In The Shadow Of The Beast (29 page)

‘
You accuse my parents of
some sort of deviancy? My father is The Regent of the land of Atos,
and my mother is a lady of the realm. What is so unusual about
that!?’

Arook hung his head as if the burden of some
great sorrow had been laid across his shoulders.

‘
It pains me to be the one
to tell you this Sigourd. No man should come to mistrust his
origins, but your father is not The Regent. Your true blood sire
was a man named Ishtar, the former leader of this tribe, and my
brother.

Sigourd wanted to laugh out loud at the
preposterous nature of this strangers suggestion. Another part of
him wanted to strike out at the man before him for daring to accuse
his mother of infidelity. But there was yet another feeling hidden
amongst the conflicting emotions of Sigourd’s heart. A small kernel
of understanding that what Arook spoke was somehow true. As much as
Sigourd might try to deny it to himself, he knew that this
revelation was something his life had been building towards.

‘
More lies,’ uttered
Sigourd. But the words crept out of his mouth as a feeble whisper.
Without the conviction they should have resonated with.

‘
No Sigourd. My brother and
your mother lay together in secret. You were the product of that
union. This truth has been hidden from you all these long years,
but it is time you were made aware of the nature of your ancestry.
You were brought into this world for a great purpose Sigourd, to
unite the two tribes of human and wulfen.’

‘
I was brought into this
world by The Lord Horix Fellhammer and The Lady Veronique Mortaron.
That is the only truth I will ascribe to,’ protested Sigourd, the
vehemence once more rising within him.

‘
As I have already said,
you are half correct,’ continued Arook, ‘but as to the rest, do not
try to deny the instincts lurking in the darker places of your
heart. I can see it in your eyes that you already know that I speak
honestly, even if you wish it were not so. Perhaps even, you’ve
always known what you are, even if your heart was closed to
it.’

Sigourd thought back to the lunatic
accusations of Brodus Klay. At first they had seemed like the
ramblings of someone who had clearly lost touch with reality, and
although that was certainly true, the madman’s ranting now rang
with a note of great import.

Sigourd could feel his soul darken and
shrivel as the measure of Arook’s words took hold of him. Arook
stepped forward and reached out a hand to place on Sigourd’s
shoulder in a gesture of comfort, ‘It gives me no pleasure to see
the pain that this knowledge must cause you. But you are my
brother’s son, and someday the the ruler of not just this tribe,
but of all our disparate peoples.’

Sigourd looked up, the question in his
expression easy to read.

‘
We are a dying race,
hounded since the beginning of time and unto the ends of the
earth,’ continued Arook, ‘but in you there is the small hope that
we might survive, flourish even. You are the bridge between two
worlds, the one who will lead our people out of their perpetual
darkness and into the light of a new dawn.’

Sigourd sunk back onto the shimmering gauze,
its firm comfort offering the only point of stability in his world
at this moment.

‘
Walk amongst our people
Sigourd. We all live in the shadow of the beast. It is our curse
and our salvation. But you will see that we are a noble race,
deserving of the chance to live as all men are entitled to, free of
the shackles of persecution.

‘
And if I should choose to
leave?’

‘
You are not a prisoner
here Sigourd. It is true, we lured you here under false pretenses,
but only with the hope of illuminating you. Now that that purpose
has been served, the choice is yours to make.’

Arook left then, leaving Sigourd with his
thoughts. He had much to consider.

The sun glittered upon the waters surface
like diamonds spilled from a jewelers purse. Sigourd looked out at
the rippling of the lake as it gently lapped at a narrow shore,
around which wrapped the forests edge. The giant pods of the wulfen
village seemed to grow as far as the water, hanging over the lake’s
edge like oversized baubles. Near and far the strange bone like
substance of the pods seemed to grow in and around the shore and
the surrounding tree line in profusions of fused tissue that looked
unnervingly like the cartilage of some giant flayed beast. Truly it
was like nothing Sigourd had ever seen in his life.

He looked out across that lake at children
playing in the shallows on the far side. Splashing about and
laughing without care as children ought to.

So strange, Sigourd thought to himself, that
such unrestrained joy could exist out here in the far flung reaches
of this strange never land.

Sigourd had considered taking his leave of
this place. Despite everything he had been told, all he longed for
at this moment was to return to his home. To see his mother and
father and hug them close. He had never felt more confused or alone
as he did at this moment. But he was so conflicted. A great battle
of anger over affection was raging within him. All his life he had
been brought up to believe a lie, formulated and perpetuated by
those closest to him. He did not now know what to believe or whom
to trust.

He had come so very far from home and all he
had to show for it was a handful of half truths and the knowledge
that inside him lurked the terrible curse of the wulfen. A
childhood myth now revealed to be shockingly real. Sigourd wanted
to run, run for his life. So far and so fast that his heart would
burst and spare him the agony of facing who he really was.

But he had decided instead to take Arook’s
advise. Despite whatever horrors were wrought into his physical
form, Sigourd’s character had been forged by his upbringing under
the aegis of the family Fellhammer. He would not shirk his
responsibilities, or shy away from the challenge laid before him.
He would uncover for himself the truth behind the veil of his
past.

He had walked amongst the people of this
strange place and taken for himself the measure of their character.
What he had seen had surprised and saddened him in equal
measure.

The wulfen were a noble people indeed. Fair
of skin and measured of deed, they seemed to possesses a grace that
far outshone many of the human settlements Sigourd had visited
throughout the course of his life. They lived and laughed and loved
as any collection of intelligent people were wont to do. But there
was also a great sadness behind their eyes. As of a people long
down trodden beneath history’s cruel boot step.

As he had walked amongst them, the wulfen
had regarded Sigourd with a weary deference. It seemed as if every
one of them was only too aware of whom he was and the important
function he was supposed to play in their futures. It was mad to
Sigourd that people whom he had never met regarded him with with
such respect. As he passed them by they would stop what they were
doing and nod their heads in acknowledgement. There was none of the
selfless groveling and self abasement that one might assume would
follow in the wake of someone purported to be the messianic figure
Arook claimed Sigourd to be. Instead, the wulfen met Sigourd with a
dignified acceptance, allowing him to pass by unhindered by any
sort of hero worship or craven adulation.

It was as he stood by the waters edge,
contemplating his uncertain future, that he heard footsteps
approach on the soft ground behind him. He turned to see Isolde
standing before him.

She as as beautiful as he’d always known her
to be. Her long dark hair flowed out behind her, catching in the
occasional breeze. Her beautiful eyes, almost gold, were alive with
that same light that had drawn him to her in the first place.

For the first time since Sigourd had met
Isolde nearly six months previously, he could see in the delicate
lines of her face the traces of the wulfen that marked them out
from their human counterparts.

When the wulfen were in the grips of their
post Change metamorphosis, they looked for all the world like
wolves that had evolved to walk on their hind legs. Massive and
terrifyingly bestial things from some feverish nightmare. But that
was only a small fraction of how they spent their lives. For the
most part they dwelt within a shell that very closely resembled
that of their human cousins. The physical differences were subtle,
but they were there. The elongated septum, the jawline perhaps a
little to pronounced. The crest of brow more angular than that of
most humans. Sigourd could see all of these things in Isolde. He
wondered if, now that he understood what he was looking at, wether
he wold see the same traces of the curse in his own face.

‘
I can’t begin to imagine
how painful this must be for you,’ she said. Her expression was one
of great concern. Sigourd could see clearly enough that she truly
regretted misleading him. But as to the honesty of her feelings for
him, he was not so certain.

‘
My whole life, a lie,’
said Sigourd. ‘My mother has willingly lived that lie beside me
since the moment of my birth. And my fath--’ the word caught in
Sigourd’s throat, ‘...does The Regent know too?’

Isolde shook her head slowly, ‘I don’t
believe he does.’

‘
It seems the women in my
life are full of surprises,’ said Sigourd, the thought heavy on his
heart.

Isolde stepped forward to take his face
gently in her hands.

‘
For deceiving you I am
truly sorry. I have done what I must for the good of all. As it is
your destiny to also do, Sigourd.’

‘
I am not made to rule like
my-- like The Regent.’

‘
Indeed you are not. Fate
has a far grander plan for you than the regency of Corrinth
Vardis.’

Isolde fixed her eyes upon his, and the
inner light that suffused them seemed to glow even more
brilliantly. Sigourd found that he was transfixed by it, unable to
tear his gaze away even if he should want to.

‘
Do you know what it means
to be of our blood, Sigourd Fellhammer?’ Isolde continued. ‘It is
to be of the earth, connected to the All-mother in ways humanity
has long since forgotten. If you are unable to remind them of their
link to all things, the we are doomed. Not just the wulfen, but
humanity also. Their self imposed annihilation is
foreseen.’

Sigourd was still transfixed by Isolde as
she leaned in closer to him. Their faces merely inches apart. ‘Let
me show you Sigourd,’ was the last thing Isolde whispered before
she kissed him tenderly upon the lips. There was a moment of
electricity between them, as Isolde reached out with her free hand
to take hold of a spur of the bone tissue that grew out of the lake
near them.

The effect of her connection to the earth
through that spur of tissue was immediate and profound. In the time
it takes for a heart to beat once Sigourd was--

--gripped suddenly by a waking dream. He
lost all sense of himself, of who he was or even what. Suddenly,
Sigourd was pure and unfettered thought consciousness, trapped
within the shell of his own physical form. He could see every cell
and membrane and atom that comprised the being he was, he could see
the collection of blood cells rushing through arteries like
torrents, he understood the limitations of his flesh form, but also
how it was intricately connected with every living thing around it.
He was everything, and everything was him. Suddenly he was
expanding like a cloud of steam at an incomprehensible rate. He was
climbing, higher and faster, seeing things that defied mortal
comprehension.

He soared out of his body, out of the
borders of the wulfen village, high above the forest canopy which
was fast dwindling to become a green smear across the vast, empty
wastes of the Eastern Fringes. He rushed headlong over the jagged
peaks of the Ash’harad, thundering across mountain ranges so vast
and so high as to break the soul of a man if he could but look upon
their brutal magnificence.

Higher and faster, higher and faster. Soon
even the Ash’harad was dwindling away to nothing. Sigourd’s
consciousness continued to expand. He raced through layers of cloud
cover, up and beyond the ceiling of the sky.

He was in a place of incomprehensible
darkness, out amongst the stars which glowered at him like the eyes
of malevolent gods near and far.

Too much, too much! Sigourd could feel the
seams of his mind coming undone as the speed of his ever expanding
consciousness layered ever more pressure upon them. He must focus.
Focus down, focus down!

And just as suddenly as he began to rise, he
was falling.

Back through the impossible blackness of the
realm above the sky. Down through cloud and black smoke and hellish
flame.

The land is a mass of burning cities and
acrid smog that chokes the very sky. Sigourd is falling through a
wall of sound so thick it slows his descent. It is the sound of
civilizations screaming as they die, and the horrific braying of
their murderers.

It is some apocalyptic nightmare. Cities
burn and nations crumble into the fires of destruction, brutal
looking war barges unleash payloads of destruction as they crest
the waves of bloody oceans, and the skies are filled with the acrid
black smoke of funeral pyres a thousand feet high.

Amongst the madness, the races of man fight
the wulfen, armies many hundreds of thousands strong rise and fall
on tides of crimson vitae as war horns bray a funeral dirge--

Sigourd collapsed to the ground, gagging on
black smoke that wasn’t there. The cool grass felt so alien between
his fingers. The light breeze coming of the lake rustled his hair
so softly. Isolde knelt beside him, and gently helped him into a
sitting position.