Enter the Lamb's Head (The Adventures of Ranthos Book 1)

by Jasper B. Hammer

  “Right. These talents are awakened in alfar by traumatic events. They do not show themselves until they are needed.”

  The first time Ranthos felt the fury, he had just found that his house was on fire, and the first time Bell felt the connection, she was face to face with a herd of massive barruses. He nodded.

  “They’re talents, like eloquence, or swordsmanship. But grsk and kafjokll are talents only alfar can have,” explained Alrys, “Grsk has to do with smelling a creature’s emotions, engaging with those emotions with your own, connecting the scents… like Bell did with the beasts.”

  “What about kafjokll?” asked Ranthos. “It doesn’t seem quite as…” he searched for the word. He didn’t want to say evil, but that’s how it felt. “Crude.”

  Alrys furrowed his brow, and placed his hands on Ranthos’ shoulders, “Nothing crude about it. An alfar with a fury like yours may level mountains. He may conquer a dragon with his bare hands. He may use that fury to do good that he couldn’t without it.”

  Ranthos pulled a deep breath in through his nose, hoping to gather Alrys’ scent, but found only that oil that covered his long hodge-red hair. He hoped that Alrys was right. He hoped he could do good. “Do you have the fury?” asked Ranthos, hoping dearly that Alrys might say yes and that Ranthos could feel less alone, that Alrys would know whatever guilt Ranthos bore.

  Alrys creased his brow, and looked Ranthos in the eye, and shook his head. “Not like you.”

  Ranthos felt his heart drop into his stomach. “Why did… “ he didn’t know what to ask. He gestured to the sprawled corpse, feeling ashamed and guilty to even look at it.

  “It’s a gift, cub.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it.”

  “You did nothing wrong.”

  “It’s dead. You told me to scare them off.”

  “It’s not a person, Ranthos.”

  “I know,” snapped Ranthos, embarrassed he even felt anything for killing it. “I wasn’t supposed to kill it. It wouldn’t have killed me.” Ranthos didn’t know how he knew that last bit.

  Alrys nodded. “The encounter you had with the hyenas was a duel of sorts. A dominance challenge between alfar and pack. A few other animals have such rituals, and they all differ slightly. They would have killed you if you didn’t run away.”

  “But it was possible for me to not kill any of them and still scare them off.”

  “… Yes.”

  Ranthos nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Ranthos cub.”

  Ranthos turned to face Alrys, and knit his brow tight against him, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Alrys opened his mouth to answer but had little to say.

  “Well?” said Ranthos impatiently.

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Why? You had time.”

  “Even if you knew, you still would have done it. Unconsciously.”

  Ranthos felt dizzy. He was right. Ranthos felt like a monster. A murderer like the buck.

  “Come, cub,” said Alrys softly. “The stench is muddying our heads. Let us collect the flockers and be away from this place. Allow the hyenas to return.”

  Ranthos remembered the barruses mourning their king. He assumed that hyena remorse wouldn’t be half as profound as that of barruses, but still assumed they had some desire to do something. He hoped so anyway.

  Hopefully this dead hyena would be remembered by his pack.

  “Cub?”

  “Yes, I apologize,” Ranthos hurried to Alrys’ side, “Just the stench.”

  By evening, the flockers’ bodies were gathered at the top of the hill by the standing stone, and the hyenas had returned, feeding on the far side of the bloody basin from Ranthos and Alrys, hardly minding their fallen pack mate.

  Ranthos did his best not to look at them, and sat with his back against the rock, massaging his sore foot as he unwrapped the withered moss.

  Alrys had made a few piles of supplies, and stowed all the still useable shoes, clothes, and arms in their backpacks. It would surely be a grueling walk back to camp, with a bundle of iron weapons and armor plates strapped to their backs. Alrys was careful to remove all the bone chimes, sheepskin, and horns from the armor. And didn’t take with them any white clothes, no matter how well-made or undamaged.

  Eventually, the bags were packed, and the bodies were lain in rows around the stone.

  “Where will we bury them?” asked Ranthos.

  “Down the hill most likely,” said Alrys, “But let us now begin your training.”

  It was odd to think that after all that had happened, his training was only to begin now. Alrys crouched beside the first body, and Ranthos stood beside him. They placed their hands upon the stone, and Alrys began his instruction: “This is a leyline fount. A fount can be made in many forms. This particular variety, a monolithic standing stone, was made by the ancient Angals.”

  “Angals?”

  “A breed of human,” said Alrys, “Or… Ethnicity?”

  Ranthos hadn’t heard of the second word, but understood the first. “Am I an Angal?”

  “I do not believe you are, cub,” said Alrys, “You’re likely an Eisenlander, judging by your nose and your height.”

  “What do Angals look like?”

  “Shorter,” said Alrys, “With blue eyes and lighter hair than Nosgrim, who is an obvious Eisenlander.”

  “What does this have to do with leylines?”

  “Nothing. You distracted me.”

  Ranthos nodded, “Continue.”

  “Imagine that magic was a pool of still water. Only a fraction of an inch from your reach. No matter how hard you try, you cannot touch it, though you are tantalizingly close. What do you do?”

  “Uhm… I don’t know.”

  “You take a log, and you throw it into the water. It splashes, and then waves lap upon the shore, which you are able to touch. This standing stone is the log, bobbing in the Sea of Magic, sending a ripple out to you that you may touch.”

  Alrys placed Ranthos’ hands on the stone and took him through a series of breathing exercises in order to feel the magic pulse from it.

  Ranthos could hardly recognize his own hands as he placed them on the cold stone, pretending that it was water—or a log. His hands were so scarred that they hardly looked like his anymore. He could feel them the same, though they were a bit sore, and he could control them like they were his. But they weren’t the same hands that hunted in Tatzelton.

  These hands killed the buck.

  These hands killed that hyena.

  What was so different about those two? Ranthos felt no remorse for brutalizing the buck, but he killed the hyena—on accident—and felt like a murderer.

  It wasn’t right. It wasn’t proper.

  “Cub,” said Alrys.

  Ranthos snapped his attention back to Alrys.

  “Your breathing.”

  “Yes, I apologize.” Ranthos resumed his breathing, and pushed all other thoughts out of his mind. After a few moments, Ranthos’ skin pricked along with his breathing.

  “That’s it, cub.”

  Ranthos could feel his hairs prick from his fingers, up his arms, and down his back in perfect rhythm, like waves lapping on the shore. Below the goosebumps, Ranthos felt some sort of energy prompt it, a certain heavy momentum moving through his body, and finally, he could feel the stone’s pulsing.

  He could both feel the stillness of the cold rock, and the dynamic magic lapping onto the shore and onto his hands.

  By dark, Ranthos began to feel the magic swell consistently without touching the stone. Eventually, Ranthos could look at it and get goosebumps, like Bell had told him she did.

  “This was a deal easier for your sister, as she is more open and creative than you. But anyone can learn to feel the pulse.”

  “Alfar?”

  “I suppose not anyone. Any human or hodge.” Alrys then placed his hand over the dead, rotting body of a flocker—perhaps Bull’s Hoof—but Ranthos had no way of knowing. He breathed in
time with the pulse, and Ranthos followed along, watching the hairs on his arm prick and fall with his breaths.

  Alrys, once he had gathered his breaths into the correct rhythm, removed both his gloves. Ranthos saw the familiar stone on one arm, but on the other found no atvyyrk, and instead a gruesome scar.

  It was blotchy, and even black. Alrys’ fingers looked healthy, but they also looked like torched logs in a fire, his knuckles ashy white, and his palm coarse like black charcoal.

  Ranthos didn’t ask though. It wasn’t the time.

  The hairs on Alrys’ stone arm rose and fell in time. And slowly he passed his hand over the flocker’s decaying arm. Behind his slowly moving hand, the body began to sweat a dark liquid, like oil. And as it rolled down his arm and onto the ground, the rot disappeared.

  Alrys took another breath and stopped as the leyline receded.

  “Was that—”

  “Theriac,” said Alrys. “A mixture of magic and air. It’s a strange substance that has the power to create a barrier between two dissimilar substances, expelling one from the other… Now, the act of harnessing the magic of the leylines is an act of imagination, of conscious, deliberate thought. Do as I do.” Alrys placed his hand over one side of the flocker’s torn, bloody face, and Ranthos placed his over the other. “Empty your mind.”

  Ranthos found that difficult. He could feel some small grub squirming beneath the flocker’s flesh.

  “Imagine the pool.”

  Ranthos recalled the image.

  “Your hand is on the shore,” the leyline pulsed, “and now you touch the water.” The leyline receded. Alrys repeated this three more times as he lulled Ranthos deeper into his imagination. “When the magic touches your hand, pour it through your pinky and into your thumb with a deep breath.”

  Ranthos imagined doing something of the sort.

  “Like blood. Let it flow through your hand.”

  Ranthos tried imagining the blood coursing through his hand.

  Alrys repeated this a number of other times, and Ranthos could feel the magic of the stone concentrate in his thumb and his pinky during the pulse. Eventually, instead of letting the magic flow through his whole body and escape, Ranthos channeled it into the veins of his hand. The goosebumps on his arm faded, but remained on his fingers.

  “Gooooooood,” said Alrys, looking at his forearm and his hand. “Now focus the magic through your hand and into this man’s flesh.”

  Ranthos attempted, but again, was distracted by the worm underneath the flocker’s skin.

  “Imagine a hole in your own hand, bleed your blood into him.”

  Ranthos did so, and could feel the flesh beneath his hand tremble.

  “Pour the magic into the man’s flesh and purify it,” said Alrys a number of times before they removed their hands.

  Alrys dabbed away beads of oily theriac from the man’s face, revealing torn, but fresh skin. Ranthos could make out his features more clearly now. He must’ve been an Angal, with sharper features than Ranthos, Bell, or Nosgrim, and lighter, chestnut hair.

  Alrys clasped Ranthos’ shoulder proudly, “Well done, cub.”

  Ranthos couldn’t help but smile.

  “A magician!” said Alrys, “Would you ever think yourself as such?”

  Ranthos shook his head, “Never in my life.”

  “Have you ever met a magician?” asked Alrys, moving to another part of the flocker’s body. “Besides myself and my three companions, obviously.”

  “Only one,” said Ranthos, “And I have no idea what spell she cast.”

  “What did it do?”

  “She read my future.”

  “A tatzelteller?”

  “Miss Cinnamon,” said Ranthos nodding, as he created the smallest bit of theriac in the man’s hand.

  “She would be a sorcerer.”

  Ranthos nodded. He couldn’t remember if that made Bell right or Nosgrim right about her. It hardly mattered. “Can you explain sorcery to me yet?”

  “You’ve barely begun alchemy!” said Alrys.

  “I understand it now,” said Ranthos, feigning competence, “I am ready for sorcery.”

  “Hardly,” said Alrys, smiling, “I shall explain another day.”

  Ranthos reluctantly ceded, and allowed Alrys to leave him in ignorance. “You fear my true power.” He insisted. “Were I a sorcerer, I would be unstoppable.”

  “If only,” laughed Alrys.

  They finished cleansing the bodies, and it was already well into the night, and Ranthos was exhausted, but they then began digging seven graves. “We’ll sleep in tomorrow, cub.” said Alrys.

  Ranthos did his fair share of complaining, but also his fair share of digging, and by the time it was done, Ranthos felt he was already asleep.

  But Alrys began the prayers over the dead, speaking similar words to those he spoke for his fallen friends.

  “Must we pray that these find peace in Heaven?” asked Ranthos. “Vhurgus killed them didn’t he? At least some of them.”

  Alrys creased his brow in thought, “Cub… My quest is one that chases the soul, one that is intricately woven with Eternity, not one that seeks the suffering and pains of my enemies. They, as well as you, and I have the same right to Heaven—which is none at all.”

  Ranthos didn’t quite follow.

  “Just because they killed innocent folk doesn’t mean that mercy cannot cover them. You killed that hyena. Are you less valuable now?”

  Mention of the hyena stung like a knife across his finger. “I would imagine. It certainly felt like it.”

  Alsrys shook his head. “Not true. Mercy is a river which washes away every stain. Mine, yours, and theirs. Now pray that they wash themselves.” Alrys was stern, and his demeanor silenced any protest Ranthos could put forth.

  And Ranthos prayed. It was a distracted and clumsy prayer, but it was not half-hearted. Alrys ordered him to pray, so he did.

  32

  A Spider's Lullaby

  Pillars of dusty sunlight shone in the shaded glen around Ranthos and the buck, its heavy head hung low, its jagged crown shattered, and its skull lacking any skin. It breathed harshly, coughing and wheezing desperately. The golden flecks in the air spiraled around its lolling mouth and its torn throat with each of the creature’s breaths.

  Ranthos had returned. This time, he said nothing to the buck. He immediately freed his limbs from the mossy wall behind him. His right hand was marked with the colorful ink of the blossom atvyyrk.

  “You broke my body,” hissed the dangling lips of the buck with a raspy voice, “But I live. Death has died,” spat the buck, shaking its broken head. “No longer are we dust,” the oozing lips of the creature proclaimed. Worms slithered through its skull. “No longer do we fear Eternity. We have become Eternity.” The buck stepped closer.

  Ranthos tried to flee, but found himself grappled by rent creatures, like the carcasses in the Labyrinth, each one rotting away and oozing with death, pulling each of his limbs down against the ground. Flies covered his skin as the creatures tore into his flesh with broken bones and ferocious teeth.

  Ranthos took a deep breath, in time with a distant leyline fount, and channeled his magic through his hands, filling the creatures with theriac. As the scent of the rot disappeared, so did Ranthos’ fear of them, and their control of him.

  Then in a surge of fury, Ranthos pulled himself loose of the creatures, rolling to the side. He raised his blossom arm to the buck and commanded that the motes of light waft off his skin, and cover the moss that hung about him.

  The buck stopped, surprised, and turned his face toward the moss, which began to light with its sprouts of magical energy, seeking out the blood of the carcasses, growing faster and faster.

  The moss washed over the ground like a wave, growing further and further over the corpses.

  Ranthos ran forward, dodging the swinging, broken antlers of the buck, to kneel before Remy’s body. He doubled over it and grasped at his fur with his tattooed hand as the m
oss slowly began dragging the two halves of his little body back towards each other.

  Remy inhaled a tiny breath, looked up at him, “Hello again,” said he in his nonchalant tone.

  “Do you know a way out of here?” asked Ranthos.

  “Of course I do,” said Remy with perfect diction. “Don’t you remember our last meeting, dear cub?”

  “Oh… Uhm. Almost. Sorry, Remy.”

  “Follow!” said Remy, bounding out of Ranthos’ hands and scurrying away under a thick curtain of moss.

  Ranthos followed, his feet crushing the bodies of soft carcasses beneath him. The buck tried to pursue, but was entangled in the curtain of magical moss, seeking its blood. The buck shrieked, but Ranthos didn’t look back, following Remy through a dark tunnel. They rounded a corner and Ranthos was blinded by the light outside.

  They emerged in a snowy forest, with a frozen river running through the center. Ranthos was suddenly cold, and Remy was suddenly covered in his thick Winter coat.

  Ranthos looked behind him in fear that the buck would follow, but found no cave there at all. “What? Where are we Remy?”

  “I am you. So I do not know.”

  “You’re Remy,” corrected Ranthos through a shiver, “I am me.”

  “I am your inmost self, the thoughts you don't think. You are your conscious self.”

  “I don’t understand.” Ranthos rubbed his arms together to gather warmth to himself. It was ineffective.

  “Erm,” Remy scratched his ear with his hind leg in thought, “I know the ins and outs of your dreams, you do not. I am your guide.”

  “Alrys said that this wasn’t my dream.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Why didn’t you say that?”

  “I’m strange!” said Remy, dancing a jig on his hind legs.

  Ranthos woke with a start.

  “Morning, cub,” said Alrys, “How was the dream?”

  “Only stranger,” said Ranthos.

  Alrys nodded. “You may remove that rot whenever you like.” He tossed him a handful of flatbreads.

  Ranthos ate them quickly. He had grown very hungry. These flatbreads did a poor job sustaining him—