The Werewolf and the Wormlord

by Hugh Cook

  He moved.

  Paused.

  Moved.

  Rested.

  Moved.

  It hurt to move, but he must.

  He—

  The pain was too much.

  He could not move.

  Could not even crawl.

  He lay in the mud, shuddering.

  Then—

  Then the moon emerged as the clouds cleared.

  And—

  And Alfric knew what last chance was left to him.

  Alfric gazed upon the moon, upon the blurred white disk of the moon, and, as he did so, that disk sharpened as it came into focus. And he smelt the moonlight shining upon the waters of the mere, and the smell was a high thin smell vaguely reminiscent of onions. And he smelt the blood of combat, the blood of a dead human and the blood of a wounded wolf and the foul clotted blood of Herself, and—

  And his teeth were sharpening for the blood, his jaw was lengthening, his belly becoming lean, his muscles strengthening, girthing, lengthening.

  And the sounds were changing, and he heard much more, now, as he stood up on his four feet, and—

  And She had won against the white wolf, and the creature was mortally wounded, and She looked up from her prey to see a black wolf of monstrous size bruting toward Her.

  Alfric leapt.

  She was thrown backwards as Alfric took Her with his monstrous strength. His throat rending at Her throat. One of Her hands scrabbled for his eyes, sought, almost found, but—

  His teeth tore, crunching, munching—

  And black blood ran from Her throat, blood black by the light of the moon, and spasms shook Her body, and She died.

  And Alfric threw back his head and howled.

  Then—

  He could not help himself.

  He ate.

  He fed.

  He was animal, he was appetite, he was a brute ravening, shameless, shameless, giving himself to his greed, to the gluttony of the blood. And She was tom open before he could stop himself, She was tom from throat to crotch, Her intestines spilt to the night, and much of Her gut in Alfric’s belly.

  Then he shuddered, and stepped back from the corpse, back-pacing neatly with his four feet.

  Then he dipped his muzzle into the black waters of the mere and he drank, though the water stank he drank of it, drank deeply, slaking his thirst.

  And only then did he force himself to Change, discarding wolf for human.

  When Alfric had two feet again, his first thought was to seek his second-best spectacles. He recovered them from his pack, then rummaged in the same pack for his spare clothes, the change of clothes a traveller always carries in case he becomes soaked by rain or river. Alfric dressed himself, and that was enough, for the moment, enough for him to go into action.

  ‘Grandfather?’

  Where was his grandfather?

  Had the white wolf killed it?

  And was the wolf yet dead?

  To his surprise, Alfric saw there was life in the white-haired brute.

  Alfric dared himself toward it in time to see it writhe, distort, deform, and—

  Change.

  Though it was dying, the wolf possessed strength of will sufficient to make itself Change, and this it did, bloodfroth pain spewed forth on its bubbling breath as haunch became leg, as fur became skin, as the jawbone shrank, as the face became that of Tromso Stavenger.

  ‘Grandfather...’

  Alfric knelt by the old man.

  Stavenger’s mouth moved.

  ‘Am—’

  The Wormlord said no more.

  But Alfric knew what question would be in the mind of the dying man. Had he managed to Change back into human form? Or was he dying as a wolf?

  ‘You die as a hero,’ said Alfric. ‘A human hero.’

  Tromso Stavenger smiled, glad that he would not bring shame on his Family, glad that he would die without the world at large ever knowing his secret, that secret which he had for so long concealed even from his son and his grandson, the secret being, of course, that he was in fact a shape-changer, a werewolf.

  Then a gut-wrenching spasm of agony contorted the old man’s face, and he snarled, trying to fight free of the pain, and Alfric suddenly wished he would die, for it was hard to watch such agony.

  But the old man did not die, not then.

  No.

  His dying was long, and his dying was hard, and Alfric, to his shame, felt something like relief by the time the old man was finally gone.

  Alfric kissed his grandfather, kissed the lips of the corpse, then went and sat on his pack.

  The night was very calm, its details crisp and crystalline. The clouds had cleared away from the sky entirely, driven by a wind high in the heavens, but by the side of the mere no wind at all was now blowing.

  The stars shone down, poisonous nightfruit, reflected in the black of the waters.

  No blue fire burnt above or beneath the dark waters of the mere. Had the fire died because She had died? Or was the blue fire a transitory phenomenon, a—

  ‘Shut up,’ said Alfric, to the investigative part of his mind which was trying to pursue these questions.

  Then he closed his eyes.

  But as soon as he did so, memories assailed. Memories of his murder of the sea dragon Qa, of the torments he had inflicted upon the swamp giant Kralch, of the shameful bargain he had struck with the vampires on behalf of the Bank, and, perhaps hardest to live with of all, the grandiloquent pride he had felt when he had subdued and terrorized the moth-eaten old werehamster which had once tried to ambush him in the forest.

  Alfric opened his eyes again and shuddered, trying to shake off the past.

  The present was surely enough to deal with.

  As he stared at the darkened mere, a snake came sliding from the water, sibilant moonlight glissading from its scales as it ventured on to the land.

  ‘Pa!’ said Alfric in disgust.

  And the snake fled.

  If Alfric had not spoken, the creature would have fed upon the flesh of Tromso Stavenger or Grendel Danbrog. The tom corpses lay in the welter of mud and muck which was the aftermath of battle. What to do with them?

  Should Alfric guard the dead or leave them?

  As he was trying to work out what to do, something else crept from the waters beneath the cold and silent moon. It was the rat. And now Alfric knew why he hated the thing so fiercely. The very first time he had seen the brute, he had suspected that it would soon be feeding upon the flesh of the dead.

  The rat lifted its head.

  Gazed upon Alfric.

  Then started toward him.

  Forget the flesh of the dead!

  This thing had a taste for the living!

  Alfric, war-battered and weaponless, stumbled backwards. Then tripped over a pile of clothing. Down he went, landing on something hard. The rat stalked toward him. And Alfric rolled over, scrabbled for the hard thing, and found it was just what he thought it was.

  On came the rat.

  And Alfric stood up, kicked away his grandfather’s clothes, and braced himself, and the hard thing was in his hands, and the hard thing was his grandfather’s sword.

  And the rat leapt.

  And Alfric screamed as he met the thing with the blade of old iron, and he screamed again and again as he hacked it, slaughtered it, killed it, murdered it.

  Then he stood there panting.

  Something else stirred in the water.

  A nicor?

  Or what?

  Suddenly, Alfric realized he was almost completely exhausted. If something else came from the depths, he would have no chance of defeating it. And who could say what limit there was to the horrors of this place? One might almost think She had treasured the company of hideous things during Her life. Perhaps that was why She brought corpses to this place. Perhaps the dead meat was food for Her pets, and these pets the measure of Her loneliness. Perhaps—

  Alfric shuddered, then—

  He had no choice—<
br />
  Walked away from the mere, taking nothing with him but his grandfather’s bloody sword.

  After a long and weary trek, Alfric came to the knoll which the Yudonic Knights had fortified in obedience to their king’s wishes. There the Knights sat by their fires, toasting the wings of chickens and the legs of ducks, stewing up rabbit and reheating fish chowder.

  The Knights stared at Alfric in silent amazement as he came into the firelight. There was blood on his hands and blood on his face and there was a bloody sword in his hands.

  ‘She is dead,’ said Alfric. ‘The king is dead also. My father lies dead beside him.’

  The Knights still stared at him, and he realized they were afraid of him, thinking him perhaps a ghost or a revenant. So he looked among the horses and found the Knights had secured the horse which was his own, and he climbed into the saddle and rode off through the night, making for Galsh Ebrek with a bloody sword in his hand.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Perhaps it was the water he had drunk, or perhaps it was the wounds inflicted by Her claws. Whatever the cause, Alfric was feverish long before he reached the Stanch Gates. And whatever his fever, such was the virulence of its onset that he collapsed in the muck scarcely a hundred paces from those Gates, and was picked up and taken to the city hospital by the gate guards.

  A hospital bed claimed him. The sheets of the bed were stiff with the blood of whoever had died in it last, but this did nothing whatsoever to discourage the lice and bedbugs.

  Alfric paid no heed to insectile assaults, for fever was the world in which he lived. He grappled with demons which strove to pulverize his liver with starhammers and dragon gongs. The dead came to him, and the unborn, their animating spirits stirring through the jaded air. Often he talked with them, or listened to politicking ghosts bickering in his nostrils, or to the worms which he imagined to be hollowing their way through his bones.

  In lucid moments, Alfric listened to his neighbour, a demented old man who, believing himself a historian of the ruling oligarchies of the universe, lectured the world at length on the cornerstones of time itself and the flamboyant mysteries of the sun.

  But always fever returned.

  Living in a world which owed more to hallucination than to anything else, Alfric began to believe that the air itself had turned to liquid fire, and he made frantic efforts to brush it away with his hands before it could flow into his lungs.

  But always the air got in, and the pain of breathing suggested the air was fire indeed. This agony was part of the ever-accumulating evidence which suggested to Alfric that he was going to die. His symptoms were so various that, in time, he accumulated encyclopedic evidence to that effect. His hands crabbed; his joints ached; his intestines writhed; his muscles cramped; and he had visions of Herself, Her flesh swollen to corpse-green yellow, and flickering fire kicking in dragon-spasms from her ears.

  In time, Alfric recovered, after a fashion. But he was still weak and slightly feverish when agents from the Bank arrived without warning and removed him from the hospital. Since Alfric was barely recovered from his hallucinations, he was too sick to argue against this abduction; and, lack of argument being taken as health sufficient, he was put aboard a cart and conveyed through the streets of Galsh Ebrek to the slopes of Mobius Kolb.

  Then up those slopes.

  Past the battlements of Saxo Pall.

  And to (then into) the Bank itself. Alfric did not know whether he was honoured guest or prisoner, valued employee or uncrowned king. However, when servitors started helping him into his robes, he supposed that he was being accepted back into the organization on some level. His fears of immediate execution faded, though he was still somewhat confused and disorientated.

  ‘Would you like a meal before your meeting?’

  ‘My meeting?’

  ‘Your meeting with Comptroller Xzu. Well? Would you like a meal?’

  ‘Just a cup of tea, thanks,’ said Alfric.

  So tea they brought him, jade tea imported from Obooloo by way of the Circle. It helped settle his stomach; and he felt calm and self-controlled by the time he had finished it.

  Then he was taken to see Comptroller Xzu.

  Before Alfric had marched against Herself, Xzu had asked him to delay that expedition for seven days. What had been the reason for that? Was Alfric going to find out? And would the Bank be pleased or displeased with the ultimate outcome of the expedition? And did it matter? Did Alfric need the Bank’s help, or could he make himself king without it?

  All these questions and more were confused together in Alfric’s head.

  (He had more questions? Yes, he had more indeed. He wondered what rate of interest he was getting on his call account with the Morgrim Bank of Chi’ash-lan, and how tea was faring on the commodities market, and whether there was an end to the drought in Tang; and, indeed, he wondered about half a thousand similar questions.)

  Then he was entering Comptroller Xzu’s office.

  ‘Ah, Alfric, Alfric,’ said Xzu. And then, correcting himself without prompting: ‘My dear Izdarbolskobidarbix, how nice it is to have you back in the fold.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re glad to have me back,’ said Alfric stiffly. ‘I’m aware that the Bank cautioned me not to dare myself against Herself. Now that I have, and now that She is dead, I trust that there will be no long-term repercussions as a result of this act of mine.’

  ‘You trust correctly,’ said Xzu. ‘The Bank does not engage in childish vengeance. One does not throw away a sharp knife merely because it has happened to take a nick out of one’s finger. While your disobedience disappoints us, your disobedience is not crucial in determining your fate. What matters is your overall performance. Overall, you have performed very well, and have proved an asset to the organization.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Alfric.

  ‘Furthermore,’ said Xzu, ‘please be assured that exemplary work always attracts recognition and reward. We are certainly possessed of no superabundance of talent, hence we do our best to encourage and retain the talented. In your case, the Bank sees fit to reward you for all the good work you have put in over the last few years. Accordingly, we hereby create you Banker Second Class.’

  ‘That is appreciated,’ said Alfric dryly. Then: ‘I will remember this courtesy once I have made myself king.’

  ‘Ah, my dear Izdarbolskobidarbix,’ said Banker Xzu. ‘As I remember it, the case was not one of you making yourself king. Rather, you were going to ally yourself with the Bank in a campaign for that position. There is a difference, you know.’

  ‘I am sensible of the fact that it would be difficult for me to obtain the throne without assistance from the Bank,’ said Alfric, doing his best to suppress his impatience. ‘I am grateful to know that the Bank supports me in this endeavour. ’

  ‘Good,’ said Banker Xzu. ‘That speaks of a very mature attitude on your part toward politics and its complexities. Since you are possessed of such an attitude, ^ou will surely not take it amiss if I remind you of the fact that, in politics, what seems an appropriate enterprise today may come to seem quite the opposite on the morrow.’

  ‘That I grant,’ said Alfric cautiously.

  Already, from the tenor of Banker Xzu’s speech, Alfric guessed that the Bank was not going to support him in his drive for the throne. Alfric’s promotion also suggested as much. After all, the Bank would scarcely have gone to the trouble to promote Alfric Danbrog to the rank of Banker Second Class if he were going to be king on the morrow. If the Bank truly expected him to be king, it would either not have bothered with the promotion, or else it would have promoted him straight to Banker First Class as a token of respect and esteem.

  So.

  After taking so much trouble to help Alfric complete his three quests, the Bank was finally withdrawing its support.

  But why?

  Why now?

  ‘As I have said,’ said Xzu, ‘today may think yesterday’s ambitions to be an error. In this case, the Bank’s ambi
tion, which was to make you king, now seems to be such an error. The fault, of course, lies with the Bank itself, since the ambition was conceived by the Bank and was forced upon you against your will. We acknowledge that the error is ours, hence your promotion.’

  ‘I see,’ said Alfric. Then, delicately: ‘But I have always found clarity of vision to benefit from professional attentions. Would you care to serve as my oculist in this matter? To play the ogre to a half-blind Banker Second Class? To instruct me, in other words, in the actual reasons for this change of heart on the Bank’s part?’

  Xzu sighed.

  ‘What you ask is very difficult,’ said Xzu. ‘Were I a glibly nimble master of fiction, I could conjure up a fetching lie for your delectation. However, the truth is that I am not in a position to elucidate the entanglements which constrain the actions of the Bank in this matter. While portentousness is not natural to my nature, I must confess that we have a very, very delicate stage in the existence of the Banking Circle itself, the intricacies of which I am not free to mention; and questions concerning the kingship of Wen Endex have a bearing on these intricacies.’

  Here an ambiguity.

  Exactly what was Banker Xzu trying to say? That Alfric did not possess a security clearance high enough to allow him to know exactly what ‘intricacies’ currently obsessed the Partnership Banks? Or that Comptroller Xzu himself had not been briefed, and so could not instruct his guest?

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Alfric. ‘All this would be much easier to accept if I knew more of what was going on. I appreciate the delicacy of all relationships concerning the Partnership Banks. I know the difficulty of maintaining good and workable relationships between our various and variegated worlds. However, I fail to see quite how the Circle comes to concern itself with the kingship of Wen Endex, a matter which, to the best of my knowledge, has never troubled the Circle before.’

  Xzu sighed again.

  Then:

  ‘Let me be frank,’ said Xzu. ‘The problem is not with the Banks of the Circle. Rather, the problem is with the Izdimir Empire. The Empire does not accept you as a suitable candidate for the throne. Instead, Obooloo demands that Ursula Major attain the throne. Aldarch the Third will not have it any other way. ’