Beastly (25 page)

The Beast’s shoulders slumped. He frantically wracked his brain, searching for another option as the medallion pulsed at his chest. A second commotion disturbed the drab night scape.

At first, only a handful of soldiers investigated the din. Minutes later the compound burst to life. Dozens of starving soldiers fell upon the squirming boars, desperate to claim the would-be meat. A heavy rattle of metal rumbled to life shortly thereafter.

The quartet of sentries lowered their flaming halberds and marched into the chaotic fray. The Wakeful drove at the crowd, crashing upon them like a battering ram. The Beast heard the first of the screams as he sprinted to the vacated archway. It loomed high overhead as he passed
through its gaping maw. The passage beyond funneled into a small corridor of twisting black branches. Stout doors guarded the castle’s entrance at its end.

He hoped beyond hope, as his paw closed around the latch, that his luck yet held. In his haste, the Beast had not considered the possibility that one of the guards may have possessed a key. But there was no time for hindsight. The Beast tightened his grasp and twisted. The latch clicked softly.
Now or never,
the Beast thought. He pressed a bulky shoulder against the door and pushed.

The door accepted his invitation and opened without a sound.

Chapter 27

Navigating the inner sanctum of the Nekropolis proved easier than expected. At every junction and stairway, the firestone whispered a preference for one path over the others. The labyrinth of the Hollow and its never ending cluster of dead ends and switchbacks were little more difficult to manage than a leaf swept forest path. The Beast silently thanked Polaris for having the foresight to entrust him with such an amazing gift.

He soon realized the castle was guarded more by fear than by force.
Servants with the same hollow eyes of the Wakeful seemed all too eager to avoid anything but the highest trafficked areas of the upper levels. He didn’t blame them. Gods only knew what terrors lurked deep within the shadows of the black castle.

The medallion’s pulse guided the Beast into a small round room that stretched twenty paces across. It was Spartan in decor, lacking even the most basic of appointments. He sniffed around the edge, unsure of the medallion’s intentions. The same rank musty air was all the answer he received. He trundled the chamber’s circumference, pushing against the petrified surface every few steps. He was certain there the medallion hadn’t lead him there by error. The tiniest of breezes caressed the Beast’s hackles, confirming his suspicions. He approached a tight knit of branches and held a paw to the wall. A second breeze split though his claws and brushed the fur on his face.

A weak point.

The gap was just wide enough to fit his paws through. Bracing a foot against the wall, he pulled at a clutch of branches. At first, the Nekropolis refused to budge. He tensed and pulled harder, driving away from the wall with his powerful legs. The branch strained as his claws dug deeper into the black wood.

Crack!

The clutch of branches snapped under the herculean effort. He stumbled backwards, dropping the fragments to the floor. He flattened against the wall near the door, waiting to pounce on the first poor fool to investigate the disturbance. A minute later there was no clanking of armor, no heavy trampling of boots, not even the light scampering of a curious
servant. Satisfied, the Beast returned to his work. A few more tugs opened the gap just wide enough.

Branches clawed at his face and arms as he squeezed his way through. The Beast felt like he had been buried alive within the Nekropolis’s walls. Ahead, flickering green light teased freedom. A child’s wavering voice echoed from somewhere, defiantly denying an unheard command.
Lia
. He broke free of the gnashing branches and pulled his way to the tunnel’s mouth. Beneath him a monstrous space stretched forever into a sea of darkness. Bouncing orbs of emerald cast a ghostly shroud over a floating island of stone. His blood quickly flashed to a boil.

The Liche Queen stood with Lia before a demonic altar, trying to close the child’s hand around a dagger. A stone arbour covered in strange symbols he did not recognize stood guard over the devilish stone basin. A column of light shrouded a figure hovering a few feet above the floor. It took a second, but the Beast finally remembered the old man encased in light. Memories of Cedrik stormed home into his head. Cedrik had been more than a commanding officer. He had been Donovan’s most trusted supporter and greatest teacher. Cedrik had been the one to fill the gaps of Donovan’s military training with a mortar of ethics and strict sense of justice. He hadn’t forgotten his old mentor’s lessons.

A man should never take more than he was willing to give. A man needed to draw a hard line when dealing with those who took what they pleased.

The Liche Queen had taken plenty. She had abandoned her kingdom and family. She had spawned the scourge of Wakeful and erased magic from the realm. It was her anger that set the plot that saw Cedrik
flee with Lia into anonymity into motion. The Liche Queen had burned away everything that opposed her will.

Until now.

The Beast took a single step back and then vaulted from the ledge. He fell like a bolt of lightning flung from the heavens by a vengeful god. His
cloak flapped behind him like a ships sail. He made no effort to conceal this descent. He crashed onto the observation pedestal with the impact of a meteor strike. Cracks shattered the stone surface, racing away from his paws like a maze of jagged spider’s web.

Lia’s hazel eyes opened wide while Pandora’s narrowed to the snake-like slits. The child bolted as quickly as her little legs could manage. The Liche Queen snatched at the fleeing girl’s hair, but Lia was too fast. The Beast started forward, allowing the child to collide with his leg. Lia squeezed his massive thigh and then looked up into the familiar eyes that she had never seen before.
In this lifetime...

Lia choked back a sob. “I knew you’d come.” The Beast clutched his daughter against his leg. “I will always find you, star-shine.”

He maneuvered Lia to his flank and regarded the Liche Queen. A forgotten lifetime’s worth of emotions flooded through him, threatening to burst his mind’s fragile dam. They had been repressed in silence, locked away for too
long, and now demanded their freedom.

And their vengeance.

A million words trampled the Beast’s tongue. He raised a black talon and growled pure fury.

“You...”

The deathly still of the Garrison cringed at the Beast’s chilling damnation, sending the shadows into hiding. The Liche Queen’s jaw all but unhinged as she stepped backwards, colliding with the altar. She
reached slowly behind her back for the ceremonial dagger, still dripping with Malachai’s blood. Her icy fingers closed around the hilt. The mistake was more than loud enough for the Beast’s keen hearing.

“Don’t,” he growled. “It will take more than that.”

Pandora released the dagger and half-hid behind the arbour of blackened stone. She was no fool. Another tactic was in order. She would call upon another skill, one she hoped still applied to such a fearsome creature. The Liche Queen peered around the arch, caressing the runic etchings, regarding the Beast with a curious eye. She flashed a kittenish smile. “Well then,” Pandora purred, “aren’t you the mighty titan?” She giggled a coy giggle, casually stepping around the arch’s base. She abandoned the arbour’s safety and dropped her dark robes to the floor. She stepped free of the pile, covered by little more than bands of black silk.

“Not another step.” The Beast’s roaring command shook the cavern. Lia jumped at the thunderous clap, but remained relieved beyond measure to be standing at her father’s side. “If you believe for a moment that the sight of you does anything but boil my blood...”

“Oh come now. Surely the fabled Beast of Briarburn is not without certain appetites.” Pandora let her fingers trace the soft skin of a pale thigh. Waves of long, dark locks fell over her shoulders, glistening in the emerald light.

Years before, when they were young and she yet untouched by the
Blight, he would have crossed the deepest seas at Pandora’s whim. Indeed, once he had. He had been wrong aboard the Reaper’s Song. The craven look in the Liche Queen’s eyes told him everything. There was nothing left of the woman he loved, nothing left of his princess. Not even a breath of hope. The Beast snarled at the pitiful advances.

There was no bringing Pandora back.

The Liche Queen’s lip quivered.
Then her hands and naked arms up to her shoulders. “How dare you!” The Liche Queen rattled the Garrison, clanking the steel of the unseen Wakeful legions slumbering below. Pandora convulsed. “How dare you!” She balled her hands into alabaster clubs, tension chewing her muscles. The air about her shoulders sizzled and warped the darkness. A tempest of black magic forever brewing now boiled over.

The skin around the Liche Queen’s eyes melted away, burned by the Blight’s unseen flame. Her flesh spoiled, rotting the creamy porcelain into a putrid shell of mottled grays that few had had the terrible privilege of seeing. “How dare you!” The banshee-like wail exploded from the hanging skeletal remnants of Pandora’s jaw. Her luxurious raven shaded locks faded to tufts of grey and then crumbled, taking flight on a sinister breeze. The Liche Queen’s primal scream rocked the foundation of the Nekropolis, setting the whole of the castle to tremble.

Her neck cracked backwards as she summoned strength from the arbour’s incandescent runes before wailing into the unknown.

“Malachai!”

***

The Reaper’s Song silently hovered above the Nekropolis, cloaked from view by Death’s own magic. Two hours had passed since the Beast disappeared over the side, setting the plan in motion. Poogs hoped it proved better than a fool’s errand.

It had only taken ten minutes of those hours to drive the pirate below deck to the calming sanctuary of his work station. Poogs sat at the bench, tinkering with a gadget under the glow of amber lamp-light. He set a prototype model down after a few twists of a hand tool and turned to a half-finished blue-print. Tension gnawed the base of his skull. The loathsome sensation vibrated between his ears. Beads of sweat dampened his temples. He swiped at the blue print with a stylus, leaving rough strikes behind on the parchment.

Not right, not good enough
.

Poogs threw the stylus down in disgust and turned back to the model and his tools. “Now where the hell have they gotten off to?” The pirate knocked aside a stack of rolled parchments. “I just had them.”

“It does us no good to worry, Captain,” Polaris said softly. She held the object of
Poogs’s obsession in her palm. “And it does you no good to keep getting in your own way.”

Polaris playfully tossed the tool to the pirate. She strolled around the
sprawling work station, inspecting blue prints, manipulating models. “In all of my lifetimes among mortals I have never seen their equal. You should be proud.”

“My lady is far too kind. Apologies for the outburst,” Poogs said with a bow.

Polaris returned a tiny model ship to the bench. “The ideas consume you, like any magic consumes its vessel. Your world is only just realizing the natural sciences, yet you speak their languages fluently... when you allow yourself to listen.”

“My lady?” The pirate’s brow creased, displaying the etched lines of a burdened mind.

Polaris gestured for him to sit. Poogs did as commanded, returning to the simple wooden stool by the bench’s side. The North Star stepped behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders. “Now breathe.”

Poogs breathed in staggered bursts. They were the breaths of a caged animal: restless and agitated.

“No, no.” Polaris shifted her hands to the pirate’s chest and back.
“With me now. Breathe.”

Poogs inhaled, drawing in a steady stream of air as the North Star pressed against his chest wall.

“Out,” Polaris commanded, releasing her grip.

The calming exchange repeated for three soothing, centering breaths. At the end of
Poogs’s final one, Polaris spoke.

“Draw.”

Poogs needed no further instruction. He grabbed the discarded stylus, dipped it to ink, and sketched feverishly at the blue-print. Five minutes of scratching later he was finished. He put the stylus aside and pushed away from the work station, inspecting his work.

“When you are ready to listen, the entire world will sing its secrets to you,” Polaris said with a smile.

Poogs held the sketch at arm’s length, astonished. Aided by the North Star, he had completed in minutes a design that had haunted his dreams for years. He proudly pointed at the various angles and edges of the sketch as he explained his theory. The fervid speech faded away, replaced by a sincere humility. “I hope one day all may enjoy seeing the world as I do. As the stars do. Maybe this design will someday unite us.”

Poogs flattened the sketch onto the work bench. “I don’t know how you managed to make the voices speak in turn, that I may hear their knowledge,” the pirate said, daring to take Polaris’s hand, “but I thank you, my lady.” The pirate suddenly blushed at his own brazen action. The mere presence of the North Star was an honor to any sailor. But there was more. Her presence stole the words from his lips before he had opportunity to trip over them. He wondered if there was even the slightest chance she felt the same.

“You are welcome, Captain,” Polaris said, slipping her hand free.