by Marc Secchia
Feynard
By Marc Secchia
Copyright © 2014 Marc Secchia
www.marcsecchia.com
Cover image Copyright © Shutterstock
www.shutterstock.com
Image ID: 93347485
Prologue
Unicorns despise swamps. So when Zephyr flicked an imaginary spot of mud off of his pristine white coat and regarded the bog, it was with a decidedly jaundiced curl of his lip. Breath steamed from his nostrils in the Leaven season’s chill. The cold seeped steadily into his bones. Grey mud, he sniffed. Grey, rotting tree trunks lolling in blighted pools. Sedge grasses of a disagreeable greyish-green hue. Icy skies. The morning, a dull and misty dawn weeping over Mistral Bog’s dismal fringes, seemed cunningly designed to amplify a Unicorn’s loathing to its ample extremes.
All was grey. And boggy.
Unicorns also did not appreciate being kept waiting. Zephyr’s horn glowed weakly as he kept the midges and biting insects at bay with his magic. The nacreous magic of his horn was frail, here in a domain few Unicorns had ever trod; here, at the dreary threshold of a dreary bog, where dank waters leached into the rising ground like an uncomfortable and oft-tested truce between two opposing forces.
“Miserable place.” He sniffed again. “Hardly fit for the tread of my hoof. I hope I don’t soil my beautiful coat here. Why–”
But the pleasure of hearing his own voice–and Zephyr, like most Unicorns, was rather enamoured with his dulcet tones and a well-turned phrase–strangled suddenly in his throat as he perceived movement in the mist.
Forming amid the shifting, moist veils as if a stagnant slab of mud had grown limbs and the unexpected ability to ambulate, a grim, shambolic shadow the size and breadth of a stout tree waded toward the shore with ponderous strides. Despite its great bulk, the creature hardly broke the bog’s still surface or sucked and slurped against the rich organic muck as he would have expected.
The Unicorn intended to present himself with suitable dignity. Instead, Zephyr was forced to still his nervous prancing. Lurks had that effect on most creatures.
Zephyr knew his fear was more due to the fact that Lurks chose to dwell in Mistral Bog, which all agreed was the most perilous and unforgiving realm amongst the Seventy-Seven Hills of Driadorn, than out of any desire they might have to prey upon an unwary traveller. This had not kept the storytellers from according Lurks the most hideous features, barbaric customs, and vicious reputations imaginable, which the passing seasons and centuries had only embellished.
Lurks were old, even by Driadorn’s venerable standards. They possessed an ancient, earthy magic of sod and root. The earliest Unicorn texts whispered of an ability to command the elements and the weather. Lurk hides were impenetrable to conventional weaponry or magical attacks. During the internecine squabbles and wars that plagued Driadorn like an incessant swarm of grimflies, the Lurks alone had never been conquered.
Who would want to conquer Mistral Bog anyways? Only for the Lurks’ legendary magic, Zephyr reminded himself. He himself had read much on the subject.
It was easy to mistrust the intentions of these reclusive swamp dwellers. They kept to themselves except for occasional custom with the industrious Maratoans, the most active and persistent of traders in Driadorn’s great Forest. No Lurk had ever been known to leave Mistral Bog–save one, whose name escaped his ordinarily infallible memory right now. Zephyr sighed. Once there had been peace and cooperation, even friendship, amongst the creatures of Driadorn, but times were changing. Trust was a rare commodity.
The Lurk’s swamp-dark body was wreathed in shifting tendrils of vapour, as if the moisture clung to it as a living creature in its own right. His delicate nostrils tested the odours of decay, loam, and musk that were the characteristic scent of a Lurk–just as Mylliandawn, the Chief Mare, had claimed. ‘Do not attempt any magic,’ she had warned. ‘Lurks are not to be trifled with. Be not foolish, as was your Dam.’
Zephyr hung his head at the bitter memory. As the sole surviving member of his family, it had fallen on him to expiate that millstone of debt, which Mylliandawn would neither forgive nor forget.
Sombrely, he faced the approaching Lurk.
The Unicorns had received an urgent missive, sent by the Lurks via a tiny Swallow called Marigold, which had caused an instant sensation amongst his tribe. A whispered Council was called in the dead of darktime. While not party to the discussions, Zephyr had soon been summoned and charged with the task of meeting a Lurk with all possible haste, here at the edge of Mistral Bog.
What choice did he have? Once more he served with an embittered heart.
Here he was, the huge Lurk but a few steps distant. The massive, spatulate feet each had to be a Unicorn’s stride long. The creature cradled something in arms as bulky as Zephyr’s torso.
He shook off a pressing urge to flee.
“Have you come alone?” rumbled the Lurk, in a basso growl that set the ground beneath Zephyr’s hooves a-quiver.
“As agreed,” said Zephyr, startled to be examined from twice his own height by twin orbs as light and lucid as star-shine itself. Set deep in the coarse hide of a broad, flat face, those beautiful orbs appeared incongruous, as if plucked from the cosmos to furnish the Lurk with sight. At length, the Lurk appeared to reach a decision.
“So they sent a pariah to the outcasts,” it grated.
“What do you mean?” Zephyr blinked, and hurriedly remembered his manners. “The Peace of the Mothering, er, Bog, to you, good Lurk.”
“Peace also upon you, good Unicorn,” returned the Lurk. He sniffed massively at the air, probably taking in the Unicorn’s scent. At length he growled, “Did Mylliandawn explain the purpose of your journey?”
The Unicorn shook his horn.
“Typical of the overweening arrogance of your kind.” The Lurk said this without inflection.
The long, powerful arms unlimbered a sling-style carrying arrangement from about the Lurk’s torso. He advanced to deposit it carefully upon the firmer soil near Zephyr’s twitching hooves before retreating as if afraid of the solid ground.
“It’s not your fault,” said he. “Mylliandawn is a forceful and well-respected leader, but lacks sensitivity at times, no?”
The Unicorn nodded involuntarily, and then caught himself with a harrumph of annoyance. This creature barely grasped the rudiments of good manners. Fancy speaking of the Chief Mare with such disparaging … accuracy? How dare he?
“I am common-named Snatcher. Shakoël in your tongue,” said the Lurk. He began to unwrap the bundle with thick and clumsy fingers.
The Unicorn did not suffer himself to help, although his horn-magic could have accomplished the task in the flap of a butterfly’s wing. He said, “Zephyr is my common name.”
“I know.” A little snort of surprise followed this assertion. “I’ve been looking forward to our encounter. I know too that you dream of a Human–a warrior, who you believe will rid the Forests of the Blight.”
“By the Hills!” whinnied the Unicorn. “How can you know this secret?”
“Be not alarmed, young Zephyr,” said the Lurk. “You and I have no quarrel. Still be your horn and your magic. I can explain.” Zephyr reined in his magic with an effort, but the lucid eyes remained serene. “The problem of the Blight is well known to those who possess the craft to discern it, and your dreams were revealed by the Dryad Alliathiune. If there is umbrage to be taken … I have some little knowledge, but I shall share it with you.”
“And swiftly,” said Zephyr, resolving to give Alliathiune a large and angry piece of his mind at the earliest opportunity.
“Good Unicorn, hasty action is often ill considered and leads to grief. Attend now to the result of your dreaming.”
“It was the Dryad who–”
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br /> “Indeed it was. But you entered her dream.” And the Lurk swept aside the final layer of wrapping.
“By the Sacred Well!” Zephyr exclaimed, eyeing this apparition with a mixture of horror and fascination. It was hard to reconcile the still, pallid figure with the vision of the armoured warrior he and Alliathiune had encountered in her dream. “Does he yet live? Where are his armour and weapons?”
“His life hangs by a thread,” replied the Lurk, stepping back, “for he appears to have been poisoned. I found him in the Deep Bogs, a territory visited by Lurks only to bury their dead. Suffice to say he has been sore abused and little cared for. Your healing magic may be more equal to this task than my poor skills. I know nought of the Humans.”
The Unicorn stooped, touching his horn to the man’s forehead. “I shall strengthen him for the journey.”
“Where will you take him?”
“Thaharria-brin-Tomal,” Zephyr said curtly. “Mylliandawn would interrogate him without delay. The Blight grows daily more severe. Soon all creatures will know that the Forest sickens.”
The Lurk cleared his throat with a ferocious, rattling cough which made the Unicorn duck involuntarily, imagining he was about to be struck by a swampy gobbet of phlegm. He shuddered.
“I fear, noble Zephyr, that your optimism may prove ill founded.”
Having brought a tiny pinch of colour back to the outlander’s cheeks by his ministrations, Zephyr looked up, troubled. “Surely you jest, good Lurk? What has the mighty Forest to fear from this small ailment? Its magic is primeval and invulnerable to … you don’t agree?”
The craggy head shook sadly. “All Lurkish lore and magic counsels otherwise. Would that I were wrong!” The great eyes blinked slowly; Zephyr realised they were awash in a kind of magic he had never observed before. “I see catastrophe … animals dying … realms sickened and sinking into disease and Death.”
The huge head shook and suddenly all was as before. “But first I should ask you, is he the one?”
Zephyr had to shake his mane to collect himself. He muttered, “It must be so.”
“Those few items I found, I have stored in this rude bag,” said Snatcher, producing a black eel-hide holdall. “His apparel is passing odd. For protection I have swaddled him in the warming leaves of the Snapping Lily, which you may know are employed by Lurks in the building of their shelters. Also I discovered this great book of wizardry nearby, and this curious blade, which is surely too heavy for his pitiful arms. No better than sticks, they are,” said he, flexing his mighty frame. Zephyr backed up two steps. “I will place them in the holdall for you, friend Unicorn, that you may more easily bear your burdens to–”
“I am not a donkey!”
Snatcher gave him a measuring glance. “You are a touchy one, young Zephyr.”
“Nor am I ‘young Zephyr’, being sixty-seven Leaven seasons–!”
The Lurk’s laughter bellowed over Mistral Bog like the proximate breaking of a thunderstorm. Behind him, the mud heaved as an unseen animal fled. “Peace, good Unicorn, and be not aggrieved at my laughter. By the reckoning of your kind sixty-seven Leaven seasons is an age barely out of colthood. But I perceive you are brave, and noble, and proud. Indeed, tales of your accomplishments reach even Mistral Bog’s myriad ears. Consider that and be not malcontent!”
Zephyr’s brow furrowed. Inwardly he was well pleased by Snatcher’s compliments, but he did not show it.
Snatcher opened the holdall. “Within you will find his sack, which tastes of magic, and clutched in his left hand like the grip of Death itself–” the Lurk made a superstitious gesture at this point “–an assortment of the oddest keys. Even unconscious, the Human has been unable or unwilling to release them.”
“Keys? Peculiar indeed.”
“Shall I fasten him to your back?”
“Forthwith.”
The massive Lurk bent to the task, wrapping up the Human’s prone body until it resembled the chrysalis of an overgrown caterpillar, before slinging him face-down over the Unicorn’s back. Zephyr tried not to dwell upon how the Lurk loomed over him like a colossal boulder about to launch an avalanche.
“Snatcher,” said he, after some deliberation, “in my opinion, which commands scant esteem amongst my tribe, you are overly fond of cryptic comments. I discover a certain paucity of explanation amongst our brief conversation this lighttime.”
“Indeed, I have implied much and clarified little,” replied the Lurk, essaying what the Unicorn took for a smile. “We Lurks are suspicious by nature, good Unicorn. I apologise. Habits have an unfortunate way of sticking where least wanted or expected. I shall be candid with you.”
“I meant not to criticise, noble Lurk.”
“Noble? Such I have not been called in many a season …”
So the Lurk hid his own sorrows? Zephyr swallowed a pang of guilt as the Lurk gazed away into the mists. Violet-coloured nictitating membranes fluttered across his eyes.
Presently he said, “We Lurks are secretly allied with the Dryads, sharing our different skills and information to our mutual benefit. You might think this alliance unlikely. It is not widely known. I share it with you only because your name is held in the highest esteem by another whom I trust implicitly.”
That person must be Alliathiune, Zephyr told himself. What inexcusable effrontery, her keeping this secret from the Unicorns!
“Of all creatures of the Seventy-Seven Hills, Dryads are most attuned to the ways of the Forest–as we Lurks share an affinity with the waters and the swamps, so the Dryads with their precious trees. When noble Alliathiune began to dream of the Blight, we Lurks sought to aid her. But we failed. Therefore she sought the Unicorns’ help–and your help in particular, Zephyr. That is why I know your common name. As for the Human, I believe you have summoned not a warrior, but a wizard.”
“Ah–well and fine,” replied the Unicorn, with the peevish air of one who feels he is being lectured by his inferior. “Perhaps a wizard is required to rid us of the Blight.”
“I must give you fair warning,” Snatcher continued, tying the Human in place with a cord taken from a pouch secreted somewhere about his body. “This Blight is a foul and abominable affliction. If left unchecked, it will destroy the livelihood of all creatures in this great demesne.”
“The Forest is Mother to us all, our life and home.”
“Well said, noble one-horn! And so, you will understand what I mean, when I say that not all creatures in Driadorn feel as strongly about our Forest’s welfare as you or I. Some lust after power and influence. There’s an evil abroad in the Forest, good Unicorn, a malign purpose that threatens to crush all Driadorn. Armies gather in the north. A spirit of restlessness afflicts the Men. The Fauns mutter in hole and cavern. Trolls stir in their nests far beneath the lighttime skies, groaning for release from their exile.”
Zephyr pranced anxiously at the Lurk’s grim words. “Surely these rumours are nothing new upon the Hills?”
“No, noble Unicorn, these are more than rumours. We Lurks are deeply troubled. We seek a pattern in these events. Our Seers wail and hide themselves. But mark my words–I would trust no one in this venture! The Human is in grave danger even as we speak.”
“What venture?”
The nictitating membranes shimmered again over the Lurk’s eyes, giving him a reptilian appearance. “We see your fate embroiled in the great and terrible times to come, good Unicorn. Be not dismayed. Above all, you must protect the Human; see that no harm comes to him. He’s the key. You must protect him until we understand more, and rally the races to aid the Forest. This is no time for division, for bickering over trifles.”
“That is my intention, good Lurk,” said Zephyr, shuddering as if he were buried up to the flanks in freezing water. “Let us pray–”
“There, all set now.” The Lurk backed away, then unexpectedly turned and made for the swamp, as if deliberately and abruptly washing his paws of the Unicorn and his Human charge.
Zephyr s
tared after until it became apparent that Snatcher truly intended to depart without so much as a fare-thee-well. “Wait!” he called. The huge figure turned, already half-wreathed in the grey vapours of Mistral Bog. “Why did you call me a pariah when first we met, good Lurk?”
“Why were you made responsible for your parents’ debt, noble Zephyr?”
He shifted his forehooves awkwardly, not understanding why the Lurk would ask such a question–nor indeed, how he had knowledge of it in the first instance. He said stiffly, “It is the way of the Unicorns.”
Although softly spoken, Snatcher’s reply carried clearly over the still bog to Zephyr’s hearing. “In the past there was friendship between Lurk and Unicorn,” he said. “But then the Dark Wizard Ozark seduced many creatures–even those thought incorruptible–to his maleficent mastery. Your mother, one of the senior Mares of the Council, was ambitious for the leadership of the Unicorns, which at the time was disputed between her and Mylliandawn, following the assassination of your great leader Siyallana, called Lightstar by the tribe in honour of her wise and able guidance.”
Zephyr tossed his flowing mane. “I’ve no need of a history lesson–”
But the Lurk continued undeterred, “Bereaved by Siyallana’s untimely parting, the Unicorn tribes were unable to decide between the two mares. But when more and more voices began to speak in favour of your dam, Mylliandawn became desperate. Suddenly, tragedy struck. Out in the Wilderlands, above the Rhiallandran River, evil creatures fell upon the Unicorns and slaughtered some ten or twenty in number. Rumours began to circulate about certain disenchanted Unicorns who had betrayed their own. Soon, Mylliandawn accused your dam of plotting with the Lurks to overthrow the Unicorn Council and create a new order under her rule–and yes, we Lurks were partly responsible. We were beguiled and deceived by Mylliandawn. She made it seem that Lurks had killed those Unicorns; that your dam was responsible. Riding the ensuing wave of hysteria, Mylliandawn pressed for your parents to be dehorned.”
