A Bitter Brew

by Greg Curtis

  “And what the Mythagan have been failing to tell us is that their ancient civilisation, spread across scores of worlds and around for ten thousand years, has been losing worlds regularly. Every five hundred to fifteen hundred years another of their worlds dies. Plagues have been unleashed that have wiped out millions overnight. Natural disasters have levelled worlds. Wars have broken out that have completely destroyed worlds. One by one.”

  “And while the Mythagan came here supposedly to help, that's not the entire truth either. They came because when they saw someone from one of their ancient worlds in one of their temples, they were curious. And when they realised that this person’s world was about to face another natural disaster, they knew they had to learn more. They had a rare opportunity to find out for themselves what was happening.”

  “Because they know, although they don't want to admit it, that all of these natural disasters aren't what they seem. Someone's been creating them.”

  “Now we know who. We even have a name for her – though it's not likely to be her name. And we have a name for her kind.” She turned to stare at the assembled Mythagan. To lecture them as though they were little children caught doing something foolish.

  “She's a behemoth. A creature that it would appear that you know almost nothing about. And that most of what you do know about them, is wrong.” The Lady placed her hands on her hips as she surveyed the people all around.

  “No!” One of the Mythagan stood up and turned to her. A man with a face that had turned completely white with anger. “Whatever else is happening – has happened – the one thing we know for certain is that that woman is not a behemoth!”

  “And how do you know that?” Hendrick's mother arched an eyebrow at him.

  “Because behemoth's are beasts!”

  “And beasts don’t play strategy? Is that your argument? Well this one has. And what's more, we know whatever this is has been soundly thrashing you.”

  “Because it's powerful!”

  “Because it's smart!” Hendrick's mother stared straight at the man, lecturing him as if he was a small child. “You know absolutely nothing about your enemy! Nothing about behemoths! It's time you faced that truth. Before your ignorance kills us all!”

  The white-faced man didn't respond. He wanted to, Hendrick could see that so very clearly. He wanted to scream and shout and tell her she was wrong. But he couldn't. Because it was beginning to look like his mother was right and he knew it. So instead he remained standing there, his mouth opening and closing without a word coming out. It gave her the licence to continue.

  “The only things you can be reasonably sure of are that they sleep for centuries – though even that's an assumption – that they're dangerous when they wake up, and that they have powerful magic.”

  “Oh, and one more thing – that this one's awake now.” She turned back to Hendrick. “So why don't we see what this one's been pretending to be.”

  “Mother?” Hendrick was nervous as he realised he was about to be asked to show them something else. Something that with his luck would make everyone even more angry. Given the silence that had fallen over the audience, guessed others were thinking much the same thing.

  “Open a window to Mirrion, four years ago. When a young Sana went missing. Check every month. Because despite the stories being told, I very much doubt that she went off by herself, walking through the woods at night. I always thought that was strange. What noble family would ever let that happen? Especially when that daughter is their only heir? Now we know that this beast can twist thoughts. It can break minds as well as worlds. And it shatters hearts. I wouldn't believe anything that girl tells you. I don't think she knows the truth herself. The only thing she does know is that she loves that beast with all her heart – just as the ancient wizards did. That's how the beast destroys them. It prays on beauty and love.”

  She was right Hendrick realised. That was exactly how the Great Beast had broken Sana. It had twisted her thoughts until the only thing the young woman could think of was her love for it. Just as Erohilm had done to the ancient wizards. Made them love her absolutely and then used that as a weapon against them. But did that mean they were the same person?

  Hendrick refocussed the spell on the city of Mirrion, and on the fortress in the heart of it that was the Mirrion family estate. Once he located he started heading back through the years. It didn’t take long to find Sana. Pinpointing the time when she'd first started going to the beast took longer. And while he worked, the others continued their somewhat heated conversation with his mother. It did make him wonder – just who in all the hells was this Erohilm that the Mythagan could not even hear a bad word about her?

  Eventually Hendrick found a point where Sana had had some skin colour and then shortly after had turned completely pale. That had to be the impact the beast had had on her. Using that as a reference, Hendrick went back day by day until he found the last day she'd had some colour in her face, and then following her until she disappeared.

  Once more his mother was proven right. A man came to her room in the middle of the night, walking silently down the halls, completely unnoticed. Immediately Hendrick was struck by his beauty. This man looked exactly like the princes the bards constantly sang about. Tall, straight, fair of feature and white of teeth. Blessed by the gods it would seem. He was dressed in the finest courtier's velvet with a polished breastplate from which the puffed sleeves emerged, and with a sword at his side he looked quite the hero. He could only imagine that any woman's eye would be captured by him. Her heart too.

  Sana certainly was. She walked with him, hand in hand, unable to take her eyes off the man as they wandered down the hallway. Anyone could see that she – a fourteen year old girl in her night dress – was completely smitten by him. It was in her face. A look of complete adoration. She saw no one else. She had no thoughts of anyone else but him. She wore the same expression as that of the ancient wizard.

  And then suddenly they vanished. They reached the end of the passage way, the man opened a door to a chamber. They stepped into it and vanished. And when they returned four days later, through the same portal and Sana headed for her bedchamber, she was bone white. Her blood Hendrick knew, was no longer red.

  “Dung!” Hendrick left it there, not wanting to see any more. He knew that the pattern would continue as Sana had kept vanishing every month for many months to follow. Or more likely this was the last visit, since the change in her skin suggested she had been infected. He didn't know where she went and he had no way of finding out. He couldn't send his spell through the portal. And he couldn't follow the man either, not only because he too had stepped through the portal and could be anywhere, but also because the chances were that he too could shift shape in a heartbeat.

  Of course others didn't agree with that and the arguments resumed. Mostly though among the Mythagan. Hendrick ignored it for the most part. Even if he had understood their tongue, he didn't want to be involved.

  The man had to be Erohilm, Hendrick thought. He appeared to have the exact same bag of spells. He made himself into someone of surpassing beauty, entrapped his victim's heart and then vanished through portals. He also completely destroyed people. Unless there were two of them exactly the same, it was her.

  But that left him with one other question. One that echoed back and forth through his head as the others argued. Why? Why would this beast do this? If it was intelligent, then it had to have a reason for what it did.

  Once the commotion had died down a little he asked. “Tarius be praised, what did your ancestors do to so anger a behemoth however many thousands of years ago?”

  His question finally brought some silence to the gathering. But it was the silence of accusations demanding to be answered. The Mythagan wanted to know how he could even dare to suggest such a thing. But he knew he was right. And more than that, he suspected that beneath their bluster the Mythagan thought he was right too.

  They weren't going to answer him though. Instead they s
eemed to come to a collective decision, got up and walked back to their portal in complete silence. But even if they said nothing, Hendrick had learned a lot from them. From the way that some of them marched angrily, and others almost seemed to meander in uncertainty. That some had their shoulders raised as if they were about to wade into battle, while others almost looked broken. They were not of one mind on this. Some of them clearly did not believe what his mother had said, or what had been shown. Others did though, and it and it had shattered their world.

  Once they had gone it left the rest of the afflicted alone with their questions. Hendrick decided not to stay. He didn't have any answers to the questions they were sure to ask him. And so after escorting his mother back to her coach so she could go to wherever she was staying, he made his own way home.

  When he got there however he found that someone had got there first. His home which had been rebuilt almost up to its roof line, was now a scattering of kindling spread across the ground, and his oast house which he'd been sleeping in until his home was rebuilt, looked to have been stood on by a giant. He was now completely homeless. Even his fresh barrels of ale, all ready to be delivered to the Badger's Rest, were smashed into a million pieces, the ale soaked into the ground.

  “You bastards!” He cried out his anger to the stars knowing that the culprits would never hear him. And that if they did they wouldn't care. If anything they'd laugh. He cursed the Mythagan some more.

  Seeing the destruction to his home was just too much, and Hendrick collapsed to the ground, wondering just how his life had come to this. Why did everyone keep destroying his home? First brigands, then Sana and now the Mythagan.

  The Mythagan! It seemed that despite their lofty words, their highest calling wasn't to help those who needed their help. It was to ruin his life.

  It just wasn't fair! Every time he tried to do the right thing, it kept turning into a disaster that cost him his home, usually after someone had tried to kill him.

  Maybe his mother was right, he thought. Maybe he should just give up and leave. Forget his life as a brewer. He had gold. He had no family depending on him. He could find somewhere else to live. Something else to do with his life. And above all else he decided he would never get involved again.

  Chapter Forty Five

  Burbage was a busy town these days. Maybe it had always been busy – Marnie didn't know since she'd only been here for a month. But it was certainly bustling with activity now. Part of that she suspected was because of the Guild. They had gold and they were spending it, and with the additional wealth flowing around, business in town was good. And more business meant more people visiting. Traders and merchants for the most part, filling up the market and stores as they tried to grab a share of the wealth. But people were also coming to use the services of the Guild.

  Now that things were more peaceful and the King's commands allowing many of them to charge for their services had become accepted, the gifted were setting up businesses. The first of them was an infirmary, where those who had healing gifts could treat patients. There was no shortage of patients. The behemoth's servants had attacked the town not that long before, and while they'd killed only a dozen or so, several hundred had been injured by their shrieks. Some were completely deaf. Some had had their minds and spirits broken. But all were now being healed. And once word of their work had spread, others had started coming from further afield. The lame, the blind, the diseased – all were turning up in the town seeking healing.

  But healing was only the beginning. The King had also permitted the afflicted to charge for other spells. Most recently he had allowed their people to offer water services. If a farmer needed rain to water his fields there were three or four gifted with the spells to call it. Alternatively if he wanted more regular irrigation, there were others who could create wells and seeps to draw the water from the ground. In a farming town those were valuable services. And those with the right gifts were now thinking about opening up stores to sell enchanted wares.

  It was a strange time to be afflicted. Or rather, to have gone from being afflicted to being gifted. A good time. There was no doubt that the world was changing for the better for them. So far the King was holding up his side of the bargain. More spells were being added to the growing list that could be provided as services. Now that the cities had been protected, more ward stones were being brought across to protect some of the largest towns. And the beast had been quiet. There hadn't been an attack for weeks. Maybe it was finally going to sleep as the sage had promised it would? Or maybe as she sometimes feared – it was simply preparing itself for a major attack. Something that would make everything that had gone before seem as nothing.

  Still, for the moment things were good and Marnie was happily spending some free time wandering through the market and the stores, buying a few luxuries to make her life easier. So far she had only purchased scented candles and soap, but she still had a few stynes left in her pocket.

  The sudden arrival of Indle on his winged horse however, brought her shopping to an abrupt end.

  What was he doing here, she wondered? None of the Mythagan had returned since the disastrous showing of the history of Malthas a few weeks back. After that they'd returned to their own world and hadn’t been seen since. Personally Marnie had thought it a good thing as peace had returned to the town. The fact that they had turned out to be knaves and liars meant that their exodus had been doubly welcome.

  Still, she supposed she had to be polite – Tyrollan would expect it. Perhaps if she was helpful it would mean that Indle would leave sooner?

  Marnie waited patiently as he landed and came over to greet her. Others weren't so calm. All around she could see towns folk standing and staring at the winged horse. Many with their mouths hanging open, while others were still pointing. That wasn't surprising she thought. She was still amazed by the sight of the winged horse. Apart from anything else it was a truly beautiful animal. And she kept wondering how its huge wings folded up so completely when it was on the ground. She was sure that there had to be too many joints.

  “Indle.”

  “Miss Holdwright.” He nodded politely, before dismounting to stand in front of her. “I was hoping you could tell me where I could find Prince Hendrick.”

  “What?” Marnie didn't know what she'd expected him to say, but that certainly wasn't it. After what his people had done, the thought that he might expect Hendrick to ever want to speak to him again was almost laughable.

  “He doesn't seem to be at his home and none of our spells seem to be able to find him.” Indle carried on as if it was a simple enquiry. As if nothing had happened.

  “Really?!” Her voice rose a little in disbelief. Was he mad she wondered? Or such a dullard that he simply didn't understand how angry Hendrick was? Had he not noticed that the man was now living in a tent by the ruins of his home? Or did that simply not mean anything to him? “That's so surprising!” She wondered if he even understood the sarcasm.

  “It is important that I speak with him.” He continued, either unaware or ignoring her caustic remark.

  “Then perhaps you should have thought of that before you destroyed his home and his work!” The time for subtlety had passed Marnie thought.

  “I did no such thing!”

  “Well your people did. Straight after that unfortunate history lesson he gave. He showed you the past and you sent a weather blast to level his home.”

  Actually she wasn't sure that that was the correct term for what they had sent. It had been some sort of spinning ball of wind and lightning that had smashed into his home and levelled everything in a heartbeat.

  Indle opened his mouth to object, and Marnie raised her hand to stop him.

  “Don't even bother. Hendrick can replay the past, and he did – showing the storm being created in the sky high above the Guild and then smashing into his home at almost exactly the same time you were getting up and heading for the portal to return to your world. None of us have that spell. We may not kn
ow which one of you did it, but we know it was you.” She was angry about that. Not because she liked Hendrick. Because the Mythagan had betrayed their trust. And because she had arranged the event and it had led to the destruction of his home. She felt responsible.

  “Since then we've hardly seen him. He turned up with some gold for everyone about a week ago. Wandered through the town to buy some supplies. And then he left. I doubt he's even in Styrion.” They were after all talking about a man who could literally be anywhere in the blink of an eye.

  “We still need to talk to him.”

  Marnie shrugged. “Write a note and leave it in his tent. But even if he returns and reads it I doubt he'd help. He hasn't even started rebuilding his home this time. After all, this is the third time it’s been destroyed. I think he's given up.”

  She also guessed that that was why he'd dropped off such a huge pair of gold nuggets for the Guild a week before. He wasn't planning on coming back. And that worried her. He'd saved their lives twice, and they might need him again. But there was no guarantee that he would be around if and when that happened. They'd lost their most powerful ally.