Sulos dropped his fork with a grunt of pain and examined with mounting anxiety the red weal left behind on his hand.
The change ... it's coming sooner than I thought...
The maid's head jerked up sharply at the sound of falling silverware, but all she gave him was a suspicious glare. His cloak was well-weatherworn and ample of hood, and he kept his face as deep in shadow as he could, to hastily finish his meal of bread and bean-porrige. No meat.
He hadn't tasted meat for eight years, since he started running, and he kept to this diet strictly. If he ate meat, people would be killed ... when his teeth itched, he avoided even the smell of meat. No matter; there were thousands of other foods just as good. He wiped the bowl clean with the last bit of crust, and wolfed it down as quietly as he could. The other patrons most likely presumed him a coarse hayseed, eating with his fingers like that, but to dine with his gloves on seemed an even worse breach of manners to him. The tavern staff and regulars were watching him more closely than he liked. They knew what was happening tonight ... he could see them guessing at him...
The itchy prickle in his bones grew noticeable, then goading, and suddenly the building seemed far too small and hot and bright. He stood to leave, and began the far-too-long journey to the exit with a pounding heart.
Just walk naturally; they're not hunting you yet. They can't smell what you smell...
A small hand caught his arm and he froze with every hair on end.
"Excuse me sir; would you mind -- "
Of course. He'd only forgotten to pay.
Unthinkingly -- because he'd forgotten to put his gloves on again after dinner -- he slipped a hand into his purse for the coins.
The silver coins.
He dropped them on her tray with an awkward jerk and a small exclamation of pain. It was happening even faster than he'd feared, and the burn was more obvious this time; there were glaring blisters on his fingertips.
"Oh, are you all right -- " the maid was saying, and as she watched his hand and he prayed Nonononono, the bones twitched and changed of themselves, growing longer, denser and more robust. The blisters healed away, and his fingernails thickened, narrowed, curled into claws.
She glanced up under his hood with wide eyes and uttered the only element lacking from a full-blown panic.
"W-werewolf!" She backed into a regular at the bar, and spilled her tray. The coins flickered to rest on the floor. "He's a werewolf!"
Sulos ran. The moon outside was gibbous, brilliant, and rising. He tripped over his cape more than once, at first -- it was made to fit his larger size -- but he pulled down the brim of his cowl and ran faster as his bones streched, his muscles changed. He felt his ears draw up to points, and the old scars on his face throbbed as fangs grew to fill his mouth. The village was small and he left it behind quickly, but a good third of it was chasing him, and the second third was waking up the rest to tell them about it. He ran for the deep woods, the dark, unexplored, taboo areas all forests have. If this one had wolves already, he could use them to mask his trail.
He paused for a few breaths, to hear and smell and feel. His humanity subsided with the straining of his senses, and the change completed itself. He could smell wolves, but it was an old, faint smell; they were too distant to be of use to him. He could hear the village, faintly; there were infants crying. Most keenly he could smell the fresh torches and lanterns of the men entering the woods after him. He flicked an ear, fell to all fours, and fled deeper.
Sulos had no idea his lupine form was still marginally self-aware; all he remembered from it at best were flashes of sensory information. He did not know the men he'd killed were not innocents, nor did he know his beast was still essentially the very core of the man he'd been eight years ago.
The last time he had looked upon a full moon without dread, Sulos had been a priest. He had not been particularly wise or experienced, but skilled, remarkably powerful, and absolutely determined. The last folly of his youth had been the attempted exorcism of a werewolf, in a very typical, very distant farming village with no facilities for dealing with the supernatural, not even a local shaman. This werewolf had been something less than sentient.
He had been mauled, so badly that when he woke the next day he was still being sewn together. The villagers would not put him down or let him die; his station, strength and idiocy had won him too much of their respect, admiration and pity. They had also hoped a priest of his caliber might be immune, but from that point the curse began to sap his magics for the monthly change, and his powers were diminished to a grudging trickle. He could heal small things, still, but the smell of blood affected him in disturbing ways. Dealing with demons was now forever beyond him, since they saw what he was, and simply laughed at him.
Sulos-the-beast sensed the dark heart of the forest ahead, and slowed. Where magic was strong, he felt strong, and this place was very powerful. He wound through the shadowy undergrowth, and came to face the other monster in the forest that night.
There was a woman standing in the ring of trees, the tallest woman he'd ever seen, and she was not dressed for the hunt. She had absolutely no scent.
Woman/human? Sulos-the-beast thought instantly. Elf/giant/whaaat?? He backpedaled briefly, rose on his hindlegs and looked quickly for a way past her, or out, or simply away. She strode toward him on ponderous legs, and too late he realized the shape of the clearing.
Circle magic! Trapped/death!! he panicked.
"Back!" he barked at the woman, cringing away. "Stay back! Go 'way!"
She stood where she was, but he was not put at ease. Her smile was not the comforting type.
... fairy? he wondered nervously. Her shape was unusual for the fey, but her hair was very blonde and her dress was very white and elegant. On the night of a full moon, in the magic-rife heart of an ancient wood, she could have been anything; even, it occurred to some small corner of him, a goblin spinster under a glammer.
"Sulos," she said, and pure fear ripped through him. "You bear the gift of my blood." She reached out to where he cowered against a tree, trying to be invisible. "I am the Beastmaster."
And she touched him.
And the beast melted away like the night; after a disorienting expansion of consciousness, Sulos found himself kneeling on the grass, human, under a full moon. He looked up again with more awe than fear.
"H-how?" was all he could ask.
"My blood is in you," she smiled again. "You are ... one of my creatures."
"But -- " He stood up.
"Hush, time is limited tonight," she explained. "Do you know how rare it is, mortal, for a sorcerer to become a werewolf and still have powers left to use?"
He didn't speak. He'd never heard of such a thing before.
"Do you know how powerful a sorcerer must be, to retain his powers after becoming a werewolf?" she asked.
He shook his head cautiously, like a child. He couldn't take his eyes off her. She reached out again, but this time she only flicked his hood back. He ducked his head, automatically hiding the scars, but she gently turned his face into the moonlight.
"Do you want your old face back, Sulos? Or do you want a new one entirely?"
"What?"
"There is something I want from you, and it is not something that can be taken without permission," the Beastmaster told him. "For this I would give you a new face, a new body, even a new name; I can give you power, strength beyond even what you have now -- I can even give you a new family."
He could hear a dog barking in the distance, but this woman was far more interesting.
"I might seem generous, Sulos, but what I ask is not a small thing," she told him gravely. "I would make you invulnerable, for this thing. I would make you immortal."
"What is it? My soul -- ?" he asked timidly. Her smile was indulgent.
"Silly, you're a werewolf. Your soul is already mine."
The barking dog had drawn closer. It sounded like part of a pack...
Hounds! He looked back over his shoulder. The lamps and torches of the villagers twinkled faintly at him through the trees.
"What do you want?" he asked the woman quickly, since whatever she'd done to him was wearing off, and he could feel fangs filling his mouth again.
"Loyal service," the Beastmaster answered plainly. "For this, I will give you anything you ask, and more. You need never be a beast again," she added, trying to draw his attention from his pursuers. "Be my priest, Sulos."
This last appeal resonated through him, transfixed with terror as he was, watching the hunt approach. He could hear the men with the dogs now, and suddenly remembered that his hood was down and his ears growing pointed.
A priest, again ... if only he could -- He had just turned to draw up his cowl again when the quarrel struck him just inside the left shoulderblade. The impact knocked him forward, off-balance, and for an awful moment he lost all sense of his body in a wave of pain very similar to a lightning strike, but without the scorched smell.
Silver -- silver arrowhead, he realized as he twitched awake -- and found he had landed face-first in the tall woman's bust.
"Uh -- excuse me," he muttered automatically, fighting shock for consciousness. She held him upright as the pain took over, and he felt as if he could almost ... float... She pinched him awake: wholesome, nonlethal pain. Somewhere he could hear humans with torches and pitchforks in the undergrowth.
"Do you trust me, Sulos?" she asked, with all the weight of his decision in her voice. A few more arrows streaked past them. "Will you serve as my priest?"
"Ah -- yes -- I will," he gasped, dazzled with silverbright agonies. She smiled at him, and for a blurry moment he thought she had fangs, too. Then he lost consciousness when she put her arms around him and tore out the arrow.
She put her hands on his throat, still holding him up -- delicacy was required, to prevent excessive damage -- and the villagers blundered up to the edge of the meadow just as she snapped his neck.
Wisely, the humans stopped in their tracks. Something very old and powerful and unknown had just killed their werewolf in front of them, and they knew better than to question any of it. More simply than that, the hounds refused to enter the clearing, and the men took the hint. Half the party concluded that the night's excitement was over, and it was time for them to head back to bed like a bat out of hell.
The Beastmaster ignored them. She snared the flitting spirit of her new priest and quickly set about binding it back into the still-warm body with ties of her own dark power. What remaining mortal witnesses could see was a tall, regal woman holding a dead man. They were never sure afterward whether she kissed him or not, because when the vaporous black mist materialized and began to pour from her body to envelop his, they too decided that bed was certainly a better place to be.
Undisturbed, and with the precious spirit moored safely to her, she set about remaking and perfecting its body. So much power -- and capacity for so much more -- First she swept the lycanthropy from his flesh and added it to this power well. Then for every drop of mortality bleeding from his body, she lavishly poured in her own energies. Torn flesh and broken bone knitted up whole and new, and she turned her attentions to the appearance of the body, slowly letting the spirit trickle back to it.
First of all, the scars had to go; they did not befit a priest. They melted away to fine, flawless skin. His hair did not please her either, so from plain black it became divine, glossy purple. Beauty, she had always felt, ought to proportionately represent power. She was adding finishing touches when he begain to stir -- even as his eyes opened they changed from blue to violet.
"Mnh ... Have I been dreaming?" he murmured, and rubbed his eyes. She released him carefully and let him find his own balance. He felt his face. "I feel strange..." He looked around quickly, at the moon, the forest, the spent arrows in the grass.
One last thing ... what had she forgotten? Of course --
"Your name," she spoke, and his gaze snapped up attentively. "Henceforth your name is Xellos Metallium."
He lit up with recognition.
"Ah! And so it is," he smiled, and bowed to her. "I thank you, Great Lady. My memory at the moment is not particularly sharp." He glanced up at her cautiously from beneath his new bangs. "I ... I am a priest, yes?"
"Yes, you are my priest," she confirmed.
And then he really smiled.