III.

“Sign of office,” Leon repeated for the 17th time that morning. If he maintained his usual pace, midday meal would arrive somewhere around the 230th utterance of those cursed words. Daisy had always fancied officials and their “smart uniforms,” and like a fool, he had taken the bait. She more than likely fancied the pay he brought home every other week, and she would fancy the twenty chip raise when he was promoted.

A menog approached, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the shade and then to the light from a nearby wisp bundle. Shadows capered on his bald head. He held a badge before him like a shield as the chest-high creature cowered. Except for the eyes. They blazed, scorching all within sight, greedily consuming all around with wonder while pretending he wasn’t.

“Don’t tell me--it’s your first day,” Leon said. He had seen that look enough to know it better than his best of friends.

“Er. Yes. Quite.” The young menog jumped at each of his words as if hearing his own voice for the first time and finding it to be not at all what he expected. His young dreshen was pulling away, eyes on a bit of leafy growth to the side. Leon took the reins, which the menog immediately dropped with relief on his face. Though too embarrassed to admit his aspirations to Daisy, he one day hoped to be a Shield, riding a full grown stag into battle. Allowing the dreshen a bit of slack, he petted its long slender neck while it munched on the leaves which were finally within its reach.

“These criminals have been seen in Core?” the menog asked, pointing to the wanted posters behind Leon, each illuminated by its own wisp light to be sure they were seen.

“A few,” Leon said, turning to face the posters. “Most have been spotted other places. That one for example,” he said, pointing to the newest poster which had been hung only a few days before, “was last seen in Breeze Tower.”

The menog studied the poster. It depicted a young man with burning eyes not unlike the menog’s. The young man was wanted for several murders. All women with coal black hair, green eyes, and a light dusting of freckles below the eyes.

None of the posters had ever affected Leon, but that one sent shivers up his spine. Daisy fit the description of those murdered women. She had laughed away his concerns but hadn’t protested when he bought and installed a second lock on their front door. Nor had she complained when he begged and traded favors, rearranging his shift schedule to be there each day when she finished school, escorting her home as he had when they courted.

“You haven’t seen that one, have you?” Leon asked. “He should be easy to identify, what with a full head of silver hair. Unless he dyed it. That alone might be enough to help him avoid detection.”

Leon could have sworn he heard the menog cursing under his breath. “No,” he said. Then he cocked his head ever so slightly, chewed his lips hungrily, then pulled himself up to his full height somewhere above Leon’s naval. “I am Frilgreen, second son of--”

“Shade to you and welcome to Core,” Leon interrupted. Menog names were notoriously long. “Finding the central guild offices won’t be hard. If you go down--”

Now it was the menog’s turn to interrupt.

“Yes, thank you, I believe I know the way.” Leon looked over his shoulder where a group of werewolves--unmistakable in build, attire, and curling lips--stared with the kind of attention he imagined they usually reserved for their prey. Before he could turn back to the waiting menog, Frilgreen stalked across his field of vision headed for the lycanthropes, a hungry smile putting theirs to shame.

“Your mount!” Leon called, abruptly realizing he still held the animal’s reins.

“Keep it!” Frilgreen shouted back, not even bothering to turn around.

The young guard looked over to Shelan who had been making no effort to hide her eavesdropping as she waited for a group of webfooted to wrap their spears in protective coverings. He held up the reins and pointed to the dreshen with his mouth open in an ambiguous question. Shelan shrugged.

Daisy would be thrilled. She’d probably want to take the animal to her school. Maybe she could convince the headmistress to offer riding lessons in exchange for helping with a bit of the dreshen’s upkeep. For the time being, he tied the animal’s reins to a bit of twisted root behind him.

Leon had met a fair share of menog during his short tenure. Like most races, the stereotypes relayed in bard’s tales and women’s gossip held true. Menog had shrewd minds for organization and trade, and though stubborn beyond a fault, they were generally timid. Except for this one. One moment uncertain, the next exuding a hero’s confidence.

He would tell Daisy all about it, and they would spend supper puzzling over that oddity and any others to pass through his station. She would invent fantastical stories about the menog, perhaps imagining him a great hero of their race who had tamed the lycanthropes. Tomorrow she would share the tale with her students, who had become ravenous for such yarns ever since the princess had arrived.

Until then...

“Sign of office,” Leon repeated for the 18th time.

IV.

Ash couldn’t help but smile as he left the capital’s catacombs, squinting as the egg-yolk sun’s light struck him across the face. He had secured the portal stone at the lowest level, whispering promises to the dead that they would rise again. He had been awestruck at the number of people in the capital, more than in the whole Ashen Lands, and they had accumulated enough well-preserved dead to hopefully overwhelm the city’s defenses from within.

If only the other races could be reanimated the same way. Despite Krachnis assuring him it wouldn’t work, Ash had tried to raise other undead. Unlike the magic gifted to him by Krachnis, his ability to reanimate the dead came from his innate magical talents. And the master stone. Raising the dead of other races felt possible, a trick to the magic like learning to walk your first unsteady steps. No matter how many times he had failed, success always felt just within reach. With the combined dead of every race and creature, he would be unstoppable.

The entrance to the catacombs was tucked in a secluded corner of the temple district as if even the druí Tenders hated to be reminded of their own mortality. Ash breathed deep of the incense which permeated the air. He wanted to savor his solitude before joining Rugner and his wolves. Before merging with the crowds. Core’s citizens had grown accustomed to the lycanthropes and without fear to part them, Rugner and his band had to halter-step through the city’s clogged arteries like everyone else.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Ash approached a fountain, soft curves dribbling water into the wide pool at the base with hardly a ripple. He stepped closer to examine his disguise in the water and reeled. Memories surfaced like splinters of a long-sunken treasure chest.

He stood beside a tall man whose face was lost in shadows, either real or those that gathered on the edges of lost memory. A menog, face sharp slashes of anger, shook a ledger at the tall man who backed away, dragging Ash with him as if the ledger hid fangs or poisonous barbs.

He could blame the sweltering sun, or the physical cost exacted by maintaining his disguise, but his past slammed into him like an unattended cart rolling down a hill. Not for the first time, Ash felt a dizzying sense of deja vu as Rugner and his band moved closer.

With a hand like a crab claw, Rugner steadied him. The werewolf could have easily slipped a dagger into his side. He could have ripped Ash apart with his bare hands as effortlessly as the kilkinteth had cut apart those vegetables.

Kill him. You can’t trust that creature.

“Is it him?” Rugner asked. “I remember all too well the distraction he caused.” Others who had felt Krachnis’ touch looked upon Ash with reverence. From what he had gathered, they felt but a brush of that otherworldly presence upon their minds. Ash, who was a direct conduit for the essence’s power, was seen as a god to them.

Rugner offered something far more valuable--true understanding. He took Ash’s long moments of contemplative silence in stride, never seeking to know what quiet thoughts he shared with Krachnis. For all Ash knew, Rugner was the only other living creature who had once spoken to Krachnis. After all, the werewolf had once taken its council.

“Memories,” Ash said. “Ones I’ve lost.” He stepped out from beneath the werewolf’s shadow. “They return in a flash like bolts of lightning, there for a second and then consumed once more by the darkness.”

“And near the docks?” Rugner asked, referencing another of Ash’s dizzy spells on their way through the city.

Ash didn’t speak at first but strode ahead of the werewolves to test his footing. When the ground remained solid beneath his feet, he still held his tongue. Rugner could only be trusted so far, yet the man was the closest to an equal Ash had encountered since Knock.

Before he knew it, words flew from his mouth on kilkinteth wings. “Flashes of a woman. We fled through a city, and there was a ship.” With a net sown of caution, he caught his final words, “I think she was my mother,” and held them in his throat.

Rugner was at his side, matching his smaller stride. “Did you steal his memories yourself, or do you simply keep them suppressed?” Rugner often spoke directly to Krachnis, knowing it could hear him through Ash’s ears. That unknowable being never responded.

“He claims you betrayed him,” Ash said.

The werewolf growled deep in his chest. “Because I’ve learned to shield myself from him. No, I can’t imagine he’s too happy about that. How often does he order you to kill me?”

“Do you fear he’ll persuade me?” Ash asked.

“Fear was the first enemy I brought down when I acquired my claws.” It wasn’t a boast. Like the man, the words didn’t puff their chest with overconfidence.

Such had been the way of their conversations since Ash had arrived in the city. They bandied words, supplying each other with half-truths and answering questions with more of the same. Ash had been wrong to consider them anything but what they were--strangers joined by a temporary alliance. Aside from families, which Ash knew nothing of, everyone in the world seemed bound by that same rule. If Krachnis were to be believed, all creatures were wild beasts clothed in laws and common courtesy, thin bindings to keep them from tearing at each other with claws and teeth.

Ash’s disappointment must have shown in his face because Rugner cleared his throat and continued speaking.

“Most are born a single time, but among my kind, I’ve celebrated three distinct births,” Rugner said. He held out three fingers, each as large as Ash’s face and curled them down in turns as he spoke. “The first I share with all creatures. Then I was born again as a werewolf. I said I didn’t fear death, but that’s because I had become death.” Rugner paused, considering. Perhaps he was momentarily lost in the past as Ash had been. “I won’t elaborate. Because despite my brutal and violent youth, I was eventually born a third time. I rediscovered my humanity. When a lycanthrope finds balance, it truly is like being born. Nothing that came before matters. Not to our kind.”

If the werewolf was to be believed, he had found something Ash sought above all else: peace with who and what he was.

“Then why join me?” Ash asked. “Gailinn seems to offer everything you’ve been searching for, at least according to Moss.”

“Look around us,” Rugner said, jerking his muzzle to either side of the gravel path.

During their approach to the catacombs, Ash hadn’t paid much attention to the various statues and temples in this small corner of Core. They depicted exaggerated versions of each race, but only two were close enough to make out any details.

To one side, a kilkinteth queen gave birth to all the other races, her mandibles lifted to the sky as if frozen in song. The stone statue looked young, untouched by the elements. Two kilkinteth chittered before the statue, setting a jar of golden liquid near its base. There were already several jars of the same, all of various sizes.

On the other side of the path, a wodenlang earth mother was halfway through her transformation into a tree. Already her arms were branches, filled with wisps, small birds, and a grocklin. Her beatific face looked straight ahead, the eyes shining with an unnatural light as if they could pierce the veil between realms. Near her legs, which fused into a trunk at the knees, a wodenlang family sat upon a patchwork blanket, enjoying a meal of bread, cheese, and fruit.

Ash wandered closer to the earth mother, appreciating the soft curves of the wood. The artist had worked the grain into their design. A dark whorl covered the wisp, while striations gave the grocklin’s fur the illusion of texture. Though the statue must have been carved from many pieces of wood, Ash couldn’t see any breaks or interruptions in the work.

“There are at least a hundred gods and heroes throughout this district,” Rugner said. “Predominantly female. I believe most of them are the same woman.”

“Gailinn,” Ash breathed.

Rugner walked further up the path, but Ash reconsidered the statue before him. He’d first heard Gailinn’s name from Knock, and at the time, he had thought her a hero. Once he’d left Knock’s bridge and the magic-nulling aura, he’d badgered Krachnis for information about Gailinn. To no avail.

She is our enemy but will not challenge us directly. I have plans for her.

But what if you’re wrong? What if she confronts me? Any information you can offer–

You would be but a wisp before the typhoon of her true power. Trust me. I conceived her demise when the world began, and the day draws near. So near.

When Ash rejoined the werewolf, Rugner led them past a building which saw a steady stream of people coming and going into its shadowy interior. Though not a true shard, it mimicked their shape, little more than a slim tower. Through the occasional window, faces peeked out as they ascended a spiral staircase which let out onto a low-walled roof. From there, a bridge presided over by a mountain hob took them into the lowest reaches of the air district.

“I’ve encountered her indirectly in the past,” Rugner said. “The same human woman. She manipulates events on a global scale. She cost me everything I held dear, and I know I’m not the only one who feels that way. In Breeze Tower, I saw a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Gailinn. The beast consumed me.”

Rugner's excuse sounded plausible enough. But he hadn’t found Gailinn, and his actions had brought the werebear detectives to Ash’s lair, forcing him to flee before he was ready. Would Rugner have committed the murders simply to prove his devotion to Ash’s cause? Or was there a more subtle motive at play?

“It took longer than I’d care to admit before I was able to reign in the wolf. By then, several young women were dead. That has not happened for a long time.”

Lies! Krachnis shouted. Filthy changer! Don’t trust–

Before Ash could make sense of Krachnis’ words, he stepped into the bridge’s shadow. The voice in his head cut off along with his magic.