Greywolf

  All eyes went to the young warrior as the prince said, “Alain, I’ll allow it. What have you heard?”

  The man visibly swallowed. “Wolf Mother, I crave pardon for not mentioning this earlier. As we were preparing to come here this morning, my uncle, who serves on the high king’s court and had just arrived for my mother’s funeral tomorrow, told me the high king has turned to the worship of Wotan.”

  “The god of the Germanic tribes?” Storm clouds formed on Prince Balashi’s face. “Why would the high king turn his face from the sky-god?”

  “The priest of Wotan brought him many gifts,” the young noble said in a sardonic voice. “What’s worse, and what I swear I was going to tell the Wolf Mother in private, is that Wotan’s priest has heard rumors that Wolf Brother was with us, and offered my uncle a large weregild in gold if he brought him Wolf Brother’s head.” Asena growled deep in her chest and the young noble said quickly, “I said nothing to him except that we’d speak of it later.”

  “I’ll speak to him later,” Greywolf snapped, the stab of fear he’d felt swiftly turning to anger. “Point out your uncle and I’ll tell him if he wants my head, he’s welcome to try.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Asena snapped back at her son, gripping his shoulder with her black clawed fingers. “Prince Balashi, I need to find a long stone table with a rounded piece of unbreakable black glass sticking out of it. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “The sacred altar where our ancestors communed with the sky-god,” he replied. “Are you saying you’ll be willing to try communing with him yourself?”

  “I’ll do better than that,” Asena snarled. “After I’ve established you as battle commander, or king if you prefer, I’ll check inventory and see what’s available.” Her hand curled into a fist. “But you’ve got to promise me that if you regain the kingship, you’ll carve up anyone devoted to Wotan and piss on their corpses.”

  “I would’ve done that whether you asked me to or not,” Prince Balashi said. “Anyone guilty of worshiping foreign gods is guilty of blasphemy and must be destroyed.”

  “Then show me where this altar is so we can get started.”

  “Follow me.” Prince Balashi strode off into the darkness with Asena easily keeping pace, the rest of the group hurrying after them as they passed another column and stopped in front of a long white table made of the same stone as the trough outside, a round sheet of black glass resembling crystal in the center. Its edges curled backwards and the whole piece had been inserted into the table at a slant, meaning the person using it had to be standing to see its surface.

  On either side of the crystal sat the skull of a horse, with a wolf skull beside it and a bear skull beside the wolf’s. Draped over the skulls were gold medallions on chains, while between and behind the skulls were gold statues of animals and warriors riding Warghorses with bows in their hands, arrows nocked as if ready to shoot. The table was also covered in a layer of dust. “Asena,” Greywolf asked as he took the spot on her left side, the prince already having taken the right, “if the metal spiders clean everything, why’s the floor so spotless and this isn’t?”

  Behind them, the old priest-shaman replied before Asena could. “In the sacred texts it’s written that our first king commanded the metal statues to leave the altar alone and they obeyed him.”

  “He obviously knew the command words,” Asena said absently as she made a fist and rapped the surface of the glass with her knuckles. “If the portal doesn’t wake up, I’ll call one of the spiders over and ask it to—”

  A white square the size of a small fingernail appeared on the surface near the top. After a moment it began disappearing and reappearing like a rapidly blinking eye, and after a few more moments the square began forming strange, white symbols as it moved across the black surface. It stopped and Asena smiled, placing both of her hands palm down below the symbols while leaning forward. A red light flashed.

  Then the line of symbols vanished as the white square returned to its original spot and began forming lines of new symbols at a rapid rate. Behind them, the nobles began muttering among themselves as Greywolf leaned forward, fascinated as row after row of symbols appeared. “What is all this?”

  “Once the portal knew who I was from the hand print and eye scan,” Asena said, a note of satisfaction in her voice, “it automatically started giving me an updated status on…” She glanced at the prince, who was staring at the symbols as well. “On what parts of the sacred mountain can still be used.”

  The prince looked up from the black surface. “Do you mean there are areas of the sacred mountain we are forbidden to use?”

  “Not forbidden,” Asena replied, seeming to choose her words with care, “but the less important parts have been used to keep the rest of it going.” Her arm swept outward. “All this was meant to last a long time, but nothing lasts forever, and the metal spiders knew which parts needed to be functional for as long as possible and would take parts from non-essential areas when something in an essential area broke down.”

  Both the prince and the nobles gave Asena puzzled looks as Greywolf said, “If I’m understanding this, it’s like you’ve got a chainmail shirt that needs repair and a child’s chainmail shirt no one’s using.”

  The prince’s face lit up. “So, you take the links from the child’s shirt and use them to repair your own. Now this makes sense.”

  Asena gave her son a rare nod of approval before turning back towards the rounded glass. ‘Fortunately for us, this area was given priority and all its systems are go,” she said as the symbols vanished and the white square reappeared near the top. “Before we begin, I’m going to give us more light to see by.”

  Asena spoke a few words in that flowing language, and as a new line of symbols followed after the white square across the smooth black surface, a deep humming sound began growing in intensity around them. Then strange lanterns above them began glowing with a dim light that got steadily brighter until the area around them could be seen plain as day.

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  The nobles gasped and made comments in their language as they pointed at the area beyond the altar, and Greywolf moved to his left so he could see. Several horse-lengths beyond sat a silvery metal pedestal as wide as a Scythian was tall, with four metal pillars holding a metal top like a conical hat right above it. Beyond the pedestal was a long building one story tall, with a wide entrance and narrow stalls set into the back wall. Prince Balashi said, “That building… was this once a stable?”

  “One of several,” Asena replied, pointing at more buildings beyond the first, going off into darkness. “This is where your ancestors lived during the Prince’s war.” She continued speaking to the portal in front of her as Greywolf looked up at the pillar at the edge of the soft light. Along with more strange symbols, these painted on its surface and faded, there was a life-sized image of a Warghorse rider holding a lightning bolt in one hand and a sword in the other. “That was the emblem of your ancestor’s unit,” Asena said as she pointed towards the pillar.

  Then she motioned back towards the black glass. “Prince Balashi, if you’re ready, I’ve been able to make contact with your sky-god.” Both Greywolf and the prince broke off staring at the emblem and moved back in front of the black glass where a pair of glowing hands had replaced the symbols. “The sky-god has decided the time has come for the true king to take command, and according to the portal, I will be able to provide not only you, but several others with enchanted armor and weapons.”

  The prince’s eyes went wide. “Enchanted? How?”

  “By a process that’s no longer able to be duplicated here,” Asena replied. “They are relics of the Prince’s war, and with luck will give you the edge to defeat this false high king. But first,” she said, motioning towards the screen, “you must place your hands upon the glowing ones and lean in so the sky-god can look deep into your soul.” He hesitated, and Asena added, “It won’t hurt, I promise.”

  Taking a deep breath, Prince Balashi took the spot in front of the black glass as Asena stepped away, and tentatively placed his hands on the glowing hand prints, leaning forward to do so. “Wolf Mother, how long－”

  A flash of red flared across the surface of the glass and the prince gave a cry of alarm as did some of the nobles, the prince snatching his hands away as the glowing hand prints vanished. The old priest-shaman rushed forward to examine Prince Balashi’s palms while Asena moved back in front of the black glass and began speaking to it once more. The white square formed new line of symbols which vanished when Asena spoke, then created a new line, the back and forth going on several more times.

  Then the shield emblem, with the Warghorse rider wielding a lightning bolt and a sword, appeared, along with Prince Balashi’s face. The nobles, who had all extinguished their torches Greywolf noticed, came closer, their faces awe-struck as Asena said, “Targitaus, the one you know as your sky-god, wants to talk to you, and suggested I have my son sit in the Chair of Knowledge so Greywolf’s understanding of Greco can be transferred over to him.”

  Greywolf reared back. “You mean I’ll have to learn Greco all over again?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Asena growled, giving him a cross look. “The device will read your mind as it’s teaching you the Celestial tongue. It’s also going to run a few tests on you that I’ve asked it to do.”

  “What kind of tests?” Greywolf asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “Tests that’ll give me the answers your father never did.” Without explaining further, she turned towards the others. “Once the sky-god understands Greco, his image will appear over there,” her black clawed hand pointing at the pedestal. “He’s going to have questions about your people’s history and culture, but he will also tell you about your ancestors and the tactics they used to help us win the war. You should see him fairly soon.” Asena looked at Greywolf. “Come on.”

  Asena led him away from the altar and deeper into the fortress, towards a multi-story white stone building with a light burning in a window on the ground floor. When they were out of earshot, Greywolf asked, “Are they really going to meet this Targitaus?”

  “His avatar,” she replied. “To understand a language, the device sorts through all your memories so it not only knows the language, but its nuances. It can then create an avatar, an image of you as you are right now, as it did with Targitaus on his deathbed. However, because its part of the portal system, it can learn new things.”

  “Which is why it’s going to ask them questions.” Asena nodded, and Greywolf said, “If this thing’s going to rummage through my memories, will I be alright afterwards?”

  “You’ll be back to your obnoxious self by the end of the day.”

  “Like you’d want me to be any other way.” Asena snorted but didn’t contradict him, and after a moment he asked, “Is the stuff the prince’s going to get really enchanted?”

  Asena snorted even louder. “Enchantment’s just a word for objects made from a craft long lost. The armor’s a standard battlesuit, which is light and flexible but strong enough to stop anything short of a boulder from a catapult, while the battle-lance discharges an explosive ball of fire. Fully charged, it holds a hundred rounds, but can only be recharged here. And I’m not sure for how much longer.”

  “What if someone takes it away from the prince? Could they use it against him?”

  “Not a chance,” Asena said as she shook her head. “The lance is coded only to its owner, and if its taken away from him while its active, it self-destructs once the battle-lance can no longer detect its owner. It can be deactivated if someone knows the code, but if they don’t…” Greywolf made the sound of an explosion and Asena bared her fangs in a smile. “We took out scores of Daemo with those whether the soldier was alive or not.”

  “And now Prince Balashi’s about to launch a new war using the same weapons.”

  “Don’t remind me.” They reached the multi-story building and went inside the open doorway. The room they entered was large, taking up most of the bottom floor, with rows of the same stone tables holding black glass while another piece of black glass several horse-lengths long was attached to the wall. “This used to be the command center,” Asena said, looking around as she slowly shook her head. “This was the place where we planned the missions and kept track of the war’s progress.” She sighed. “When the war ended, the Celestials who left this world were sick unto death of fighting, and couldn’t understand why some of us remained behind.”

  Leaning against one of the tables, Greywolf said in a quiet voice, “Why did you?”

  “There was nowhere else for me to go. I was bred for battle, just like the rest of my Wolf-warrior sisters, and the handful of us still alive at the end decided it was better to stay here than face a life of being pitied for what we were.”

  This is new. “I thought there wasn’t anyone else like you.”

  “There isn’t, not anymore.” Asena shook herself before heading towards a doorway in the back of the room. “Let’s get this over with so I can shake the dirt of this place from my boots.” Greywolf pushed himself off the table and followed her into a much smaller room with a metal chair in the center. Above it was a large dome of deep blue glass like an inverted bowl, which Greywolf had to duck underneath to sit in the chair. “We used to use this both as a way of teaching new recruits quickly, and extracting information from human prisoners of the Daemo.”

  With his head completely covered by the bowl, Greywolf couldn’t see a thing. “Huh. Why would humans fight alongside the Daemo?”

  “Why do you think the Daemo began crafting themselves into exotic females? Alright, the device will start up any moment. Just relax, and let it…”

  Asena continued speaking, but a low humming began all around him as the blue intensified, and a moment later pulled him in.