Whitesong Series

Prologue

Prologue and all characters Copyright.
Erin Pfeiffer, 2005.

It is suggested by many an old farmer’s wife that the faerie forests have a bit of a mind of their own. Glintyrd specifically had a habit of ‘wandering about’, as the villagers in the outlying areas called it – the border to the wood never seemed to stay where it was supposed to be. But the villagers never set foot into the forest themselves, so no one really knew what it was the forest was doing. As it happened, the Wood itself DID move. But it moved a great deal more than a few feet or so. In fact, every month or two, the whole forest got up and took a walk of about two thousand miles, where it often settled in the heart of some other nonmagical forest, scaring the wits out of unsuspecting woodsmen and unleashing all manner of unusual creatures on the indigenous population.

The Vale of Stars, the heart of Glintyrd, was rumored a place of peculiar power and personality. Often the Vale was referred to as 'She' by those who visited, prompting magicians and philosophers of all sorts to claim anyone calling the Vale a ‘she’ must surely have met it’s guardian spirit, a dryad of some considerable power. The visitors knew better. The land itself seemed full of life, speaking to them through their memories and imaginations like a vivid, drug-induced vision. Everyone emerged from the place breathless and euphoric, flushed in the face and sweating in the very particular fashion of a newly-deflowered virgin, leading to much speculation about the nature and intent of the Vale’s guardian.

Still others believed that people who emerged from the place were mad, or even that it didn’t exist.

But Kiris Kenaughy knew better....he knew there was really something in the forest, because he had seen it.

A child of perhaps eleven years, Kiris was often very lonely. Most other children wanted nothing to do with him, as he was a natural lycanthrope. At all times he sported a pair of doglike black ears and fangs, along with a fluffy wolf-tail of the same hue of umber. This oddity seemed to bother his parents not at all, though rumors flew about his mother. A strange and secretive woman, the villagers muttered behind their hands that she must be a lycan herself, or worse, have had relations with a wolf or....gods forbid it, a werewolf!

Kiris, generally misunderstood, was given to the monastery of Gregory Veihari at an early age. His mother hoped his animal nature would be more at home in the Myssan Wood if he could live at the monastery with others like him. For the most part it worked, but Kiris still harbored a natural wanderlust that couldn’t be contained. Luckily, the Headmaster of his school was used to cases like Kiris’, and thus allowed the boy one day a week to wander free in the neighboring forests.

Lately Kiris had heard a story about one of his Master’s former students, a feline shapeshifter called Silas. Intrigued by his similarity to the cat-monk, Kiris listened with awe as another monk explained that Silas vanished almost eleven years ago into the forest and never returned. The bald-headed man whispered to his companion that it was rumored Silas still lived in the forest as a wild beast, hunting and roaming free, terrorizing the villagers. As he listened, Kiris realized he’d heard the story before – some of the brothers used Silas’ tale as a horror-story (claiming he devoured foolish apprentices who wandered into his territory late at night) in an attempt to keep novices inside the gates. But Kiris, unafraid and curious about the truth of the story, bounded out immediately to try and find the so-called “killer of Myssan Wood”.

That morning he wandered much farther than ever before from the monastery gates, confident he could find the fabled Brother Terran. The temperature was neither here nor there, as it was an early hour in late spring. Dew coated the grass and most everything else, making the land almost unbearably bright with twinkling water-prisms, and a gentle breeze set everything to swaying. Things seemed to be going well, and he fell into a puppyish, lolling walk with his ears pricked into the breeze joyfully.

But things did not continue so serenely.

About three miles from the monastery a strange chill crept up his back, as though he were being watched. The forest shifted under his feet, a rise and fall like breathing. As he crested the nearby rise at an easy run, his wolf’s paws pounding under him, he found suddenly that he was sliding down a grassy hill towards a tree-splattered grotto. Tumbling into a nearby bush, his large pup’s paws lost all control and tangled into his legs and tail. Aching and confused by the sudden change in terrain, and the strange movement of the earth, he lay very still for many long moments and tried to sort himself out.

Again, the odd shiver touched him. Pulling free of his own tail, he lifted his ears at the sound of approaching pawfalls. Who could be out here? Just an animal, of course nothing else could – ! But Kiris had no time to finish his thought, for in the clearing something truly unusual appeared. Tall, and walking on two legs like a man, was a cat. Or rather....a man.....no, a cat? Kiris' nose was useless in telling the difference, and his eyes didn’t do much better. As he watched, the cat-man in flowing red robes padded over to a figure on the ground. Kiris hadn’t even seen that one.....it was sprawled out on a mossy bed of grass, pale compared to the green, and smelled strongly of chill winter storms. Glancing back up to the man approaching, Kiris was shocked to see that he no longer appeared at all catlike. In place of the snout and ears that sprouted from the strange red-black hair, there were normal human ears; the long swaying tail vanished from sight.

Perplexed, Kiris hushed his breath and stared on anxiously. The man moved gracefully, a contradiction to his leggy resemblance to an underfed crane. He approached like a sneak-thief, and was leaning down towards the woman when a thought struck Kiris like a thunderbolt. The story the monk told at the monastery....the description of Silas.... this man’s features.....! It had to be!

Shocked, Kiris nearly let out a wolfish cough, and stifled it barely in time. He leaned over to see just what it was Silas reached for. At this new angle, a flash of light caught on the woman’s locket and glistened brightly in the early-morning sun. Blinded, Kiris turned his head away to paw at his eyes for the briefest moment. When he looked up again, the tanned hand of the shapeshifter was drifting dreamily towards the silver sparkle. A chill seemed to take the clearing, and a northerly wind picked up, ruffling Kiris’ fur. He felt a shudder of foreboding. Worried for the man’s safety, he almost barked for the second time that day, but the odd twirling of the two scents kept him silent. Something great and terrible was about to happen, he knew....he could feel it, like a crackling of distant thunder under his paw-pads. And then the man was kneeling, his hand brushing the silver of the locket......

A flash of heat passed over Kiris and he suddenly felt terribly embarrassed, as though he were looking in on something he should not. Naked and terrified, he backed away out of the bush, catching a last glimpse of the man’s slack-jawed face and the now-open, deep blue eyes of the woman, her pursed lips, her curves....Kiris shook his head. She was some kind of terrible harpy, or seductress.....horrified, he turned tail and dashed away from the grotto as fast as his legs could carry him, running just ahead of the heavy thunder-clouds that seemed to boil outward from the place, releasing a thick and painful sleet that slammed down in unforgiving waves to the earth just behind his heels.