The Queen of Wolves

by Douglas Clegg

  “She plays no game, unclean one. She is a reaper of the earth, for the harvesttime has come, and many must be gathered.”

  I looked at the little girl. She seemed common enough, even though I knew she must be Death herself. She did not seem royal or noble, but had the look of my own sisters when they had been young—and as I watched her in that orb’s shadowed light, she seemed to glance over, although without seeing from behind her blindfold.

  “Give it back to us,” the woman said as she reached for the orb. I pulled it out of the way, and Pythia, having finished passing breath to the dying man, and noticing her stolen prize was the object of interest, came over to us.

  “It’s mine,” Pythia said. “I own it.”

  “What is it?” I asked. “For this is the first we have seen of this unearthly light.”

  The robed woman’s face seemed to shimmer for a moment. “It is an Eclipsis,” she said. “A lamp of deathlight.”

  “It is my...orb,” Pythia insisted, and made a grab for it, but I drew my hand away from her reach.

  “Unclean creature,” the woman said. “You stole it from thieves. The Eclipsis was given to us at the Threshold of Death’s house, a gift from those of the depths. All belong to the handmaidens, for these were made to guide us in unfamiliar places.”

  We looked at the other hooded women, each of whom held a small black orb in her left hand, in front of her as if the orb guided her steps. “It pains Death to lose one of her lamps.”

  “It is lost to her,” Pythia said. “It has been for many centuries. She could not have missed it so much. It had been with the vampyre goddess Ixtar in those lands forgotten by many, and may have been there since time began. Why did you not go to her for it?”

  “We would not steal back what has been stolen from us, for we are ruled by the laws of the houses of the dead. Unlike your kind, who have no authority or law,” the stranger said, her voice calm and firm. “You must give it freely.”

  “Is this how we see you?” I asked. “Because of its light?”

  “It is not light itself. It is the absence of both light and dark. The deathlight is a living creature. It comes of its own desire, when it is near a secret place, or when we have lost our way upon the Earth. It is a color that few may know. But you are not an ordinary undead,” she said to me. She put her hand upon my wrist. I tried to draw it back, but her grip was strong. “Yes. You have the Veil within you. You have crossed where even undead do not often trespass. The Nameless touches you, as it once touched the child you see.”

  “She is Death?” I asked, looking at the girl who wandered with the other robed and hooded women.

  “A child of Death. We are her handmaidens,” she said. “We guide her to those who seek the relief she offers them.”

  “How can she be here, and in many places? For surely men and women are dying in other lands at this moment?”

  “Death has many children, and many handmaidens.”

  “Why does she wear a blindfold?”

  “She must know their souls without sight, for sometimes, those who seem to be dying are not, and those who seem to be alive are on the edge of death at that moment. The souls of the dying call to her. We are here to help guide her. The Eclipsis”—she nodded toward the orb—”guides and protects us.”

  “Tell me, does Death ever return the dead?”

  “You—an undead—ask me?”

  “We extinguish, which is worse than death.”

  “All who walk this Earth may be revived,” she said. “So long as the soul has not left on its journey.”

  “What happens in death? At the Threshold?” Pythia asked, so quietly I barely heard her. “Tell me these things, phantom, if you ever wish to possess the...Clipsis again.”

  “It is called an Eclipsis, and you are not worthy of it,” the handmaiden said, her face erupting in a sneer. “I have seen you before, Lady of Serpents, daughter of Merod. You have stolen many souls from Death’s dominion. Why should I answer this question?”

  Pythia lunged forward, scraping her hand through the mist that was the handmaiden’s body. “Ghosts, spirits, that is all you are,” she said. “Answer me—for it is said that those who see spirits must be answered.”

  The handmaiden ignored her, returning her radiant gaze to me.

  “Would you answer her questions for me?” I asked.

  “The Eclipsis honors you. If you wish, I will tell.” The handmaiden smiled slightly, and a humming sound came from the glow of light around her. “When mortals die, they go to the Threshold. Beyond it, Death welcomes them into her halls. But beyond this, we do not know. Some ask us at their last breath if there is a heaven or a hell. We have seen nothing beyond the doorway where Death comes for us and leads us into the places of slaughter that we may help her children gather the souls of many. But I have known of souls who return and are reborn.”

  The handmaiden beside her whispered, “Quiet, sister. These are bloodsuckers.”

  The one who had spoken to us turned to me, smiling. “Your tribe shames us, and ruins the crop of souls. We are not meant to speak with you.”

  “Reborn? In flesh?” Pythia asked.

  The other handmaiden took her sister’s elbow, tugging at it. “There are souls that need harvesting. We must relieve their pain with the spice.”

  I glanced at the other handmaidens across the dark field. I saw in the deathlight that there were dozens of them, bending as we had over the dying. The Death child held her hands in the air as if calling up the souls through ritual.

  One of the handmaidens was near a boy who groaned in pain not more than six feet from us. The handmaiden cupped her hand near the boy’s lips.

  As I watched, the handmaiden nearest me held her palm out, showing me the yellow-brown spice. “If you would like to see what it can do to you, just taste it.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “It was mined in the quarries of the underworld, where all ancient sorceries were born,” the handmaiden said. “It dries the pain and draws out the soul as salt draws a snail from its shell.”

  “Do you know of other such treasures of the depths of the earth? For there is something I seek. It is a sword that burns with flame,” I said.

  The handmaiden considered this question, then something strange overcame her—a haunted look as if she had once seen the sword itself. “It is hidden from all, this sword, though once the great queen of your tribe wielded it. But it is lost to all and cannot be found. It belongs to an ancient race, and must never be sought, for it curses all who touch it.”

  I was about to ask more of this, when Pythia tried to grab for the handmaiden’s cowl.

  “Tell me of this rebirth,” Pythia demanded, impatient for an answer to her earlier question. “I thought Death took all mortals.”

  “Not all,” the handmaiden said. “You, my lady, are mortal, with the sorcery of your tribe. Few like you have existed, but one night, yes, we will find you, in your suffering. Perhaps you will taste the spice before you close your eyes. Or perhaps we shall withhold it.”

  Pythia grew insistent. “Answer me, servant of Death. Some may be...reborn?”

  The handmaiden’s face transformed into a terrible aspect, her eyes burning with yellow fire, her lips peeled back to reveal a black chasm mouth. “Do not test the patience of one who reaps souls, for we may press the spice to you now and take you and the child you carry!”

  Then, calming swiftly, she spoke more quietly. “There are those souls who spend many ages in Death’s halls, but we see them again in this world. It is mystery, my pretty devil, and though we serve Death, we do not know her secrets.” She returned her attentions to me, and said, “Give me this Eclipsis, for if you do not...”

  Pythia grabbed the Eclipsis from my hands and quickly thrust it back into the leather pouch at her waist. The deathlight vanished, as did the phantom creatures that had begun to surround us, as if a candle had been snuffed. “You see? Phantoms. Nothing more. Some trick of the light of this...
Eclipsis.”

  Pythia and I stood there in the midst of the battlefield, abandoned by the living, haunted by the dying, the dead, and the undead. Stunned and silent, we stared across the smoky expanse, the whirlwinds of dust blowing along the distant land, the moans and cries of soldiers, the strange emptiness as if we still imagined the handmaidens and their blindfolded child—pressing the spice to the lips of the dying—only seen in the death-light of the Eclipsis.

  “You must never touch it again,” Pythia warned me. “You bring the orb to life. Its power is vast, or those ghosts would not seek it. Those handmaidens have no power over the living. I will fight again with her for this orb at the hour of my death and not a moment before.”

  She went to lift the dead man into her arms and take him to our lair.

  I stood, staring into the black night, wondering if the handmaidens gathered around me still, or had returned to their night’s labor. The Earth was full of invisible spirits. While Pythia knew this from her centuries of experience, it filled me with dread and amazement—for how many of these phantom handmaidens wandered about every village and city and castle and hovel? Had one of them been there when my mother burned—and did they bring comfort to her when the flames licked her flesh? Had they held my brother Frey as he died on a battlefield like this one?

  I began to see the Earth as more than the domain of mortal and vampyre, but as infested with secret histories and beings that interacted with us and yet did not reveal themselves. As a boy I had heard of the angel of Death, and I began to think of these handmaidens as these beautiful and terrible angels—gentle to mortals, unyielding to those of us who shunned Death’s house.

  When the night was over, I lay down with Pythia, who kept her back to me.

  “You must never touch the Eclipsis again,” she whispered.

  “If you had felt it as I did, you would not say that. It brought me strength, and it took strength from me. It is a breathing rock, Pythia. Its deathlight may help us when we fight the Myrrydanai.”

  “You must never touch it again,” she repeated.

  Beyond our cave, the sun rose, its light touching the mouth of our lair, but going no farther. Around us, the corpses of soldiers and knights who had fought bravely and accepted the Sacred Kiss from each of us. In two nights’ time, we had drawn together almost seventy such men.

  Pythia went deep into her sleep, clutching the Eclipsis in her hands.

  I nearly went to the deep oblivion of day, but I felt some movement in the stream, as if another vampyre had entered our lair.

  The lurking one moved from rock to rock, spindly—like a spider—quickly scampering, yet with a graceful movement. I felt a strange tingling along my spine as if it had feelers of some sort that touched me.

  I felt the slight chill of its shadow over my face, and I fought against sleep, but finally, darkness took me.

  Chapter 6

  ________________

  MAZ-SHERAH

  1

  When the brief day had passed, I opened my eyes. In a moment, I saw the most loathsome of the undead that existed upon this Earth.

  The gauzed skull of Artephius himself was not so repulsive, and my own undead semblance in a mirror with rotting flesh and torn bone was not so vile to me as this thing.

  This abomination.

  When I had been a boy, I had heard the priests speak of unholiness, and though I was the kind of demon they might mean, I felt that thing looking down at me was the essence of the unholy.

  I felt the pathos of the beast—a man who was not a man, a creature unlike any other, a vampyre with no glamour of youth or beauty.

  I recognized kindred in its glance, and in its movements. It was one of us—but without the gleam of youth and vitality.

  The remaining dried-leather skin was pockmarked with disease, and its eyes were small and yellow—sunken into their sockets with just the barest of skin to provide an unblinking eyelid over each. He had the dagger teeth of a vampyre, though larger, and each one sharp and biting, and thrusting from his lower jaw like tusks. Truly, he seemed to be more teeth than face, his scalp and eyes an afterthought, extending upward from those long fangs.

  Half his scalp had been torn, and hung like a fallen hood behind what had once been ears, now mere dark holes at the sides of his jaw. The hooded cape he had once worn, when I had seen the vampyre aboard the ship, was in shreds and tatters, hanging from his shoulders.

  In surprise, I gasped.

  He, too, gasped, spewing a breath of foulness upon me that would best have come from a nether region than from between the lips.

  He leapt from me, wings snapping outward, torn and tattered though they were.

  His wings fluttered slightly as he jumped from me, and he hung suspended above me in the air.

  Pythia sat up suddenly, startled by the sounds around her. She did not speak, but pushed herself against the cave wall, her mind adjusting to the night-rise, and to this intruder’s presence.

  I leapt up into the air, grabbing the creature. We tumbled to the earth. He fought me like a cat about to be thrown into a drowning bag—claws and talons sliced at my throat and face and nearly took my eyes. I wrestled the abomination to the ground and drew his dagger from its shoulder strap, pressing it over his heart, if he had one at all.

  The thing spat yellow bile at my face and cursed in languages that were not familiar to me. Yet there was no doubt by his expression—for the skin at his lips tore as it snarled and hissed the words.

  “Why do you follow us?” I asked. I demanded of him every question, every possible answer supplied by me—was he a spy of Nezahual? Why did he follow us? Was he after the Eclipsis? The mask? What had he come for? Pythia told me to extinguish him then and there, and began snarling like a tiger as the corpse-vampyre began shrieking in tongues of a language that Pythia immediately understood. She began spewing words of this tongue back to him, and so they argued between themselves while I tried to decipher the words.

  When I began to understand the language, the intruder screamed, “You must not kill me, for I am like you! I am Maz-Sherah!”

  2

  His name was Ophion, and he told me that he was a vampyre. “But I have no glamour to speak of, no fine flesh, nothing but this rot. Youth was stolen from me, my brother.”

  “He is not your brother!” Pythia snarled, and grimaced as she turned her attention to me. “The vile ghoul is some spy of Nezahual. Or of the Myrrydanai. The vampyre glamour cannot be stolen.”

  Ophion glanced sidelong at her, and then at me. His teeth made a grinding sound, and then he snapped at the air as if wishing to attack her. I pulled him back and made him face me. “It was stolen and torn from my bones! You she-bitch, you know of the place I speak—the nameless deep, where your mask was first forged!”

  Pythia, almost instinctively, reached up to touch the gold mask, feeling its contours. “Why would he tell us this? Why did he follow us?” Her voice growled as she spoke. “He lies. He wishes to destroy us. He is a spy of Nezahual. Of Ixtar.”

  “Is this true?” I asked.

  “Ask her,” Ophion said, like a cat who had caught a mouse. “The she-bitch knows.”

  Pythia leapt upon him, and nearly tore him from my grip. I shoved her away, and she pointed at him. “Call me that again, corpse, and I will make sure those teeth never again break flesh!”

  “Mortal!” he said.

  “Corpse!” she spat back.

  I held out a hand to keep Pythia from coming at him again. She glared at me. “He brings disease with him. Look at him. He should accept Extinguishing over this...this...disgusting visage.”

  Ophion glanced at her and began snarling right back. “You Alkemaran sow, with your lies. She knows who I am. Ask her, brother, go on. Ask the spit of Merod.”

  I began laughing, and Pythia shot me an acid look. “I don’t know him,” she said. “But I can smell him from here. He’s rotting. He stinks of old meat, left in the sun, swarming with flies.”

  “Old
meat? Left in the sun? Flies? Did you hear that? Did you hear what she said, my brother?” His skull began tottering side to side as if ready to fall.

  “Why do you call me brother, Ophion?”

  “Because we are...oh, not brothers of the flesh,” he said, keeping a snarl for Pythia. “You are another kind of brother. I, too, am Maz-Sherah. I am like you. I came before to fulfill prophecy.”

  “Lying jackal!” Pythia shouted.

  “Fanged whore!” Ophion screeched. Then, calming quickly, he said, “I was Maz-Sherah so long ago. Many moons, as they say. Millions of moons, I suspect, although I am not certain.”

  “You’re a ghoul,” Pythia said. She pointed her finger at him as if laying a curse. “I smelled you in Nezahual’s prisons. Your stink was everywhere. You wanted the mask for yourself. That is why you followed.”

  “I admit it.” He nodded, and picked at a scab along his bony elbow. “I did seek the mask. But only for its...its healing properties.”

  “It does not heal,” I said. “It leaches.”

  “To some,” he whispered. “Oh, my brother, to those who have leached, it leaches. But to those who have healed, it brings healing. To some, it brings immortality. It is a fickle mask, and takes and gives, and gives and takes. It is ruled by old laws of old tribes, old as the birth of the moon.”

  3

  We spent most of the night speaking, although Pythia refused to stay to hear his lies. She went off hunting, and Ophion and I sat along the mountain ledge. He told me of his escape from Nezahual’s clutches, for he had been there many centuries, forgotten in an airless chamber “where I drank the blood of scorpion and snake, and small crawling things that chanced through the slits at the door and cracks in stones. His kingdom had many shiny beetles, my brother, many, and their blood was sour and white and nearly extinguished me. Nearly.”

  “You followed us for the mask?”