The Beast of Maug Maurai, Part Two: Feeding the Gods

by Roberto Calas

  Aramaesia sat on the forest floor, inspecting her bow. “It is understandable that you were upset.”

  He cleared his throat and looked at the pages in his hand. “I know you can’t read these to me. But maybe . . . well, maybe you could just skim the first page or two, and just let me know if it’s about Transcendent magic? Magic without integrants? You don’t have to tell me what it says. I mean . . . well maybe you could just confirm that it is what I think it is?”

  He wouldn’t meet her gaze and he looked so pitiful that Aramaesia smiled. “Let me see them.” She studied the first page, flipped through the stack. “These are very old. Where did you get them?”

  Meedryk thought of a half dozen lies but all of them died when he looked into her eyes. “Buried in a ruined tower.”

  “In Gracidmar?”

  “No,” said Meedryk. “I’ve never been to Gracidmar. It was near Maul Kier. Where I was posted.”

  “And how was it you found this tower and these pages?”

  Meedryk hesitated. She folded her arms across her chest, so he sat and nodded curtly.

  “I have a . . . I love books, Maid Aramaesia. My father was a copyist.” He smiled at some distant memory. “I was raised with the smell of vellum and ink and the . . . ” He trailed off and cleared his throat, then began again. “When I was at Maul Kier, my master caught me reading his books.”

  Aramaesia nodded.

  “He didn’t say anything. Which was terrifying. If you knew Master Craen, you would understand how strange that is. The man probably talked to the midwife as he left his mother’s . . . well . . . as he . . . as he was born. But he didn’t speak a word to me. Just sent me to my chamber.” Meedryk recalled the terror of that night. Wondering if the magician’s guild would tear his skin off and throw him in a vat of alcohol. He’d seen such a thing once.

  The next morning, his master had shaken him awake and Meedryk had sobbed. But Master Craen simply said: “You like books so much? Come with me.”

  “We went on a wagon ride,” said Meedryk. “And my master didn’t say a word the entire journey. A full bell without him speaking. I . . . I thought for certain I was going to be flayed.”

  Master Craen brought him to an old Nuldish fortification. There wasn’t much left of it. Just rubble being eaten by time. Two walls still stood, thrusting upward in their shattered defiance like decaying teeth. Grass and ivy and thick underbrush obscured much of the rest.

  The old man led Meedryk to the rear of a green mound where a structure of some sort had collapsed. Stones were visible through the grass. Meedryk could make out the outer curve of a tower wall. His master followed the curve to an excavation dug against the base of the tower mound. It wasn’t much of an excavation. Just a narrow, six-foot shaft that revealed part of the fallen tower’s foundations. “What are you looking at, boy?” Master Craen shouted. “Get in.”

  Meedryk crawled backward on his knees and dropped down. It was a struggle to turn around in the cramped pit. His knuckles brushed the cool dirt slope as he spun to face the tower stones.

  “The crack. Do you see it?” his master called down.

  At his navel was an opening in the stone foundation. A fissure formed when the stones collapsed into themselves. The opening was jagged and roughly the length and height of a bread loaf.

  “Reach with your hands into the hole. You will feel books. Bring one out to me.”

  Books? Meedryk reached inside the tiny fissure without a thought and felt the scrape of the scabrous mortar against his forearm. He withdrew his arm and squinted into the uneven crevice. There was only darkness. But Master Craen said there were books inside. Books. He peered in and smelled the musk of mold and dampness. The clouds shifted and a shaft from Lojen’s rising eye sliced across the fissure, lighting an angled strip of the tower cellar.

  Hanging in the air, about five feet into the hole, was the largest spider Meedryk had ever seen. It held a newborn rat, little more than a fetus, and spun the creature slowly in a cocoon of silk. The spider’s eyes glittered in the light. Its legs turned the twitching animal.

  Meedryk made a soft sound in his throat and fought a compulsion to pull himself back up the shaft. But he didn’t. Because under the spider, spilling into every corner of the cellar, were books. A hoard of books. A mountainous pile of disordered tomes. Perhaps hundreds of them.

  He closed his eyes and reached into the cellar, ignoring the pain of the jagged mortar on his skin. Ignoring the thick webs and the cat-sized spider. He felt the burnish of a leather cover, slick with something he couldn’t identify. He moved his hand and felt more books, let his fingertips run along their rough covers. So many books! He brought his face close to the torn wall, breathed in the musty air until he could smell the leather and parchment. He rested a hand on the nearest cover and smiled.

  That was when he felt the first bite.

  He cried out and gashed his arm against the broken stone as he pulled free. He heard scuffling inside. The squeals and gumps of rats.

  It took a long time before Meedryk worked up the courage to reach back into that vault. So long that his master called down for him and Meedryk had to assure him that everything was fine. He pulled the sleeve of his tunic down over his hand and clutched it with his two smallest fingers. His breath trembled as he gathered his courage.

  The sleeve of his tunic tore as he slid his hand inside the crevasse. His forefinger touched a slick leather cover and another rat bit him. Perhaps it was the same rat. Its teeth slipped through the thin fabric of his tunic easily. This bite hurt far worse than the first. The rodent wouldn’t let go, but neither would Meedryk. He clenched the book’s cover between his thumb and forefinger. Another rat squealed like a rusty pulley and bit from the other side, its mouth finding the tear in the fabric and the bloody gash on his wrist caused by the jagged wall.

  Aramaesia put a hand to her mouth as she listened.

  “I pulled that book to the hole and used the fingers of my other hand to help tilt it out. There was blood on my sleeve where one of the godsmarking rats bit me. But I had the book. It was a copy of Farhf’s Diquisition on the Primary Integrants. A common volume, really. It has been copied countless times. This one had been in that cellar for ages. It had mold on the cover and on some of the pages, but I could still read it. As soon as I had it out, Master Craen told me to throw it to him. And then he told me to get another one.”

  “He didn’t care what books you were taking out?”

  “No. I think he was selling them.” Meedryk couldn’t imagine what the Guild would do to Master Craen if they found out he was selling books on the craft. But Master Craen knew Meedryk couldn’t say anything. And now Master Craen couldn’t say anything about Meedryk. They were accomplices to one another.

  “I told him there were rats inside. That they were biting me.”

  “And what did your master say?”

  Meedryk imitated his master’s sharp, melodramatic tones: “Why does the mantic think he is getting the books and not me?”

  Aramaesia giggled at this. “So you had to reach again into the hole?”

  Meedryk gave her a tight smile. “Four more times. I think the old man wanted more, but he got tired of hearing me complain about the rats. He brought me back to Maul Kier and told me never to mention that tower to anyone. I didn’t. But I went back that night.” He stared at the scars on his hands. “I went back every night for five nights.”

  “You returned without your master?”

  “I walked four miles each way, in the dark with only a tin lantern. Two hours to get there, two hours back. And an hour of fighting with the rats.”

  “And this is where you found the pages you wanted?”

  “I pulled out all the small books that I could reach on the first night. There were some wonderful books among them, but nothing on Transcendence. The rats must have bitten me a dozen times that night. On the second night I . . . I started tearing pages out of the larger books. The ones that wouldn’t fit through th
e crack. Just the first pages. To see what they were about.” He clenched and unclenched his hands. “My father would be ashamed if he knew I did that. Destroyed books.”

  Aramaesia looked down at the pages in her hand. “Your father, he is important to you.”

  Meedryk’s eyes grew distant, his mind calling up images his father, tucked into his desk, curled over a page with quill, ink and salt. And behind him was Meedryk’s mother, spitting an endless stream of hatred at him.

  “I pity him.” He said it softly, cocking his head as he did. “I pity him,” this time with more strength. He shrugged. “The pages you are holding . . . I found that book on the third night. It’s the same one I started reading when I was younger. Except copied into Graci. Or maybe it was a Graci book first and was copied into Galadane. It took me two nights to get all of the pages. I had to tear each page using only two fingers, while rats bit my hand and the rocks cut into my arm.” He ran a finger along his forearm where long scars still remained. “I rested after every page and had to work up the courage to put my hand back in that hole. I got bitten so many times that I became ill. The rats. They sickened me. Some I was in bed for a fortnight. They had to bring an Alhumerian Magician all the way from Tyftin to see me. A nice old man.” Meedryk ran a hand along his side. “He said that the sickness collapsed one of my breathing sacks.”

  “This is why you tire so quickly?”

  Meedryk nodded. “My joints still hurt sometimes from the disease.”

  “It is a large price to pay for a few pages, Meedryk.”

  “It’s a bargain if those pages tell me what I want.”

  “But you are forbidden from reading it.”

  Meedryk’s cheeks grew ruddy. “Why is it that magicians decide who gets to read a thing?” he stabbed downward with a finger. “Why must knowledge be owned and locked away?”

  “Because some knowledge is dangerous, Meedryk. You do not show a child how to start a fire.”

  “I’m no child. I am a soldier in the King’s Army. And as a soldier, it is my duty to be as effective a magician as I can be. I bet your mages in Gracidmar are encouraged to learn as much as they can. Not here. Not in the Warrior Kingdom.”

  Aramaesia stared into his eyes and found something in them. Just a glimmer of something that was both admirable and frightening. She looked at the white scars on his fingers, then at the ragged pages. “This Subrevain, this Transcendence,” she said. “This is what you seek in those books?”

  He nodded.

  “This is magic, without using herbs?”

  “No chemics.” He nodded. “They say it allows a magician to tap the Fire of Creation,” he pointed to the pages. “That book describes exercises that can be done. Thinking exercises. All about closing your eyes and breathing and relaxing. There are a lot of them right at the beginning. I read a few of them in the Galadane version. I’ve tried them for years.” He rubbed at his eyes with his hands. “I don’t know. I’ve spent hours and hours practicing those ridiculous exercises. Maybe Transcendence doesn’t exist. Maybe I’m a fool and I’ve been a fool my entire life.”

  Aramaesia thought on his words. The Fire of Creation. The concept was familiar to her.

  “You must understand. I have spent my life – my adult life – chasing something that may not be real. I need to know. If magic is only about chemics and misdirection and theatrics, then I have been living a lie.”

  She looked at the pages, her eyes not really seeing them. “Perhaps you follow the wrong dream.”

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry?”

  “If I read these pages, you will promise to be careful with what you learn?”

  Meedryk nodded, hardly daring to breathe.

  “And you will help in my father’s camp?”

  “Absolutely,” he replied, his eyes wide. “I promise. I give you my oath. I have a month’s leave after we . . . uh . . . after we . . .”

  Sage approached the two of them. “Are you ready, my queen of curving arrows?”

  Aramaesia stood and brushed herself off. She tucked Meedryk’s pages into her pack and glanced at the magician. “I will read them. All of them. Starting tonight. And I will translate them for you.”

  Meedryk’s smile was sunlight on a river; so bright she almost couldn’t look at it.

  Sage and Aramaesia slung their packs and walked away from the squad. As they left, the clasp on Aramaesia’s orison bracelet broke. She picked up the fallen circlet and studied it. Sage walked backward motioning her toward him, and she had to force herself to follow. She wished they still had Daft Dathnien’s shield so she could carve another slash into it.

  Chapter 27

  Lies feed upon the souls of liars.

  -- Her Loving Grace Agnaria Fenrivyn, Holy Reciever of Light

  (May the Light Shine Always Upon Her Face)

  A rising tumble of rock and earth formed a natural watchtower among the ferns and low scrub of Maug Maurai. Sage and Aramaesia climbed its jagged flanks and sat down to eat and drink and wait for the squad to catch up. They had pulled almost a mile ahead of the troop in their quest for tracks. Sage drew a horn from his belt and sounded it to alert the others of his location.

  “That little creature came up here?” asked Aramaesia.

  “I doubt it very much,” Sage replied.

  Aramaesia stared at Sage. “You do not have its trail?”

  He shook his head and fished out a wedge of cheese, inspected a line of mold on the edge. “I haven’t had any kind of a trail for most of the day. The kreech’s or the Cobblethries’s.”

  “But . . . you were following a trail all day.”

  “No one likes a lost scout.” He drew out a small whittling knife and cut the mold from the cheese. “It makes people nervous.”

  “Sage, you will be forced to tell them that you lost the trail eventually.”

  The scout cut a slice from the cheese and shrugged. “Things tend to work themselves out with time,” he held the slice out to her on the knife blade. “Something will turn up that will send us in the right direction. In the meantime, I just tell them that I’ve found periphery evidence of the creature and I nod confidently.” He nodded confidently. “Anyway, there’s no hurry. The sooner we find the Beast, the sooner our miserable lives will end.” He glanced in her direction. “Apologies, my miserable life. Your dignified one.”

  They ate quietly for a span. Aramaesia looked thoughtful.

  “You have known Grae Barragns?”

  Sage grinned. “We’ve hugged once or twice, but that’s as far as it got.”

  Aramaesia laughed. “I mean, you have served with him?”

  “For years and years,” he replied.

  “Tell me then. Why is he so sad?”

  Sage cut another slice of cheese and shrugged. “Because he’s a hero.”

  “It makes him sad to be a hero?”

  “He’s a hero,” Wizard said, “but no one will let him save anyone.”

  Aramaesia thought about this for a time. “He will save people by killing the Beast.”

  Sage offered her another slice. “He could save people by training all the animals of the kingdom to fight for him, too. But that’s not likely to happen, is it?”

  She took a deep breath and nibbled at the cheese. “So, you do not believe we can kill it?”

  He shrugged and cut another chunk for himself. “I suppose there is always a chance. But better men than us have tried and failed.”

  “There have been many others?” she asked.

  He unslung a drinking horn and stared at it. “A few,” he said finally. “Underlord Harren Felch led an expedition of janissaries – provincials – six or seven years ago. He volunteered to lead them, the fool. Thirty men or so. They were never heard from again.” He fingered the cap of the drinking horn, stared at it long and hard, then slung the horn again. “Do you have any water?”

  She handed him her skin and he drank, making a face as he finished. He caught sight of something through a gap in the canopy a
nd dropped the wineskin in his distraction.

  “A few other attempts were made,” Sage rose slowly, his gaze fixed on the sky. “Mostly janissaries. Although Derris Brentaniche tried not long ago with six of his best knights. He was the Knight-Protector of Shaen, a city to the north. He charged into the forest and never charged out. Taryn Fulgrae, the Champion of Nuldryn, went in to avenge Lord Derris. Same result. A chain of lemmings.” He walked to the base of an ancient oak that was thick as a cottage. “Who knows. They could be wandering around here still. Undress me, lovely Aramaesia.”

  “What?” She stood and took a step back.

  Sage held his arms outward “My mail. Would you?”

  “Oh.” She helped him out of his tabard and mail shirt. “What are you doing?”

  “Just stretching my legs.”

  He laid the chain shirt neatly at the base of the tree and put a foot in the deep furrows of ancient bark. The ridges on the trunk provided easy handholds. He took hold of one and pulled himself onto the tree.

  “So,” Aramaesia continued. “If all these men are dying in the forest, why do they not just send an army to kill the Beast? One hundred men. Five hundred. Surely they could destroy it easily with such as this.”

  Sage stepped into another furrow and took hold of a thick, moss draped bough. He spoke to her as he pulled himself onto the branch. “Do you . . . want duke Mulbrey’s standard answer or . . . the truth?”

  “Both,” she replied.

  The bough rose at an angle. Sage walked up slowly, his arms out for balance. The limb was easily three feet wide but his body teetered to one side then the other. “The duke’s answer is that there is neither the manpower nor the need to send a large force into Maug Maurai. The number of casualties that we have suffered because of this Beast is but a shade of the losses we sustain on the Eastern Front every day.”

  “Be careful,” Aramaesia called. “So you, the wise Sage, know the truth?”

  “I do,” he said. “I have thought on this carefully.” He hunched down and crawled on all fours when the angle of the trunk became too steep. “Why should the duke do anything? When a Beast lurks in your forest, all the petty complaints about pole taxes and inhuman work expectations don’t seem so important to the landscrubbers anymore. Mulbrey sent soldiers to ring the forest. The peasants see that, and they think that the good duke is protecting them.” He reached up and took hold of another limb, thick as an anvil, and pulled himself onto it. “Take . . . the Beast away, and the scubbers start to wonder again why they need a duke.”