stood a thing of pulsing tissue and dripping scarlet, not a man at all but a simple animal that should be hanging from a butcher's hook. Gmork stroked the top of his head where the ears had once been and growled a most satisfied sound. "You may die now."
Misha yipped once and then collapsed on his side, quivering from the agony for only a few moments before falling completely still.
Lindsey wept at seeing his friend die and die like that. Misha should have died with his axe in his hands drenched in his enemies blood, not skinned like a common beast. Gmork draped his new fox fur over a tanning board next to the far wall and stroked his paws through the lush fur. The beast sighed with a growl.
Sucking in his breath, and wrestling free of the Lutin's vice-like grip, Lindsey shouted, "There's more friends than just him! They'll all come to make sure you die and go burn in Hell!"
"I've been told that before," Gmork replied laconically. He rubbed his face against the fox pelt and wriggled his jowls in delight. "Oh, this is so very soft. I will enjoy wearing this. It will line my new cloak."
"I have more friends, you monster!"
"Which ones?" Gmork asked as he continued to rub his head against Misha's pelt. "Charles the rat Sondecki? Or his rival, Rickkter the raccoon Kankoran? Or perhaps the skunk, Kayla, who has learned quite a number of interesting spells during her journeys with you. And of course, Jessica the hawk who is a master of many arcane arts. Even that little stone mage Abafouq of the Binoq. I've never met one of them before, but they are close enough to your stock to respond so well to my voice."
"They will defeat you!"
"They will come here and become my loyal and devoted pups. I will cherish each of them and teach them to hunger for the flesh of men." Gmork pressed the fox pelt to his nose and inhaled deeply before stepping back and looking at Lindsey. "And now you are going to listen to my voice and love it."
Lindsey screamed as the bauble resting in front of him began to glow with a faint light.
He throttled awake and yanked his body away from the cold stone wall. His chains yanked him back, but he pressed toward the lip of his prison with a wailing cry. He beat and pulled his arms this way and that, but the manacles only dug into his flesh and the chains clanked and held. He screamed into the darkness and his own voice bounced back and pummeled him. A gust of hot air made him gasp and silenced his feverish racket.
He wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and cry. Lindsey shivered even before the warm air had dispersed into the impenetrable chill of the castle stone. He pressed his knees to his face and scooted his feet as much under his rear as he could. His breath was ragged and he felt snot trailing down his nose and between his legs. He tried to wipe it away but the manacles held his hand back. With a sigh he let the snot drool down his leg and onto his feet. The wet mucus pooled there until it dribbled between his toes.
If he couldn't do anything about a little bit of snot, what could he possibly do against Calephas, let alone Gmork? Nothing. He had no hope but in his friends, and was there even hope there? His father was in prison and almost certain to die as soon as Calephas had what he wanted from Lindsey in the morning. Elizabaeg had gone into hiding with the fractious Resistance, all of whom had expressed skepticism about Lindsey's plan working. They might linger until midday, but when he failed to reveal that Calephas was dead, they would all flee like rats.
The birds were weak and could do nothing of themselves; one of them was already Gmork's pet. As soon as either of the other two were captured again they would become Gmork's pets too if not his meal. And Pharcellus... Lindsey had hoped a dragon would turn the tide against their enemies, but Gmork had been powerful enough to chase him off. Could the beastly mage have actually killed his brother? He sobbed anew to think it. He'd only now learned that Pharcellus was more than a friend but family and now he would never see him again.
He rubbed his face against his knees, wiping his nose there and keeping any more snot from flowing. Morning would come soon enough. But there would be no more dawns for Arabarb. Lindsey had failed and he had led the Resistance into a disaster from which they would never recover. Everything he loved would be in ruin.
Lindsey breathed erratically and whimpered just like the boy he truly was. He could still have adult thoughts, but there was no strength left. He only wanted some word of comfort, some ray of hope that would dry his tears.
Lamenting all that he'd lost, all the wounds that riven his heart into a thousand pieces, Lindsey the little boy fell once more into sleep.