Fleety was standing in Wolf Keep. How shi knew where shi was disconcerted hir. The place looked familiar for some reason and shi walked around the keep for a moment or two. The place was deserted, doorways broken or in varied states of disrepair. The stone walls stood proudly though mortar flaked to the flooring like dingy gray snow. The place smelled of old smoke, old blood, and shi felt the place was echoing with the energy of love, caring, anger, fear, violence, and peace.
As shi walked the keep, shi glanced at hir body and noted it wasn?t very solid, but feint and wispy. Did I die somehow? hir thoughts echoed through the hallways as if shi spoke them.
Fleety moved faster as the feeling of sorrow and depression was creeping up on hir. Soon shi passed a door that wasn?t smashed in but simply hung there open. Shi stepped inside and hir blue eyes went wide. It was the room that shi woke up in every time shi had the nightmare with the Lupe female turning to ash, but this didn?t feel like a nightmare. Shi walked the room and looked over the dusty objects that were left behind. Some of them came to hir mind as shi looked.
A ring of mythril twined like vines with leaves of gold on it caught hir eye. Shi picked it up and found the ring magically swell in size until it appeared to be the right size for hir fingers. An inscription was on the inside band of the ring. By Root and Branch, Rowan and Dogwood, May the Bearer be Protected shi read the inscription. Not knowing why shi felt comfortable with the ring Fleety slid it onto hir right ring finger. It felt warm now and shi felt very safe.
Glancing about more, Fleety caught sight of a wand. It was about 12 inches long, made of what shi could only guess was the ivory tooth of a dragon and scribed with whirls and snarling vines. Lifting it up, the wand warmed to hir touch and a voice whispered into hir ears. Welcome back, boy of my master. I have been long forgotten and abandoned. Will you not take me with you?
The talking wand surprised hir. ?Who are you?? shi asked verbally.
I am Drak Faan, wand of Spiritor. Don?t tell me you have forgotten taking me from your father? You were quite devious, a scamp after his heart and more sly than he could imagine.
Fleety stared down at the wand speaking again, finding it odd to be conversing with a wand. ?I think you are mistaken. My father never did magic. He was a farmer.?
A farmer? Hehehehehe that?s a good lie boy, but Spiritor was never one to dirty his paws with soil. Ah I can sense it. A fragile spell has clouded your mind though the fog is clearing. Tell, me boy, what is your name?
?I am not a boy. My name is Fleetian Wolf.? Shi spoke firmly.
Who? Fleetian Wolf? What a load of tripe. You, boy, cause I am far older than you are, are none other than Merlin Spiritor, heir to the magic of Lupinoss. Fleetian Wolf my knobs.
?Merlin?? shi quipped confused. The name sounded odd, though the more shi turned it in hir mind, the more the name felt right, like a warm coat that was forgotten on a cold night. But that wasn?t hir name, was it? Shi was born a Wolf and raised on a farm.
My, my, my, you have a lot of nice, rosy memories laid down in that empty head of yours, don?t you? Must say though from those memories you did make a fair farmers hand but you were an apt pupil of magic before this mockery of a life.
Fleety stared at the wand again and growled. ?What do you know of anything? You are just a wand of magic in some dream I am having.?
Oh, you?re having a dream? How do you know? Does this place look like it is a dream? Were not the nightmares you had of you being a young child, in a male body, searching for a mother your mind refuses to believe? Come now, Merlin. You are smarter than this. You are a Spiritor, not some wishy washy Wolf.
The comments sparked a bit of anger in hir. ?You?re lying. I am not a Spiritor. I am nothing like those self serving, magic wielding murderers. This is just a dream and I will wake up.?
Yes, you may wake up, and greet your mate who is a Spiritor. Odd choice for a Wolf to mate a Lupe of their hated enemy, don?t you think? As for lying, I cannot lie. Objects of magic are restrained to telling the truth. Though I could prove to you who you are, but the fog in that empty head is clearing. I?d rather watch you stumble around and find the truth on your own. Take me with you and I can offer hints to keep you from getting lost on the dark and twisted trail you have stepped onto.
Fleety tilted hir head looking at the wand again for a long, long moment. This dream was getting more bizarre every minute. But if the wand wanted to come along and could prove helpful shi couldn?t complain. ?Very well, I seem to remember this place as Wolf Keep, but I have never been here before. Where am I really?? shi asked looking around the room more.
This is Wolf Keep, or what?s left of it. You may think you are sleeping, but really, your body is wherever you left it and you are now walking in the world of souls. Watch your step, and remember this, things found in this realm can be taken back to your body when you wake, but you can only take 5 things. Remember that. Only 5 items may you take.
?But, why am I in the world of souls?? shi asked confused. The room held nothing else that caught hir attention. The rest of the items were clothing for a child and toys. Shi left the room and walked the stone hallways.
That?s a simple answer. You have someone to meet here. I wonder who it could be? Heheh.
Fleety regarded the wand a moment as shi walked up a set of a stone stairs bearing soot from a fire and crumbling lightly under hir paws. ?You are a very odd wand. No hints to who I am supposed to meet??
Think, boy. Why would you be here in Wolf Keep? Hmm? Why indeed does your mind produce such accurate memories of a place you?ve lived in for a while yet solemnly deny?
Shi turned those questions in hir mind as the steps led up to another hallway. This one bore the remnants of rotting carpeting and the scattered shards of broken dishes. Something silver and shining dully in the dim light caught hir attention. It was a small chalice in etched with wolves running down a deer on it. Reaching down hir ghostly fingers snatched up the chalice. The weight felt familiar, and the running wolves seemed to race along tirelessly on the chalice and into hir mind.
~~~
Go on Merlin, take the cup. I want you to feel welcome in my keep. You and Alitis will be safe here with me.
A small boy of dark grey markings that seemed similar to Fleety?s mind was before a large Lupinossai male that bore royal vestiges. It was Wolf. But how would shi know this? Wolf was dead while shi was a mere pup playing in dirt? Shi watched the young boy shiver and rub his arms.
Come now Merlin it?s time to eat and you can use your new cup with us. It?ll be warmer dining hall. Winters in Den Wolf can be a bit long, but our summers are just as nice as your homeland of Den Spiritor. I do hope you and your mother will fit in.
~~~
Fleety rubbed hir eyes and the vision that suddenly came to be left just as suddenly. Shi held the chalice and felt something familiar from it. Raising the chalice, shi touched it to hir lips and the memory of watered wine and juice greeted hir ghostly tongue. Lowering the chalice, Fleety stared at it. Shi must have drank from the cup, but how? Shi was not that boy, was shi?
Heheh. You taste the past, do you not, boy? How does it taste? Distant? Near? Faint? Strong? You know that objects do not imbue memories on those who don?t impart that memory. Curious, isn?t it? the wand spoke again.
Still not sure about the memory, though the foundation of hir resolve was crumbling, Fleety took the chalice with hir. Proceeding down the hallway, shi glanced out of the narrow slits in the walls that looked down on a crumbling and overgrown courtyard. No blood was seen; being washed away a century of rain and snow, yet fresh pools of blood seemed to linger there. Stepping to the slit, shi gazed longer on the courtyard. The ghosts of warriors now battled. Red tunic Wolf Fangs against Goldenrod Tunic Spiritor Mages danced to the death in the courtyard. Arrows and magic were traded in stride with mace, staff and naked blade.
Among the fighting shi recognized Wolf taking down mages with ease, by him a squire who shi recognized as a very young Street. Hir brother? A squire to Wolf? That couldn?t be, Street left for the Den Wolf Army when he was 20. The sounds of battle echoed eerily and distantly. Among those sounds was the words of Wolf, Orion, go find Merlin and Alitis. Get them to safety. Flee the keep if you must. The battle faded from view and the courtyard was once again crumbling and overgrown.
That squire who was Street, is named Orion? The name chipped away some of the haze clouding hir mind. Orion, son of Wolf and my stuck up adopted brother. Mother why do I have to be here with him? Orion is nothing more than a spoiled jealous Wolf and he won?t even play with me! All he does is play with swords, follow Wolf like some starved puppy and stares at me like I am some piece of rotten meat.
The words seemed odd to hir yet they resonated with hir mind and soul sounding exactly as if shi said them. The vision of the female Alitis smiling at the young Lupe flowed over Fleety like a warm breeze. Fleety rubbed hir eyes. The realm of souls must be messing with hir mind. Shi pushed one down the hallway and saw a soot covered painting on the wall beside a battered down door. Wiping away the soot revealed a family portrait of Wolf, a female Lupe shi didn?t know, the boy named Orion (or was he really Street?), the female named Alitis, and the boy Merlin all standing together.
A touching family portrait for a mockery of a real family it?s a pity you were brainwashed into the Wolf line of thinking. Do you see how happy the eyes look in on Wolf? Bet the arrogant bastri?i enjoyed the knowledge of holding Spiritor?s mate and first born hostage. Drak Faan cackled within hir head.
Fleety didn?t like how the wand used hir to see things, but shi did gaze at painting for a long moment. Shi noticed something. Wolf had piercing blue eyes, so did Orion, but Alitis and Merlin shared piercing red eyes. Shi just grinned and tapped the eyes on the pictures. ?This is proof I am not Merlin. I have blue eyes, not red.?
Really? You?re going to base your belief on a little thing such as color? Maybe Spiritor isn?t sorry for losing such a dim candle. You of all people should know that changing appearances magically is child?s play! Even a gypsy can do it with a little bit of soul magic.
?You speak ill of me too often. Maybe I should just snap you in half.? Shi growled at the wand.
Now there is the temper and fire I remember, though it?s but a dim spark of the true blaze Merlin kindled deep in his soul. But if you really don?t want to trust my word, walk to a mirror and use a simple revelation spell. Drak Faan quipped snidely.
Carrying the painting with hir, Fleety looked for a mirror and found one inside of a room at the end of the hall. The door was splinted and the remains molding on the floor. A blue carpet that must have looked majestic with a prancing wolf was now faded, thread bare and worn. Entering that room there was a mirror in front of the remains of a wardrobe. Approaching the mirror, shi reached out with a paw and wiped away centuries of soot and grime from the polished silver surface.
Before hir stood a ghostly looking Fleety in red tunic and brown leather pants, piercing blue eyes the only thing that looked living. Staring at the mirror shi spoke. ?Rivas Tanan Tueth.? The image in the mirror wavered a moment and the piercing blue eyes dimmed to show under the icy blue waters a brilliant red waiting to boil out like lava. Shi stepped back with a gasp and the spell faded, the blue eyes brilliant once more, the red gone like a memory.
?This can?t be! I am not a Spiritor. I can?t be one, I mean, yes, maybe I changed my appearance to fit with the other Wolf members but Street has red eyes, not blue. He can?t do magic. He has tried and failed so many times.? Fleety reasoned with hirself.
Hehe. You spent so much time wondering why you could do magic as a Wolf and never once thought about why a Wolf with red eyes, the eyes of a Spiritor, could never do any magic? This is rich. Orion must have messed you up good with all the fairy tales he fed you. Drak Faan said with cold humor.
?No. I refuse to believe any of this yet. If this really happened, that means I would have been, by the looks of the painting 6 or 7 years old and Str? Orion would be 12 at least. All of this smacks of designs beyond to kids mere capacity for strategy.? Shi argued with the wand and the part of hir heart wanting to believe the revelations happening around hir.
The wand was silent, and Fleety smirked. ?No comments for that argument eh?? , shi looked around and noticed another room connecting to the one shi was in. Walking through the door, Fleety was presented with a scene from hir nightmares. There, on a semi-melted marble dais sat the remnants of an ornate throne and on the floor, hardly disturbed this deep within the keep were the white ashy remains of a living being. This was the room shi saw Alitis burned to ash, night after night.
Fleety felt sick and doubled over trying to retch but when you are a soul, puking was not an option. Shi didn?t want to look at the throne, but the sight and the feelings the nightmares drilled into hir mind drew hir attention to it. The nightmare flooded hir mind restoring the appearance of the mahogany throne and the beautiful female Lupe that sat there looking in abject terror at the faded image of Bellaire spouting a gout of dragon fire from his muzzle to wash her in fiery death. The image dissolved when the image of young Merlin cried and ran to the searing hot ashes as Bellaire cast his gaze around as if blind and stormed out of the room.
Ah, so that is what happened the night I was left behind. A true pity to learn of the downfall of Alitis. I suppose the Sellan Witches vanished quickly after the fall of their head witch. On the bright side of things, at least there isn?t a body to bury! Drak Faan sounded way too cheery about such a morbid topic.
Fleety ignored the wand as shi kept staring at the ashes. This was getting too real for hir to keep doubting, but shi didn?t want to believe! How could shi believe in a life shi had little memories of? The notion and the memory of touching the fine, warm ash of what was once mother filled hir mind and soul while the real ash before hir beckoned to be touched, to be consoled. Fleety stood and shuffled over to the ruined dais and knelt by the piled ash.
As if fearing that shi would somehow hurt an already dead being, Fleety lightly touched the ash. Now it can be said that many things hold memories, and many things can trigger the removal of amnesia no matter the cause. The memories held within that powder ash ignited in Fleety?s mind and they burned in hir blood and sang in hir soul.
~~~
Mother? Mother, please don?t be gone! The child cried before the blackened dais. The sounds of Wolf Keep fighting for freedom was drowned out by the rushing fear in the boy. He was alone. Who would protect him now from father?
The mere thought of Spiritor brought to the boy the vivid scene of the dark laboratory, the smell of lamps burning with the oil made from humans and Lupinossai. Rust brown runes in a large summoning circle glowed with eerie white light illuminating the blood stone altar in that laboratory. The altar he was brought before without understanding. How could he understand his father?s cruel intentions that night? He was but 6 years old and just learning magic. Merlin knew little about blood magic, or the paths of obtaining eternal life from one sacrifice every 100 years. Little did he realize that he was the sacrifice for his father, the first one for the many centuries to come.
The crazed, insane gleam in fathers eyes though made Merlin very afraid, even if it was father. The fear grew more when the lab aide started to tie him up and move him for the altar. He watched his father lift a clear glass dagger above his heart, ready to plunge it into Merlin?s heart. But the knife never plunged into his heart. Merlin vaguely remembered finding the courage to scream and the innate gift he was born with the ability to create a sonic blast with his voice had allowed him to escape the lab.
Fragmented bits of memory showed Merlin trembling and telling mother what father tried to do. He remembered her face, the shock that soon was replaced with a dark hatred. Memories of them shouting and arguing, the noise reverberating through the cavernous dwelling. The explosions of magic against witch wards and mother coming in quickly and telling Merlin to gather a few things for a trip and the small amount of courage he had to sneak into that lab again and steal Drak Faan, father?s prized wand. He didn?t know why he chose just the wand, but it seemed to make sense to him in some way that without it, father would be weaker.
Soon, memories of running from home with mothers paw clamped around his own urging him to move faster. Seeing the deserts of Den Spiritor in the blazing sunset soon to be replaced by rolling hill of deep green with the sunrise and the bustle of a huge city in the north of Lupinoss, he shivered cold now from the cooler northlands. Memories of being welcomed to Wolf Keep and that he would have a new brother Orion, and they were both to be squires filled him with awe, wonder, fear, and rebellion at being some warrior instead of resuming training as a mage.
These were all present and warmed by the memory of Alitis, holding him as a newborn pup. Singing him to sleep as he grew, laughing with joy as he did his first magic spell, crying when he got really sick from tainted food and the missed anger of a loving but protective mother.
~~~
Fleety blinked hir eyes as the memories eased in their torrential flood seeing the ash and blackened stone again. Lifting hir paw with the fine gray ash clinging to them, shi bowed hir head and cried. This? was really hir mother and these memories really belonged to Fleety though Merlin was hir name then. The haze of the memory spell was now gone. Shi remembered sitting here; not caring about the world, hir life, or that anyone else existed. Hir whole life was now ash. The only person shi ever cared for as a child was gone.
Through that fog the vague memories of being led away from the Keep by Orion came to hir. How they fled, how he promised to look after hir and never let hir be harmed by Spiritor ever again. Shi even remembered the gypsy camp they went to and the strong magic they used to cover hir memories of being Merlin under a thick warm blanket of nothingness. Hir rightful past no collided with the warm family memories of the lies Orion had spun. Shi wasn?t a farmer with a rare talent for magic. Shi was the son of an insane magical tyrant!
?Why didn?t he just leave me to be found and sacrificed? It would have been kinder to me than this? trap of memories. Had I died, I would no longer feel this heart wrenching pain of watching my mother die.? Fleety wept.
Death is so boring. So final. This way, you can at least take your anger out on people. Be vengeful. Exact a blood toll on the Spiritors, hell even take over the Spiritors and become the great mage yourself! I know the ritual for eternal life. With me, and that spell, you would be unstoppable.
Fleety stared at the wand in horror. This is why shi stole it from father. It was the wand that drove him to insanity and a thirst for power. ?It? was you that made father the tyrant he is!? shi shouted angrily at the wand.
Tsk, tsk. I am merely an object. How can I influence anyone much less a powerful mage. I merely chose to do his bidding as he captured my essence when he slew my mighty body. He was already insane. The illness was just well buried. I helped him uproot it, nurture it, and let it blossom into the fearful flower of power that he was really destined for. I can do so again for you, Merlin. All you have to do is say yes, and I can imprint the spell of immortality on you. Just takes a little sacrifice now and then. Drak Faan said in a cajoling voice.
?I?m already immortal and I did it through hard work. Keep your filthy spell.? Shi snarled at the wand in hir paw.
Have it your way, but one day, you?ll crave power, just like your father. It?s only a matter of time, after all, you are his son, the great Merlin Spiritor. I can wait, till then, I can update your pathetic magical training if you want the lessons. But that is a matter for a later time. I feel someone else wanting your attention. Drak Faan said in a boring tone.
Fleety glanced up and hir eyes went wide. Before hir stood the deathly image of Wolf and he regarded hir with wonder and sorrow.
