The Great Light (Pt.4)

Chapter 4: Mistwolves

A few miles outside of the town of Pearne, before the forest grows thick, a wide driveway parts at right angles from the main road. Almost impassable now, choked by weeds and briars and encroaching trees, it leads towards an estate, abandoned for five years. The house, once magnificent, has fallen into disrepair; there is the dank smell of slow decay, the wooden door is torn from its hinges, the windows smashed, and illegible graffiti scrawled on the walls. There is a light on in one of the upper rooms.

In the darkening twilight, a group dressed all in black crouched hidden in the chaotic jumble of the untended undergrowth. A tall, lithe figure, wearing a mask of the goddess Mura, glanced around warily.

“I can feel Her again. She’s watching us. Like last time.”

A second figure, masked as Te Basa, stood from a row of six boxes and spoke with a deep rumbling voice. “She’s watching? Good.” He turned to face blank air. “Here?” The first dark figure nodded.

Jabbing his finger into the air, he started scornfully remonstrating with the emptiness.

“I had no doubt you would return, but, ha! You who are so powerful, omnipotent and omniscient, there is nothing you do, not a single thing! You cannot interfere!” He laughed disdainfully. “By the time you’re able to act, it’ll already be too late! Do you want to see what we’re doing? Come, watch!”

He gestured to a third masked figure. She opened one after another of the boxes, letting the purple ether rise up from each of them. The mists did not settle, but as they sinuously curled about themselves, each slowly formed the outline of a giant wolf. The wolves slowly began to solidify, their fur become more distinct bit by bit, their eyes growing redder and red, their jaws, flecked with foam, became more real. Just as they found pure solidity, each of them gained a voice, and the night was filled with howls.

“Oh goddess,” the ringleader said, addressing empty air, “if only you knew what was coming. But,” he paused, “you’re beginning to suspect, aren’t you? Watch closely now. What do you make of this?”

He reached his hand down to his belt, pulling back up a pouch. Tugging at the strings that bound it, he opened it up gingerly. A strange orange powder was inside. Careful not to touch his hands with the dust, he scattered it on each wolf in turn.

“Indeed, what do you make of that?” He barked out a short, sharp laugh. “And goddess, before you have to leave, ask yourself this... How many wolves are there?”

He let out a low howl, clapping his hands together fiercely. The wolves sprang forward, and loped at a furious pace towards the decrepit house, slaver flying wildly from their razor-sharp fangs.

                                                           *

His mother had carried Malt back to his estate only a few days before, carrying her sleeping son up the rickety stairs and depositing him gently in his room. She drew the decay from his rotting bed, strengthening the timbers at a finger-tip touch of her power. The covers she washed thoroughly herself, with a strand of blue ether, before she summoned a legion of imps to scrub the house clean from top-to-bottom. She conjured two hampers of fresh fruit and meat, and left them on his bedside table.

“My darling, darling son,” she addressed her sleeping child in a whisper. “I will have to leave you now, but the imps shall look after you. I will speak to Mura, asking her to summon your friends in their dreams. You will not be alone. I shall question to Dz’Dz and return to you, I promise.” She traced a sigil in the air and vanished.

So it happened that Malt had woken the next day to the familiar, soothing sounds of the imps at their chores. He pushed himself from his bed, exhausted as he was, and wandered the house, surveying the decay. Despite the goddess and the imps’ efforts, there was little doubt that this place was half-ruined.  It seems only a month ago I left this place, he thought, but look at it! For the next two days, he had joined the imps in their efforts to repair the damage and fight the decay, scrubbing the floors and the mantelpieces, dusting the bookshelves and emptying the cellar of now rotten food.

                                                           *

It was while he worked through a chest of mouldy documents he heard the first howl from outside. Racing downstairs, he shouted for an imp to bring him a sword. No answer. Blasted cowards! he thought, no sight or sound of the little creatures. Stood in the main hallway, he turned quickly as the library door began to open. He yanked out a wooden support from the stairway and leapt toward the door, spinning in mid-air and whirling the basic club at full force. Diesen smartly ducked as the support smashed against the door. He held out his sword to Malt.

“Trouble. I’ll summon some help and be out...” He was interrupted as a battered mistwolf flew through the air and crashed against the stairwell, its neck broken. “I’ll be out in a moment.” The mistwolf dissolved back into a purplish vapour, as expected. Suddenly, however, a beam of orange shot out from the dissipating mist. The ray sped outside in a straight line. Malt and Diesen stared at each other wide-eyed at the pecularity. “Quick, get outside!” Diesen shouted as he reached inside his robe and began to scatter sand hurriedly on the floor in a ritual pentagram.

Adrenaline took hold of Malt. He muttered a brief thanks to his now-chanting friend and charged outside. There! Three mistwolves had Gargonel on the ground. What? What’s wrong with Gargonel? Malt thought. The demon was flailing around, trying to dislodge one, then another, of the vicious troop. These should be easy meat for him. Malt grasped his sword and began to race towards the demon, when two other wolves sprang from the undergrowth and knocked him over. One sat on his chest, spittle dripping onto his face from its gaping maw. The other bounded inside the house.

Magic proper is very different from Weaving. Drawing on ether from the atmosphere, moulding it to one’s will is almost instantaneous, and powerful, deadly elemental spells can be launched from the fingertips of proficient Weavers. There is, however, far more potent magic in the Sphere: the working of the Planes by use of ancient, complex rituals. By this power the mage, reaching above and below to different strata of the Light, can discourse with the Lesser and Greater Powers, can possess familiars and ask favours of Gods, can even reorder parts of the physical universe if the mage is powerful enough. This takes time, however, and apparatus; unless, like Diesen, you had prepared ahead and brought an Idol with you.

Having sketched out a rough circle and pentagram, he placed his Idol in the centre of the circle and continued chanting. The Idol glowed, the cream marble it was built from cracking open with light as two distinct forms began appearing within the pentagram.

A flash of light and great rumbling noise from the house distracted the wolf sat on top of Malt. He finally managed to force the creature off him with a huge shove, and with his right hand finally freed he jabbed his sword firmly between its eyes. Watching with grim satisfaction as it dissolved into a nothingness, Malt turned towards the three other wolves savaging Gargonel, not noticing the orange ray shoot from the melting purple mist behind him. All of a sudden, his body was seized by a terrible lassitude, his legs giving way beneath him as he collapsed to the floor. A wolf lifted its eyes from the stone demon, noticed the prostrate Malt and seemed to grin evilly at him.

The two women sat in shock in the middle of the pentagram, the burnt out Idol fizzing out the remains of its energy beside them. The elder of the two was past middle age, grey haired and leathery skinned. She stood up tall and proud, the muscles of her arms bulging as she reached threatening towards Diesen.

“What the Drav have you just done, you old lecherous idiot? How dare you portal me ANYWHERE without my permission?” Diesen took a protective step backwards, holding a second sword out towards her. “Malt’s here,” he mumbled in embarrassment, “wolves too. We swore an oath, remember? That still stands, Idara.” She stepped forward and roughly seized the sword from the mage.

The other woman, who looked to be in her mid-thirties, was blushing deeply. Still sat on the ground, she clasped her arms tightly around her knees, hiding her completely naked form. Diesen grew more embarrassed, and quickly wove together a cloak of ether for Sinsan which he tossed at her feet, together with a bow and a quiver full of arrows. He turned his back as she rose and dressed herself.

“This better be...” Her complaint was stepped dead in its tracks as the giant mistwolf leapt into the room. Idara growled at the other two, bearing her long teeth before charging the beast with her sword held high.

Diesen grabbed Sinsan and pulled her towards the door. “Come along, dear, let’s leave her to what she does best.” They stumbled outside, Sinsan pulling back a little, breaking free of the mage’s grasp. In one smooth motion she nocked an arrow and shot accurately at the wolf that was bounding toward Malt. As the mistwolf died, she too was struck by an orange beam from its aftermath and collapsed to the ground.

Diesen looked at his friend in bewilderment as she writhed without strength on the ground. “What in Otara’s name? Sin?” Another wolf peeled off from Gargonel with a howl and ran at full pelt towards the mage. Driven by anger and desperation, the mage spread his mind thinly, found pocket upon pocket of ether in the tangled bush of the former lawn and drew it together, launching a huge ball of flame at the fast approaching monster.

                                                           *

They came to, slowly, groggily in the one of the house’s bedrooms. Diesen struggled back to consciousness, feeling himself still badly weakened by the bizarre orange ray that had shot out from the beasts. He forced himself to a seated position and croaked,

“Is anyone hurt?”

Idara groaned in response. “How did we get here? And why the Drav are mistwolves attacking us? And when did Malt get back?”

Sinsan shook her head. “Malt? Malt?” It was at this point they noticed it was only the four of them.

The bedroom door burst open as Otara, First Goddess and Eldest of Sisters, stormed in, furious.

“WHERE. IS. MY. SON?”