Strom had just finished putting all the sheep and pigs back in their paddocks for the night when Lubec landed in the window and then flew further in to perch on top of the wagon next to Quoddy and Machias. The cormorant stretched his wings and then warbled in delight, "Oh, I'm so glad you two are both here. Is this your contact? I thought there'd be more of you here."
Quoddy glanced at the elderly Strom who was busy stroking one of his ewe's behind the ears. "The rest of them are staying elsewhere. There's not enough room here, and you know, better to keep our forces divided until we get the signal. There's less chance of the monster learning what we're up to that way."
The cormorant stuck his beak into his feathers and groomed himself for a moment before leaning back and cawing softly. "That makes sense. My contact and his allies did the same. So where'd they go? We need to coordinate now if we're going to win this fight."
Quoddy and Machias both shrugged their wings. "We don't know," the puffin admitted. "Lindsey's mother is taking care of that."
Lubec blinked and spread his wings a little in surprise. "Lindsey's mother? Wait, you mean Lindsey the timberman? That Lindsey? That's who Metamor sent?"
"That's right," Quoddy replied. Behind him a pair of sheep started bleating anxiously. "And after spending a few days with him, I know he can do this. He's already gone into the castle. We just have to wait for the signal."
Lubec hopped a few steps back along the wagon as more of the sheep began to bleat. The gull and puffin turned to look at them curiously. Strom touched one then the other, before lifting his eyes in horror. "Somebody's coming. Hide!"
But the cormorant shook his head. "My coming in here was a signal too. Just please don't fight." As his brothers turned to stare at him dumbfounded, a dozen soldiers poured into the paddocks from front and rear. Two of them charging in the rear carried a net which they threw over the two birds. Quoddy and Machias squawked in horror as they beat their wings and tried to tear at the net with their beaks and claws. One of the soldiers bopped Machias on the back of the head with his fist, sending the puffin sprawling limply into the tangled net. Quoddy pecked at the soldier nearest him a few times before he too was struck.
The last thing Quoddy remembered was seeing his brother Lubec hoping up and down cawing angrily, "I said don't hurt them!"
Yajgaj kept his grimy hands wrapped about the guisarme as he watched Baron Calephas and Gmork study the boy's body. He'd been waiting outside Calephas's bedchambers for all of two minutes before the door opened and he and his men were beckoned to carry the boy down three flights of steps to one of the old prisons, but one that Calephas had transformed into his personal laboratory. There Gmork joined him and while the boy was securely bound to the table, the magical beast performed whatever arts he possessed on the youth.
Yajgaj and his three clansmen stood watching and waiting for orders. Both Calephas and Gmork had their backs to them. It was tempting, so very tempting to strike them down and carry their heads back across the pass into the Giantdowns as trophies for their clan. When he'd been made a part of the Blood Harrow clan over a year ago he'd been told the only way to reclaim his true name was to bring their heads. How well he remembered the countenance of the ancient one, a master of crafts and lores once prized by Nasoj himself, wreathed by the winter lights dancing in the sky. There could be no refusing him, and Yajgaj had never regretted accepting.
But unless he could strike clean and fast with neither the wiser, he would not even reach for his blade. His blade, fashioned from the bone of a cave bear he'd killed on his first hunt for the Blood Harrow, he kept sharp, serrated, and crisp for the day he would strike. But it would not be this hour. The Keeper slave Weaker was there, standing to one side and though his head was lowered, those golden eyes would not miss anything.
Yajgaj briefly let his dark eyes study the tiger. A murderer he'd heard, contemptible amongst his people, and cast out. Now the plaything of Calephas, a trained pet with no more will than a sword. He would cry out and attack the moment Yajgaj moved, and then Gmork would destroy him before he could even take a step.
And that he'd seen done before. Humans he would bend to his will. Lutins he crushed like fish flopping in the bottom of a boat. Yajgaj knew precisely what he was in this creature's eyes and would do nothing to garner his suspicion. Gaoler for them both, and chief hunter to the Blood Harrow in Fjellvidden, Yajgaj knew his place.
A waiter and a watcher, and one day soon, an assassin and hero to his clan. And then his true name and place given back to him. Yajgaj yearned for that day. Until then, he was patient.
He'd gotten close to Calephas once before and failed. He hadn't been patient then. He never thought he'd have another chance but the Blood Harrow clan had given it to him. Now he would risk no more mistakes no matter the cost.
So Yajgaj stared and listened, hands wrapped tight about the guisarme while the two he meant to kill examined the boy child.
For several minutes Calephas watched with his arms folded across his chest while Gmork poked and prodded the boy with his twisted fingers that Yajgaj had often wondered how good they'd look on his necklace. But even the Baron's patience was not infinite. "So is he a Keeper?"
Gmork lifted his face, distended into a half snout and smiled, jowls revealing sharp, yellowed teeth beneath. "He has definitely been touched by the Curses of Metamor. But not once only. It appears he has been touched by all three of the Curses."
"All three? How is that possible?"
Gmork ever so tenderly ran one hand down the sleeping boy's chest. "It shouldn't be. But Nasoj didn't always understand the magic he was using. And the counter curses complicated matters. But, there is more magic on this boy than just the Curses."
"Like what?"
Gmork appeared to grab at something above the boy's chest, but Yajgaj could see nothing there. "There are tethers here giving strength to spells on this boy. I can see them. I know what they are. But I cannot break them." He yanked on his arm and it looked as if he were really pulling on something. "Magic beyond anything I've ever seen Nasoj use is bound to this Keeper."
Calephas frowned at that and stepped around the table so that the child and table were now between him and the Lutins. "What magic is bound? The Curses? You've never seen anything like that before."
"Nay," Gmork agreed. "This I have never seen before. Metamor is very serious. This assassin was prepared with very strong magics to avoid detection. One of the spells bound to him masks the Curse and all other magic on him. If I were not standing here next to him, I would not be able to see it. That's why he was able to get to Fjellvidden without us knowing."
"Without us knowing where and who he was," Calephas corrected. "We knew he was here."
Gmork smiled again. "Nay, my Baron. I knew he was here. And I told you."
Yajgaj rolled the guisarme about in his hands, grinning ever so slightly around his tusk-like canines. Was there anyone who liked Calephas left?
The Baron sucked on one lip as he gazed with distinct irritation at the deformed man. "What other magic has been cast on him?"
Gmork wrapped one finger around something the Lutin couldn't see. "I believe there is a trigger spell here that will remove the portion of the Curse keeping him a child."
"How old is he really?"
"I'm not sure. I'd have to remove the spell keeping him a child and that means severing the connection." Gmork's eyes widened and his tail began to wag. "Ah, this trigger spell is set to return him to his normal age. Would you like me to make him older? Would it make it easier for you?"
Calephas shook his head. "He'll be easier to manage as a child. Is there anything more?"
"Quite a bit," Gmork said and rubbed his hands along the boy's chest. Yajgaj stared at the boy's face and felt a disquieting familiarity there. He returned his attention to the deformed man with snout, tail, and now pointed ears. "There's another spell hiding beneath the curses, but I cannot quite tell what it is. His magical core has been badly damaged but I cannot tell by what. It looks..." Gmork blinked and lifted his eyes to Calephas with the blankest expression Yajgaj could ever remember seeing him have. His muzzle opened and his tongue moved but it was several seconds before he managed any words.
"Something very powerful has touched this child. If you intend to use him, you must be careful. But," Gmork pressed a claw into the boy's chest until a bead of blood appeared at his claw tip. Gmork quickly snatched his paw away. "His blood is... more to your liking than mine."
"Already?" The remark clearly surprised Calephas who dabbed up the blood with his finger and slid it across his tongue. His face trembled as if he'd tasted the most succulent and narcotic of ambrosia. "This is... remarkable. He is mine, Gmork. I want him brought to my laboratory immediately."
Yajgaj felt a sickening clench in his stomach. He knew what happened to children that were taken to Calephas's laboratory. As foul as the Baron's bed might be, it was a happier destination than that hellish chamber.
Gmork, though he no longer touched the child, continued to watch him. "You may have him, but I suggest we interrogate him first to learn what he knows. My sleep spell should wear off soon. He may be able to tell us more about the Resistance and Metamor's plans for this land."
Calephas rubbed his chin with one hand as he pondered Gmork's suggestion. He nodded after almost a full minute of pondering that problem. "Do it. I'm going to prepare my laboratory for him. Come Weaker."
Yajgaj and his clansmen stepped out of Calephas's way. They also kept clear of the tiger Keeper following Calephas. Once they were gone, He felt Gmork's penetrating stare. That twisted mouth snarled to him, "Go to my Listening Room and fetch my youngest. Tell him to bring four baubles. And then wait at the bailey for the other Keeper's to arrive. Have them all brought there."
The Lutin could not contain a sharp retort of surprise. "There's more?"
"Just now," Gmork replied with a lop-sided smile. "See to it."
Yajgaj grunted, beat his guisarme on the floor, and then led his clansmen back down the hall to pass on the beastly mage's messages.
His chance would come. Soon.
Pharcellus had followed Lindsey discreetly until the boy was taken beyond the bailey wall and into the castle proper. He waited only a minute before backtracking and entering the one church left standing in Fjellvidden. He saw no priest about, and only a few townsfolk kneeling in prayer before an altar lit only by a few candles. The ceiling, though vaulted, only stretched to twenty feet at best. The bell tower on the river-side was not much higher. As quietly as he was able, Pharcellus slipped into the tower and climbed the old wooden stairs.
The bell tower had a single bell open to the air through four arches, one in each cardinal direction. Phacellus ensconced himself within one of the corners so that he had a good view of the castle and the road leading up to the bailey doors and waited. From there, he was hidden from anything except a bird that chose to land next to him, and all the intelligent birds he knew in Fjellvidden were his friends.
There he waited watching the castle and huddling against the stone to stay out of the cold wind. As a dragon that wind would not have bothered him, but it made his human shape shiver. Humans may be for the most part weak, but they were remarkably inventive and infectious. His mother had counseled him not to love any one human over much, but to care deeply for the families they befriended. He hadn't yet lost a human friend to old age, but a part of him still suspected his mother's advice was two parts guilt and one part experience. And maybe, just maybe, a little bit of wisdom.
He settled down to wait as the day wore on to evening. Dragon's were very good at waiting and so he managed to remain there moving only to stretch his muscles from time to time.
Thus, when the troop of soldiers came up to the bailey bearing more prisoners Pharcellus was completely alert. He focused his gaze on the wagon surrounded by a dozen soldiers and three very familiar birds. The gull and puffin were bound in a net, while the Cormorant squawked at them from just outside the net. Beside them was a bound Strom.
Pharcellus crouched a little further out on the parapet and sucked in his breath. This wasn't part of the plan. And why was Lubec not in the net with his brothers? There wasn't anyone else in the wagon which meant that Elizabaeg had not been captured. He had to find her. Something had gone terribly wrong. Unless he was mistaken, Lubec had betrayed them. The Baron's pet mage, Gmork? Pharcellus wasn't sure, but it seemed as likely as anything else.
Slowly and just as quietly, Pharcellus climbed back down the belltower stairs, slipped out of the church, and made his way through the streets toward the south end of town. He doubted he'd find anything at the paddocks except trouble, but he had to make sure that Elizabaeg wasn't there first. He shuddered at the thought of discovering her lying in a pool of her own blood, gasping for breath and crying for Lindsey who she'd never see again.
Patrols were out in force roaming the streets so Pharcellus stuck to the shadowed alleys. It took him a good fifteen minutes to navigate back to the paddocks. The windows were all dark and he could see no one nearby. There might be soldiers waiting for anyone to come inside, so he went around the backside. The fields south of Fjellvidden were empty and the sties were too. Pharcellus swallowed, and then risked peering in the windows. Two soldiers sat in the dark with their backs to him, watching the front entrance and blowing on pipes. The sheep and pigs milled about in their pens. He saw nothing else.
Seeing there was nothing he could do, Pharcellus backtracked into the city and made his way to the only other person he knew that could be trusted. The sky darkened with each passing moment. Every second stretched into an eternity as he hid from the thickening patrols. The soldiers were noisy enough, banging on doors and demanding that the dwellers show themselves. Their hopes rested on Lindsey's success, but it was clear their presence had been discovered. What wasn't clear was whether Lindsey's plans were discovered too. Pharcellus offered a silent prayer that his legerdemain would end in swift success.
By the time he reached the shipbuilder's workshop the first of the evening stars were sparkling in the sky. Soon the shimmering curtains of light would dance through the heavens and bathe the city in an aetherial rainbow. One more street remained, and he pressed his back firmly against the alley wall, staying as far back in the increasingly deep shadows as he could. Another patrol of soldiers was coming, and from the way the stones glistened back and forth, he knew they were carrying lanterns.
Pharcellus crouched backward, eyes still on the Vysterag's shop. He could see golden light peeking through the edge of the shuttered windows. The soldiers, at least six of them, moved into the street, converging on the workshop. Pharcellus ran his hands behind him until he found the turn in the alley and slipped all but his head into the sheltering passage.
One of the soldiers turned and shone their lantern down the alley. The light brought out every bit of refuse and grime that clung to the narrow walkway, but Pharcellus ducked back a moment before the light revealed the turn. He hoped the soldier didn't come any further down.
But after a good fifteen seconds the light turned away. He could vaguely hear Vysterag's voice as the shipwright answered the soldier's questions, but they spoke too quietly for him to make anything out.
Eventually the soldiers did leave and with them their swinging lanterns. Pharcellus waited another minute to make sure nobody else was coming before darting across the street and moving around to the river side. He slipped in through the smaller door there and closed it quietly behind him.
"Master Vysterag," he called softly.
The tall, blond-haired man came around from behind a canoe hull he had fixed in a frame for his work, and frowned when he saw him. "Chellag," he said in a quiet voice. "What's happened?"
"The soldiers came to Strom's and took my friends captive. They've been taken into the castle."
"But they didn't capture you," Vysterag pointed out as he came around the front of the canoe still holding a heavy wooden mallet in one hand. "You can rally the others still. Do you know where they are staying? The others who've come to Fjellvidden."
Pharcellus shook his head and felt it prudent to lie for the moment. "My aunt was our contact. Only she knew where they were hiding."
Vysterag's eyes went wide and paused just in front of the canoe. His free hand tugged gently at the end of his tightly-wound braid. "Did they capture her?"
"Blessed be the wyrms, nay!" Pharcellus heaved a sigh of relief.
Vysterag's frown deepened as he mused, "She'll probably go into hiding with them."
"Do you know any others in the Resistance here?"
Vysterag grunted and turned his back to the doors. "Strom was one of the two."
"Then you'll need to go into hiding," the dragon said in a hushed whisper.
"How long ago was it that they took Strom and the birds into the castle?" The shipwright turned back and around and took a couple steps closer, beckoning with his free hand for Pharcellus to step away from the river door.
The dragon complied. Pretending to be a human was definitely beginning to show. His mother had always warned him that if he masqueraded as a human he'd start to feel and fear like they did. Though he'd always believed her based on her experience, Pharcellus had never really understood just what that would be like until now. For the first time since they had started this venture, he felt an honest fear. It swelled in his gut and stewed, wrenching him into knots that sent his thoughts scattering like a pack of rats down every cranny and avenue. Yet stepping closer to the shipwright did not allay his fears. For some reason they only multiplied.
After a moment's effort to focus his thoughts he managed to mutter, "Not yet an hour. I would have been here earlier but the patrols are even thicker and more determined than they have been the last two days."
"They always are when Calephas is looking for someone. But we shouldn't need to be afraid here just yet. Gmork will need more time to learn from Strom who we are. And he will learn. About Elizabaeg's disguise too."
"We need to find her!"
"Aye, we do," Vysterag nodded and leaned in a little closer. "And all of her friends." With a sudden thrust, he jabbed the wooden mallet into Pharcellus's stomach and then into his chest. The dragon doubled over and gasped for breath, trying to grab at the man's vest but failing. "Sorry for that," he said in a rather sympathetic voice. "But the soldiers will be back shortly and they will take you to my master."
Another jab on his shoulder forced Pharcellus to the ground holding his arm. He could transform back into a dragon and escape, but Vysterag didn't know he was a dragon. If he did, he'd never have thought a wooden mallet would be enough to subdue him. The pain, the human pain, was real enough. He pretended it was worse than it was.
"It was you," Pharcellus gasped and shook his head. What a moment before had been so confusing was now as clear as the path of an arrow leaping from the bow. "You knew where we were. You tried to find out what we were going to do that night on the boat." He gasped every few words to convince the traitor that he was too wounded to do anything.
"My master asked me to," Vysterag replied like a man in a daze. He swung the hammer back and forth meaningfully. "He will be your master soon. He is good to us who love him. Your younger brother and those birds from Metamor, they will all love him as I do."
Pharcellus shifted his legs beneath him and was rewarded with another blow to the side just beneath his arms. His ribs screamed with the sudden jarring pain like a clatter of stones cascading down a mountainside and a myriad precious jewels tossed across a bed of golden coins. "How could you!" he snarled between the waves of pain. His eyes blazed with a fierce anger, but the shipwright only smiled with that half-befuddled look that had come over him.
"One day I was on the bay ice-fishing when I was escorted into the castle. I met him," his voice become crooning and fawning. "I love him, my master. He helped me see that. And he promised me, promised me, that one day I would be allowed to feed him with my flesh, sinew, and bone! When you and your friends have been brought before him and this hateful Resistance over, then I know I will feed him and his children. Maybe he'll let you feed him too."
Pharcellus stared in abject horror. The man standing before him ready to turn him over to Calephas's soldiers wasn't a traitor. He was no longer a man at all. The rumors of the mage Gmork were true. And Vysterag was just one more victim.
Lindsey, Quoddy, Lubec, and Machias would not be that nightmare's victims too!
And if Vysterag had been Gmork's slave, that meant Lindsey had just been handed into that foul mage's power. Pharcellus had to get into the castle and rescue him.
He shifted backward to get his legs under him and managed to avoid the mallet. But Vysterag was quicker than he thought and had a meaty hand around his collar which yanked him forward until his face was pressed into the cold stone floor. He felt the mallet press against the back of his neck. "No, Chellag, you need to wait and be still. You'll be happy, oh so happy when you follow our master."
Pharcellus made a show of heavy breathing and pathetic squirming beneath the mallet. With but a single thought he could swell in size and girth and easily toss this slave aside without even scratching a single gray scale on his hide. But that wouldn't get him inside the castle.
He tried to think of all the lessons in patience and in controlling his draconic rage that his mother had taught him. He thought of the elder wyrms and their inexorable confidence that came from longevity and observing the rise and fall of hundreds of human empires throughout the many centuries of their existence. And he thought of Lindsey and the three brothers in the hands of the one who'd made a slave of Vysterag. Pharcellus kept calm and even let his body sag in defeat.
Only a few minutes passed before the soldiers returned. There were six of them, two bearing lanterns and all bearing swords. Their leader was distinguishable by the slightly finer cut of his tunic and cloak. A thick haired man with short mustache and eyes as green as a Lutin's skin. He leered at Pharcellus who appeared to his eyes a young man without hope.
"Sergeant Cajudy," Vysterag said in triumph, "this is Chellag, one of the conspirators against our rightful liege. I trapped him before he could warn anyone else."
Cajudy laughed quietly, and gestured for his men to pick Pharcellus up and carry him between them. "Good work. And what of the third? I am told there was another. A woman disguised as a man."
Vysterag scowled fiercely. "If she wasn't captured at Strom's, then she has gone into hiding. Ture is the only other conspirator I know, but she would not have gone to him."
"We'll check Master Ture after delivering this pathetic boy. Our patrols are scouring the city. It won't be long before we have them all, Gmork pet." The last was meant as an insult, but the look of sheer delight that crossed the shipwright's face showed that he saw it in a completely different light.
Pharcellus jostled a little in the grip of the two soldiers, but stopped when the third put a blade to his back. Cajudy stepped in front of him, looked him up and down and then spat in his face. "Come on, little man." He turned around and walked quickly out the door. The soldiers pushed Pharcellus forward. He stumbled his first few steps but matched their pace a moment later. With one hand he wiped the spit from his cheek and allowed himself to be led into the street.
With the brilliant shimmering lights overhead giving the streets a ghostly cast, Pharcellus looked up at the castle. Torches limned it in a vermilion fire. If they had killed Lindsey, he would contribute his own until not one stone stood upon another.
Lindsey felt cold stone beneath him. He groaned as sensation came back to his body. Everything felt cold and hard. He tried to lift a hand to his head but something held back his wrists. And ankles.
He opened his eyes.
The room was dark but for a single lantern positioned next to a closed wooden door. The room was no more than ten feet long and six feet wide, perhaps a servant's sleeping chambers at one time, but now completely empty apart for himself and another figure crouching on the far end. The other figure was man-sized and dressed in fine furs that cloaked most of his form. However, the tail that gently swayed back and forth across the stone floor was clearly his own. The tips of his ears were pointed, while down his back descended long, waxen hair a blend of black and gray.
Another of Gmork's puppies perhaps? Either that, or judging by the quality of the fur, this was Gmork himself. Lindsey stayed absolutely still. His captor was turned away from him still. Best not to let him know that he was awake yet.
He looked down at his hands and legs and could see that manacles were on each and attached by a chain to a ring imbedded in the floor. They were old and clearly in poor shape. As a boy he probably could not break them, but as a man he could easily rend them and gain his freedom.
He took one last look at the one he supposed to be Gmork and satisfied that he was not paying attention, tried to trigger the spell Jessica had given him to return to adulthood. She had assured him he'd know how and that the effects would be instantaneous, but simply issuing a mental command to his body accomplished nothing. He tried imagining his shape flowing back into the body of a grown man just like Charles had described the way he'd shifted from taur form and back. Still nothing.
His heart trembled with sudden and growing anxiety. Nothing he tried seemed to make even one new hair grow let alone return him to his adult self. His hands began to shake with a horrifying fear. He closed his eyes and forced himself to be still as best he could, but still he heard the chain begin to rattle in his trembling.
"I removed the spell that would return you to adulthood," the other figure said in a guttural voice. His eyes popped open and he saw the crouching figure turn about. His legs were misshapen as if they were halfway between a man and animal Keeper who walked on his toes. His face was mostly human in structure, though with pronounced jaw, a wide, flat nose, and dark tear marks along each corner. When the lantern flickered across his eyes, Lindsey could see that they were a soft gold in hue, the irises swollen like those of an animal.
He smiled and revealed long, jaundiced canines. "You are stuck as a child, Andrig. The spell keeping you a child grows in strength each day. If nothing is done, you will think, you will feel, and you will act more like a boy each day until you cannot even remember being a man. And what is more, a boy who can never age, a boy who can never grow up or be anything more than a boy. I think the Baron will find you a very welcome plaything for his bed then."
Lindsey listened in horror and shook, trying to move as far away as the chains would allow. "No!" he stammered and then with sheer force of will, mastered his trembling. "No! I will not be his plaything or yours. Gmork!"
He smiled and bowed his head. "You know me. I am flattered. But, you are in no position to object to anything the Baron or I wish. No one will rescue you. Even now, your allies are being arrested. How else do you think we know your name, Andrig?"
He hadn't quite realized it the first time, but now Lindsey felt a shudder of fear. If they knew the name he'd assumed, that meant that at least one of his friends had been captured. Lindsey narrowed his eyes and tried to look as fierce as possible as he crouched there; the chains were far too short for him to even crouch. "But have you captured them all? I have more than one."
Gmork laughed. "Of course you do. You are from Metamor. But that is a very long way from here. They cannot help you. Your allies in Fjellvidden cannot help you. Unless you wish to be the Baron's plaything for the rest of your life, and be a frightened and beaten, and broken child for that entire life, then you are going to tell me everything I want to know."
Lindsey shuddered as he remembered the powerful Calephas standing over him, pushing that cup of wine into his hands. The tiger Keeper, still with claws and fangs, yet a broken being and no more than a slave. Is that the end destined for him? He'd rather have died at Marzac then to end up like that.
"Oh," Gmork added with the nonchalance of an afterthought, "the Baron has not touched you in his special way. It was a promise I exacted from him for your benefit. Tell me what I wish to know, and I will make sure that you never see his bed again."
"And become your slave instead?" Lindsey sneered and spat on the ground. "I will see you both dead."
Gmork stood a little taller and his face pressed out into a beastly snout as he growled and his jowls flecked with spittle. "No my boy, you will do as I say! Do not believe you are the only one who will suffer consequences for refusing me!" He turned to the door and opened it, his hand swollen with claws. "Bring them!" He said to somebody waiting outside.
The hall outside the small room had more light and for a moment Gmork was illuminated by it. Lindsey could see that the fur cloaks he bore were fashioned from the hides of wolves. So too did his snout and tail appear, as well as the particular colors of his hair. Whatever Gmork truly was, he seemed to have some affinity for the shape of the wolf.
And whoever he spoke to must also because Lindsey heard the familiar staccato of claws on stone as the figure scuttled away and returned a moment later followed by boots and very familiar squawking voices.
Gmork smiled as another misshapen man entered the small room to take up a position next to the door, while in filed three familiar birds. Quoddy the gull and Machias the puffin were both shackled with rope around their legs to keep them from moving quickly, while the third which must be Lubec the Cormorant was let free. The way he looked at Gmork made Lindsey's stomach turn. It was not in fear, but in complete and utter adoration. Lastly came a pair of soldiers with the elderly Strom between them. They pushed the shepherd to his knees and stood just outside the door waiting.
"Oh my master, I brought them like you said!" Lubec crowed as he spread his long neck down on the ground in obeisance. Quoddy and Machias exchanged fearful glances with Lindsey as the mage leaned over their brother and began to stroke the back of his neck with one paw-hand. Spittle drizzled from the side of his jaw to land on the bird's head.
"Very good, my pet. Very good." He leaned back up and gestured to the wall. "Now wait there with your brothers."
"Will you help them serve you too, Master?" Lubec asked as he quickly pushed himself against the wall as ordered.
"I may do that. It's all up to Andrig." Gmork turned back to him and let the snow fade some from his face. But the dark nose remained, and it quivered as dark golden eyes bore down on him. "The choice of what happens to your friends is up to you, Andrig. Tell me all I want to know, and I will let them go. Even the Cormorant." That suggestion made Lubec's eyes wild with sudden anxiety. "But only if you answer my questions."
Lindsey scowled but said nothing. He put his legs beneath him and rose to a crouch, propping his rear against the cold wall. It was all he could manage, but at least he wasn't laying on the floor anymore.
At seeing no response, Gmork pulled a small brass bauble from the folds of his cloaks and rolled it back and forth in one hand. He tapped his claws against it with each swirl. "How many allies do you have in Fjellvidden?" Lindsey said nothing, doing his best not to look at any of the birds or at Strom. How well he recalled the torture that the Marquis had made them endure. He wasn't going to be broken like this.
Unperturbed at the lack of response, Gmork asked, "Did Metamor send anyone else to aid you? How did one of their mages unlock the secret to giving you another Curse? What do you know of me and of the Baron?"
Still Lindsey remained silent. Gmork chuckled so suddenly that it that made his heart jump. "I do not expect you to answer so simply. Your allies are here, but you do not understand what I can do to them. I think you need to witness this to know that telling me what I want is truly the only way to save them."
"Touch them and I'll make you regret it," Lindsey said in his darkest voice possible. Coming form a boy's throat, it sounded petulant rather than threatening. Despite himself, he couldn't help but feel very small and weak.
Gmork turned his head to one side and wagged his tail. "You? You will make me? Regret? I have not regretted in a long time." With only three steps Gmork was bending over Lindsey, his jaws brushing through Lindsey's red hair as meaty hand stroked down one cheek until a claw pressed painfully beneath his chin without breaking the skin. "You my little boy, will regret a great many things if you do not start telling me what I want to know."
"Don't listen to him," Quoddy squawked before he was pecked in the shoulder by his brother Lubec.
"Listen to him!" Lubec added with an adoration bordering on worship.
Gmork forced Lindsey to look into his face for several long seconds. His snout pressed out ever so slightly, a long red tongue breaking between thin, dark lips and framed between long canines as gold and green eyes held him with an insouciant hunger. "Watch me, little one."
Swiftly, the mage spun back around and loped on all fours to the shepherd who was on hands and knees with long beard brushing the floor. Gmork licked his face and the man pressed back away from him before being kicked forward again by the puppy. The puppy was even more beastly than Gmork, featuring the ears of a wolf and long gangly arms ending in stumpy, clawed fingers. These he pressed into the shepherd's back to hold him in place.
Gmork set the bauble down in front of Strom and then looked back at Lindsey. "This man I suspect you only met a few days ago. But your fellow Metamorians are truly your friends. Watch what I do with this one, and know that I will do it to the silly birds if you do not answer my questions."
"Don't tell him anything!" Strom said with a gasp.
"Interesting," Gmork said with a little laugh followed by a growl. "You will beg for that and it will tear out his heart. Look at me. Look at me!" Strom, struggled against the words, but his head lifted, and his pale eyes were transfixed by the mage's domineering gaze. "Very good. Do not look away. But keep your eyes on mine, and your ears trained to my voice."
Strom tried to turn aside, but his head was held fast as if it were placed in a vice. His lips quivered and his teeth gnashed, but no matter how he moved his muscles, the eyes remained open. Beneath him, the little bauble began to glow very faintly. Lindsey looked between the bauble, the shepherd, and the disfigured mage in growing horror. Against the wall Lubec flapped his wings in obvious delight.
Gmork continued speaking in his half-growl half almost conversational lilt. "You will speak only when I ask you something. Do you understand. Tell me if you understand."
"I..." Strom's lips moved and his tongue moved with it, though each word drew forth like a stone passing through the bladder. "I understand."
"Good. That is very good." Gmork spoke slowly as his muzzle retracted back into his face until he almost looked human. "I'm very pleased that you understand. That is good. You should always listen to my voice and obey what I tell you. Now, what is your name?"
His hands balled into fists, and as the light swelled inside the bauble, he blurted, "Strom! Strom son of Galan son of Gaard."
"Well, Strom son of Galan son of Gaard, you offer me more than I ask for." He leaned forward and wrapped the man's chin in one hand. "Thank you. Be judicious in this, Strom. I ask what I want for a reason. Does it matter whose son you are? Does it matter to you truly whose son you are? Is not my voice enough?"
He shuddered some and tried to look away, but could not tear himself from those vibrant eyes and that slithering voice that growled as deep as a bear's and was as silken as wine. With the most weak of voices, mewling like a lost calf, Strom uttered a word that felt like a knife in Lindsey's stomach. "Aye!"
"You want to obey me, don't you?"
"Aye!"
"It is your every desire. Let go the fear, my little man. Let it go." Gmork stroked him down the back of the head and smiled once more. "Let it go. I am all you need."
Strom swallowed, the callow cheeks turning upward into a hopeful smile, eyes filling with the same look of adoration that consumed the Cormorant. And at his feet, the bauble glowed brightly, shining like a jewel. Gmork licked the man's face with his long red tongue again and continued to stroke his gray hair back. "Do you love me, Strom?"
"Aye, I do!"
Gmork crouched lower and wiped the palm of his hands across the flagstones. He held them up to the shepherd and with sublime sweetness said, "Then clean my hands as a cat might."
Strom pressed his face into those hands with an eagerness Lindsey had never seen in the man even when he was tending his sheep. His tongue ran across each thick fingers and the palms with assiduous care and exuberant desire. At each curved claw he licked so firmly that they would tear into his tongue. And then he'd lick more gently to sweep up the droplets of blood he'd left behind. Lindsey lowered his head, too sick to watch anymore as the man he'd only started to know and had begun thinking of as a sort of uncle became a pet to this monster.
"Very, very good, little Strom. I am pleased." Gmork withdrew his hands and picked up the glowing bauble. "Andrig, is something wrong?"
"You vile monster!" Lindsey snarled, lurching forward against his chains before they yanked him back. "You monster!"
The pup holding Strom down growled through a beastly snout and his tail went stiff behind him. Gmork waved him still and then shook his head in disappointment. "Do not say such things about me. You are upsetting my son." He then lifted the bauble and held it up so that Lindsey could see it. "Whatever will Strom had, whatever thoughts, hopes, dreams, prayers, all of that, all that makes him who he is, is now mine. He lives only to do exactly as I wish and has no other desire or love. Lubec, my little bird, is the same. Shall I make his brothers mine too?"
Quoddy and Machias stared in horror at their brother and Strom, and then looked to Lindsey fearfully. They were overwhelmed and could not think clearly. Lindsey closed his eyes to them and gritted his teeth. "I will not give you anything!"
"I can do more than make them my slaves," Gmork said as if announcing that it would rain that evening. He turned back to Strom and let his snout protrude again. "Strom, would you like me to tear out your stomach and feast on your innards while you are still alive?"
Strom quivered and with one hand scratched at the cloaks he still wore in order to expose his stomach. "Oh, my master, please do so! I want you to feast on me!"
Gmork licked the man's face again, more slowly this time, before leaning back and casting a sideward glance at Lindsey. "I will do so, only if Andrig does not tell me anything. If he stays silent, I will feast on you. But, if he begins to speak, if he begins to answer my questions, I'm afraid I will have to let you live for now and will need to sustain myself with the flesh of a simple animal. The forest is full of them, it will not be hard. But I am so looking forward to eating you. I want to delight in the look of exquisite joy on your face as you watch your innards slide down my gullet, and your blood smearing my snout and arms. Your last breaths will be like sweetest perfume to me, Strom. But, it will only happen if Andrig does not answer my questions. What do you say to that?"
Lindsey had listened dumbfounded at every word drooling from the mage's tongue. Facing Marzac he'd had to endure such vile temptations and evils that even the memory of it would bring on nightmares that would take days to dispel. But each of his temptations then had been to power, to sensuality, to defeating his enemies. Never had it been to such raw beastly hunger as this.
And to his horror, Strom turned to him, with the most pitiful agony in his eyes as he bewailed and begged the boy, "Oh, Andrig! Please, don't tell my master anything! If you do he won't eat me! Tell him nothing! Nothing!"
Lindsey doubled over and vomited as he fought back sobs.
"Now, Strom," Gmork said with a faintly stern command, "we must give him a chance to answer. It wouldn't be fair to start feasting while he is still retching." And while Strom whined his desire to die, Lindsey managed to back away on hands and knees from his vomit and cower in a ball. He was too scared to even think of looking at the monster anymore.
But Gmork would not leave him alone. He walked over to him in his crouch, and looked at him with those hideous gold-green eyes that seemed almost to glow in the darkness. "Well, Andrig? What will it be? How many other allies do you have? Where are they? What does Metamor know of us? Answer whichever one you wish."
Lindsey licked his lips, glanced at the birds and Strom, and whimpered. "You have all my friends!"
Gmork shook his head. "I know there are at least two more. Your aunt Elizabaeg for instance, and your older brother. Chellag is his name I believe."
Lindsey snapped his head up, body still. "How..."
The beast smiled and Lindsey curled back into a ball. "So there's at least two more of you. Where is your aunt and your older brother?"
Lindsey began to weep.
Gmork waited several seconds before grabbing Lindsey by the hair and yanking his head up. "Open your eyes and watch!" Lindsey stared, too frightened to disobey. Strom stared hopefully at Gmork, and Lubec stared with raw envy at Strom. Quoddy and Machias were both struck dumb with their own fear.
Gmork nodded his head once, and the pup began to smile wide, his snout becoming even longer and fangs fiercer. His hands pressed down into Strom's back until the claws drew blood, raking it into rivulets right through the cloaks. Strom gasped and fell to his side, at which point the pup buried his head in the man's belly. Blood fountained, and the shepherd gasped in anguish, "Master... it was to be you..."
The pup quickly disemboweled him with his fangs. Strom's intestines spilled across the flagstones as blood drenched the pup's fur-coated arms and face. Machias squawked and tried to break free, but Lubec held him down with his wings. The two soldiers averted their gaze. Lindsey screamed. Gmork laughed and drooled.
Strom's body stopped quivering a moment later while the pup lapped up the blood as it oozed free from the now empty cavity between the shepherd's waist and chest.
Gmork ran one meaty hand down the back of Lindsey's head and showed him the bauble. The bright glow flickered for a moment before winking out. The room felt even colder than before. In a low growl, Gmork promised, "And that is what will happen to the birds one by one until you begin telling me the truth."
Lindsey covered his head with his hands and tried to push the deformed man away. His heart ached and his chest heaved with sobs and nausea. In his mind he could hear question after bewildered question bounce back and forth. How could anyone do such a thing? What hope did he have of Gmork letting them go even if he did answer the questions? How could this creature have such power over the minds of others? How would he ever free Arabarb now?
And then, in the voice of long dead Zhypar, one last question came to him. If Gmork could do that to Strom and to Lubec, why hadn't he done it to him?
That question stuck in his mind and fought through all the fear and all the childish emotions. It quickened what remained of his strength ad marshaled the scattered remnants of his will. He straightened his head, murmured a prayer for dead Strom, and then glowered back at Gmork. "Answer me this, Gmork. Why haven't you done this to me? You want answers, why not steal my will as you stole Strom's and Lubec's, and however many others you've taken?"
Gmork glared at him suddenly, and took a step back from him. He said nothing.
"There's some reason you haven't done this to me, Gmork," Lindsey continued, feeling strength and contempt return with each word. "Does that sick fishguts Calephas want me for something? Or can you not touch me at all? Is it some limit to your magic? You wouldn't go through this charade if not for some reason!"
Gmork pursed his lips for one moment before turning to the Cormorant. "Lubec, come forward." The Cormorant did so eagerly, even while both Machias and Quoddy tried to hold him back. But he slipped free of their grasp and was soon standing before the crouching figure, keeping himself just small enough in stature so that he could look up at his master.
Lindsey didn't like where that was going so shouted, "I've been touched by magic you could only dream of! I've been to Marzac!"
"Lubec would you lay your neck in my..." Gmork's ears turned and then with them his head. For the first time, his eyes were wide with surprise. "Marzac?" And then he mastered himself and snorted. "Never heard of it."
"You are a very poor liar, Gmork."
Gmork snarled, revealing canine molars beneath his jowls. "We already know that you are! You tell me this is all that you have when I know your aunt and older brother, if that is who they really are, are in the city with you! Lubec is mine, and you do not think I know everything his brothers unwittingly told him?" He barked a laugh and his ears covered themselves with fur to lay back against his head, tail lifting in anger. "And you think to fool me with so vain a tale as Marzac? You are an idiot!"
"I was there," Lindsey insisted. "I was there when Yajakali himself attempted to turn time backwards! I saw his death! I saw that place go up in flames that rivaled the sun! I saw it, Gmork! I've been to Marzac. You cannot touch that!"
"Yajakali?" Gmork let the word roll across his tongue as if it were a morsel of food he'd never before tasted. "The last time I heard that name, Nasoj had one of his least brilliant ideas. Oh little liar, how did you learn of it?"
Lindsey snorted. "I told you the truth."
Gmork grabbed him by the hair again, yanking so that it actually hurt, the first time Gmork had actually physically hurt him. "Even if you are not lying to me, you are still a fool! You cannot stop anything I am doing, Andrig. You cannot stop it. So you try to tempt me with rumors of a magical power that I have no hope, nor any other mage living or dead, of controlling!"
He tossed Lindsey's head back and stomped away, falling into a low crouch next to Strom's head. The pup was still greedily feeding off his flesh and had yanked out some of the rib bones to gnaw on. "Do you know that Nasoj himself once thought it a bold idea to send mages to the Chateau to steal one of Yajakali's artifacts? Most of his mages didn't even know what the place was. I knew. And a few others. And we assured him that he was courting his own death with this plan. It's the only time I have ever seen Nasoj give up a plan."
A look of profound bitterness crossed Gmork's features. He looked down at his pup for a moment and ever so tenderly stroked his lupine ears. He did this for several seconds before turning one eye toward Lindsey. "There is still a great deal of the man in you, Andrig. I grant you that. Your plan to impersonate a child and murder Calephas in his bed when he tried to rape you was inspired. It might have even worked if you hadn't trusted one of my pets."
After one last stroke of the pup's ear, Gmork took a step toward Lindsey and growled low. "You have managed to make me angry. You have distracted me. Enjoy this little victory. It is the last one you shall ever have over me." He then snapped with such violence that Lindsey jumped back. "Lubec! Here!"
The Cormorant waddled as fast as he could to the deformed man's side. "I am here, my master!"
"Do you want to see your brothers call me master?"
"Oh, aye! With all my heart!"
"And do you want them to feed my hunger, to sustain my flesh with their own?"
Lubec nodded and squawked, "I want my flesh to feed you too!"
"It will my little bird. But, wouldn't you rather watch your brothers feed me, knowing that they go before you and will welcome you in my gullet when your time comes? And it will come soon. Wouldn't you rather that?"
The Cormorant flapped his wings with avian delight. "Oh, aye, my master! Please help them yearn to feed you!"
"I will." He cast a sidelong glance at Lindsey and then said, "But first you have to choose. Which of your brothers do you want to feed me first?"
Lubec turned around and looked at his brothers who stared in horror and shook their heads. A black wing lifted and gestured at the seagull. "Quoddy! He's my older brother, master. He has always led us well. And I want him to lead us into you."
"Quoddy it is then," Gmork removed the bauble from his cloak and started toward the bird when a noise outside in the hall arrested him. He lifted his ears, even as the pup stood up from his meal to peer out into the hall. "It sounds as if we are going to have more guests." He gestured to one of the guards. "Move that body into the corner and make some room." The guard was quick to comply, averting his eyes the entire time
It took Lindsey a moment more to discern the noise that Gmork's sensitive ears picked up. Boots. Several people were coming down the hall. Into the doorway stepped a Lutin carrying a guisarme, but he was apparently only the escort. Following him was a mustached soldier and a very familiar red-haired young man.
Lindsey leaped forward against the chains and before he realized what he was doing, shouted, "Chellag!"
Pharcellus smiled to him briefly, before his eyes took in the scene before him in the room. But it was not he who reacted first and in such a surprising and violent manner. Gmork turned his head to greet his newest prisoner and then jumped backward, arms thrust before him curling with shards of ice. A single word erupted from his throat like the worst curse he could imagine. "Dragon!"
Pharcellus's body swelled in proportion, his head stretching out into vicious jaws and a long neck covered in scales. Men screamed in horror as the rest of him swelled outward and into the hall, their screams cut short as their bodies were crushed between the dragon and the wall. The soldier who'd brought him, jumped out of the way into the room, while the Lutin fell back into the hall opposite the dragon's bulk and stared in wide-eyed wonder.
Both of the soldiers in the room quailed in fear at the sight of a dragon suddenly within the castle walls and staring very angrily at them. Machias and Quoddy ran toward Pharcellus only to turn back to Lindsey who was still chained to the floor. He shouted at them to run, but his words were lost of the roar of what happened next.
The ice coating Gmork's arms exploded in a rain of biting sleet that drove back at Pharcellus's head. It sliced against his skin so that he put one massive clawed hand in front of his face to shield his eyes. Little rivulets of blood splattered from cuts in his neck, one of them landing in the pup's face. The pup yowled in agony and thrust himself at Pharcellus with bolts of lightning erupting from his arms. These cascaded off of Pharcellus's hide harmlessly unlike Gmork's missiles.
Pharcellus slammed his free hand against the pup, pressing him into the wall, and then raked his claws so quickly across his chest and neck that the pup spat blood as his chest erupted in a crimson rose. His head deformed into a long snout that yipped once before tilting to the side and tearing free of the body.
Gmork screamed in fury and the ice missiles became veritable javelins that ripped into Pharcellus's neck. The dragon yanked his head back out of the doorway, even as the entrance was completely coated in ice shards that shattered with the sound of thunderclaps. Lindsey pressed his hands to his head, even as the walls rumbled with the dragon backing away.
In a rage even more apoplectic, Gmork chased after the dragon before he and the Lutin jumped back into the room to avoid a plume of flame. But Gmork was after him again, firing bolts of energy so bright that Lindsey had to look away. Shouts and screams echoed and the dragon smashed the walls on either side so heavily that Lindsey could hear stones falling through the tumult. But the walls of his room remained stable.
Inside the room the first to recover was the Lutin who pressed the tip of the guisarme to Lindsey's neck and with a wide-eyed stare, the little green monster asked, "You know that dragon?"
Lindsey snorted in disgust at the little creature. "All my life."
The Lutin lowered the weapon and snarled at the three soldiers. "Help Gmork!"
But before any of the three could react, Gmork was back inside the doorway. He rounded on Lubec who trembled in one corner. "Was that Pharcellus?" Lubec nodded quickly. "Why didn't you tell me he could become human?"
Lubec wailed like a whore afraid her client was going to beat her to death. "I didn't know! Please forgive me, master!"
"It's done," Gmork replied. "He burst through the wall and they fled to forests in the east. He's injured so he won't go far. Lubec, fly over the town and see if you can find their allies."
The cormorant's head bobbed up and down and down and then he almost flew out of the room in his haste to do his master's will. The soldiers managed to straighten themselves and look half-dignified in the meantime. Gmork's eye roved to them next. "You two, go to the Listening room and tell my other pups to meet me in the prisons immediately. Sergeant Cajudy, you will help me carry my son's body to the dungeons."
"Of course, Master mage," the mustached guard replied as he pulled his tunic down straight.
Gmork looked down at his pup even as the first two soldiers left. He stroked his paws across the bloodied face and then moved the head back to where it should have been attached to the body. Lindsey wasn't sure what was worse, seeing this creature ravenous with brutal hunger or apparently weeping over its child.
But the moment was brief and Gmork turned to him. His eyes were fierce and full of rage. "Yajgaj, escort the boy to Calephas. The Baron may have him now."
The Lutin peered out the doorway at whatever destruction lay out there and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "What of dragon?"
"I will deal with that shortly, Lutin. Tend to your charge."
The Lutin had a small ring of keys at his belt, and with these he unlocked Lindsey from the ring in the floor. His hands and legs were still chained, but at least he could finally stand. And at least Pharcellus had saved Quoddy and Machias. He hoped and prayed they'd be okay.
The Lutin guided him out of the room and past the splatters of blood and into the ruined hallway now opened in one section to the night air. A shimmering curtain of light stood between them and a drop of at least forty feet down a sheer wall. Truly Gmork's magic was more powerful than he'd ever suspected.
The foul beast watched him with loathing until they were finally out of his sight.