by Tim Waggoner
Tell her now …
He cleared his throat, not that he had any real need to. “Kirai … there’s something I want to tell you. Or maybe ask you.” He scowled, irritated at himself. “Something like that.”
Kirai paused, another spoonful of stew halfway to her mouth. She raised a curious eyebrow. “From the tone of your voice, whatever it is must be serious. Is the commander angry about the zombies? Did you explain that we didn’t have any choice but to immobilize them?”
In truth, the Karrnathi commander was less than thrilled, but that wasn’t what Ghaji wanted to talk about right now. “It’s not that, it’s … about earlier. After we stopped the zombies.”
Kirai frowned and laid her stew bowl on the ground. “I don’t understand.”
“The way you hugged me, it …” Ghaji gazed upon the fire, unable to look Kirai in the eyes. “No one ever hugged me like that before.”
“I was just so relieved that we’d won. I couldn’t believe it!” A teasing tone crept into her voice. “Don’t tell me that I hugged you too tight! Did I bruise the big strong warrior?”
He smiled but still didn’t look at her. “I think I’ll survive. I liked how hard you hugged me. It was … nice.”
Kirai didn’t respond right away, and for several moments the only sound was the bubbling of her chemicals in their pots. And then Kirai began to laugh.
“I’m sorry, Ghaji, really! I know I shouldn’t laugh, but it’s just too funny! I mean, you know … I’m human and you’re an ore!”
Ghaji stiffened and his heart turned to a cold lump in his chest. Though it was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life—harder by far than fighting a horde of blood-thirsty zombies—he forced out a hollow laugh.
“I was just joking. Enjoy the rest of your stew.” Before Kirai could say anything else, Ghaji rose to his feet and walked away from the fire, heading north as night continued its descent upon the Talenta Plains.
Come sunrise, he was still walking.
Ghaji was just about to suggest that they give up on the Turnabout’s captain and seek passage elsewhere when the tavern door burst open and a tall, broad-shouldered man walked in, followed by a dwarf wearing a heavy cloak.
All eyes turned toward the newcomers. The dwarf stood with a taciturn expression on his face, while the tall man met the patron’s curious gazes with a broad grin. “Good evening to you all! Word has reached me that there are good people present in this establishment who seek to hire a vessel swift and true!” His voice was a warm, honeyed baritone, and he sounded as if he had come for a reunion with old friends rather than a meeting with potential passengers.
The man was in mid-fifties, with sea-weathered skin, a hook nose, and a bushy black beard. A gold earring hung from his left ear, and he wore his hair in a small pony-tail tied with a tiny red ribbon. He wore an overlarge black tricorner hat with gold trim and a large red feather sticking up from the back. His red long coat was unbuttoned over a green tunic with a white ruffled collar and a purple sash around his waist. The coat had large black gauntlet-like cuffs, past which his ruffled white shirt sleeve collars were visible. He had thick-fingered, calloused hands, and wore gaudy jeweled rings on all ten of his fingers. Black trousers, brown boots, and a cutlass sheathed at his waist completed his outfit.
Ghaji took one look at the man and burst out laughing.
“You have got to be joking!”
Diran stared at the blackened arrowhead shape seared onto the flesh of Leontis’s palm.
“I assume you have a good reason for asking me to kill you.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Leontis closed his fingers and made a fist to hide the scorch mark, as if he were ashamed of it. “I’ve been cursed.”
Diran didn’t reply. He knew his old friend would speak when he was ready. After several moments, Leontis took a deep breath and began.
“Six months ago I was traveling in the Principalities near Tantamar, at the behest of a village priest who’d contacted the cathedral. Livestock in the area were being slaughtered by some kind of animal, and there were rumors of a strange beast prowling the hills at night. The priest feared that a lycanthrope might be active in the area, and he asked that a priest with battle experience be sent to investigate. The Order of Templars chose me, and I was dispatched immediately. The Templars didn’t expect me to discover anything more than some rogue beast or another—quite possibly nothing more sinister than a normal wolf—that had found an easy source of food to fill its belly. You know as well as I that lycanthropes of all kinds have been extinct in Khorvaire since the days of the Purge … or nearly so.”
“But it’s that nearly so that caused the Templars to send you,” Diran said.
Leontis nodded. “In the years since you last saw me, I’ve made something of a specialty of investigating reports of lycanthropy. I’d always been fascinated by tales of the Purge—the heroics and the atrocities the Purified committed in the name of the Silver Flame. It sounds foolish now, but I thought that I could help balance the scales for the Flame, help redeem the Purified that were involved in the Purge by investigating lycanthropy now with a clear head and a pure heart … fighting evil with strength, determination, but also with compassion.” Leontis smiled at Diran. “Just as you taught me by the banks of the Thrane River so many years ago.”
“It doesn’t sound foolish to me at all,” Diran said. “And I know Tusya would agree.”
Leontis shrugged. “Perhaps. At any rate, during my investigations over the years I’d discovered and fought any number of creatures, both mystic and mundane, but not once had I encountered a true lycanthrope.”
“Until you went to the village near Tantamar.”
Leontis nodded. “Despite the rarity of true lycanthropic outbreaks, the Templars take no chances when a report comes in. They dispatched me to the region by airship, and within a few days of the village priest making his report, I was scouring the woods near his village for signs of lycanthrope activity. For two weeks, I roamed those woods, hiking by day, camping at night, my senses ever alert for even the merest hint of supernatural evil. I didn’t find any, nor did I find any physical signs. I found no tracks, and no animals were killed during my time there. Then one night—my last night in the area, I’d already decided—as I was about to drift off to sleep in my bedroll I finally felt it: the presence of true evil. I grabbed my bow and strung it, then slipped the quiver of silver-tipped arrows I’d brought over my shoulder. Then I walked off in into the night to begin the hunt.”
“But you weren’t the only hunter stalking the darkness,” Diran said.
Leontis let out a bitter laugh. “Hardly! There’s always something hungry roaming the night, isn’t there? But you’re right. As I was hunting the lycanthrope, so too was it hunting me. I suppose it was my arrogance that proved my undoing. After all, I was one of the Purified, a warrior of the Silver Flame … I’d battled evil on so many occasions, faced creatures so powerful that ordinary men and women would’ve been driven to the brink of madness merely to gaze upon their dire countenances. How could a single lycanthrope compare to that?” Leontis shook his head. “Pretty damned well, as it turned out.
“Lycanthropes are different than other evil beings, Diran. They combine the best and worst aspects of both man and beast. Intelligence and cunning, savagery and cruelty, instinct and forethought … that’s what makes them so deadly, and that’s why the Purified fought so hard to eradicate them during the Purge. If their contagion were allowed to spread, Khorvaire—perhaps all of Eberron—might be lost.”
Diran waited for Leontis to continue, but when the man had remained silent for a time while he stared into the fountain’s basin, Diran said, “So you encountered the lycanthrope.”
“Yes. It came at me out of the darkness, moving far more swiftly than I would’ve thought possible. I had an arrow nocked and managed to release it before the beast was upon me, but I had no idea whether I had struck the monster. It knocked me to the ground, clawing, biting …”
Leontis shuddered at the memory, grimacing as if he felt the pain of the attack anew. “I couldn’t even tell what kind of lycanthrope it was. All I knew was that it had fur, claws, and teeth, and that it was doing its best to tear me into ribbons. The agony was incredible, but I fought to ignore it and reached for the silver knife sheathed at my belt. And that’s the last thing I remember before awakening to see a canopy of trees above me and beyond their leaves the blue sky of morning.
“My clothes were shredded and caked with dried blood, but I had no wounds. Lying next to me on the grass was a young man who most likely hadn’t seen his twentieth year. He was naked, his skin covered with blood—some of it his, but much of it mine, I warrant. The shaft of my arrow protruded from his shoulder, and my blade was lodged in his heart. He had a number of stab wounds on his chest and abdomen, and I was amazed that I had been able to strike so many times as I was losing consciousness.”
Diran smiled sadly. “You’ve never understood just how much inner strength you possess, my friend.”
Leontis ignored Diran’s comment and went on. “I disposed of the boy’s body, first performing the Rite of the Death of the Foe, then burning the corpse. Afterward, I buried the bones in an unmarked grave and prayed over them. Then I returned to the village priest to tell him what had happened. The priest was relieved, thanked me for my service, and told me he was glad I had received no injury during my battle with the werewolf. I didn’t … couldn’t tell him the truth. And so I left the village and began the journey home.”
Diran wanted to ask Leontis why he hadn’t tried to prevent the lycanthropic infection from taking hold in his body. There were rites that could be performed using silverburn, flame, and priestly magic … but then Diran realized what had happened. Leontis had fallen unconscious before he’d had the opportunity to attempt such rites. Even when conducted immediately after infection, the rites didn’t always prove effective, but after several hours, they would’ve been useless. The curse of lycanthropy had transformed Leontis, and there was no going back.
“I wanted time to think, so I decided to walk back to Flamekeep instead of returning by airship. Several days into my journey, I … changed for the first time. I don’t recall exactly what I did while in beast form, but I know that I roamed the countryside without encountering anything more than rabbits and deer which I killed and … devoured. When I awoke the next morning, I was human once more. I considered attempting to take my own life, but I knew that, once unconscious, I could not perform the rites to make certain I did not rise again. And so I’ve been wandering ever since, avoiding cities and villages, anywhere that people might congregate, lest I harm anyone or worse, pass my curse on to some other unfortunate, and allow the evil of lycanthropy to begin spreading throughout the land once more.”
“What kind of beast do you become?” Diran asked.
“A werewolf. Or so I believe, based on tracks I’ve made while in my lycanthropic state. I have memories of what I do when I change, but they’re different than human thoughts … not words or ideas, but rather images and sensations.”
“I assume you’ve continued to change,” Diran said.
Leontis nodded. “I always try to fight it, though, and sometimes I’m successful.” His voice grew softer. “But only sometimes.”
Diran was filled with sorrow and sympathy for his friend. “It sounds horrible.”
Leontis gave a hollow chuckle. “If only it were that good.”
The two men were silent for a time, but then Diran asked the question he feared to speak, but which he knew he had to.
“Have you killed anyone?”
Leontis’s answer was swift and sure. “No. I have hunted and slain only animals and other night creatures. Never have I taken an intelligent life.”
Diran wondered how, if Leontis’s memories of being in his wolfstate were unclear, how the priest could know for certain that he had never killed a person. But he decided to let the matter go for now.
“I’ve spent the last several months trying to find a Knight of the Flame, one with the strength to slay me and make certain I don’t rise again. And, as fate would have it, you’re the first priest I’ve encountered.” Leontis gave Diran a sad smile. “In truth, I’m glad it’s you, for if I must die, I prefer it be at the hands of a friend. I first saw you in Perhata. I almost caught up with you there, but you left the city before I could make contact. I learned you and your companions had left for Kolbyr, so I booked passage on a swift sailboat. Evidently you traveled by slower means, for I arrived in the city a full day before you did and have been searching for you ever since.” The templar rose to his feet. “So, now that we’re finally reunited, let us tarry no longer, Diran. Strike and be swift about it.”
Diran stood and drew a silver dagger from its cloak-sheath. Leontis’s jaw was set in a firm line, and his gaze was strong and clear. Diran gripped the handle of the dagger tight. He had no need to think about where to strike. He knew from long experience exactly which ribs to slide the blade between to pierce the heart in an instant. Leontis would be dead before he even knew the dagger had entered his body. Diran’s muscles tensed, and he was about to lunge forward, but he hesitated. He remembered the last vision the demon had shown to him—the face of a wolf with a man’s eyes. He then thought of the ghost of the mill girl that Leontis and he had encountered so many years ago. There were many ways to purge evil, and not all of them required a dagger-thrust to the heart. At least, not immediately.
Diran sheathed his blade with a fluid, graceful motion and smiled.
“Before I kill you, what do you say to going on a little trip with me and my friends?”
Makala stood on the deck of a sloop, gazing upward at a black sky—no clouds, moons, or stars, just featureless, unbroken darkness. But though the sky appeared empty, she had the sensation that a malevolent presence resided within the unrelieved blackness, a baleful force that was watching her with cruel amusement. She couldn’t bear the oppressive weight of the dark watcher’s gaze, so she lowered her head and looked past the ship’s starboard railing. Startled by what she saw, she quickly looked port, aft, and stern, but each glance only confirmed what her eyes had first revealed to her: the elemental sloop was surrounded on all sides by the turbulent waves of a blood-red sea.
This didn’t make sense. A few moments ago she had been lying on a blanket in a moonlit glade with Diran holding her close. They had just made love for the first time, and it was more tender, sweet, and exciting than she could ever have imagined. But how did she come to be here, and where was Diran?
She shook her head, as if such a simple action of denial could make this distorted reality disappear. But the sky remained black, the sea remained red, and she could still feel the pressure of the watcher’s dark gaze bearing down upon her like a giant invisible hand slowly but inexorably crushing her.
“This isn’t real,” she whispered.
“Of course not. You’re dreaming.”
Makala turned toward the owner of the voice. An instant ago she had been alone on the Zephyr, but now an elderly man wrapped in a fur cloak stood less than half a dozen yards from her, grinning to display enlarged canines, dark shadows writhing within empty eye sockets.
“Cathmore.” But it wasn’t him, not exactly. The being resembled the master assassin in general—emaciated frame, wrinkled skin, hook nose, claw-like hands. But those fangs … those eyes …
Makala was terrified, but she’d been trained to be a cold, calculating killer, and she knew how to keep a tight rein on her emotions.
“What are you?” she demanded, her voice steady and strong. “What is this place?”
The man … no, the creature resembling Aldarik Cathmore spread its hands, as if to indicate that it intended no deceit. “I told you: you’re dreaming. Not a very pleasant dream, I’ll grant you, but then you’re in so much torment these days, aren’t you, my sweet? No wonder that even your dreams are filled with darkness and fear.”
The creature stepped forwar
d as it spoke. Makala reached for her short sword, intending to defend herself, but when she drew the weapon, she saw that the blade was covered with reddish-brown rust. It was the only weapon she had, though, so she brandished it before her as if it were newly forged and held a razor’s edge.
“Stay back!” she commanded.
The creature grinned wider. “Or what? You’ll shake flakes of rust on me?” The creature pursed its lips and blew a stream of air toward Makala. A strong breeze kicked up out of nowhere, and her sword trembled in the sudden wind. Bits of reddish-brown sheared away from the blade, only a few at first, but then dozens more joined them. Within seconds, the corroded sword had completely disintegrated, and Makala was left holding the hilt.
The creature with Cathmore’s face continued its approach. “I told you that you’re dreaming, but I neglected to say that even though it’s your dream, you’re not the one in control here: I am.”
Makala hurled the useless sword hilt at the creature’s smiling face. Not because she thought it would do any real damage, but because it was the only thing she could do. The Cathmore-thing batted the improvised projectile aside with a casual flick of its hand, and the hilt flew over the railing, hit the surface of the blood-sea, and sank beneath its thick crimson waters.
The creature pursed its lips in annoyance. “Every dusk it’s the same thing: you draw your rusty sword, I blow it away, then you throw the hilt at me. It’s all getting rather tiresome, my sweet.”
The air grew colder the closer the creature came, and Makala began to shiver as much from the temperature as from fright. But she continued to put up a brave front. She recalled something Emon Gorsedd had once taught her. The moment you surrender to fear is the moment you’re lost.
“It’s not dusk. It’s …” She glanced up at the featureless black sky once more. “I don’t know what it is. But it surely isn’t dusk.”
