The Queen of Wolves

by Douglas Clegg

  I knew now why I felt drawn to seek Myrryd.

  I opened my eyes, thrown from the vision.

  “The Great Serpent is here,” I said.

  I began cutting away at the white stone, at the fissures that ran through it, using cudgel and blade until I had drawn back chips of stone. Using great force and industry, I opened a hole beneath the floor.

  Fumes of sulfur and steam came up from beneath the throne, yet though I felt weakened by this, they did not seem to contain any terrible poison. Through this opening, I saw the throat of the Asmodh Well, a scarred and jagged drop. I did not have a rope as Ophion had once had to be lowered to it; nor could I draw on my wings to journey there. I would have to crawl as best I could along its pitted walls.

  Within a few hours I had made the opening large enough to fit through, and I slipped down into the gap. I swung myself down to a slender ledge, but when I reached for a dent in the rock wall, I slipped and fell. It was a long drop, but soon enough I landed in a large pool of black water, lit on all sides by the strange blue fires that burned upon spurs and spikes of rock. The water was icy and deep, and I felt strange movement along my body as I came up to the air. Swiftly, I swam to the shallows, and then stepped upon the cavern floor, which had been built by men, for it had flat stones laid across it to create a ledge.

  Above me, I saw the crevasse that was the well—it must have stretched the length and breadth of Medhya’s palace. It was a wonder to me that the palace itself had not fallen into its depths.

  As I walked along the ledge, I saw a honeycomb of chambers opening up before me. The blue flames flickered along each corridor, and I heard noises both terrible and curious from these entrances, but at some distance. I remembered the creatures that Ophion had spoken of, and I did not wish to encounter them on this journey. I reached to my pouch for the Eclipsis, and held it forward, bringing out the light from it. Where is this sword I seek?

  The deathlight moved like a ghostly black shadow along the rough cave walls, and through the natural vault ahead, where the waterway twisted along.

  3

  Ophion’s words came back to me: The delvers cut the bridge of Myrr, and tore apart the Asmodh depths to channel power from far below. The stonework was intricate along the ledge, and each triangle of stone fit into the next, and within the lines I saw a design of sun and moon and stars—a mosaic of gray and white and yellow stone. As I looked across the vaulted arch of rock, I saw the burned drawings of these ancient people, high above, of lizards and lions, dragons and harpies—the cultural remnants of the Asmodh. I followed the water farther—the canal was broad, and bounded on the other side by another ledge, like the one I walked, and beyond this, arched entryways into deep chambers.

  The water itself was of a dark, rusty color, as if metals rested at the bottom of it—a dumping ground of the materials used to make the red city itself. I saw piles of human bones on the opposite ledge. I even heard the skittering of what I feared might be the strange white creatures at some distance, but only saw shadows as they scampered through various tunnels along the canal. I feared them, but did not turn back, nor was I precisely sure how I would rise from these depths with no power of flight and no grip along the smooth walls of the bottom of the Asmodh Well.

  Overhead, the vaulted ceiling was low so that I had to crouch as I made my way along the ledge. The humid steam of a filthy waterway assaulted my senses, and I began breathing through my mouth to avoid the awful stench.

  I felt the pulse of the Eclipsis, and held it ahead of me—and this time, a feeble deathlight came forward, and then died out. As I went I was faced with various twists and turns, and the canal forked, but every time, I held up the orb in each direction and followed its weakening pulse along these waterways. As I followed its vague directions, feeling like a hound without the knowledge of the prey, offense in the form of some rank, moist air covered me like a glove. The sulfurous stink increased as I bent down to follow the ever-narrowing vault above me. I heard a strange sound, like a distant roar of the sea far beyond, or of a forceful wind blowing from some shaft high in the world above.

  From behind me, I sensed the source of the stench that moved nearby.

  I paused, glancing back, narrowing my vision to bring up the light that existed within the dark. There, crawling along the low, arched ceiling above—and just a few feet back from me—was one of these white slimy creatures. It was a female of its kind, for her many breasts hung downward as she pivoted her lower body toward the wall of the vault, while keeping her hands somehow glued to the arch of it. Her face reminded me less of human or alligator, but more the mouth of a fish of some kind, elongated was the jaw, but small the mouth as it opened and closed as the thing breathed. She made a hissing noise as she saw me turn, and a strange rattling sound came from deep within her throat.

  I froze, not knowing how this encounter might go. She drew her entire body down to the side of the wall, and if she had wanted to—in a fraction of a second and a short reach—she might have leapt upon me. She slowly parted her oval lips wider, and I could see the jagged sharp teeth, shown in a threat as she hissed, and that strange rattle sounded again. Behind me, the constant roar of water—from the place toward which I assumed the canals flowed. The creature then moved toward me without moving an arm or leg. Instead it was her neck that came forward in such a way that it reminded me of a snake swallowing its prey. Her face was so close to mine—and her stench as well—that I grew afraid to move. Yet I wondered what harm she could do me, for I was more than three times her size, and my teeth were longer and grew sharper.

  She sniffed at my face, and I saw that her eyes—which had seemed white and invisible to me at a short distance—existed there in the translucent tapeworm slickness of her face as two small, shiny black dots nearly covered over by the folded white flesh. The rattle grew louder, and I felt she would strike at any moment. I lifted the Eclipsis, and its darkening light shone as I thrust it between her face and mine.

  This was enough to make her draw back, into her body, and then she gave out a loud squeal. Suddenly, I heard the slithering and splashing of other creatures as this she-beast retreated. Within seconds, a dozen or more of these underworld throwbacks were moving down the dark vault toward me. The Eclipsis light was not enough to frighten them. Keeping the orb in my grasp, I went running down the vault, seeing light along its distant curve.

  As I came out from under one of the low archways, the ledge along the canal ended, and I nearly went over the edge of a cliff below me, a great crevasse in the earth, which seemed as large and wide as the New Kingdom of Myrryd had seemed from the cliffs far above it. The roar I had heard was the sound of a distant sea far below. I nearly went to my knees, for I had been prepared to step off the edge without noticing that the canal poured in a waterfall downward.

  My grip on the Eclipsis was not tight enough, and it fell from my grasp.

  I watched it plummet far below. I dropped to my stomach as if I could reach down into its fall and grab it again. But I had little time—the creatures behind me were clambering along the vault, and some had just emerged onto the cliffside. I glanced to the left and right, and there, down a series of ledges, was the naturally formed arch bridge that must have been the Bridge of Myrr. I leapt ledge to ledge downward, certain that at any moment I’d fall into distant rushing waters; but finally, I landed on the bridge of thin, unsteady rock.

  I glanced back at the creatures, and saw that none of them followed down the steplike ledges. Rather, they watched me in their blur of white undulations, as if daring me to return to face them—or knowing that I faced a worse fate at the other side of the bridge.

  I did not want to wait to find them chasing me after all, and so I glanced forward—on the opposite cliff, water also poured downward from channels of some kind. Because of the narrowness of the bridge, I had to run across it nearly on all fours to maintain my balance—one slip, and I would fall. On the other side, I climbed up the series of carved steps, left t
here for the ancient Asmodh race no doubt. Yet all I could think of was the Eclipsis, and how it was lost—for how would I find it far below—and if the dark sea beneath ran swift and strong in the earth, where would I hunt for it again?

  Lost. The Serpent’s Eye. The Deathlight itself. My only guide in this place.

  As I walked, the canal opened onto what seemed to be an underground lake, and from the rushing sound I heard, it emptied at some distant dam into a waterfall. The water produced foam at the point where the canal emptied into it, and its water was darker than the canal’s, although I could see areas of rust and scum at its outer edges.

  At the center of the lake, a small island stood. I crouched along the walking ledge and dipped my fingers into the water. It was warm, like a well-drawn bath. I saw what seemed a small, elongated, dark fish dart from where my fingers had broken the water’s surface. It shot quickly farther out into the water. Beneath it, tightly packed stone with some filling between the stones that kept them from leaking water. The entire construction had been designed and built by some architect of the city, and supported much of city above with its heavy pillars and vaults.

  Something caught my eyes—a strange light played in zigs and zags along the water, closest to the island.

  As I scanned the island at a distance—no more than the size of a small courtyard at the center of the water—I noticed there a monument of some kind just beyond its shore.

  Water enervated vampyres, and although I might bathe with a sponge and a bowl, immersion would weaken me further. I still did not know if there were creatures in this lake that might attack me. I had to go to the gently curved island at the lake’s center. I had trudged the filth-filled marshes of my childhood enough, and yet something about the light in the water disturbed me more than the thought of a lamprey maiden did.

  The island could not have been more than a quarter of a mile from where I stood. How deep was this water? Could I walk there? I did not have any special vampyre power in Myrryd, so what more could be taken from me?

  I stepped down from the gray-stone ledge, into the water. The bottom of the lake was also stone. It had been constructed all around, a container for something or someone.

  I took a few more steps. The floor held, and the water came only to my waist as I walked through it. The lake was warm, and a light mist of steam came off from it. However, the vapors grew stronger here, and I felt a strange pain in my gut as if I had ingested bad blood. I glanced up to the curved ceiling of packed stone that lay beneath the throne room and the streets of Alkemara.

  Built to hold this in. Called poison to keep the priests away.

  To keep Medhya’s foot upon it, even after her soul had gone—through ritual—into the Veil.

  I felt something at my foot, a slimy heaviness moved against my ankle. I looked down but saw nothing. As I stepped forward, something thick and long wound around my knee and then swam off.

  I watched the water, and as my eyes grew focused, I saw hundreds of eel-like creatures, swarming around each other, and me, great masses of their shiny bodies. As they moved over and around each other, I saw small white sparks come from them, leaving trails of light.

  This was the luminescence I saw along the island’s shoreline. These eel-creatures. They rubbed against each other, creating the light. Did they live off the meat of the dead mortals? Each other? They were Ophion’s rumor of crawling lamps.

  Yet, they did not attack, nor did they impede my journey. I reached down and grabbed at one. It slipped from my fingers. Again I reached with both hands, and caught a wriggling eel in my hands, and brought it to the surface. Its open maw was filled with a ridge of tiny gray teeth, sharpened to perfect points.

  I felt a surge of energy go through me as I held it, examining its smooth and slick form—no ordinary eel, this. It had spines along its back that raised and lowered as it breathed through its swampy gills. I could not find an eye anywhere on its head, but its teeth were small, perfect razors as it tried snapping at my hand.

  I dropped the creature, and it dived beneath the surface again, joining its swarm within the brackish water.

  As I began moving forward, the water barely reaching my navel, I drew out my razien, prepared for an attack from the eels. Yet, though they moved around my legs and waist, never breaking the water’s surface, they did not bite me or hinder my progress.

  As I drew closer to the island, the eels here grew more numerous and larger, until some of them, in swarming, rose into the air, their great tubular forms crossing over other swarms. I felt no fear from them, nor threat, yet these were of a size that, if they chose to attack, they might easily disable me.

  I had to rest upon the rocks as I reached the shore. After I had recovered strength, I went to the statue at the center of the island.

  I touched its words, but it was written in a language I did not understand. Yet, I saw the coiled symbol of the Great Serpent.

  I looked around the lake. I tried to call Merod within me, yet all was silent. No vision came; no insight.

  I spoke the words of the statue aloud, and my voice echoed:

  In its depths, the burning sword

  Makes hostage of the winding stair

  But he who comes to heal the Veil

  Must break the stone and find the lair.

  Him for whom these words were writ

  Will take the Nameless to his sheath:

  The conquering Queen commands above,

  The vanquished lies in wait, beneath.

  I had not yet seen a winding stair, nor a sword of fire. All that remained before me here was a stone statue.

  Was it what I must break?

  This statue, worn by time and water and with features barely visible upon her face, only the rudiments of breasts and hair, and a rounded belly that indicated a child within her womb.

  The form of a woman, and yet no woman at all.

  Who was this woman?

  The statue was ancient, and looked as if someone had spent time chipping at it. When I touched it, it wobbled slightly, although it seemed rooted to the spot by some anchor at its base.

  I glanced over at the rubble of rock beside me. It was comprised of chips and bits of the stones that had been used to build here—at the base of the lake itself and the ceiling above and the ledge whence I had come. Someone had built this place in some faraway time. I lifted a few of these greenish gray stones from around the statue’s footing. As I did this, I saw what seemed a glimmer of colors in stone beneath my feet.

  I picked up more rocks, tossing them aside. As I did so, I began to make out the island itself beneath the rubble that lay upon it.

  The carefully constructed mosaic tile had been laid out in blue and turquoise and jade and yellow and white, the surface of this curved upward, until the peak of the upturned bowl was the statue. It was no island.

  A flooded place.

  I glanced at the statue again. As I looked at the timeworn surface of the face, I saw the third eye engraved in her forehead. Medhya. It was she, I was certain. And in her belly, her children, born from union with the Great Serpent.

  She had placed this statue here, a monument to her conquest of the Serpent and theft of his powers.

  I spoke the lines, “‘The conquering queen commands above, the vanquished lies in wait, beneath.’”

  Just as beneath the New Kingdom of Myrryd, there had been the Old, but beneath the Old Kingdom, whose domain was this? The Asmodh? The Nameless? As I wondered at this, the answer nearly coiled at my feet.

  What great king of a world before Myrryd had once built a vast kingdom that now lay in ruin beneath the red city above?

  It came in an insight that was nearly like a sharp pain.

  I looked across the lake to the stone shore, and up to the curved ceiling, and then back down to the island upon which I stood.

  An island that was no island.

  I stood on the rooftop of the original temple of the Great Serpent.

  4

  Medhya
had stolen immortality from him, and had put her throne and kingdom above the place of his worship. She had buried the temple beneath stone and water, but had not buried the Great Serpent.

  She could not destroy it, for it was the energy that built her kingdom. The same energy that created my tribe.

  Medhya was the Queen of Wolves—she did not create her power, but stole it as Pythia had stolen the mask of Datbathani. But the mask was older than Datbathani. Older than Medhya. Older, perhaps, than Ixtar. I knew it now—the Asmodh were the people of the Great Serpent, before even the Serpent had come to them. They had forged the mask and the sword in these depths, and their sorcery was greater than even Medhya’s. But they had been vanquished—as the Serpent had been vanquished—by trickery and stolen ritual.

  I stood upon not an island, but the basilica of a sacred structure. Medhya had buried the Serpent, but had not truly conquered.

  And the Serpent’s only defense was what was in his blood.

  But he who comes to heal the Veil must break the stone and find the lair.

  I slammed more rock at the statue until I had chipped it to nothing, and then began clearing the debris. At its base, it was joined to the rounded rooftop by an ornate bronze plug of some kind.

  I used my hands to sweep away the last of the rock debris from the broken statue. On my knees, I leaned close to it, for I felt a strange vibration from it. It was little more than a few inches above the roof, jutting upward, a perfect center to the circle of the dome.

  On it, there was ancient script and scrollwork. When I touched it, I heard a strange hum from it, as if it stood above a nest of Akhnetur. The scrollwork was in the same language as I had seen written in Alkemara itself. The words I read from this, I had seen in a vision of a statue of the Serpent:

  Also, I am here.

  I realized this protuberance was a sword’s grip, and I tugged at it, though it was well lodged in its place. I felt a sting as I touched it, and let go quickly. My curiosity was intense enough to have another go, but this time the sword felt like ice, and I released it without it budging one inch. In frustration, I kicked at it with my boot and nearly went sprawling.