Moonshadow Ninja Spy End 1
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Halfling
The peddler stretched his legs out, the sore on his upper calf where his
legging strap had been wound too tight, had plagued him since late
afternoon, and now, with the days walking done and the strap loosened,
it had at last began to relent. His son slowly stirred a stew of dried
meat and some roots they had foraged during their days walk. The
battered kettle with its cracked enamel had been hung on a stake over
the coals and now bubbled and occasionally spat savory odors at the
night sky. He was reaching for the steaming bowl his son had ladled full
when they both heard the slap of bare feet on the dusty road alongside
their camp. The old short sword he had scavenged from a forgotten
battlefield rasped from its sheath on his pack while his son stretched
his bowstring tight as he listened for the target his fire-dazzled eyes
would not see for some moments. A moment passed then another. A log
popped as sap ignited, the sparks showering upward nearly causing his
son to blindly loose his shaft into the darkness beyond the firelight.
The footsteps ceased
"Who comes?" the peddler called into the gloom wishing for a moment
there had been a caravan ready when they passed out of the walls of
Fyodor onto the trade road.
"Only a pilgrim who would share your fire until the Dancers rise,"
answered the traveler. From the voice it was a woman, but it wouldn't be
the first time bandits had used that ruse to allay suspicions before
striking
"Come into the light then, but come slowly," he answered not yet
lowering his scavenged weapon. The cowled shape of a Sorbuth pilgrim
emerged through the bushes and stepped into the edge of the firelight,
the peddler and his son relaxed, lowering their weapons. No need to fear
that they would be slaughtered by some traveling cutthroat and the gods
would smile on them in the next town for their hospitality tonight. The
old peddler replaced the sword in its sheath mounted inside the pack and
dug another bowl from his pack, filled it and offered it to her as she
sat down.
"You must pass the night with us, devout one, the wind is cold tonight
even for one whom the gods protect. Tell us of your wanderings, my lout
of a son could use the council of a holy one such as you". The son
snorted at this but turned away rather than face the glower his father
sent to him for his disrespect.
"I can only stay until the Sky Dancers rise," she answered.
"My vow is to pass only the rise of the night with others so that in the
deep night the gods will come to me and grant me a glimmer of their
secrets, but perhaps I do have a tale I can give for your kindness". The
son leaned forward at this, pilgrims traveled farther even than peddlers
and were even more welcome; what she spoke of could be helpful in many
ways other those purely spiritual if one only listened to the details.
She finished the stew, belched in appreciation and placed the bowl on
the ground before her. The embers sent slivers of light across her as
she leaned forward so only her mouth was seen in the shadows she spoke.
"You know of the mountains of Ixat, on the border where the cliffs
overlook the Eothain plains in Ponistal?" The peddler nodded to her.
"Hard people, difficult to trade with if you don't know their ways. I
knew a man who tried to trade there twenty years ago, I haven't seen him
for years but he told me they scorn all who live in softer lands but
they have a taste for lowland goods occasionally."
"They love wine and bright linens because these they only know from
traders and the memories of when the scattered clans of the Kethians
were driven from their lowland homes by other more merciless tribes.
They fought their way into the heart of the mountains driving all before
them with torch, steel and the keening of widowed women. The tribes
there had no place to retreat to, so they stood with their backs against
the mountains, sang their death-songs and slew all who came at them
until they themselves fell.
When the last fighter of a glen that stood against them slid lifelessly
to the gore soaked earth all that was left was rapine and looting; the
Kethians needed the women to replace so many of their own that were now
bearing lowlander sons. Over the long months of the conquest they hunted
out their foes; either exterminated or absorbed them for there could
never be any peace with these reavers. For them peace was something that
came balanced on the blade of a sword and only those who could balance
their blades in furious opposition to them were worthy of respect. Over
the long years, the mountain lands became more the land of the Kethian
and less the place of their rivals. The Hwat stood the longest against
them but even they fell beneath the dripping Kethian blades leaving
Kethian steel to rule the mountain glens unmolested even by Ysth-
Jarouth, the mad ruler of Ixat who so feared that the Kethian reavers
would leave the hills that he nearly ruined his kingdom seeking to
prevent it.
Only now are his people starting to leave their land and seek trade. It
remained so over the long years in the rugged lands where Kethian tribes
warred, traded and feared no living creature. In a single night all
these things changed, an ancient witch named Tasheal appeared in the
mountains; it was an evil night, the kind of night when people say the
elder folk shake off their lethargy and stride the trembling earth. When
the Wild Hunt rides in storm lashed skies and the mortal who ventures
beyond the shelter of the steading is seldom seen again. For the first
time the abhorrent summons was heard, heaving and gibbering, on a wind
now venomous; to those frightened glen dwellers, the malevolent wind
promising fearful agonies in return for defiance to She whose word was
now the law in these hills and whose heart was ice.
The Kethian warriors did not conquer the mountain glens to fear an old
woman living alone in a cave then, but they learned to fear her that
night. Seventy warriors of the Rhobdar Glen mounted the path to
Tasheal's cave kill the old witch. None of the tribes knew why all the
fighting men left to do what they thought one or two should have
accomplished, later they would understood that Tasheal wished it to be
so, that she may set such an example that none would dare defy her
again. For days the Kethians of Rhobdar waited, as time passed they felt
the dread of Tasheal grow until the night the survivors of the assault
stumbled back, gruesomely changed. Some were fused with the beasts of
the hills to create terrifying hybrids, others were more fiends than man
and others were no more than animated corpses.
The grisly horde lurched on its semi-human feet back to the Rhobdar
Glen, tore through the towering palisade as if it were rotten cloth and
slaughtered every living creature within between dusk and dawn. When
morning illuminated the charnel house the Glen had become, though no
rider had been sent for aid, all the Glens knew what had been done and
why. Strength and power they understood but now the savage Kethians
learned fright at the hands of one who was its mistress. No further
demonstration of power would be needed, in time none would remember when
her presence was not felt or could have even said when she arrived. The
wilderness reclaimed the rotting darkness of the Rhobdar glen and
nothing moved save the beasts that had made homes in the ruins and built
their dens from the desiccated bones of the damned. The dread of her
made the savage warriors of the Kethians wail in horror when the evil
wind that brought her commands sliced throughout the Glens. The
Kethians, having yielded so long ago yielded again and again until none
would stand against her now or imagine it was ever any other way.
At the height of Frostmoon, when the wind howled south and men cowered
in their pitiful homes of wattle and mud, a summons was heard on the
wind in Borun's Glen. The Borun was racked with such terror that only
fear of her retribution moved him from the illusionary safety of the
Glen. He left the Glen that morning trying to hide his fear behind the
mask of his pride. For the sake of those he led he strode from the
village with boldly; a warrior chief of a race that had seized their
lands in fire and steel but within his breast his heart quaked with such
fear as to nearly unman him. Through the long miles past the domain of
the Mek and the Ghuar-noth he walked.
Those he passed did not hail him or offer the hospitality of their Glen;
they had heard the wind and hoped that its demands would be satisfied
with the Boron's glen and not grow to include them. As he passed the
ruined Glen of the Rhobdar his shoulders drooped and his step faltered.
He mounted the rocky path to Tasheal's cave like an arthritic old man,
painful in his progress for such a short distance. There, at the stained
granite that served her for an alter, he blanched as he heard the will
of the mistress of the mountains and stumbled away from it trembling
with loathing at what he must do.
When he returned to the glen the ones who saw him raised the alarm for
at first they supposed they had been set upon by one the wild men who
wander the wilderness and according to legend are more beast than man.
He bolted upon them from the northern hills, his hair matted like a cave
troll's with his clothing tattered and his humanity all but vanished.
His mad eyes sparkling like a pair of ancient jewels hidden beneath his
craggy, dirt smeared brow. He raged through the steading from house to
house bellowing a terrible senseless roar. In the house of Wilmar the
charcoal burner he tore the couples newborn son from his wailing mothers
arms and vanished with the howling infant back into the wilderness of
the northern hills.
A few days later he returned; a broken man with ancient eyes who spent
the remainder of his life with the hatred of a daughter who would spit
at him whenever she saw him. On night when the wind was heard he lay in
his bed racked with a festering regret that he had surrendered his
grandson to the red robed witch who stood arrogantly silent beside a
cold granite slab. Even as he scurried away, howling with grief like a
soulless haunt, he knew there never had been a choice when Tasheal had
told him that the price for the people of his Glen to remain in human
form was the life of this infant surrendered to her before Bloodmoon's
rising.
The Kethian elders are ignorant as to what occurred that night under
Bloodmoon's red light, some say the witch was brought to bay by a
powerful enemy and after defeating that enemy now sleeps a healing sleep
in the heart of her mountain. Others say she died of old age or the
child was to be her apprentice; reared from infancy in the paths of
darkest magic he would be heir to Tasheal's legacy of terror. They
passed the long nights waiting for the wind that will call upon them
once more to do the bidding of the mistress of the wind. The years
passed and the wind was only the wind, in time the elders agreed that
the ancient witch who ruled these hills from before living memory had
vanished and would be heard from no more.
However they say happened is wrong. Ancient beyond reckoning, the old
witch had either slain her enemies long ago or was thought already dead
by them now. Sorcery's disciples do not have many whose age is forgotten
along with their birth names; vanished with the dusty thoughts of those
long dead mortals who bore them into this pitiless world; nor did she
require or yearn for a novice. Far older than even her fellow sorcerers
reckoned Tasheal was weak now; her great powers had slipped from her
with the remorseless years so that now she found herself unable to even
summon minor demons to do her bidding; the bitterness ate at her that
she, who had in millennia past, commanded the princes of the hells had
not the strength now to summon even their minor slaves.
In her weakness she resolved to craft her own daemons, as she had when
she dealt with the hotheaded tribesman of Rhobdar. This child would be
the first, the herald of her return to the paths of magical power.
Others would follow this child's wake, unknowns doomed to slink down the
nighted trails gathering the vigor Tasheal would need to restore
herself, power torn from the unwary souls they would prey upon. Mortals
turned daemonic were easier for the weakened sorceress to control;
creatures weaker than the mindless pawns the hellprinces whelped in
their lightless pits were still creatures she reckoned worthwhile, since
they could never drag her before the underworlds dark lords should they
ever escape their bonds. They would never be welcome in those pits and
without the strength numbers would bring them they would be hunted by
men infesting the glens who would no longer fear servants of a dead
sorceress. These she would have no reason to fear ever and before long
their offerings would make her impervious to fear for another thousand
years.
As the Borun laid the tiny body of the infant on the altar's cold
granite, the evil wind that had served Tasheal so long shrieked through
the rocky heights and the Borun turned and left to howl his grief to the
trees as he stumbled home. Tasheal dismissed him from her thoughts as
she removed the howling infant's wrappings and clothed him in a blanket
of demon's skin. She anointed the tiny body with a hell beast's blood
and slit the child's palms with a wolf's dewclaw that the blood might
then mingle and give direction to the coming change. The wounds were
stuffed with bogwort and the crushed bone of a weasel that her creature
may gain cunning. A serpent's tongue was placed upon his brow and the
fresh heart of a cat placed in his delicate mouth so men would be fooled
by the glib speech that would flow from this creature's lips. The
necessary wards were already in place for Tasheal to begin before the
Borun arrived bearing the child. With anticipation in her icy heart she
cast the incantation that sealed the circle and called upon the remnants
of her magic to exchange the child's soul for the enchantment that would
animate the infant's flesh and bind the mutilated mortal to serve the
old witch for the remainder of her existence.
As her words echoed off of the fire painted rocks she watched the magic
she summoned bite deep into the tiny form laying on the stone. The boy
howled as he began to stretch and grow. Years danced over his frame as
his form swelled from infant to child. Even at this tender age someone
who knew him would say that he was heavily favored by his grandfather
the Borun. He had the same prominent nose and ice grey eyes. His hair
was his father's though as were his cheekbones and in his child's frame
could be seen the hint of a powerful build that would serve him well as
a warrior of the Kethian clans.
The boy was almost ten years in form when other changes began. As the
witch chanted and directed the powers wrapping and warping him his
undeveloped male parts began shrinking and fading away within his body
leaving only the prepubescent form of the girl he had become. The
prominent nose and cheekbones softened and rounded and the march of
years began again. The girl became taller and slender, her hips bloomed
and breasts blossomed. The magic washed over her and in its wake any
physical imperfection were washed away with it. As the major changes
left the young woman in place of the infant son the magic turned on her
again and began infusing her with the qualities that the witch desired
in her servant.
Millennia had made the old witch overconfident though. When the last
dread syllables echoed from the stony hills she retired to her cave to
rest and await the incantation's completion. In the cave's depths lit
only by the flickering of the magic outside she dreamed of when nations
would again tremble at the hushed utterance of her name as they had so
long ago; when she would again bend empires to her will instead of this
collection if ignorant hill clans that feared her now. Lost in her
lustful dreams of power and youth returned she missed the ember of
white-blue flame that drifted up from what had been the child's still
silent form. She never saw and could not prevent the energy that rose
from the child to ensnare the flame, to drag it back, and bury it deep
within the shimmering elongating shape that the child's body was
wrenched into. When she arose from her dreams Tasheal sensed that the
sorcery was complete and left the cave to see the instrument of her
restoration The star-eyed succubus lounging on the scarred granite of
the altar awaiting her command. Its beauty would ensnare those men she
found, her own lost maleness would give her an unlimited appetite for
what had been wrenched from her. An insatiable and endless craving - its
power would drain them to lifeless husks and with each new offering
flowed into her, Tasheal would gain in vigor and youth. She made a sign
of power to bind the succubae to her as she lurched closer to the stone.
In a rasping hiss she muttered,
"You who have no name and whose mother is the night, I name you Zha-
reth. By the Bloodmoon that rules your birth I charge you to hunt; by
the law of Fyoder the Damned you are bound and by my will you live. Go!
Now seek the offerings you owe your mistress. Bring me the lives of the
mortal children of the gods".
From the altar's surface the star-eyed succubae uncurled herself with
the grace of the cat whose heart she bore beneath her own and dropped to
her knees in submission. She crawled across the rocky dirt until she
reached Tasheal's feet. The old witch, pleased with this demonstration
of loyalty, closed her eyes basking in the worship her creature was
paying her. Tasheal never saw the creature rear up in front of her but
she felt the succubae plunge her hand deep within her withered breast.
She felt the blazing hate as the hand closed like a vise on the piece of
dirty ice that the witch's heart had become over the long centuries. As
it was ripped from her chest she heard with fading ears as the succubae
hissed,
"My mother Dontira named me Shilith and I-Will-Never-Serve-YOU!" The
darkness held at bay for so many centuries welled up within Tasheal as
she dimly felt her body strike the rocky earth and heard the fading
footsteps of the creature as she left bearing the milky shard of ice
that was her heart.
The peddler stirred the coals of the snapping fire with a branch,
satisfied that they were now more evenly distributed, he tossed the
branch on the fire to add its wood to the embers already ablaze there.
He looked from his son to the pilgrim who shared the flickering heat of
the small blaze.
"An interesting tale," he mused.
"Well worth a meal and a place by the fire. Are you sure that you will
not pass the night here. There are bandits in this region and it would
be far safer than the empty roads for you with us."
"No," answered the pilgrim softly.
"The Dancers have risen and my vow forbids me to tarry, though I thank
you for your kindness."
The pilgrim rose and picked up her staff and with her dusty robes
swirling about her stepped into the darkness. The peddler's son rose and
followed a few steps.
"I don't understand why the daemon slew the witch rather than serve
her?" The pilgrim half turned in the moonlight, the motion causing her
hood to slide back slightly.
"Only because the child kept his soul-- the soulless creature Tasheal
strived to create would have served her as she'd intended with no
reservations, but the creature she created-- the one that kept what she
should no longer have had could no sooner serve her than it could take
the lives of innocents as Tasheal intended her to. That souls power,
with the power granted by Tasheal's sorcery was too much for the pitiful
geas the witch thought sufficient to bind the creature to her. That one
could never be bound, even by the power of a Prince of hell; the
soulless are lost forever, but those that for some strange jest of the
Gods keep their souls can only avenge the innocence that was taken."
The pilgrim turned and was swallowed by darkness within a few steps. The
peddler's son walked back to the fires warmth with the sound of her bare
feet on the road receding into the night. When he could no longer keep
awake, he tried to tell himself, as he shivered beneath his blanket that
the pilgrim's hood didn't hide the star-shaped eyes of a succubus and
the moonlight that flickered had not shown her staff was tipped with a
stone that resembled a dirty shard of ice.
This is a little thought that I had one night when I couldn't sleep.
Don't expect to hold me to magic standards if you follow that way. This
is just the direction that I felt the story take so I make no apologies
since I was not trying to offend. It's just a piece that I had a little
fun with on dark night.
Gert
- 29.11.2021
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