The Queen of Wolves

by Douglas Clegg

  “You will come out of there,” I said, as if it could hear me. I squatted again and wrapped my hands about it, feeling the strange stinging sensations along my fingers. But I was unwilling to let go. I knew the old stories of kings who had drawn swords from ancient pagan mounds, and I did not intend to let this moment pass.

  I held on tight, and tugged at it, trying to saw it out of its resting place.

  I spoke the words from the rhyme, “‘In Asmodh’s 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.’”

  I gripped the sword ever more tightly, and still it would not give.

  “Damn you, come out of there,” I muttered in frustration.

  The sword slid upward slightly, rising in my hand, its hilt emitting a squeal as it scraped against stone.

  Chapter 11

  ________________

  THE SWORD

  1

  I drew the Asmodh blade out completely. The sword did not burn, nor did it seem to hold any great threat as a blade. There was nothing beyond its hilt, for it was shattered and jagged as glass less than a hand’s length down from the cross-guard. I held it up to try to read the ornate writing engraved upon the hilt.

  In frustration, I shouted at it as if it could hear me. Surely if it had whispered my name to Ophion, it would speak to me. It was just a damaged weapon—perhaps its centuries in this place had dulled it. Perhaps this wasn’t the sword I sought. I stood up, furious that I had come all this way—and had lost the Eclipsis in the process. I raised my arm and was about to toss the sword into the lake, when I felt a tingling at my fingers as I had when holding the Eclipsis for the first time.

  A strange blue flame emerged from the broken edge of the blade and grew outward into the air, outlining the sword itself. It was as if the igniting of the fire had re-created the broken and missing blade. The fire-ghost of the blade extended out, curving slightly. The fire died out quickly, leaving the gleaming metal of a full sword.

  It was long and curved, sharp at both sides of the blade. It was closest to being a scimitar in its shape but with inset curved teeth cut by some fine machine along its outer surface. Designs of serpents covered its length, and it held a reflection of blue fire in the shine of its metal, as if the fire still existed within the blade.

  “Do you make hostage of the winding stair?” I asked the blade, as if it could answer. It did not, of course, and I felt foolish—but with such sorcery, anything was possible.

  I turned it over in my hand, and on each side of the sword, I saw markings that seemed to move as liquid on metal, as if the broken sword itself had life—like the life I had felt in the Eclipsis. Something pulsed in the grip, and I began to feel as if the sword had taken root in the palm of my hand. I felt a burning beneath my own skin, and the fire shot up my forearm.

  At my shoulder, a shock of pain, and then a general warmth simmered beneath my flesh. I felt as if I were mortal for that moment, and had, again, stepped out into the sunlight.

  Beneath my feet, the roof of an ancient temple.

  All this time—millennia—the Serpent’s temple had been under Myrryd, in the Asmodh depths—the nameless places of dark and mystery.

  The sword of fire had been thrust into the roof, as if it held the Great Serpent in his lair and cut off the source of the Serpent’s greatest powers. The kingdom overgrown above it, a subterranean sewer flowing over what had once been the sacred home of the Serpent, and destroying the last of the Asmodh civilization that had once existed in these depths. The spirit of this nameless place could not be held, nor imprisoned. Its power was a great threat to Medhya—and the priests of the Kamr and the Nahhashim had learned the old rituals of the Asmodh. It was in this deep place where the true sorceries—the source of all energy—of our tribe had originated.

  Beneath even the secret places of the earth, there was another world.

  All conquerors must bury the vanquished, I thought. And yet, the conqueror will one night fall when the vanquished rise up again.

  I looked down at the mosaic tile with the slender crack in it where the sword had rested. A strange vapor of smoke drifted up from the crack at my feet, and as it moved past my face, I smelled a scent like bitter incense.

  The mosaic showed the image of the Great Serpent himself, not a snake at all, nor a dragon—but the figure of a man. A sword gripped in his hand, and its blade entwined with serpents. His face resembled my own, though he wore a suit of scaled armor with what appeared to be talons thrust out at his ankles and along his shoulders.

  “‘Also, I am here,’” I said aloud, glancing back up at the sword and seeing my reflection in it—not the reflection of a corpse but of another me—a youth, a vampyre, looking at me as if he knew me too well, a stranger.

  His eyes were translucent black but with liquid red within them—like a thin layer of obsidian with the red of blood pulsing beneath. His lips parted, his fangs long and curved, ready to strike.

  “I am here,” the Serpent said as I watched my reflection. My eyes had darkened as the eyes of Merod had been. I had passed some test, though I did not understand it yet.

  I felt heat at the grip, and I nearly dropped the sword, but the blistering at my hand only made me clutch it more tightly.

  A sword of fire, Merod had told me.

  Yes, a voice whispered—the reflection in the blade. Medhya and Datbathani and Lemesharra turned these gifts against me. A sword of fire. A mask of gold. A staff of power. Meant only for one. Throw the sword and see who is its rightful owner.

  I did not wish to throw the sword, but it burned at my hand, creating a fever up my forearm.

  Throw the sword, Falconer, the thought came to me again in a whisper.

  I flung the sword out across the water, expecting to lose it with a splash several feet away. Instead, the sword shot out from my hand as if taking flight. When it reached the point where I believed it would stop, it changed direction and flew back at me, as if thrown by some invisible swordsman. In an instant, it was in my grasp again.

  The thin blue flame renewed, erupting along the teeth of the sword. The sword seemed to split at its middle, becoming a double blade, and then re-forming into its scimitar-like shape. As I thought of another weapon, so it molded itself to my will, and was a double-ax. It lengthened, and thickened, and drew back again, curving upward into the sword that I came to think of as the Asmodh, for the people who had forged it in the ancient fires.

  The burning at my fingers had cooled, and I found I could no longer drop the sword—it had become embedded in my palm, and my fingers would not let go.

  Holding the blade up, I went to the edge of the temple rooftop, where the filthy water lapped gently along rocks.

  I plunged the blade down into the lake, hoping to cool the fire. The eels that swarmed about seemed to thicken and wrap themselves about the sword. The fire did not die, but instead spread—a blue flame—along the surface of the water.

  The flame grew, and the water roiled as the fire spread farther. I thrust the sword deep into the wriggling eels, and could not let it go. Fever overcame me, and I shivered as I watched the entire lake erupt in flames as if it were made of oil. Yet from this fire, no smoke came. The eels continued to swarm around each other, even as the fire burned across the lake.

  I felt a coolness at my hand, and two eels wriggled up the blade, within the fire, and I knew that this was the presence of the Serpent—the fire and the eels and the sword.

  I looked out across the lake of fire, and the swarms became one great slick creature—a serpent with the jaws of a vampyre, its scales burning as it reared its head.

  This proved to be an illusion, and what seemed a man without feature—an orb of light shaped as a man—stood in the fire and called to me, “Also, I am here, Maz-Sherah. I am within you. I am in the blade itself, through you. I have been with you since first you drank of my venom in the flower that is sacred to me. But there have been others lik
e you—and it is not up to me to know you, Maz-Sherah, for it is your path that finds you here. The Azmodh blade recognizes you, and the Eclipsis knows its master.”

  There, in a twisting path of fire, a voice spoke to me. “It is not I who ordain you.” Within the movement of fire, the turning of the serpent—a blue and yellow line through the burning lake. “It is you who make the crown of your tribe, and who follow a path of thorn and bramble that is yours alone. You have drawn my sword, stolen by Medhya, murderer of her sisters, destroyer of her children. She thrust it into my temple to bind me, but she has known that you would come to draw the Asmodh blade, to wield the Nahhashim staff, and to know the rituals unheard of by any born of vampyre or mortal, rituals known once to Merod, and to Ghorien, and to the priest of the Nahhash called Aryn. But once spoken, the ritual burns the mind and is lost again—for none who breathes the air above is meant to possess such power for long. But you, Maz-Sherah, will know these words of unraveling the Veil, for you will need them in the nights to come. You have found the mask used to take immortality from me. You know the lamp of the deathlight, called Eclipsis. It is within your grasp. You know of the Staff of the Nahhashim, formed with sorcery to bind those who would destroy Medhya. No creature of this world has moved the sword since Medhya herself pressed it to my heart.”

  “Tell me of the staff,” I said.

  “Bones of the Nahhashim and the bones of Medhya, drawn by sorcery together,” said the Serpent. “Bones that bind the Nahhashim. Bones that drive the Dark Mother back into the depths of the Veil.”

  “And the orb?”

  “The Eclipsis calls the deathlight. It will show you what you seek in the darkness. If you are its master, you will fuel the Eclipsis, and this will call up those of your tribe who have fallen—for it stores its power, though it may weaken if used too much. There is no Extinguishing for you if the Eclipsis remains whole and in your possession.”

  “I have lost this orb, deep in the seas below,” I said.

  The voice did not respond to my words, and I did not wish to repeat them. For I felt ashamed at having lost such an important sacred power.

  “This sword, what power does it hold?” I asked.

  “It was forged in the fires of Dolmyr, in the white-hot deep below the seas. A relic of an older age than the age of the Asmodh. Medhya stole it from me—the only weapon that can be used against me, for it is made with my blood. But it can be used against them, as well, for it carries no ordinary fire in its metal—the fire is my blood, and the fire sends the soul to the Veil. You must not let it be used against you, Maz-Sherah. For if it is taken from you, all will be lost—and you will be sent into the Veil itself, from which few return.”

  “Do you exist in the Veil?”

  “In many worlds, have I existed, but have been imprisoned here too long. Watch the sword, Falconer. It is shattered, but forms in your hand. If you throw it at an enemy, it will always hit its target, and return to you. But this does not mean it cannot be stolen from you. Yet it will only bring its flame for a master, and once it is thrust into stone, it will take root there until its master returns to it. It breathes fire, and shapes its blade to the necessity of cutting and fighting. Above all things, it has only one other master—and that is Medhya herself. She cannot touch it beyond the Veil, but if she comes in flesh to this world, she will want the sword above all other possessions. You have more power than you know. The power does not come from bone alone, or from the sword of fire, or from the Eclipsis, Falconer. The power is within you to ignite them. It flows from you into them, a key that unlocks what they hold. You must know this. You ordain the sword and the staff. You ordain the Eclipsis and the mask. But the question you must ask, Anointed One: will you ordain what is to come, or leave it to the Myrrydanai to do so?”

  “But I am ignorant of what I seek.”

  “Do not tell me your weakness, for though I protect you here, I cannot defend you on your path. It is yours alone. If you are ignorant, it is because you have not yet opened your eyes, Maz-Sherah. If you are unsure, it is because you have not awakened. Open your eyes now, or forever they will be closed. Your children will suffer. Your loved ones will extinguish. The world itself will grow dark with Medhya’s sorcery. If I live, I live in you. If the rituals of the Asmodh exist, they will exist in your lips to speak when the time comes. There have been other Maz-Sherah, and they, too, have closed their eyes to what is within them. You may be no different. The Myrrydanai will destroy you. Medhya will devour you or keep you as her slave. She fears you, Maz-Sherah. Many fear you. They fear the deep sorcery you bring. Why would this fear exist, if you had no power?”

  “It is prophesied that I will bring war.”

  “You are afraid of war? Mortal and immortal—the bloodthirst is the arena of this Earth. Your vampyre blood is born from darkness, and only you can journey into the heart of Medhya herself—and destroy her. All life devours all life. But even life must have its protectors, and to protect this life—this earth—you must find the fury and rage within you. She is the Queen of Wolves, and only a Master of Wolves may destroy the Wolf Queen. You must be the falcon who hunts the wolf. You must be the Maz-Sherah because all others have failed.”

  “Medhya defeated you,” I said. “Who am I against her?”

  “She did not defeat me, so long as you hold the sword in your hand. It is called the Asmodh—the Nameless. This weapon you hold causes suffering, even for he who possesses it. Her mind had turned to the sword’s sorcery, and she used it for destruction rather than justice. As the eons passed, much was lost, much forgotten. But you have felt me, as others have. The fires of the red city burn because I exist. The stream you feel between your brethren exists because I am here. Where you are, I am with you.”

  “Why was I born to this?”

  “Each man is born to destiny. Most avoid it, and many fail in its pursuit. You are here. There was no Maz-Sherah the moment before you drew the sword from my temple roof, though many believed they were the Anointed One. All failed.”

  “Will I fail?”

  “She may destroy you and all your tribe. What is this to you? Will this fear dissuade you from what you must do? Do you fear war? Do you fear her? Burn your fear. Unleash what is in you. You have drunk of my venom and survived it. You have the Veil within you. You have the blood of the Serpent in your veins. War is not enough. Do you think the Dark Mother of your tribe does not love war and its spilling of blood? Prophecy is not enough. Medhya’s blood and bone and flesh gave the prophecies to the priests. Were they strong enough to resist her? When the Myrrydanai were skinned alive by her reach beyond the Veil, could they resist? When the Nahhashim were bound into bone and planted in the Garden of Flesh, could they resist? The Veil sorcery that Medhya knows is beyond what her priests understood. But you have crossed the Veil and returned. No Priest of Blood has done this. Even the great Merod was destroyed and captured, freed only by you. You are the match for the Queen of Wolves, the Dark Mother of your tribe. When the Priests of Blood were destroyed, and the tribes of the Fallen Ones driven out from their kingdoms to be slaughtered by mortals as they slept—where was their power? The Asyrr rulers who lie entombed within this city—what power did they have against the spirit of Medhya and her shadow jackals? Do not talk of prophecy and sorcery, Maz-Sherah. The greater power is within you now, for the Asmodh depths offer it to you. It is not the thieving alchemist’s seed planted in your mother’s womb that brings this. It is you—your essence—now. You are my son. As Medhya has sought flesh to escape the Veil, you are my flesh. And your path is your power. You are here to overcome the Extinguishing itself. You are here to be guardian to the mortal realm. Though the Fallen Ones were born from an act of thievery and violence, you will redeem your kind.”

  “In sacrifice?” I asked.

  “To sacrifice yourself is to leave others to do what you would not,” the Serpent said. “You must gather courage and intention around you. For you are not here because of prophecy. Nor are you here
because it is your fate. The winds of existence do not blow a man to darkness or to light. A man reaches and finds his shadows, and he remains with them—or he crosses through the shadows to find the fire that will light his way. You are here—you are Maz-Sherah—because you have come to claim this and are here, where no one vampyre or mortal has done so.”

  The fire of the river seemed to explode before my eyes.

  I was thrust into a vision of burning cities along the coast of my homeland, and then taken to palaces of the kings of the Earth, where the sky rained fire upon mortals; in a blur of motion, I was drawn to Rome, and watched as the cathedrals and fountains were torn apart by the White Robe priests who had multiplied in number. The sky was red-gray with smoldering ash, and I saw Myrryd rise up from the gorge, its towers looming toward the heavens, and upon the throne of the dead and the damned, there sat Medhya—and in the flesh of Pythia herself, no longer imprisoned by the golden mask.

  Her eyes yellow, and her skin blue, and my son, Taran, his skin blistered from his face, a knight of her dark kingdom. Mortals were enslaved in every land, and the burnings of Christian and pagan and Jew and Muslim who had not renounced their faiths lit the night sky. I saw my daughter, Lyan, as a young woman, being led to a pyre, and doused with oil. Just as the flame was brought to her hair—

  The Serpent drew me back from this vision—

  I stood in the subterranean chamber of Myrryd, and the river of fire in the pit below continued to burst upward in waves.

  “This is the future if you renounce your path,” the Serpent said.

  “I did not choose this path,” I said. “It was forced upon me. Pythia brought me to this existence. I would rather I had died.”