Charlan's smile gleamed bone-white in the moons' light as Masis dropped back into the glade. The six other wights around her balked as he approached, like horses shying from something in the night, their feet unsteady and ready for flight. Charlan did not flinch. But she would have given anything to scour Masis' pungent, doggy odor from her nose.
Can't be too picky though, thought Charlan, practically purring. I'll be ruling all Haimlant soon.
With stiff strides and a rigid back Masis stopped in front of her.
Her companions again shifted uneasily. News of Lord Markham's demise had spread quickly through the ranks. Then one also had to consider that standing before them was the killer of Captain Ansleth and her entire squad. All those points had quickly made Masis Domrae the thing that went bump in the night for more than a few wights. Death—a concept centuries extinct for most of her people—now stood before them. Mortality had an annoying way of asserting itself.
"If you have done anything to her..." growled Masis, still in his wolvan form.
"Come, come," tutted Charlan, "I do know how to be a gracious hostess."
"So, Captain Biligrim is still alive?" asked Masis, dead-eyed.
"Yes," said Charlan, cocking her hips while crossing her arms. "Even Master Elwith. Really, Masis, why would I hurt any of them while I have your full cooperation?"
His hands balled into fists, white and trembling, as his jaw bulged as he clenched his teeth. He made to step forward, but Charlan spoke, stopping him in place.
"Now, as I'm sure you're anxious to be reunited with your friends and loved one, I suggest we start back. It's quite a ways."
She turned, gesturing for Masis to take the lead. He wilted back into his human form, stalking past her without so much as a glance, and she turned, following close on his heels. Her underlings broke apart quickly to let him pass, before forming ranks and falling in step just behind her. Soon the dark passageway swallowed all of them.
Though no light existed, Charlan still made out the dimensions of the space. This was her domain. This was her seat of power. Darkness—impenetrable, fathomless, unknowable—based in a land shrouded by myth and nightmare, both of which would only grow now that her and her people had been granted absolute governance over this place.
The night was hers. Soon, once she had subdued and corrupted the Warden correctly, he and his offspring would give her the day. With both night and day, Haimlant, more importantly its people and their lifelight, would be hers. All hers.
Is that what you want? asked Andsek's voice in her mind, mocking as usual. All Haimlant?
Charlan kept gliding forward, working her jaw back and forth. She took deep, deliberate breaths, contemplating whether or not she actually wanted to engage in another argument with herself. Some deep impulse—like hunger driving one to feast—compelled her to answer, to justify herself.
She swallowed. Of course, it is.
You can't lie to me, mommy, tsked the imaginary Andsek. I'm in your head.
Conscious of the eyes at her back, Charlan rolled her neck as though working out tension or fading excitement. I am not lying to anyone. Myself included.
Hmm, isn't it amazing? asked the imagined Andsek. Charlan could just imagine his face, a meek mask barely concealing his arrogant instructiveness.
What is? asked Charlan, the absurdity of asking herself a question not lost on her.
How much she's twisted you to her own purposes.
Who's she? asked Charlan, knowing full well who he meant.
Manu, of course.
Even now the tugging connection that linked Charlan to Manu told her the conniving moon had since risen into the sky. That tug, ever present, ever binding, always hunger inducing, reminded Charlan of her own mesmer. Did those she mesmerize resist a similar tug? Could they sense her nearby? Did they resist the compulsions she put into them? Was she just a puppet for Manu as so many had been for her?
It's truly fascinating to think about, isn't it? asked Andsek's voice earnestly. Are we to her as we are to others? Our puppet master? Our conqueror?
Charlan shrugged the notion away, not missing a step as they continued down the long, stale course. Masis padded feet made no noise. Only the faint whiff of his breathing disturbed the perfect stillness.
This was my goal, insisted Charlan to herself. This has always been my goal, even when I was still human.
Was it though? All mocking had left the specter's words. Now earnestness, even pleading, an urgent push to remember, inhabited her dead son's voice. Somehow it seemed natural. Was it really? Wasn't there a time when all you wanted was the assurance that humans would remain dominant over the Animal Kingdom? Didn't you think their dominance and safety of paramount importance at one point?
I...
Long buried and moldering thoughts grimaced their way to the forefront of Charlan's mind.
Once so many centuries ago, she had been an ambitious, eager idealist faced with the insulting reality that animals had somehow gained an equal status to humans, their obvious superiors. Granted they could speak and even reason on some level, but they still operated a great deal on that primitive instinctual drive, impulses that humans had mastered. How any sane, rational person could think about coexisting with such creatures had been beyond her.
Quite a few of her fellow mages had agreed, and so they had organized, plotted, waited, until they had garnered enough power, laid away enough favors and resources, to achieve their goal: toppling the Animal Kingdom and wiping out all Changed beasts, thus ensuring the humans' rightful place as the dominant species.
Their plan had worked. It had worked even better than they could have hoped for.
The Great Wolves upon seeing their imminent destruction had done something that no one thought possible: they struck a deal with Manu, the bitter, dark moon.
Of course, the ancient religions and mythologies said that the celestial bodies had conscious, active minds. Even Werold, the world upon which they walked, supposedly lived in some form or another. But no one—no rational thinker that is—believed the faith of some old Bards and their followers that helped peddle their bogus mythos.
In that instant, Charlan had had to reevaluate everything she had thought she knew about existence. Apparently, Manu had a mind. If that were true, it stood to reason Mona and Mani did as well. If the three moons thought, Wilo probably did too. And if all the things in the sky above had a mental existence, why not Werold as well?
Such knowledge had saved her and her fellow mages later.
The Warden at the time—Lady Kyla—had not thought the attack and diminishing of the Animal Kingdom the great boon Mistress Charlan did. Her fury and retribution had come swiftly and she had very nearly sussed out every last mage that had taken part in the plot. She would have too, if Mistress Charlan had not remembered that little tidbit about the Great Wolves' dealing with Manu.
And so, Charlan and her people had brokered a deal with Manu, but they were careful not to let what happened to the animals happen to them. Possessing a far superior intellect than any beast, they had felt confident in negotiating a deal with an ageless being that was traditionally known as the Deceiver.
Charlan grimaced at the memory—regurgitated arrogance always tasting fouler the second-time round.
But the bargain didn't fail, insisted Charlan to herself. We gained immortality. We survived, and now we will rule.
But is that what you wanted? asked the remnant of her son. To rule? Do you remember the Works you used to affect? Do you remember the joy of creating simply to create? The thrill of seeing what was in your head manifest itself right before your eyes? Do you even remember what sunlight feels like on your skin? Do you? Do you?! Do YOU? Is this what you really wanted?
The questions became more and more persistent, hammering her mind, beating at the backs of her eyes. They clawed at her, dredging up more and more memories, memories that insisted on replaying, reliving themselves in all their aching, searing, blistering, scorching inaccessibility. Pressure began to build in her head. She squeezed her eyes shut to hold it back. Still, it built. She pressed her hands to both sides of her head. Still, it gained. She shook her head slowly. Then harder. When her head could hold no more, the strain migrated to her chest, but instead of pushing outward it pulled inward, a negative pressure that exposed her missing heart, her absent soul.
Skull pushed out. Chest caved in. Hands pressed. Lungs battled. Eyes squeezed until lights appeared.
"STOP!" she screamed.
Her eyelids shook as she worked them open.
Every person stared at her, halted in their tracks. Even Masis' whose eyes did not fall on her directly had turned, crouched and undoubtedly tracking her in his mindeye.
Each waited, expectation in their eyes. They stood in the junction heading back the way the chase had originally come.
"Take the far-right tunnel," said Charlan, flatly. "I'll go ahead and make sure our guest is ready to receive visitors."
She melted into the shadows, eager to lose her body for a time.
************
What was all that about? wondered Masis, frowning.
Standing in the pitch dark, he had not seen the night queen go, but in his mindeye she had been standing behind him one moment and in the next had vanished. The verbal barbs she had thrown at him still stuck under his skin, tugging and stinging him back to his current circumstances.
Calla was here somewhere. The last person he could call family had been abducted in the night, ripped from her home, possibly mesmerized, and dragged across the length of Haimlant to be imprisoned here, this nightling infested heap.
His eyes stung with tears, while his chest constricted with hot fury. He blinked them away. They would only douse the building conflagration within him. He would need it and the will to channel it correctly, if they had any chance of escaping.
The six wighties the pretend Lady Telias had left him with still stood behind him. His mindeye made out their shifting hesitation. None seemed to want to approach him and prod him into motion again.
Try me, thought Masis, silently daring them. Oh, please, just try me.
He growled in their direction and smiled when all of them stepped back. He turned and sniffed out the right tunnel without so much as a word. They scrambled to fall in behind him.
In the absolute blackness, stagnant with age, Masis had no other recourse but to let his thoughts have their head. No other object existed to distract him. Stretching his arm out, his fingertips running along the rough, uneven wall, Masis' mind bumped and ran a rough course of its own.
Visions of wighties feeding on Calla's lifelight, not draining her completely but leaving her with just enough to survive and eventually recover, assaulted him. Her abduction, in hundreds of different scenarios, all including broken doors, screams, bodies, and broken lives, forced themselves in wherever they could. He saw her languishing in some hole deep within this network of dead tunnels, tied and unable to move.
He had to rescue her or else fail his family entirely. And if saving her meant he had to kill the night queen to do it, so much the better. With that cheery thought, scenarios of her demise added themselves into the jumbled mix of his imagination.
In his mind, Calla's pain and suffering would be followed by the night queen's gruesome death. Over and over this cycle repeated. With growing fervor, Masis encouraged it. So deep he sunk into his mind that though his fingers never left the wall he no longer registered its irregular and grating surface.
Soon rescue became secondary to retribution. All at once, the only avenue was through the night witch's demise.
She'll die, thought Masis, nodding to himself. She'll die and then we'll escape.
So subtle, he did not see the shift. So slight in variation, he missed the change.
Destination determined, his senses and faculties evened out, focusing their range and intention on that single point. His energies solidified within him, set and apparently unchangeable, pulling him forward toward his goal, like a lodestone to metal. His heart beat steady. His breath flowed with smooth precision. Each step came with quick determination, no hesitation at all.
Calm, like the eye in the madness of a storm, pervaded his being, eerie and unnatural.
Ahead, the tunnel began to lighten. At first it appeared nothing more than a trick, but with each step it became more and more apparent that a pale, ghostly light began to creep into the dark world. The dimensions of the space snapped back into their exactness. Turning his head, Masis could now make out his escort consisted of three he-wights and three she-wights.
At his sudden attention, each wight hiccupped in their stride, falling behind him even farther. Their glances, uncomfortable and almost queasy, did not bespeak predators. Their sidelong looks betrayed prey.
At one time, Masis would have smiled, maybe even chuckled at their expense. Now, he simply turned back to the growing light, quickening his pace, putting even more distance between himself and his guards. He had someone to kill and someone to save. In that order.
The light kept increasing as the space trumpeted out into a massive chamber. Masis stopped short as the ceiling fell into the heights of the now conical space. Its point stood out clearly though so high above, as gargantuan holes that ringed its peak let silvery moonlight pour in. Those holes luminesced the space with a pallid light, ethereal and bone-white. Alcoves dotted the angled walls, appearing to have no pattern as they climbed level by level, stopping just under the pale, glowing skylights. Stairs and passageways must have honeycombed the walls leading up to the various shelves. As one moved out into the space, he or she would have no means to hide from the vantage of those empty, dark divots. At one time, the room must have served as some sort of assembly hall, the many balconies serving to accommodate any number of individuals or creatures.
Masis took it all in imagining wryly what Kyla would say about stepping into such a space. Keep to the sides or better yet stay out of it all together. You might as well run naked into the room shouting, 'Shoot me! Shoot me!' for all the cover you'll have.
Along the main level's walls, where he stood, other tunnels emptied into the room, sporadically and again seemingly without a pattern. One of them could serve as an escape route, but none of them yielded clues as to which would serve the purpose best. Each antre had a screen of impenetrable shadows across it, made worse by the moons' magnified but ultimately feeble light.
Masis' pulled his eyes from the task of admiration and examination as a large group of nightlings entered his mindeye, at least several scores, standing in the exact center of the room. Shining out from amongst their negative presences were three lifelights, fluttering with giddy pinks and resentful yellows, spicy and sour. But Masis could not make out the individuals as a wall of wighties obscured his line of sight. Two of them must have been General Biligrim and Master Elwith. The other Calla.
When his eyes fell on the supposed Lady Telias, his jaw set. His vision narrowed into red, burning slits. His feet propelled him across the hard, unpolished floor. He stopped just a few paces before her. The distance swallowed in time.
His jaw quivered, but his arms hung slack at his side. Though he tried not to breathe through his nose, the heavy decay of nightlings swathed his nostrils and clung to his throat. He could all but taste them.
The night queen looked at everything but him. Her eyes wandered over the soaring dimensions, apparently penetrating every nook and cranny, reliving memories of bygone days that only one such as herself could recall.
Her apparently deliberate inattention sent irritated spasms down Masis' neck, shaking his entire skull. They jittered down into his arms and trembled into his fingertips.
"Amazing, isn't it?" she asked, her voice strangely melancholy. A quality Masis found strange on her tongue, knocking away his tunnel vision and its symptoms as he squinted. "I much prefer the Imposition style of architecture," she said, continuing her exploration. "But there is something to be said about its antonym, the Imitation movement." She shook her head. "Breathtaking. I suppose I refused to see it before."
"Maybe if the mages hadn't lied over the centuries, we would have more of it," said Masis, bitingly. "Maybe people would still Work with their lifelight."
The night queen lowered her gaze to him, all traces of melancholy and nostalgia gone, her demeanor hardening.
"Yes, I wondered how much Lady Kyla would tell you. We always knew that the Wardens kept a separate history for themselves that they didn't share with others. Even the sovereigns. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. The Waning was as much an advantage to the Wardens as it was to the mages. Less competition that way. They could have corrected false rumors and reasserted the truth over the last two millennia. But they didn't. Each Warden in his or her turn let the mages weave their webs and spin each threaded lie with no challenge. I'm sure you would have been just like the rest, convinced that Haimlant is safer this way."
"And that's what you're going to do?" asked Masis, practically spitting. "Correct the wrongs of the mages and the Wardens? You're going to tell the world of its power and let them reshape it as they see fit. That's quite generous of you."
"Don't be such a fool," said the night queen, beginning to pace. "You're young, but I would have thought some of your stupidity would have been knocked away by now."
Every joint in Masis' body seized. On instinct, he slid upward into wolvan form, fangs bared, a howl building in his chest. Before he could launch himself forward, on a signal from the night queen, those wights obscuring the captives from view parted ranks, revealing the mesmer-rigid Biligrim, Elwith. And Calla. They were held between two wights each.
Upon seeing Masis, monstrous in his wolvan form, a snarl grimacing his features, Calla's eyes widened. A gasp fluttered from her gaping lips. Terrified, putrid greens marbled her lifelight. A grimy film of mesmer muted over its brilliance.
Her throat bobbed with a swallow. "Masis?"
Her voice, small, uncertain, quavering, still managed to fill the space, echoing up into the highest crevice and into the deepest recesses of Masis' soul.
He crumbled back into his human form, all traces of his vengeful fantasies toppling away like a felled tree. Slowly at first, almost ponderously, then with building momentum, its outstretched limbs snagged on his heartstrings, snapping them away, until, with a great crash, it settled to rise no more. Masis' energy, stoked with his anger, fed with his hatred, snuffed out. Sagging, eyes drooping, apathy dampened his mind, his body. Numbness stole away any joy that might have come at seeing Calla.
What can I do? Masis wondered. Here stood the last remnant of family that he had in the world. He could not lose her too.
Rumpled and apparently weary, Calla's usually neat and tidy hair lay disheveled about her shoulders, bits and strands still attempting to maintain her usual neat bun. Her clothes were besmirched, streaks of dirt and dust fouling the cotton apron she always had on. Eyes drooping, lines and creases had deepened about her complexion, aging her. This was not the carefree and at times stern woman who had helped raise him. Before him stood a haggard prisoner afraid of what had stood before her.
"No," said the night queen, as Masis' head slumped forward. "No, I don't plan on being that altruistic. The mages had their chance. So did the Wardens. They didn't correct their error. If they had, I wouldn't be able to do what I'm about to. In fact, humans as a species have had their 'chance.' It's time for a better, more long-lived race to take the reins."
Masis wobbled his head back up, avoiding eye-contact with Calla. "You?"
"I see no other candidates." Her mold-green eyes glowed in the amplified moonlight.
"But why now? Why not centuries ago? What's different now?"
"Why," said the night queen, eyes bright, "you are, my dear Warden."
The night queen's eyes yawned up into the room's vast spaces, practically absorbing the moons' flowing stream of light. The beams seemed to try to bend away from her in an anguished, unnatural struggle but could not deny their exact law so entirely. A grin played across her face, sharpening her glance, making her pupils glint with steel and hunger. It was as though she knew how much of an abomination she and her kind were and delighted in that wrongness.
Masis shivered at the scene as it stretched torturously before him. Deep within his soul he wanted nothing more than to vomit. The night queen and her kind violated natural law, the living good—a mold that consumed not only the decaying but attacked the still growing with deadly efficiency. The thought that most unsettled Masis still, somehow, in some way, they believed he would aid them in their ultimate goal. Somehow, he would enable their absolute subjugation of life.
"What do you mean?" he asked, swallowing. His spit somehow sticking half-way down his throat.
"Haven't you ever wondered why Lady Kyla killed her own son?" asked the night queen, losing interest in her tormented game.
"You..." Masis began to say, not sure why she had changed topics so abruptly.
"Yes, yes, I mesmerized him." She waved away his next words. "But was that really a good enough reason? Couldn't she have simply excised the mesmer from him just as you were about to do with Master Elwith?"
Masis' attention flicked to the High Mage, who had not moved since he had arrived, his lifelight uncharacteristically dormant.
"She didn't because mesmerizing a Warden had some unexpected results." The she-wights voice shifted to a didactic timbre, like that of his tutors when they touched on something of particular interest or importance. "Something she couldn't overcome nor he for that matter. But then again, he was a weakling. She only chose him because of her pride."
Pride? wondered Masis, dumbfounded. He imagined the unforgiving, relentless woman he had come to know, and pride was not a word he could even think to use to describe her. Mad. Touched. Certifiable, maybe. But not pride.
"Yes, she isn't the same creature that she was then," said the night queen, begin to pace in front of her entourage and captives. "She was once all pride and passion, bent on having her dear, darling, spoiled, brat of a son succeed her as Warden, though he was unsuitable. And more than a few told her so. You see, when I lured him out, right when we wights were still nothing more than a bad dream, his arrogance let me get closer than was wise, and the rest you know. But what you don't entirely understand is this: mesmer interacts with the Warden in unexpected ways. I thought to control him for a time, maybe only for a night, in truth. More a jest if anything. A test if you will. A statement of my newfound power. The results, however, were... how do you say... beyond expectation. The mesmer changed his very nature as the Warden, shifting it ever so slightly and ever so advantageously to my purposes. It's amusing how things work out sometimes."
Masis mind was blank. Too many thoughts competed for his attention. This had not gone anything like he expected. No one had died, though the threat of violence was in every subtle move the pretend Lady Telias made. She had not raised her voice. Her temper remained in check. Not a single wightie had tried to mesmerize him. At this point, expectation and assumption had failed him entirely.
"Well, Lord Domrae, I'm about to tell you the greatest secret concerning night wights."
Behind her the others of her kind shuffled and shifted, murmuring amongst themselves in nervous chitters.
The night queen rounded on them. "What?! What are you afraid of? Who is he going to tell?"
The finality in her last statement confirmed to Masis what he had already suspected: they did not intend for him to leave this chamber alive. But even if he could not escape, maybe, just maybe, he could get Calla to safety.
"We don't disappear during the day," said the night queen, pulling Masis' attention back to her in an instant, the search for an escape forgotten. "I thought that would get your attention." She chuckled low to herself. "But nor can we wander freely about. Sunlight kills us. And even when we're safe and secure in some dark, dank hole, as Wilo crests the horizon, we fall inert. Unable to move, dream, or even think. Yes, my dear Warden, during the day we are completely defenseless. Mere corpses."
Masis forgot to breath. His lungs hung limp within him, not burning in desperation yet, but struggling to understand why their natural rhythms had been interrupted. Masis' brain slipped in its stewardship over his body, all at once consumed by this new revelation. All his senses fell blind and mute as his mind bent all its powers to understanding.
They did not vanish with the dawn. They did not melt away with the shadows each morning to be reborn with them each night. In the four centuries night wights had terrorized the continent, no one had even guessed at the truth. Not even Kyla. If she had, they might never have gone to the sovereigns after making him Warden. They might have simply searched out each and every cavern and crevice that harbored nightlings and snuffed them out one by one without a battle, without having to fight tooth and nail just to survive. For Wilo's sake, this knowledge would have allowed the sovereigns to effectively eliminate this scourge without either Kyla's or his help. This could have ended the war long before it ever began.
None of them had to die, thought Masis, too numb to feel anything, his face slack. Not his family. Not the Shadows. Not Kyla. Not any of them.
"Kyla knew it before she died," said the she-wight, again pulling Masis forcibly from his thoughts. "She had just found out. That's why she had to die. She was going to ruin everything. Expose me as the night queen. Expose our secret. Move you beyond my reach."
An animal-small lifelight flickered at the edge of Masis' mindeye, though what kind of creature would dare brave these wightie infested passageways escaped Masis' understanding.
"But why do you need me?" he asked, forgetting that glimmer in a second. "What's so important about the Warden?"
The she-wight stood there in the moonlight, pale and luminesce, in some sense regal, appearing as the night queen by all estimation. A champion, waiting to come into the victor's prize without contest, she smiled with every hint and suggestion of success.
"Like I said, mesmerizing the Warden had some... interesting results. It corrupted his Working. It shifted ever so slightly, granting him new abilities while dispossessing him of others. He no longer could shift between his forms at will. Only when Manu rose was he forced to assume his wolvan form. He couldn't purge himself of the mesmer. It became a part of his Working in a way." She frowned. "Which is why I'm slightly concerned you were able to slip those bonds so easily. But no matter." She waved her hand as though dismissing that fact as a mere formality. "Because my mesmer became a permanent feature, I could control him. Give him standing orders that he would carry out even during the day. He became the perfect guard, if you will."
They want me to be their guard dog, realized Masis, sweeping his vision over all the assembled nightlings. But that can only do so much.
"But most importantly," said the night queen, stilling herself completely. Silence yawned up into the silvery dome. "He could create lesser Wardens."
"What?" The word slipped from Masis' mouth before his mind registered its escape.
The night queen drew closer to him. "The mesmer allowed him to create lesser versions of himself with just a single bite." She stroked the corner of her mouth, a purring chuckle vibrating from her throat. "Unfortunately, they didn't possess all his abilities. They were lesser. They still aged, and they didn't have his different forms, but they were still stronger and faster than a normal man. Entirely obedient just like the Warden. And the two most important things: undetectable to the mindeye and completely impervious to direct Workings."
She turned ever so slightly, casting her gaze toward Master Elwith. "Imagine it. Not just a single guard to stand outside my chamber during the day, but an entire army able to wipe out the ever-decreasing number of mages. An army that will obey me even when I sleep. An army that will keep the herd in check. My shepherds if you will."
Across the way, Master Elwith's eyes widen ever so slightly, as though struggling against an unknowable weight. But still he stood without a flinch or shiver. Immobile. His lifelight kept in check with the she-wight's touch and the night queen's mesmer.
Masis could not swallow. His throat had sealed itself, allowing nothing to enter or exit. His heart had climbed there, there in his throat, a beating blockade. Each thump kept air from entering or words from escaping. His face scalded with the pressure. His ears beat, drum-like, with his blood. From the neck down nothing existed. And from the neck up he suffocated, struggling for air.
"I won't give you that," forced out Masis, the words compressed and small from their sojourn through his collapsed gullet.
"I know," said the pretend Lady Telias, nodding to the two he-wights holding Calla. They stretched her taut between them, a grimace of pain tugged her lips thin. "Your ability to purge the mesmer is more than problematic. No, you won't do." She turned and pointed a single finger at the general. "You're going to be passing the Wardenhood to General Biligrim, or I'm going to pull apart your nursemaid, slowly, one limb at a time."
*DON'T FORGET TO VOTE*