Darkwell

by Douglas Niles

A great, green sahuagin lunged at the High King. Its toothy jaws gaped, and the spiny ridge along its backbone stood erect as sharp claws clutched at Tristan’s throat. The white fire flickered and flared around the creature’s ghastly shape, making a clear target. The vicious claws swept toward the king, but the silver sword found the throat of the monster first. Pink blood sprayed Tristan as the reptilian attacker clutched the lethal wound, still staggering toward him as it died.

  The High King whirled toward the other sahuagin, the Sword of Cymrych Hugh marking a gleaming arc through the air before him. The northman leader crushed a green skull with his massive axe, and suddenly the fish-men lost their heart for battle. In one motion, still outlined in eerie flame, the remaining attackers slipped over the side of the longship and disappeared beneath the waves.

  Tristan and Daryth stood poised for combat, watching the northmen. They saw tall, proud seafarers. The one called Grunnarch stepped forward. His red hair and beard flowed freely across his chest and shoulders, and his pale blue eyes stared warily back at the pair. His chest was broad, and strapping muscles rippled beneath the skin of his arms. The northman wore only a short wool tunic, of plain gray, and high-laced leather sandals. He looked every inch the sailor, taking no note of the rolling deck beneath his feet as he advanced, studying his rescuers.

  Grunnarch the Red saw two men facing him, one fair and one swarthy. The fair one stood easily before him, holding that dazzling sword. He held himself proudly, like a ruler of men. His brown beard and hair were shorter than the northman’s, but still long and full, as a man’s should be. Though leaner of muscle, the swordsman had a wiry, solid frame that appeared to conceal hidden reserves of strength.

  The other man, the swarthier of the pair, was clean-shaven. His skin was a rich brown, his hair as black as night. He carried a silver scimitar and stood balanced, catlike, upon the balls of his feet. Grunnarch noticed that, while the swordsman stared him full in the face, the man with the scimitar looked everywhere else, as if watching for a threat to his liege.

  Then Grunnarch’s eyes went to the ship, where a black-haired woman stood at the rail. She met his gaze boldly, with none of the shyness that would have characterized a woman of the North. For several moments, he stared, distracted by her beauty, until he remembered his surroundings.

  The northman lowered his axe. He spoke in heavily accented Commonspeech.

  “Greetings. I am Grunnarch the Red, King of Norland. I thank you for my life.”

  “I am Tristan Kendrick, High King of the Ffolk.”

  The longship lurched slightly as Dansforth’s crew brought the two ships together, lashing the hulls side by side. Robyn sprang into the longship to stand beside the two men. Grunnarch turned and spoke a command in his own tongue, and the surviving members of his crew began to tend to their wounded and hurl sahuagin bodies overboard.

  Grunnarch’s eyes turned unconsciously to the woman again. He saw the supple curves of her body, poorly concealed by her loose cloak. She stood easily in the rocking hull, moving like a fighter, with balance and grace. He saw that the muscles of her arms and neck were tight, but her strength could not conceal the womanliness of her appearance.

  And then he recognized her. He recalled a figure, high atop a tower of Caer Corwell, black hair streaming in the wind. He saw her with her staff held over her head, and he remembered the lightning that had crashed and crackled into the ranks of his men. With the memory came the stench of burned, blackened flesh, and even the feeling of hopeless panic that had arisen within him. It was at that moment, Grunnarch remembered, that he had realized that the northmen’s campaign was doomed.

  He shook his head suddenly, turning back to the young king who stood looking at him curiously, and he wondered at the oddity that brought the two of them, sworn enemies a year ago, standing face to face over the dead sahuagin.

  “Why did you do this?” asked the Red King.

  Tristan thought before answering. Why, indeed? At last he spoke. “I’m not quite certain. Our first instinct was to sail away, once we had secured our own ship.

  “Your people and mine have fought for centuries, and in truth, it seemed we should fight for centuries to come. But must it be this way?”

  “You are Kendrick of Corwell? And of Freeman’s Down?”

  “The same.”

  “We have fought, ourselves, scarce more than a year since. You have great skill—and fortune.

  “And you, lady?” asked the Red King, turning to Robyn. “You, too, fought well. Your sorcery helped break the spell of evil that bound us.”

  “Mine is the magic of faith, not sorcery. There is a great difference.” She smiled at him faintly, her eyes inscrutable.

  He nodded, not understanding the distinction. Suddenly he remembered the scrolls and the promise they seemed to offer. He bent and retrieved the long tube from beneath the deck, offering it mutely to her. He was not sure why, but it seemed right that she should have. Perhaps it was a way of repaying the debt he owed these Ffolk for saving his life, though it was more than his sense of obligation that caused him to give the scroll to the beautiful druid.

  “It was claimed as a thing of great value,” he explained awkwardly. “Is it of use to you?”

  Robyn took the ivory tube, barely stifling a gasp. She stroked the elaborate carvings reverently before looking at the northman. His face was taut with tension, she saw, as if he desperately hoped that she would value the gift.

  She looked again at the runes. They were strange, not druidic in nature, but at the same time almost identical to a series of carvings her teacher had made along a short piece of wood, a runestick, that Genna had given Robyn as a gift. This was obviously a talisman of great power, sacred to some god not very different from her own.

  “It’s very precious … a thing of power. Where did you get it?”

  From the look of sudden anguish on the fierce raider’s face, she knew she had hurt him with her question. She guessed that the tube was the plunder of some raid, though why Grunnarch should be troubled by that fact she couldn’t begin to guess.

  “Never mind,” she added quickly. “It is a thing of tremendous value. I thank you for giving it to me.”

  “It is a small reward for the gift of my life and my ship,” replied Grunnarch solemnly. The Red King turned back to Tristan. “Your actions are more puzzling, as you must know I was with the army that would have put your home to the torch. How can you forgive one who has done you such evil?”

  “For one thing, you’re no longer accompanied by your powerful ally,” remarked Tristan. The vision of the Beast, Kazgoroth, growing from the body of a man into a monster towering over a castle wall, came quickly into Tristan’s mind. He remembered the terror and awe of that moment as if it had occurred yesterday.

  Grunnarch’s face flushed. “Ally?” he spat. “It was a thing of great evil! It slew one of our greatest kings and took his body for its own foul purposes! We were little more than mindless weapons in its hands!”

  “Perhaps that can explain why we aided you. Evil such as that still haunts the Moonshaes. As long as we strive to destroy each other, we make the task of that evil so much easier. I ask you, Grunnarch, King of Norland, would we not do better to join forces to combat this evil?”

  The Red King looked Tristan full in the face, then nodded slowly. “You speak with the wisdom of a much older king. But what of this evil you speak of? It still threatens our lands? Where, and how, shall we fight it?”

  “Come with me to Corwell,” said the High King. “We will talk of it there.”

  The histories of lands, peoples, and nations are made of many tiny events. Most are insignificant, their impact gone with the moment of their passing. But some of these events have an impact extending far beyond their occurrence. These events are things that can shape and change history for countless years into the future.

  Grunnarch the Red extended his broad hand and Tristan Kendrick took it in his firm clasp. Their eyes met, bold and frank.
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br />   An event of the latter type had just occurred.

  The corruption of Genna Moonsinger struck the goddess like a physical blow. It fell all the more heavily since the great druid had not even been granted the dignified defeat of death but had instead become a tool of the very evil she had striven to defeat.

  The Earthmother felt the presence of her servant’s body but could not reach out to her soul. Genna had been freed from her prison of stone, only to be entrapped in a spiritual corruption more vile than any form of death.

  For a time, it seemed as if the land itself would wither and die in sympathy with the mother’s grief. Indeed, winter hastened its approach, reaching frosty fingers across the Moonshaes, eagerly striking the last leaves from those trees still carrying vestiges of foliage.

  And then, briefly, the goddess looked up from her misery, away from the dark depths of the earth to the world of sky and air and sun. She felt a small tingle of vitality, and with it came renewed hope. The Earthmother knew that her lone druid, Robyn of Gwynneth, still lived. Now she sensed that Robyn had come into contact with a talisman of great power and faith, a vessel of wisdom that could invigorate and vitalize her.

  The Scrolls of Arcanus were not of the mother’s own essence, but they were clerical scrolls of great antiquity, born of a faith not so different from her own. The clerics, like her druids, held that the balance of all things made the fulcrum of life. Too, the scrolls contained teachings of that balance and its fundamental principles that held keys to great power. They offered Robyn some semblance of knowledge and might, even though the Earthmother herself could no longer offer the same.

  Perhaps it was not much, but she could fasten her hopes to nothing else.

  ith a shrill cry, the vulture sensed the nearness of the sea. The bird hastened its flight, and soon the blue waters of Corwell Firth came into view to the west. The bulk of Caer Corwell stood dominating the foreground, and soon the bird was flying over the castle. It circled above the stone keep, following the line of the wooden palisade that protected the compound.

  Caer Corwell stood perched upon its rocky knoll, commanding the ground around the compact fishing town and its sheltered harbor. The surrounding moor had browned with the approach of winter, but the bright afternoon sun of this day gave the place a warm, springlike look, especially as it reflected the brilliant azure hue of the firth.

  The vulture, a dirty black bird with streaks of brown and gray across its wings, finally settled upon the parapet of the highest tower of the castle. It was an oddly formed bird, with great, misshapen claws and a twisted, crooked neck, as if it were an imperfect rendering of the real thing. Now the bird perched there, staring intently at the activity on the waterfront. With humanlike attention, it watched the progress of two vessels that approached the dock.

  To a human, the sight would have indeed seemed odd. Here was a sturdy, deep-drafted vessel of the Ffolk, its sails mostly furled as the gentle breeze pushed it toward the wharf. Beyond, just passing through the breakwater, came a sleek, low-hulled longship of the type sailed by the raiders of the North. Any human who understood the ways of the Moonshaes could not have helped but wonder why ships of two such bitter enemies would sail together into a peaceful harbor.

  Genna Moonsinger, in the body of the vulture, felt no such curiosity about the unusual flotilla. She was on a mission from Bhaal, concerned only with the location of her target. And he, she suspected, would be found upon one of those ships.

  She had made the flight from Myrloch to Corwell in two days. Her druidic ability to shift her body into the shape of an animal remained, despite her corruption by the Heart of Kazgoroth, but the animal body she inhabited was distorted and malformed. Her motivation now had a single focus: to serve the will of Bhaal.

  She soared from the parapet and glided into the courtyard, landing in a shadowed passage between several stables. Then the body of the vulture shifted, growing and bending into the shape of a young woman. Genna, aided by the Beast, adjusted the body to achieve the effect she desired. A brilliant tumble of red hair flowed loosely across her narrow shoulders, framing a perfect oval face. Her breasts grew large and firm, thrusting boldly forward so that only a man of wood or stone could have avoided taking notice of them.

  The woman who stepped from the passage into the afternoon light of the courtyard bore little resemblance to the Great Druid of Gwynneth. Tall, smooth-skinned, and young, she moved with the supple grace of a cat.

  Gliding across the courtyard of Caer Corwell, she slipped among the Ffolk who had begun to gather at the castle in anticipation of the king’s homecoming. She had naught to do now but wait for her victim to fall into her trap.

  “The children of the goddess were her most potent allies in the struggle against Kazgoroth. The Leviathan of the deep shattered our ships and scattered our fleet, but the power of the Beast slayed the great fish in the end. The Pack pursued the army of the northmen over the land howling madly with their wolfen voices and tearing flesh with their great fangs when they brought the army to bay.”

  Hobarth paused in his narration, sensing Bhaal’s keen interest in the tale. In truth, the cleric was surprised at how little the god knew about their adversaries.

  “But the Pack, too, is gone, scattered to the far corners of the isle. The druid told me her goddess lacks the will, or the might, to summon it again.” Genna had indeed provided the cleric with a wealth of information. She apparently retained all the memories of her former life, with none of the spiritual values that would have prevented her from disclosing them to one such as Hobarth.

  “Now,” he continued, “only the unicorn, Kamerynn, remains of the children. He is strong—I have faced him myself—but his might is nothing in the face of your own.”

  Of course, the cleric did not speak out loud. Instead, he formulated the information in his mind, where his god claimed it for his own. This, too, is how Bhaal spoke with his servant.

  These children you speak of … the children of a god. The thought of them brings me pleasure.

  Hobarth waited, confused.

  I, too, shall create children—the Children of Bhaal. They will stalk the land beside you and bring death to all the corners of the world!

  “What form shall they take?” asked the cleric nervously.

  His answer came in the form of a bubbling maelstrom forming in the center of the Darkwell. The black water foamed upward, releasing a stench of foul gas into the air. Then the froth moved across the surface as rings of ripples spread outward from the turbulence.

  The surface of the water parted in a soft eruption, and a figure emerged. Oily water trickled off a broad, flat head, streaked across a feathered face, dripped from a short, blunt beak. Then the great brown body emerged, lumbering onto the shore and hulking over the cleric. Patches of shaggy hair, in places torn to reveal bare and scabrous skin, covered the creature’s lower body. Hobarth looked up at a ghastly apparition, a nightmare thing that did not belong on this world.

  He recognized the shaggy body of Grunt, the bear. The thing stood on its hind legs, twice as tall as a man, in the hunching pose of a great brown bear. But the face dispelled any notions of normalcy. It was flat and covered with feathers, with a short, downward pointing beak—a beak! It was the head of an owl, grown hugely out of proportion and placed upon the body of the bear.

  The words of Bhaal came into the cleric’s mind. My owlbear. You shall call him Thorax.

  Scarcely did Hobarth have a chance to register his shock, remembering a large owl that had died from the poisonous touch of the waters shortly after the bear’s demise, than he saw the water foaming and swirling a second time. This time, a pair of bizarre creatures splashed forth, pulling themselves into the air on the broad wings of eagles. They were followed by several more, and they all flew with the grace and power of that most regal of birds.

  But the heads of these hideous things were all like the head of a proud stag. A broad rack of antlers spread above each of them. Only the mouths were unli
ke deer, as they parted in flight to reveal rows of sharp, wolflike fangs.

  The perytons. Witness the birth of my flock.

  Again the waters of the Darkwell churned upward and away, and the cleric stared dumbfounded as the next creature came slinking from the muck and the slime. It rose from the water with a heart-numbing growl, its yellow eyes flashing hatred. Its black coat glistened, and its wicked eyes held Hobarth enthralled as the monster crept toward him.

  Shantu, king of my children.

  The beast resembled a huge black panther, nearly the size of a horse. Its coat, dripping with the oily liquid, glistened with a hellish sheen. The gaping mouth displayed fangs as long as daggers, and it crouched menacingly, as if it would leap upon Hobarth himself.

  But this was no ordinary panther, even allowing for its size. From each of the black shoulders sprouted a long tentacle, covered all over with moist cups, like the limbs of an octopus. At the end of each tentacle curved a sharp, bony hook, ready to rip into flesh like a giant claw.

  Shantu growled again, and Hobarth felt the bile rise in his throat. Then the creature slinked past him, and he noticed something curious—though the animal dripped steadily from the waters of the well, the ground beneath it did not grow wet. Indeed, the astounded cleric noticed, the ground was wet several paces to the side of the beast!

  As the creature moved away from the well, it made no tracks in the muddy ground—at least not beneath it. Instead, Hobarth saw tracks appear off to one side, though the creature looked and sounded as if it was directly before him. With awe, he witnessed the power of his god’s creation. Here was a creature that seemed to be in one place, yet was actually somewhere else nearby.

  Thus is the displacer beast born, to take his place before you.

  “Glory to Bhaal and His magnificent children,” murmured the cleric.

  They, together with my legions from the sea, and you, my servant, shall spread death across this isle. When you are finished, when my will has been done, there will be not a single living creature upon this land that is not beholden to me. This island shall become a monument to death!