Gailinn strode upon an empty forest path in the wilds near Westerbrook, enjoying a much needed respite after spying upon the druí’s dreams. After taking a final moment among the woodsy smells and animal chitters, she entered the realm of magic. Doing so was like wading into a calm lake. She swam through the realm, enjoying the ebb and flow of its ethereal blue currents. The trees, insects, and woodland creatures in the physical realm did little to disturb the magic all around her, creating only soft ripples to mark their life forces.
Severia was insubstantial beneath her feet, the ground white and translucent, a mere echo of its physical structure. Her feet hung partially in the ground, which would become solid if she willed it, but walking was better in the physical realm where she could enjoy the myriad senses associated with the act. Here there was only sight and whatever sounds and smells she brought with her.
She quickly folded the space around her, reaching mentally for a distant point and willing herself to its location. Unbound by the rules of the physical world, she was essentially everywhere and nowhere all at once while in the realm of magic. Wisps joined her, a field of blinking lights all around her as the tiny creatures took quick trips through the realm.
An instant later, she was in the swirling maelstrom of magic surrounding Core. The city appeared much as it did in the physical realm, albeit in muted colors. It was as if an artist had drawn a quick sketch of the city, providing outlines but not filling in any details. She could see through walls and even through the ground itself to the burrower tunnels beneath her feet.
Gailinn rose into the air and spent a few moments watching the way life interacted with the realm of magic. Every beat of a heart added ripples of blue energy. No raging river or thundering waterfall in Severia could compare to the roiling energy created by so much life condensed in one location. Gailinn wondered if the wisps experienced any of the tumult during their brief forays into the realm of magic. Through the white silhouette of a building, she could see bits of energy leaving the realm, pulled through a wisp stone which glowed softly, teleporting someone elsewhere in the city. A quick flare of light to the other side, nearly blinding then gone, drew her attention. Faint ripples emanated from where a mother held her newborn, even its tiny heartbeat adding to the magic surrounding Severia.
The temptation to peer through into the physical realm, to see the marvel of life was an insistent tug. Even if each new life didn’t add to her power, Gailinn would have cherished them anyway. It was who she was.
She resisted the urge. Core would wait for another day.
“You’re procrastinating,” she told herself. A few deep breaths steeled her resolve. She’d given Drusk plenty of time to overcome his grief. If he was still alive, the Balancer was an integral part of her plans. For all her belief in free will, Gailinn wasn’t opposed to forcing his hand. He’d earned far harsher treatment than a gentle nudge in the right direction.
Holding to her image of the realm of magic as a great ocean surrounding the physical world, she imagined a surface and reached for it. Her arms broke into the dream realm. Bracing her hands, she pushed the rest of her body through like a burrower popping out of a hole in the ground.
Thousands of dreams shined around her as if she were trapped in a warehouse filled with marbles and her at the very center. Concentrating on the one she sought, Gailinn reappeared in a nearly desolate white expanse. Only a few creatures dreamed in whatever part of the world Balancer Andruí Drusk had retired to.
Drawing close to the dream without touching it, she saw a wild landscape. Drusk stood near the edge of a cliff, his head tilted to the ground. His body blocked the object of his attention or perhaps he looked across the land. The Balancer had not changed much from what she could see. His hair was much longer, held back in a ponytail, and there were a few streaks of white.
Suddenly, Drusk turned and appeared to be looking directly at her. It should have been impossible, she hadn’t even made contact with his dream, yet she recognized the anger distorting his features. Before she could react, the dream disappeared.
Drusk obviously hadn’t forgiven her.
II.
“Are these lycanthropic bastards getting faster?” Drusk asked the nightwing perched in the branches behind him.
Onyx was small for her kind, barely visible in the trees’ shadows with her black feathers. She sent back an image of the Balancer--stocky and powerful around the edges of her vision, poised on the balls of his feet in a farmer’s field near the treeline. The center of her attention was his face--more wrinkles than he remembered, tracing a lifetime of scowls. His hair was gray at the temples, and the hay bale Drusk had set alight illuminated what might have been more than a few white strands in his long unruly hair.
The nightwing’s message was clear: Drusk was getting old.
He dropped another portal stone while the werewolf howled to the sky, venting its frustration. So far, all its attempts to disembowel Drusk or tear his throat open had found only empty air. But they had been uncomfortably close.
The sun had set before he had tracked down the elusive werewolf. At least the moon was a mere sliver overhead, partially blocked by a filament of cloud cover. Not that the werewolf needed the moon’s power. It was half his age, feral, and judging by the blood staining its teeth and muzzle, had recently fed.
There were obvious signs of a struggle in the nearby cottage but no traces of the family. The werewolf must have stashed the bodies elsewhere, feeding upon what remained until its insatiable hunger had finally sent it back for the family’s livestock, still locked in their pens.
Drusk threw another dagger into the werewolf’s midsection. In its frenzied state, more beast than man, the creature already had all but one of Drusk’s daggers stuck in its torso, which had done little to slow it. Blood dribbled freely through the werewolf’s coarse black hair. Even the werewolf’s enhanced healing couldn’t close the wounds made by silver daggers.
“You’re pathetic! How long did you think you’d last on your own?” Drusk yelled before the werewolf’s next attack. He had only a split second’s warning when it tensed. The monster leapt forward, little more than a blur. Activating his portal stone, Drusk vanished into the realm of magic.
Though only gone from the physical realm for a second during his teleportation, time passed a little slower in the realm of magic, giving Drusk all the time he needed to scout his destination and adjust his body. Chalky outlines of trees approached as he lifted into the air, passing the werewolf. In place of its body, there was a fierce swirl of blue energy, beating rapidly in time with the werewolf’s heart. With a thought, Drusk turned his body and spread his arms, ready to brace himself as the portal stone pulled him backwards and up.
He reappeared in the crook of a tree’s lowest branches. With a quick tug on both of his cloak’s drawstrings, it drew closed. Satisfied at his concealment, Drusk retrieved the bow he had stashed there earlier and, dipping a hand into his cloak, pulled an arrow from the quiver on his hip.
The werewolf sniffed the air, one ear cocked. Giving itself over to the animal within had benefits--faster healing, increased strength and speed, heightened senses--but it also made the poor bastard stupid. If he had found balance like so many of his kind, he’d have seen the pattern to Drusk’s teleportations by now, always forcing the creature away from the forest.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Pathetic!” he shouted, firing an arrow into the werewolf’s thigh. “You use your gift to slaughter tired farmers, their wives, and innocent children.” Another arrow landed in the opposite thigh. Hopefully at least one had hit the thick artery there, opening a wound that not even a frenzied lycanthrope could heal without aid.
For a second, Drusk thought his words combined with the werewolf’s wounds were finally getting through to the man within. It hesitated, eyes shining with intelligence. No, even from a distance, Drusk saw a familiar blue glow in the werewolf’s eyes. In its mindless, feral state, the werewolf had become a perfect conduit for Krachnis’ consciousness.
“Hold, Balancer,” the werewolf said, speaking clearly. “I have an offer.”
Krachnis had spoken to Drusk before, cursing him through another’s mouth, usually as they were about to die. He had not listened then, and he definitely didn’t want to listen now. He took a wild shot, aiming for the werewolf’s eye. With Krachnis in control, the beast easily avoided the arrow, but Drusk had already gone to another tree. Others might think it cowardly to hide and dispatch a foe from a distance. Most who thought thus discovered their convictions led to an early death.
Drusk pulled the bowstring taut, expecting the werewolf to enter his field of vision any second. When it didn’t, he knew Krachnis’ control of the creature had shifted the battle out of his own favor. Without hesitation, he teleported away at the same time that he heard a cracking of branches near his location. The werewolf had almost gotten the drop on him.
He reappeared in the middle of the empty field. He hadn’t planned to use the portal stone beneath him. It had been one of only three placed as a means of retreat. Reaching out to Onyx, he borrowed the nightwing’s eyes. His mastery of the Speaker’s arts kept him focused and in control as his vision bifurcated, his own view of the field leading up to the woods dull compared to Onyx’s which painted the night with vibrant colors.
The werewolf exited the treeline directly in front of Drusk. His own eyes failed to differentiate the mass of shadows near the trees from one another, but Onyx could see the werewolf clearly. Still holding his bow, Drusk fired a final arrow. It struck the werewolf in the side. Even with Krachnis controlling the beast, its eyes needed time to adjust between the darkness among the trees and the raging fire of the burning hay bale.
When the beast growled, Drusk set his bow down, but there was no point in drawing out his swords. Drusk had small chance of victory against Krachnis. If it wanted him dead, he would flee.
Krachnis sniffed the air and turned his blazing eyes toward Onyx. With a sharp-toothed smile, the werewolf relaxed, the blue light in its eyes fading to a softer hue as Krachnis reached out to take over Onyx’s mind. And found that he could not. Krachnis cursed in a tongue forgotten to time.
“That’s more like it,” Drusk said. He hid unease behind a thin veneer of bravado. Despite his work breeding nightwings, he had been worried some part of the creatures would always belong to Krachnis. “Your curses sound sweeter than any bard’s harp.”
“The mind of one nightwing hardly matters,” Krachnis said. The blue light returned to full strength in the werewolf’s eyes which stayed focused on Onyx.
“A small victory is still a victory,” Drusk countered. “Speak and be gone.” He folded his arms across his chest. Doing so pulled the old scar along his breastbone, and the wound, insignificant when compared to so many other, greater injuries, seemed to flare with fresh pain. Knowing it was in his head did not convince his body to ignore the discomfort.
“Such sweet anger is becoming of you,” Krachnis said. He didn’t approach, but even from a distance of several paces away, his voice easily carried, stronger and richer than any normal being’s voice.
“Finally, you are a vessel worthy of my presence,” Krachnis continued. “I have come to claim you, Andruí Drusk. Name any boon, and it shall be yours.”
“No,” Drusk said, voice devoid of emotion.
“Youth restored,” Krachnis offered. “True mastery of druí magic beyond the paltry tricks Gailinn gives you access to. Armies to command. Lands to rule.”
“No,” Drusk repeated in the same flat tone.
“I can return--”
“No, you can’t,” Drusk said, each of his three words cutting the air like a battleax. He had always feared that half-spoken offer. For years he had known it might come. In the months following his battle against the Grinteal Balancers in Westerbrook, his answer would have been a resounding “Yes” no matter the consequences.
“I can do anything!” Krachnis roared. “Your every loss is by my design. Gailinn limits herself, wrapped in nets of free will, but I am not bound by any laws which govern this world.”
“Strange words for a prisoner,” Drusk replied.
“Not for long,” Krachnis said. He was so overwhelmingly smug. It oozed around his words like sewage. “My day of freedom is nearly at hand and with it will come the shattering of your binary rules--right and wrong, night and day, life and death. Those who aid me will be greatly rewarded.”
Drusk didn’t respond. Why waste his breath repeating the same denial over and over again? Arms still crossed, he returned the werewolf’s stare, poised to flee if it came to that but otherwise motionless.
“My champion will be disappointed,” Krachnis chided. “You abandoned him, so it fell to me to raise the boy. Einar would be ashamed of you.”
Drusk’s blood turned to ice. Despite all he had done to protect the child, Krachnis had still managed to find Einar’s son? For any other being, it would have been impossible.
The Balancer didn’t have time to fully consider the import of Krachnis’ revelation. Knowing it had struck a crippling blow, the entity retreated from the werewolf, leaving Drusk with questions that would lead him inexorably to where Krachnis wanted him.
The blue light in the werewolf’s eyes winked out, and the creature stood stupefied. For the first time, the man he had once been seemed nearly at the surface. He was vulnerable, disoriented. Drusk could end the fight with a single decisive strike.
“I can heal you, but you have to fight the wolf,” Drusk yelled, closing the distance between them on foot. If he teleported, the second it would take might be all the time needed for the wolf to reassert control.
Where other lycanthropes found balance with their inner beast, the two sides of their being melding into a single cohesive whole, this man was essentially two separate consciousnesses at war for a single body. Werecats very rarely went feral, and their own kind always took care of them. Werebears lost control a little more frequently, and Drusk had faced two of them. One came back, mostly thanks to Imena’s influence. The other had taken two Balancer teams to put down.
Werewolves were always trouble. It took an iron will to overcome the wolf’s savage strength.
Drusk kept talking, gaze fixed on the werewolf, not daring to blink.
“If there’s anything you still hold dear, fix it in your head. A mother looking to the horizon for you to reappear after your long absence. Your father who ignores the whispers about his cursed son, love secreted in his breast where none can reach it. A wife or sweetheart alone in her room pouring over every precious keepsake you’ve ever given her, begging the Maker to see you returned whole and healthy. Or a child who deserves to know the man you once were and can be again--instead of the beast you’ve become.
“The beast has you in its teeth, and they are so strong, pulling you deeper into darkness, but there is still light waiting to embrace you if you’ll only reach for it.” The words didn’t really belong to Drusk. He pulled them from his memory, stumbling through something his partner, Imena, had said long ago. At the time, she had spoken to a werebear and had brought the woman back from her feral state. Later, the same words had come to him when he had needed them himself.
It seemed these words were needed once again--for him, as a reminder of what he had suffered, and for the pitiful creature before him.
“It feels like there’s no coming back, like your strength is too feeble, but you’re wrong. You aren’t Unmaker touched. You aren’t cursed. Being angry, jealous, depressed, full of guile or greedy for coin doesn’t make you evil. It makes you human.”
The beast hesitated, its eyes glossing over as it turned inward.
“Come on,” he coaxed, turning all his energy toward reaching the man trapped within the wolf. It had been so long since he’d achieved victory by means other than death. “You can beat this. No one is beyond redemption.”
Not even me, he thought.
“These claws...were made...to kill.”
Drusk cursed. He hadn’t realized how badly he needed this battle to end without another death added to his tally.