In The Shadow Of The Beast (30 page)

‘
I’m sorry Sigourd,’ she
said, ‘but I needed to show you exactly what is at
stake.’

The vision had been so mind shatteringly
real. For several moments after Sigourd had returned to the shore
of the lake, he was unable to speak as his young mind struggled to
process the colossal play of events it had witnessed.

Isolde said nothing further, allowing
Sigourd the time he needed to recover himself. She was content to
sit beside him, her arm wrapped within his. They sat before the
glittering water like lovers enjoying the sunshine on a beautiful,
carefree morning.

It was many moments before Sigourd was able
to finally look up at her. When he did, there was the faintest
shimmer of tears in his eyes.

‘
That is the fate we all
face if the two tribes are not brought together in peaceful
co-existence,’ said Isolde. ‘But you will deliver us from that
Sigourd. That is the prophecy, that is why Arook has brought you to
us.’

‘
H-how can I possibly--’
Sigourd stammered.

‘
Because that is what you
were placed in this life to do, Sigourd.’

He looked up and across the lake once more.
The children were still there. Splashing each other and laughing
without a care in the world.

As darkness fell, Isolde led Sigourd through
the village to a great domed pod near the centre of the village.
From within, there came the din of great noise, as of many people
dancing and laughing. Celebrating with the fervor of a people who
have been recently freed from the burden of some great fear.

The pair walked hand in hand, and upon
entering the large chamber, Sigourd was indeed surprised to see
what appeared to be the entire community, some two hundred souls,
gathered there. They danced and laughed and drank and dined as
stringed and fluted instruments wielded by virtuoso players chimed
and whinnied in an undeniably invigorating fashion.

Upon seeing the pair entering the chamber,
Sigourd could feel the eyes of the celebrants falling upon him.
There was expectation there, behind their curious glances. The
merriment did not stop, but Sigourd could feel that they had been
waiting for him.

From the centre of the crowd, Arook emerged
and crossed to greet them.

‘
You are well Sigourd?’ he
asked.

‘
I have composed myself
since Isolde shared with me the...the vision.’

Arook nodded, seemingly satisfied with this,
‘It is a most powerful experience. One that can be quite
overwhelming.’

‘
I can attest to that,’
said Sigourd.

‘
What is your decision?
continued Arook. ‘Will you stay here with us and fulfill the life
potential you were always destined to?’

Sigourd was quiet for a moment, considering,
‘What choice do I have? After what I have seen, there can only ever
be one answer to your question.’

Arook looked down at Sigourd, who thought he
saw a momentary shadow of pity pass over the craggy features of the
large man. There and gone in an instant.

‘
There is always a choice,’
Arook said. ‘But in this instance you are correct after a fashion.
There is only one decision that a man of your character could ever
make.’

Sigourd looked about at the assembled
community, a measure of disbelief entering his tone as he spoke,
‘Why do they celebrate?’

‘
They celebrate because you
have returned to us Sigourd,’ said Isolde.

‘
How can they express such
joy when they know what awaits them? What awaits all of
us.’

‘
Because they may now live
in hope that their futures are not written in blood,’ said
Arook.

‘
Why the deception?’ asked
Sigourd, ‘why did you not just come to me and explain?’

‘
Would you have listened?’
asked Arook. ‘Would you or a member of your family not have had our
messengers delivered to your dungeons for bringing such shocking
truths to you? We needed to draw you away from the influence of
those around you to a place where we could illuminate you fully,
without fear of reprisal.’

Sigourd nodded in understanding, his dark
expression lightening a touch.

Isolde gently pulled at Sigourd’s hand,
‘Come Sigourd, come meet your people properly.’

She led him then into the thronging crowd,
leaving Arook looking on smiling after the young pair. Perhaps, he
mused, he would allow himself the luxury of this small joy. To
believe that truly, their fates might not be sealed.

Movement from the far side of the great
chamber caught Arook’s attention. Over by the entranceway, which
was draped in the ubiquitous shimmering gauze, stood Bael and a
group of his men. The young wulfen was wearing his usual mask of
sneering contempt, save for this time it was even more rigidly set
upon his face, as if he were attempting to direct all of his malice
in one particular direction. Arook followed his son’s eye line to
where Sigourd and Isolde stood talking with other members of the
community.

The intensity of Bael’s enmity was startling
to Arook, and he realized for the first time that he had not fully
grasped up until this moment how deep the ill feeling ran.

Arook had tried so hard to make Bael see the
truth of his aim’s. How they would benefit the race of the wulfen.
How Sigourd’s presence here and his eventual ascension to
leadership was a necessary part of the survival of the species.

But Bael was too much a slave to his own
ideas. Too bound up in his own fevered hatred of mankind for the
persecution of their people, and most dangerously of all, a firm
belief in the rightness of that hatred.

Bael had made it clear from the start that
he viewed Sigourd as little more than another human who would seek
only to control or destroy the wulfen. His stance was simple; the
wulfen would be better off taking the fight to humanity. Survival
of the fittest. It had always been his most pronounced quality,
that of an aggrieved soul. Even as a boy he had fostered that dark
canker in his heart, allowed it to define him as a man.

That father and son could not reach an
agreement had saddened Arook more than he would care to admit. But
the needs of the many were paramount, and he would not be swayed
from his course by discord sowed by any man, even his own son.

Arook’s reverie was broken by the sensation
that he himself was being watched, and he looked up to see that
Bael was studying him from his shadowed position across the
chamber.

The malice in his son’s face was almost
gone, and although he could see that Bael was striving to maintain
a neutral countenance, Arook could see clearly enough the embers of
resentment softly glowing behind the younger man’s eyes.

Father and son stood for several moments,
some quiet communion passing between them across the great distance
and noise of the chamber.

Finally Bael, his face hardening once more
into a mask of bitter malice, turned and swept from the chamber,
his men trailing in his wake.

Arook could not shake the feeling that the
next time he saw his son it would be the last.

CHAPTER 17

The greater
good...

The strange orbs that hung from the trees
and the insides of the pods which served to illuminate the darkness
had long since grown dim. The noise and carousing of the wulfen had
similarly died down, the celebrants returning gradually to their
beds until now all was quiet and dark. Not a soul stirred inside
the great domed expanse of the central pod. Save one.

By the dim light of the low hung orbs,
Sigourd traced his way along the curving walls. He studied with
intense fascination frescoes and wall paintings that adorned the
inner surface thereabouts.

The artwork provided a snapshot of the long
and troubled history of the wulfen. Most of it was indecipherable
to Sigourd, appearing to be a collection of images either too faded
with the course of time or too convoluted for their meaning to
register with him.

Yet still they fascinated him. Sigourd had
noticed them during the course of the festivities, but had been too
preoccupied meeting the wulfen to enquire as to what they were.

The night had seemed to go on for hours.
Virtually every person in the chamber had at some point approached
Sigourd with a few words of gratitude or encouragement, greeting
him touching their forehead to his own for the briefest of moments
in a gesture of mutual understanding, of communion.

It had been quite exhausting, but now that
the evening had reached a conclusion Sigourd had taken the
opportunity to walk alone amongst the shadows of this ancient
place. To gain further insight into a people he was barely
beginning to know.

Lightly he brushed his fingers over the
raised workings of the art, perhaps in the hope that a physical
connection might allow him some better understanding of the
abstract offerings.

‘
It is the sad history of
our people...’

The voice, cold and aloof, with an edge
running through it like an assassins blade, came from behind
Sigourd. He turned suddenly to see a figure looming behind him in
the weak light of the softly glowing orbs. The shadow stepped
forward, revealing a face that was uncannily like that of Arook.
Sigourd recognized him as the man who had stood in the doorway
while Isolde had mopped his brow the morning after he had woken
from The Change. What was it Arook had called him? Bael. That was
his name.

Although this Bael shared a certain physical
similarity with Arook, he was perhaps twenty five or thirty years
younger, around Sigourd’s own age. His face possessed not an ounce
of the noble compassion that Sigourd had seen in Arook. Instead
there was a flavor of cruelty to the sharp angles of his face, and
even though he had stepped into the light, there seemed to be a
perpetual shadow that fell across his eyes, reducing them to
pinpricks of light that regarded Sigourd like a snake might
consider its prey.

‘
We were hunted almost to
extinction by those who would see the wulfen wiped from the pages
of history,’ continued the man.

‘
Before I came here, I’d
always heard the stories of the wulfen,’ said Sigourd. ‘The wolves
who walked as men. I’d believed them to be just that, tall tales,’
said Sigourd.

Bael smiled ruefully, that malicious twinkle
never left his eye, ‘We’ve spent so long hiding in the shadows that
for many we’ve passed into myth. An ignoble existence for a people
that once walked the earth as its rulers.’

A heavy silence hung in the air while this
newcomer seemed to assess Sigourd, who for his own part, was
content to let the silence hang. There was an amused sneer turning
up the corners of his mouth that Sigourd found most
disagreeable,

‘
I am Bael,’ said the other
man finally, ‘I believe that you and I are what you might call,
what is it in your tongue? Cousins?’

‘
My father Arook, and your
father, your true blood sire mind, were brothers. This I’m sure
you’ve already been made aware of.’

‘
Arook has told me some
details,’ said Sigourd.

‘
Has he now?’ that damnable
sneer flashing across Bael’s face once more, ‘I imagine it must be
a terrible burden to bear. The weight of all the world on such
young shoulders. How are you bearing up cousin?’

‘
I have much to consider,’
offered Sigourd, not wanting to be drawn into a debate on the
subject with a person who clearly bore him no good will.

There was something else too. A certain
familiarity that Sigourd recognized in the tone of Bael’s voice,
his very manner even. Sigourd had the unmistakable feeling of
having met him somewhere before arriving in the village of the
wulfen.

‘
Did my father tell you
exactly how your parents met?’ continued Bael. ‘He can be
infuriatingly selective with the details.’

Sigourd could sense that he was being
baited, knew that for whatever the reason this Bael was trying to
goad him

‘
If you’ve something to
say, then say it,’ said Sigourd.

‘
Ah, I see that he did not
tell you everything,’ said Bael, his sneer creeping wider all the
time.

Sigourd could feel his blood begin to boil
at the sly, mocking manner in the other man’s tone. But his
schooling under the sword masters of Corrinth Vardis had included
more than lessons in fancy footwork and proper positioning for
thrust and counter thrust.

Cal had reminded him that every battle was
fought and won in the mind before swords were ever unsheathed.
Adversaries of skill would take their time, probing and posturing,
trying to get a feel for what their opponent was capable of. What
his training was, how strong and how quick his mental faculties
were, how truly lethal were the skills he possessed, if any.

Sigourd knew now that this was exactly the
game Bael was playing.

‘
How is it you think that
the warrior king of a tribe of half-wolves came to lie in the bed
of human royalty?’ Bael continued. ‘Did you assume they met at a
summer dance and he wooed her with promises of his undying
affections and secret titilations?’

He let the question hang in the air,
allowing Sigourd a moment to ponder the answer before he delivered
his coup de grace.

‘
He raped her, dear cousin.
He stole into her bedchamber and took what pleased him, which
happened to be her virtue, and on that very night you were
conceived Sigourd Fellhammer.’

Sigourd struggled valiantly to retain his
composure, it took every ounce of self control, all of his
training, to refrain from taking his fist and breaking the sneering
face. Was this another attempt at unmanning him, all part of the
game Bael was playing? Or was this yet the latest cruel revelation
in a series that had rocked Sigourd to his very core.