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The Day Shamani Came
Silvan Arown Elendal
The Day Shamani Came
I hear the shout long before I see him. I am scanning in a four pack of baked beans, midway through sale and conversation with a very nice middle aged lady who is telling me all about the antics of her little black cat Murphy and his three sisters. She is one of my regular customers, one who I see every week without fail. She always comes to my till, no matter how long the queue. It’s nice to see a friendly face.
“SILVAN!”
I jump at my name and freeze, the till scans the product two times too many. That is not the name I am known here by and that is not the voice of one of my supervisors. It is a voice I have only ever heard in my dreams. Everyone looks around, the shout was loud enough to be heard over the entire store. One of my fellow cashiers who knows my odd habit of names looks at me warily.
He comes bolting round the corner from the information desk, who have, I assume, refused to tell him where I am. It takes me a second, but it is obvious who this man is. The skin tight suede clothes, the long silver hair flying, the light step, and those beautiful, worrying inverted grey eyes that fix on me from a distance and send my heart into my mouth. Shamani Zirishiri. My hand goes to my throat, feeling not only the silver wolf I always wear but the white crystal on its black ribbon which I put on this morning without quite knowing why. Here is my reason. The beautiful pale man comes to a halt at my till, his hair settling back into place on an unearthly breeze. He is taller than I expected, but just as slim as I saw him in my mind and just as powerful. Storm energy comes rippling off him in lightening crackles.
“Silvan!” He sounds relieved and out of breath and I know that this is an act, Shamani never gets out of breath, mostly because he doesn’t need to breathe.
“S-Sha…” I am having trouble saying his name out loud.
“If you had to come away with me now, would you?” My strange angel looks more scared than anything I’ve ever seen or imagined, “I need your help Silvan.”
It’s about now that my supervisor comes rushing over. She looks calm and confident. I hate her.
“Eli? What is going on, who is this man?”
I make no attempt at a constructing an answer, let alone a lie.
“Eli, continue with this sale. Sir you will have to leave the store, you are causing a disturbance. We’re very sorry madam,” she says belatedly to my customer as she takes Shamani’s elbow, “This way please sir.”
He jerks out of her grip and my customer turns to me.
“Is he a friend of yours dear?”
“Yes.”
“Well then…”
Shamani looks me, distraught.
I know what I should do. I have a job, a life. I should finish this sale and continue onto the next one, I should provide wonderful customer service and go home at the end of the day. But I’m looking into Shamani’s eyes, eyes I have longed to see. The white pupils, the grey irises, the black whites. Eyes stranger than life.
“Please,” he pauses and speaks in a low voice, full of meaning, “My Lord Silvan Arown Elendal. I need you guidance.” Magic words and I’m lost.
“Sorry Ma’am,” I say to my customer, who merely smiles and nods. I get up, leaving the sale and the till exactly as they are. My supervisor grabs hold of me.
“Where do you think your going?”
I rip my arm from her grip.
“I’m needed,” I said, then turned to my black clad saviour, “You’d better have some more clothes for me, where are we going?”
Shamani smiles.
“Kieran needs us, he’s lost.”
In that moment the chase begins and all thoughts of continuing my former life have fled from my brain, I doubt they will ever return.
It seems that my strange friend has already taken the liberty of going to my house and picking up my stuff, he has chosen the selection with remarkable cleverness on his part. I wonder if my mind has been read. This is what I would take if I were me. In the narrow cubicle I scramble into my favourite black jeans, well worn brown Bellx1 t-shirt and my big black Rammstein hoody. He’s also packed by walking boots, extra socks, and a few more t-shirts. I smile, slip on fingerless gloves and pocket wallet, knives and phone. He’s also slipped in my slim grey backpack. The front section is full of various sweets and chocolate, two bottles of water in the side pockets and my passport. In the main section have been carefully packed my red Calgary fleece blanket, big enough for three, my journal and pens and the only book I cannot live without. Venus As A Boy. Shamani knows me better than he ought.
I slip into the seat opposite him and break open a chocolate bar. I offer him some, but he refuses. He has tied back his hair, plaiting the heavy length into a single braid, which lays coiled around his neck like a dormant snake. Shamani’s hair falls almost to his ankles.
“How did you find me?”
Shamani gazes levelly at me, knowing I already know the answer.
“I always know where you are. And you helped me. You wore Zirishiri.”
I clutch again at the crystal round my neck. It belongs to Sha, this I have always known but never really understood until know, as his slender fingered hands, deathly pale and translucent, undo the black studs at his collar, parting the front of the suede shirt. The sight of his skin, taught smooth and velvety makes me gulp. At the base of his throat is a white mark like a burn. It looks like a star. It is where Zirishiri should be hanging. I remove the pendant from my neck and very cautiously place the loop of the ribbon round his neck. He tightens it and the crystal hangs in place. He buttons his shirt back up.
“Thank you,” His voice is soft and low, respectful and grateful. I want to hold the warmth of it in my hands and press it to my chest until it melts into my skin.
He rummages around inside the duffel at his side, searching hidden compartments I had not thought to look in. He brings out a pocket guide of London which I take without a word. Two pale, beautiful silver daggers are pushed toward me across the table. I take them quickly. They are enclosed in black leather sheaths, designed to hang inside my boots. I secure them, marvelling at how well they conceal themselves.
“Those two are real, they can be seen by anyone, this however can only be seen by people like us.”
From a brown leather sheath on the table between us he draws the most beautiful dagger I’ve ever seen.
“Where did you get that?”
Shamani smiles.
“I stole it from your imagination.”
This is the knife given to Kieran and I by Clef over a year ago now. It is beautiful, unusually long, almost a dirk, and gently curved. The blade is silver and the hilt is bound in blood red leather. A winged star is carved into the blade near the base and a glowing gem is mounted within it. The hilt is decorated with golden sun rays falling on oriental enamelled smoke clouds My mouth forms a silent ‘o’, for while this is my knife, it is a surreal gift of figment air. A wish for a gift, not a solid object. Now I curve my hand around it, aware of just how weird this must look to anyone watching and feel the weight of it. I slip the dagger back in its sheath and strap it to my side.
We spend the rest of the journey in silence. Shamani has our tickets and I sit staring at the scenery flashing by, knees drawn up to my chest, thinking. With my headphones on, rock and metal blasting away, I feel detached from this midmorning Saturday train ride. What have I done? I’ve abandoned my job, my family; my mother will be there to pick me up in an hour and I won’t be there, my friends, what’s going to happen to them, to me? How is Shamani here? As far as I know he has never existed before in the corporeal. His former form was without weight of substance. He sits stock still in his seat, back straight, eyes closed, hands spread palms down on the table before him. He has become a statue. This all seems so unreal, like a dream. I feel like I’m not here. If I reached out to touch him, I’m sure his image would vanish as quickly as he appeared. I watch the abandoned Battersea Power station drift by and remember my dream at turning it into a huge hotel-club for goths, gays, ponces and anyone else I deem worthy. It would be lovely. The sky is clouded over.
In Victoria I start to worry. The bustle and rush seems to be everywhere but us. The crowd parts and splits without anyone noticing, giving us our own personal space. Are we still real? Have I died?
“Wait!” I stop and someone collide with me, almost knocking me to the floor. Shamani turns to look at me, a bundle of limbs, picking myself up and brushing the dust off my jeans. People still part around him like a pebble in a stream.
“Are you real? Can you be seen?”
“Yes.”
“Prove it.”
He doesn’t even blink, just walks up to the nearest stationary person, staring at the timetable and asks what the time is. Just like anyone else would be, he is impatiently directed to the large clock on the wall. The digits are four feet high in fluorescent yellow. Shamani shrugs at me. It is proof enough as someone bangs their suitcase on wheels into his legs and moves on without apologising.
I approach him.
“I know what you’re doing.”
“Of course you do,” He isn’t being condescending, that’s not his way.
“You’re predicting their movements, you’re using the Way aren’t you?”
Shamani gives me a roguish smile.
“Only a little bit.”
We continue to walk through the station, taking the tube to Kensington. Where there is enough air to talk and breath at the same time, we make a weird conversation.
“It’s all true isn’t it?”
“You’ve always known it so haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why does it surprise you?”
“I wasn’t having doubts.” My hot answer is a lie.
“Indeed.”
“Then where is he?”
“Who?”
“Kieran.”
“I told you, lost.”
“But I thought he was with me.”
“No. You could only feel him.”
“He didn’t feel afraid.”
“He doesn’t know he’s lost yet.”
“Oh,” then, “And everyone else?”
“All in their separate houses. Some are here.”
“In London?”
“On Earth.”
“What about Kasumi?”
He freezes and I judge that this is still a sensitive topic. I cover with something else.
“Where are your wings?”
“Hiding, I wanted to keep us from being arrested. I hope you don’t mind.”
“What about me?”
He frowns.
“Do I have my powers?”
“Just look at yourself.”
He waves me to a reflective window and I look between the crowd to find myself. And I do. Eighteen years old with shoulder blade length brown hair and acid green eyes. And taller, and male. Slim and holding myself proudly. Oh gods… I pull aside my blue wristband to find a white scar across my wrist, one that wasn’t there this morning, and in the middle of the street I lift my shirt to stare at the wolf’s head tattoo silhouetted against a black moon on my flat hip. Oh shit…
“Welcome to the new world Sir.” Shamani smiles and I follow him home, too bewildered and scared to do anything else. I just got what I always wished for.
The Kensington apartment is everything I knew it would be. Big, clean and stylishly bare. There are plenty of personal touches, but everything about this place speaks of someone who isn’t here often. Everything is top of the range and ultra modern, but then I always knew Shamani had a lot of money. As the door swings shut behind us Shamani removes his suede shirt and flings it into the washing basket just inside the bathroom door. With a strange sticky splitting sound his wings appear, from out of his back or nowhere, I’m not sure. He’s probably been hiding them in another dimension. They are huge, bigger than he is tall, and jet black with long wide feathers. They are the most graceful things I have ever seen. He flaps them open, although flap is far to crude a word to describe the movement. They move like liquid silk. Shamani turns to face me.
“What do you think?
I make a small “uungh” noise, looking at him semi naked is doing strange things to my new anatomy.
He shows me around the apartment. Big living room, spotlessly clean kitchen, bathroom, and Shamani’s room complete with impossibly large white bed. He needs the space for his wings. There are three spare rooms, the largest of which already seems to be inhabited, although no one is there. The next room is mine. It is decorated in plain off white with a big double bed, a desk and very little else. I plead exhaustion and Shamani leaves me be. I pull off my boots and hoody, drop my bag and fall onto the bed. I’m not really tired. As I curl up I can hear Shamani moving about in the other rooms, starting to do things about dinner. I don’t know what I’ve got myself into. Before I know it my vision is clouded, green eyes shrouded in silent tears I cannot control. Big boys don’t cry. I let them course down my cheeks. Scared and excited all at once. There is so much I don’t understand.
I think I eventually fall asleep because I open my eyes what seems like hours later to find Shamani staring back at me. He smiles softly and my eyes focus on a shadow behind him. There is a boy standing in the doorway. He is about my age with fair skin, jet black eyes and long raven black hair. He loops some of it behind his left ear and I see the long burn scar running down his neck. Beautiful, scarred Draven. His face breaks into a grin.
“Sil!” he comes forward, Takes my shoulders and embraces me like a long lost brother, “It’s so good to finally see you.”
“And you Draven,” I reply, “How have you been?”
As I already knew Draven was badly injured at Christmas in a snowboarding accident. All the broken bones are fixed now, but he has a metal plate in his back where his shoulder blade snapped. He pulls his shirt up and turns around to show me the neat little scar, so very different from the ruin on his neck that only serves to make him more hand some. Dinner is ready and we eat it in the kitchen, sitting on stools at the little breakfast bar.
Draven wolfs down two burgers and chips drowned in ketchup. Shamani eats slowly at a plate of freshly carved fruits and some spiced apple. I hardly have the heart to eat, but the steaming pile of honey ribs is too much temptation and my empty stomach gets the better of me. In half an hour all the bones are picked perfectly clean. I let the last one fall to the plate and begin licking my fingers. Draven goes to watch TV and I help Shamani clear away. Draven’s easy touchy-feely manner has made something painfully clear to me. Shamani has not yet touched me.
“Sha?” I somehow cannot bring myself to say his full name, “Why is this happening?”
He flexes and shrugs with his wings while running the water to wash up, there is no point putting so little in the dishwasher.
“There is a time for everything. Your time is now.”
My eyes widen slightly and I feel him, pressing against my mind. Slowly I reach out mentally and take hold of his presence. Kieran can read thoughts, I can only sense emotions, but Shamani is closed to me, I meet a cold hard wall in his head. I don’t have the will or the power to block out his invasion and instead I open the flood gates on my subconscious and let him in. All my hopes and fears lain out for his delectation. There is one hovering above all the others.
“Silvan. There is a full moon tonight. You will Turn. You know the rules.”
Of course. I am bitter. I have full control over when I change except for tonight. Tonight I must Turn. It is law.
“It will be hard for you. You’ve never Turned before.”
I nod gritting my teeth, prepared to wait out the long evening ahead.
It gets dark around nine these days and by that time I am in my room, having said goodnight to the two in the living room. I can hear the sound of the TV blasting out rock videos. I strip out of all my clothes, fold them and get onto the bed. I lie on my front with my arms above my head and measure my breaths. I’ve no idea how to make myself change, not yet, I’m still getting used to my body. I’ll have to wait for the moon to take hold of me.
It happens so fast I am breathless. The moons energy, coming from somewhere since there are clouds tonight and the blinds are closed, hits me and makes my heart stop. Every nerve on fire, every muscle screaming. I almost don’t notice that I raise my head and roar at the ceiling. Then someone is beside me, I feel Shamani covering my body with his own, wrapping strong arms around my shaking form as the change takes hold for the first time of my life. His presence at my back is warm, reassuring and without words, without thoughts I feel the enchantment in his skin, that left over Angelic power. It tells me in silent white noise that everything will be fine, he’ll protect me. I go blind, I lose all feeling and then after an eternity in the dark numb blackness of my soul everything rushes back ten fold. Shamani lets me go and stands up. I raise my head, very slowly, And look in the mirror at myself.
A wolf. A big wolf, but a wolf. I have grey fur and a black stripe running from my moist nose to my tail. My eyes are burning red, like I always knew they’d be. I yawn and try to stand, suddenly having to coordinate four feet and a tail. I can feel my ears swivel and twitch. This is amazing. Silently I look at Shamani and ask a question which he answers out loud.
“More concentration is needed to get your half wolf form, you need more practice. Stay like this tonight. Come, join us.” Shamani turns to go and I jump down off the bed and walk with him, though not at his heels. This close to the ground I can see clearly, that Shamani’s bare feet do not quite touch the ground.
Draven makes a big fuss of me and pets my ears. I curl up with him on the sofa, enjoying this easy intimacy. I can’t watch the television and I find that I have to actively tune into the conversation. There are so many new smells and sounds. I can hear car doors slamming several streets away. A ladybird is walking across the leaf of a potted plant next door. Eventually it is time to go to bed and almost automatically I follow Draven into his room. He gets changed, almost unaware of me as he strips off and gets into bed. I leap up and curl into a furry ball at the end of the bed. He grunts and rolls over.
“Sil?”
I lift my head and cock an ear towards him.
“What are you doing down there?”
I take this as a sign that I’ve done wrong and slink off the bed. I can’t leave the room though, the door is closed.
“Come here,” Draven says sleepily and opens his arms. In my mind I smile and thank him, curling up with him snuggled against my back.
I’m shit scared and I try to pull away too quickly. He wakes with a snort and turns his head, long hair flopping everywhere to look at me.
“Mornin’ pretty one,” he murmurs, “You sleep OK?”
I can’t speak and I can feel the blush spread across my cheeks. Realisation dawns on him and he smiles. Draven snakes a hand down in between us and touches me gently. My back stiffens. Oh gods… His hand on me feels fantastic but I’m still scared and shaking a little. Where did he learn to do that? It takes all my self control to pull away from him saying;
“No…stop, wait Draven…”
He stops and let’s go, rolling over to look at me, his hand lingering on my thigh.
“Sil?”
I’m fighting back sudden tears, too confused to move, and too scared of rejection to stop him if his tries to touch me again. He doesn’t, but pulls me into a tight embrace, much like he did when I was a wolf.
“It’s OK Sil, you don’t have to be scared.” My hot tears land on his shoulder and I dig short blunt fingernails into the muscle of his back. He pulls back to look at me and wipes my tears with his thumbs. I sniff and look away from those intense black eyes. Draven takes my chin and makes me look at him.
“Maybe you should, y’know,” he searches for the right words, “Find out about your body for yourself yeah?”
I nod mutely and Draven lends me his dressing gown while I run across the hallway to my own room to get dressed.
Turns out that Shamani has gone to work, leaving us a note with a short list of jobs to do and a parting message that simply says ‘don’t worry’. Part of me wants to hit my absent companion. I came because Kieran was in trouble, and now I’m being made to wait. We eat breakfast in a slightly uncomfortable silence and Draven takes me shopping. With my new body, the clothes I brought with me don’t really fit that well anymore. I’m kitted out with the full set, t-shirts, jeans, jacket, a full black suit with three shirts and four ties and new shoes, black leather boots and a long black coat. It is hot in the city and we spend half an hour in a little café watching everyone rush by. Draven seems easy and confident, a stark comparison to my still shattered nerves.
Most strange is the people of the city. I always knew they were there, I could sense them, just a little bit, hazy colours showing up on my radar. But now I can see clearly. A twelve foot long snake with green eyes and blue scales swims along the Serpentine river, a child of the leviathan that lives beneath. There are human-esque animal hybrids, people with wings who are not angels and many more besides. We are approached by a sharp suited vampire and asked for directions. When he sees me he smiles and brings me greeting from his clan, the long name of which I do not catch. This continues and I am approached by many of these other worldly creatures and given greetings. I’ve almost forgotten why. A little boy, barely ten years old who looks human enough to me strolls down the road holding a smoking black demon’s hand and chattering away. The demon smiles at me with scarlet eyes as we pass.
Back at Shamani's beautiful apartment I shower while Draven makes coffee. Washing my new body kind of brings the changes I have under gone into a more harsh light. I am amazed by myself, the hard muscle and bone, the new scars and the odd rat’s tail of hair that trails up to my navel. I try desperately to ignore the weight that hangs between my thighs. When I emerge, drippy but clean in non-descript black from my room Draven is talking to somebody. I catch a flash of white above the back of the sofa.
“Ade?” The angelic looking demon stands up and greets me with a massive smile.
“Silvan my dear!” He takes my hand and kisses the knuckle gently, “Welcome back. It is so good to see you again.” I don’t react to this, obviously there are memories of my own I do not posses yet. Dressed all in shining white robes Ade sits forwards at the edge of the sofa, his wings folded to one side, The silver feathers fascinate me and I long to touch them. I don’t, knowing who sensitive and intimate that would be. The conversation loses me quickly and I drift off into day dreams and finally exhausted sleep.
“He’s exhausted,” Shamani, with cool confidence, “His Turn took a lot out of him. Poor thing. I’m not so surprised.”
“He seemed really out of it today.”
“He’s just confused. Has he eaten?”
I can almost hear Draven’s uneasy silence.
“We didn’t get round to lunch.”
Shamani sighs and a moment later I hear him leave the room. Draven’s hand is warm against my cheek. I can feel his breath, he must be close. His lips are on mine and before I even register the movement I’ve opened up to him and the quick flicker of his questing tongue. He breaks the kiss and I open my eyes and sit up. I’ve been taken back to my own bed.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” he says, “You OK?”
My stomach growls loudly, answering for me.
“Ade left a couple of hours ago. He sends his love and gives you this.” Draven hands me a little silver box with curling vines carved into it. It is lined with purple velvet and inside are two feathers. One of Ade’s long and silver and one of his younger brother’s. Nassau’s feather is orange gold and bronze, a wish feather. There is also a large gold coin like a medallion. On one side are a pair of wings on the other, crossed swords and fire. The only word around the rim reads ‘Lucifer’. I smile weakly. This is a gift from their father, the man himself.
“Nice,” murmurs Draven with a short smile, “Dinner soon, come on kiddo.”
The surreal nature of the life I am now living takes hold when the phone rings and I answer it unthinkingly to hold a five minute conversation with a woman called Baal who is apparently a leopard. I hand the phone to Shamani and go and lie down.
Shamani has to go out a while later and Draven paces around for a while before appearing in my doorway. I am lying on my bed, reading the only book I now have. It is a great comfort. I have read this book far too many times. It is an obsession and while I’ve never read anything else by this author I would hail him as a god. But I know better.
We walk around the flat together in a strange sort of way. I’m drifting, not quite sure of where or when or who I am. Despite his technologically perfect apartment Shamani owns no music or films. Neither of us feel like reading anything anymore.
“You wanna go out?”
“Are we allowed?”
“Sure, I have house keys, and its goth night at Ozun.”
“I’ve nothing to wear.”
Draven smiles.
“I’ll get you kitted out.”
Whiskey shots at the bar followed by a long cold something with apple liquor in. The girl along the bar, a pretty little goth thing, buys me another and we talk, mostly lip reading when even yelling isn’t loud enough. Eventually she pulls me onto the dance floor. I’m a gawky kid all over again, totally unsure of where to put my hands or where to look since the UV lights have made her top really see through which I think was the intention. Next song starts up and there’s a mosh pit all around us, she drags me away to the bar again and just as I’m starting to feel like an accessory someone’s arms snake round me from behind. I tilt my face up to see deep hazel-blue eyes staring down at me. The vampire Ranyah smiles a white fanged smile and whisks me away to the next floor. All the lights in here are red and the music is heavier all round. We go over to a little round table where Ranyah is sharing a bottle of JD with his companion, the fiery haired Reid who, a year or so later down the line, is looking very comfortable in black and chains. Ranyah swigs every now and then from a slim silver hipflask. He offers it to me and hunger like nothing I’ve ever known unfurls deep in my belly. The blood on my tongue is surprisingly warm, my vision goes cloudy with just that one sip. Ranyah takes the flask back.
“Easy tiger,” he murmurs, “Start you off slow, ya?”
Reid and I chat while Ranyah dances, swaying to the music like it’s flowing through his soul, looking inspiringly beautiful without his shirt on. We talk easily, Reid, a human, is good company and easy on the eyes. He talks mostly, I am quiet, unsure of myself in company. The moon is only one day past full and I do not know if I have escaped its sway. Ranyah begs his mate away from me and they move off with their beautiful goodbyes and friendly kisses. Reid’s black lipstick print on my cheekbone.
The company shifts as the evening wears on, people come and go in the noise and gloom. Ranyah left me the bottle of JD and I work my way down it until my throat burns. I look for the gents. This is something new that I have never understood, relieving yourself in company. None of the cubicles have doors anymore. I stand at the steel trough and observe two boys pressed against the white tiled wall, mouths locked together. I unzip and frown, touching myself in any way just seems so strange. I finish up and flush, wash my hands in the blocked sink and leave, accosted on the stairs by a big guy asking for some skins. I don’t smoke, I tell him and hurry on. My head feels heavy and I want to go home, but I don’t know where Draven is. I fall back onto the little sofa by the round table, and quarter of JD still hooked in my arm, relax against the headrest.
When I wake my head is pounding. Draven is standing over me and the music is slow and subdued, people are leaving. I can’t hear what he’s saying. I catch “fuck” a couple of times, and “four in the morning” once. He picks me up, getting under my shoulders and heaving me to my feet. I can hardly see, the world is spinning. With the help of another clubber he gets me down the stairs and out the door, the cold air is like a slap in the face and I blink a couple of times.
“You idiot. You have to try and drink yourself to death the first time you go out?”
I groan a reply.
“Shit,” Draven shakes his head, long hair falling everywhere, and together we lurch unsteadily down the road. A few blocks later and I pull away from him, ducking into a side alley to throw my guts up into a dumpster. I’ve hardly eaten anything. Draven silently hands me a small bottle of warmish water which I gulp down furiously. At least I can balance a little better now, even though my head still pounds.
We make it back OK, Draven still moaning about it being so late and that we’ll be in shit when Shamani finds out. But at the same time he’s understanding. He doesn’t know the pain I’m going through in my mind as I try to adjust, but he feels for me. I’m aware that instead of putting me in my room Draven takes me to his own and places me on the bed. He fetches water and paracetamol which I take without words. He pulls off his boots and shirt and turns to me. I only lie there, sleepy and aching and confused as he takes me out of my boots, then my shirt, fingers tracing lines across my chest that cross the boundaries of friendship and intimacy. He undoes the front of my jeans and pulls me out of them with short tugs. I know I’m hard, a lust brought on by so many closely dancing bodies. His touch is strong, firm and reassured, my eyes glide closed as I surrender to his hands, then his mouth, hot and wet and so perfect it makes me want to scream. I don’t have the energy, or the voice from having to shout conversation all evening. I come with a deep moan, my hips rising off the bed of their own accord, his lips tightening around me. Then he shifts me into the bed and pulls the sheet up to my neck and goes to the little en-suite bathroom. As I fall asleep I can hear him groan as he finishes himself off.
I return to bed, and as I crawl under the sheets Draven rolls over and wraps an arm safely around my waist, his hand drifting below my navel. He is deeply asleep and soon so am I.
“You got rather wasted last night.” He says simply.
“What?” I’m cynical, “Don’t you drink?”
He thumps my shoulder.
“Of course I drink. But you were drunk.”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry.”
“Ain’t got nothing to do with me.”
I am silent.
“I just don’t think drowning your sorrows is the best way to go about it.”
I know he’s right, which only annoys me slightly. We are silent for a while, then I dare to speak up.
“What you did last night…” I leave the sentence hanging unfinished. I don’t tell him that half of me is wishing really hard that it was a dream, the other half of me is wanting like hell to do it again.
“Yeah?” He sounds hopeful.
“I-I never…um…”
A perfect frown flows across his forehead.
“Did you take my advice?”
“No.”
His hand goes to his mouth.
“Oh shit. Sil! Why didn’t you tell me! Why didn’t you stop me?”
“I-I liked it,” I can feel my face getting hot and I know embarrassing tears are only moments away, “It was so intense. I couldn’t not let you do it.”
“Fuck Sil…” He looks at me with eyes I can’t bear to meet, “You’ve never had one…on your own?”
I shake my head.
“You know I like you man, I just. I mean, do you wanna be my boyfriend, ‘cus I’ll like, look out for you and stuff.”
I don’t know what to say to this. Technically I still have a boyfriend, though I shouldn’t think he’d recognise me anymore. Even my voice has changed, only my eyes are the same. Also, I always thought that me and Kieran would be together, if this ever happened, always. In my dreams it’s him I look for, not Draven. But Draven is the one sprawled naked in the bed beside me, with his hot dark eyes and wanting tone.
“Draven,” I measure my words carefully, “I don’t know what I want yet. I know I want you, now, but…”
He nods, smiling.
“Its fine, we can just go as we are.” His voice takes a weight off my chest just as soon as his hands begin wandering, touching me in ways I hadn’t imagined. I’m surprised by how much of it is instinctive, I need no directions although Draven’s movements show me what he wants. I have to ask for ‘stuff’ and he directs me to the drawer in his beside cabinet. He’s very vocal, practically mewling as I touch him, pulling him to all fours. He’s hot and slick and tight, the movements of his hips encouraging. We’re not slow, and I’m moving in a frantic sort of way, wanting the release this will give me. He cries out when he comes, white hot spilling over my fingers. He tightens around me and I push harder into him as the spasms of my own orgasm take me. I’m resting against him, panting hard, needing more air than I can get. My head goes blank and it’s all I can do to pull out and fall to the bed, oblivious of everything else, my mind skyrocketed to somewhere else.
I throw clothes, blanket and my book into my back pack, putting more food in it and stocking up on beef jerky which tastes better than chocolate and lasts longer. I lay out my clothes and weapons on the bed and strip off. I breathe slowly. I have to try and master this, this Turning, because I know once we leave there will be both purpose for it and little time to practice. I try for full wolf and get down on all fours, closing my eyes and willing myself to stop being human. Nothing happens. I try again, concentrating so hard a pain starts right between my eyes, a headache of great proportion. A quarter of an hour later I’m sweating and shaking and nothing has happened. I have to have a quick shower and then I get dressed, attaching my weapons as I go.
When Shamani arrives he looks vaguely disappointed with me, although I’m sure he’s got no idea what it was that we spent our day doing. I am ashamed at my severe lack of skill, I haven’t even touched the knives I was given. We eat dinner in silence and I bolt down steak so fast I almost choke. Then we’re off.
“Why make it harder on yourself?”
I say nothing for a while, we move on, going out into the streets where emptiness and harsh streetlamps are key to the atmosphere of danger. Boys in sports gear and caps hide the shadows wanting to hurt the innocent passer-by. They hang around on street corners, under the lampposts, looking hard and tough and manly, with their pretty and not so pretty girls in too little clothes in tow. I’m not spoiling for a fight right now.
“Is this it then?” I ask him in a dead voice, “I just have to forget them all?”
“I suppose so.”
“Is there another me out there still? What happened? Did I just vanish, am I going to appear on the news as missing?”
“I don’t know Sil.”
“What,” I stop, biting back tears, my voice turning angry, “What about my boyfriend? My friends, my family?”
“You’ll get to see them again,” Shamani’s voice, cool, calm and collected summons to us from up ahead, “Never fear young one, you’ll see them again.”
I want to scream at him, but I don’t. Amazing that now, in this changed state, I can control my temper as I never could before. There is a soft voice in my head, it fills me with hot anger and a cool calm feeling. Wait, it says, Store this hate until you need it. Wait for the right time and loose yourself like a raging dragon upon your enemies. I have no doubts that Kieran is the owner of the soft voice, his warm hands guiding me, letting me follow Shamani’s non-existent footprints on this strange mission. And why are we walking, when the train still continues on its way?
We booked two rooms in a bed and breakfast in the outskirts of Greater London, having walked until ten. Shamani has one to himself, Draven and I have the other. The lady was most apologetic, that she only had a double bed and she was very sorry but we had left our arrival rather late. We stayed in the lounge until eleven, drinking coke and lemonade and lime, the silence heavy and palpable with unspoken questions. I could tell, from the glances and the expressions on their faces, that the other two were holding a conversation without me.
I don’t look at Draven as we get undressed, crawling into bed and facing away from him, waiting for him to turn the light off. He doesn’t, just stands there, staring at my back.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Sha and I- talking without you. Didn’t know how strong your abilities were yet.”
“Fuck that. Shamani knows. I can hold a fucking conversation.” I am bitter and I can feel all the muscles in my back stiffening. Draven dims the light and crawls into bed, wrapping his arms around me from behind. I try to shrug him off, but it doesn’t work. His hand drifts down between my legs and I buck at his touch. But he’s got one arm up under my chin, pressed against my throat, and I want it because I’m not really angry at him anyway. He touches me until I’m shaking and then I turn on him, kissing him roughly, too far gone to care much for his anguished little moans that just make me want him more. Even as I’m fucking him in dawns on me, in some distant part of my brain that, while he’s pretty, it’s not really Draven I want to do this too. I’m not seeing anyone really, just hard lust between my thighs that wants satisfying. It is a sobering thought and brings me sharply into the reality where Draven is shaking, pleading, stop, wait, go slower, even while his body begs out for more. My grip slackens, but I finish up at the same pace.
I lie next to him, drowsy, while he kisses me, mewling, warm wetness down my throat and across my chest, his tongue lapping at my spent sex. His tongue traces the lines of my strange tattoo and he works his way back up, kissing abdomen, shoulder, the inside of my elbow, my wrist. His mouth hovers over the white scar, defined and obvious.
“How did you get this?” he asks, his voice sweet and sultry after our exertions.
I sigh.
“I don’t kno-” I don’t even finish the word, it’s as if his question has unlocked the doors to a place where my many questions have failed. Memories pour in, altering my vision of reality, of myself, of my past. My mouth opens in silent scream and I’m sinking away from him, into blackness, arms outstretched and clawing toward the diminishing light held in his eyes.
I know.
I hang up my cloak and step out, naked into the snow. Not that it matters, I am covered with thick fur and warm. I call out in a long, loud, powerful howl. I hear the answer from far off, a running, delighted voice and I set off toward its source. We collide at the edge of the dark forest, a dozen howling wolves running. I let out a deep, delighted roar and they leap for me. We fall back in the snow, I am laughing and they bark and dance around me, each waiting for their hug and fuss. I move easily with them, they speak to me, and I to them in their tongue, which seems so natural here, now. I play with the pups, greet the elders with a deep bow. Their alpha nips at my throat and I at his. I change, turning into a full wolf to run with them, flying out across the snow. Sleet Foot they call me in their howls as I run out ahead of them, dropping back only to nip at a pups heels and tease him before firing forwards. One of the females flirts with me, her tail high and her scent on, intoxicating and heavy. I want her.
You are my son and heir. I name you Silvan, you will share that name. You are now the Leader of the GreyMane. I give them to you. I trust you, lead them home. I am Arda, please, lead them home…
I buried him in the snow, my new found Sire.
“Silvan?” Draven sounds shaky and scared. I’m not surprised, I tower above him, breathing hot smoke clouds. I turn and fix him with my gaze and see him quake visibly, He backs away, pressed against the wall, the light from under the chintz lampshade casting a ghastly ghostly pallor across him. I wonder how I look, big, powerful, but scary? Why is he afraid of me? I feel my chest rumbling and realise that I am growling, a low hungry sound which gives the hair on the back of my friend’s neck all the reason to stand on end.
“Silvan, Sil, stop it. You’re scaring me.”
I approach him, trying to quieten my voice, I hunker down and I press the top of my muzzle to his neck and jaw, my eyes sliding closed. The pitch of my growl changes, until it is almost a purr and I rub against him, my ears lain back and relaxed. Slowly the tension leaves him a little and he raises a hand to stroke the top of my head. My world fills with the scent of him. This is my way of thanking him I suppose, for giving me back at least some of my memories.
Exhaustion takes him and he falls asleep in my arms, draped across my great furred back. I take him to the bed, in wonder at how little he weighs in my huge paws and lay him down, but like a child with a comfort blanket, his hand has closed in my thick fur, not letting me leave. So I lie next to him, wrapped around him, not really fitting on the bed that was fairly small when we were both human, and drift off into The Dreaming.
The visions are strange, troubling to my Lycan mind. There is something wrong with the world, something other than the constant efforts of the humans to destroy the planet and each other. There are so many messages here, things left by those who have tried to contact me while I have lain dormant. They hit me all at once, becoming deeply confused. Feathers and light, blood and paper, a knife surrounded by flowers, none of it makes sense. Some visions have been here so long they have decayed, become twisted, patches of colour with whole sections missing, as though burnt. When I open my eyes, I know that there is no going back.
“Silvan?”
I growl a short soft answer,
“Mmm…” Draven snuggles deeper into my chest and then sits up. It is morning when I open my eyes, the light harsh through thin gingham curtains. He looked at me with wide eyes.
“Shit, Sil, change back, Sha will be here in a minute!”
I pull myself away from Draven and stand, trying to adopt a human pose. I close my eyes and concentrate. My head starts to hurt, but nothing happens. I growl in frustration and my stomach rumbles. I hear footsteps on the stairs, the woman, for Shamani’s feet make no sound. She is coming here, to knock on the unlocked door to fetch us for breakfast. I panic, trying to find somewhere to hide. Nowhere here is big enough. Draven looks terrified as he too hears the footsteps, only moments away now. I try to Turn and then, as though the need forces my unyielding body, something happens.
I look up at Draven from all fours and groan in the privacy of my mind. Wrong bloody way! As a wolf I hide under the bed. Draven opens the door, all bright smiles, and explains that no, he’s fine, he’ll be down in just a moment. Where is his friend? Oh, he had to leave early this morning, got out of the side gate, he’d meet them later. I thank my scarred friend for his quick and fluid lies.
Somehow, after a short breakfast for the other two, we manage to get out unnoticed. Shamani is livid, apart from the fact that as he speaks he is completely unruffled. There is such disappointment in his voice. I hold my head in shame. I follow at Draven’s heels, not listening to the human world, enjoying the sights and smells of the world that has been revealed to me, out in the world with my Lycan powers. I want to run, to howl, but I can’t. I am getting enough strange looks as it is, this big dog without collar or lead. Next thing I know we are in a pet shop and while Shamani talks to the big man behind the till, Draven takes me aside and in deliberate tones, so that I can understand him, says that a policeman stopped us and we have to get a collar and lead for me, and, because I am over a certain size and Shamani doesn’t have a dangerous dog’s license, a muzzle. I want to kill the angel, he could have created one out of thin air if he’d have wanted.
I can’t look at Draven as he fits the collar round my neck, it feels tight and terrible. At least it is black, and leather, the sort of collar I’d love if I were human. We get the tag made up there and then, a steel disc bearing the name ‘WOLF’. The human shop owner tries to fit me out for a muzzle and I snap my jaws. He slaps me sharply on the nose. Pain so hard and sudden I stagger back, almost losing my footing. My eyes water and I hear Draven’s anguished shout. The muzzle is fitted, a heavy duty metal affair that cages me completely. I am lead out of the shop on a lead in Draven’s hands, and for all intents and purposes, I am lead away in chains.
That night I am chained up in a pathetically small kennel pen with a vicious little spaniel. Draven and Shamani are staying in a boarding house down the road. It’s cheap, no one wants to stay too close to a place full of barking dogs. Food is thrown in, but I have been left in my muzzle. The spaniel eats and then begins to irritate me. It nips my ears and my legs and jumps at my incessantly. With a flick of my great head I knock it against the wall. It huddles up in a corner and leaves me alone after that.
Draven is in the shower and I sit on my bed, dripping water onto the carpet from my long hair. Shamani, fully dressed again, stands by the window, looking out upon the town.
“Sha?”
He doesn’t reply, but a change in his mental signature tells me he is listening.
“Where is Kieran? Why are we travelling like this?”
He turns to me and for the first time since we met I look into his strange eyes. They are filled with pain and sorrow.
Tomorrow, his mental voice is soft, like ashes, We will pass from this world, and during our short journey in the Way I shall equip you with the skills that already lie dormant beneath your skin. Then we will leave you, on your own, and you must learn to fight and find your way amongst the stars.
“But where will I go?”
I am gifted with one of his rare smiles.
After all this time trapped in another body, I would have thought you might have wanted, to go home.
I do not sleep that night. The word ‘home’ echoes around my brain for hours. To go home. Which home? They are many places I might call that, but I know that my winged companion does not mean the little house where my parents and brother may be missing me dreadfully. Where is home for an unskilled warrior born of stars? I curl up in a little ball under the covers, wishing for Kieran’s strong arms. I wish to, for my sire, Arda, for his breath and the weight of him against me, for his kind eyes, knowing that this is impossible, for he is dead. With the thought, my eyes close against the light of the encroaching day and I am catapulted, once again, into the past I never had.
“Yosui!” I am in his world, inside the dreaming. Somewhere is a black lake where ribbons float over the surface, ready to ensnare the weary traveller.
The floor is perfect too, pools of black reflection merely an inch deep, or at least it seems that way, for while most would need to swim or perhaps try to shuffle around on the tiny stone borders that create a spider’s maze between these pools, I can walk across the surface, ripples spreading out from under my shoes. I walk this route I know so well until the caves finally open out into a cavern. The stars create their own nebulae and galaxies in the air, perfect and changing. A host of them fly down, forming into a beautiful bird to greet me. I cannot help but smile.
And amongst all this beauty is death. In the centre of this dark lake over which I now walk is a white rock and embedded in its surface, as though not removed for hundreds of years, are three weapons. Two are very similar, double bladed staffs, crystal, deadly and cruel. One is purple-black, the other blue-grey. Anarion and Nabraska. In between these two is a sword. The Sword. A simple double edged blade that belies its power. I raise a hand and one of the weapons vanishes only to reappear in my hand. Nabraska, my blade. I hold him firm and feel safe once again.
We eat in comparative silence in the little breakfast room and we are on our way swiftly. Draven chatters, and while usually this would make me happy, today his voice grates and I have to hold back from snapping at him. I curb the anger, storing it away as I know I should. I have the feeling that I shall have to use it all too soon.
The landscape around us is much the same as it has been for the past few days, there is a major road a way to the east but for the most part the view is dominated by grey scrubland. The pale sun, mostly obscured by thin cloud for much of the day, is at it’s zenith by the time we stop. The wood is a dismal one, and part of me wonders why it is here that I must undertake such a hard task. We set down our packs and Shamani turns to the two of us. Draven looks excited, I know that my face is ashen.
We are going into the Way. His mental voice is solemn and calm. Draven giggles and turns to me, looking like a child with a new toy. Then his face falls.
“Isn’t Silvan coming with us?”
Of course he is. We are just not going with him.
My lover turns to me, aghast.
“Sil?”
“I’m sorry Draven.”
“But, you said…I thought we were, together. I…” He falters, his eyes filling with tears. He shakes his head sharply and looks at me, “You don’t love me do you?”
Sorry Draven. It startles me to use my own voice, something I have not done before, I can’t believe how grown up I suddenly sound. Draven bursts into tears and I wrap my arms around him, I never knew that saying goodbye could be this hard. Finally we part and I look into his eyes.
“I’ll come back.”
“Yeah,” he gives me a wan smile, I can tell he’s trying, “I know you will. Come visit lots okay?”
“’Course. See ya kiddo.”
Shamani turns to me, I face him, all black robes and strange eyes and then he opens out his enormous wings and enfolds me within them. The world goes black and the last thing I think is to hope that Draven won’t hate me too much.
Where are we?
In the transition, Shamani dips his head to allow a strange bullet of green light go whirring past, I needed to show you how to get into the Way.
But how did we get here?
I do it with my wings, he flicks a stray feather back into place, You can do it anyway you wish, though I suggest that Nabraska could be a great help to you.
I blink just once and close my eyes. I can see the place in my head, the starry caves and the white rock in black water. Nabraska, the crystal blade of blue-grey, glows before me. I press my hands together and whisper his name. Solidity, cold as death between my palms. Eyes open and there he is, shimmering and perfect between my hands, six feet tall and glowing, sharp as sunlight on water, a hilt bound in red leather and silk.
Good job…
A compliment from Shamani makes my heart glow, that’s a rarity indeed. I hold the weapon in my hands and breathe, slow and steady and the glow from the weapon flows up my skin and into my chest. My heart warms to feel the blades in my hands. A small part of me, deep inside, is singing with joy.
“OK, I’m ready.” My words are whipped away from me by solar winds I didn’t even know were there, now I understand why we are speaking in our minds. I suddenly feel something, a presence pressing against my mind, I look up and Shamani has me locked in his eyes. He is trying to get into my head. Instant reflexes I didn’t know I had kick in, throwing up mental walls of steel. There is such an intense light in Sha’s strange inverted eyes that I am scared.
Let me in…
I’m scared.
Silvan…
I break under the pressure from his mind and he pours in, white and grey light flooding my eyes for a moment. I can feel him in my mind, pulling at things, skills far too long dormant. Then he let’s me go. And I know things. I know exactly how to get into the way, I know what it looks like, I know how to get out again. The memories if skills I’ve never used send power like fire through my veins. I smile.
Thank you. My mental voice is strong now, sturdy and talking like this is easy, no thought required. I can feel other presences moving around us in this black slip stream, unseen.
I shall let you open the door Master Silvan.
It thrills me to hear my own name.
You’re not coming are you?
You know your own way around now I should think.
I go to him and wrap my arms around his form, to my surprise and delight he envelopes me in his arms.
I shall miss you.
I’ll miss you too Sha.
Go then.
We will see you again?
Of course, he almost tuts at me, Go!
I turn away casting Nabraska before me, it’s glowing blade renting the stuff that time and space is made from, opening my door into the way. I hesitate but a second and step through, the second blade of the weapon sealing the rift behind me.
The Way was more colourful and beautiful than my unknown memories had supplied, like space almost, full of coloured dust clouds, nebulae of minute stars, glowing starry paths. I stand on one of these and gape in awe at the never ending world that surrounds me completely. Distantly, far above me to my right, probably hundreds of miles away, I can see a figure vanish through a glowing hole in the Way. I smile and take my first step. I know where I am going, I’m not scared of getting lost here. I know the markers, my feet know the way to go, and as the path flies along beneath my slow moving feet I twist this path toward the scattering of grey stars I know to be my way home. When I reach them I come face to face with my reflection. I know this thing, my reflection smiles at me, an Ithulet, a door to another world. I press the palm of my hand against it and the door opens with piercing light directly into the world beyond.
Disorientated, I am left standing in a field of knee length green grass, with a sky clearer than diamonds overhead, looking across sparkling blue water, a little wooden jetty sticking out into the bay, a sandy white crescent before the house. A great building of crystal and stone, amorphous, changing, strangely sentient and beautiful. My house. Two figures are sitting on the jetty, one glistening in the sun, the other very dark, like a hole in the universe. I call out, I almost don’t need to, for there is my Kieran, keeping the sunbathing Vox company. As soon as I see his eyes, Brilliant blue with curling cloudlike white eyes, sheets of colour I adore, I know that I am home.
This is GateWay.
Usually in the mornings I would roll over and curl up to his feline form, usually I would be the one demanding that he should get up, but last night I was working late with my books and so I fell asleep here, in a bed of furs and blankets, a far smaller stone dish than our bed downstairs.
The light in my eyes is blinked out and I open one careful green eye to see the shape of Kieran standing there, tray in hands laden with fresh fruit from the orchards and a silver carafe of water. Black cherries, sweet gold peaches, white apples, and my personal favourite, slices of black skinned, blood red fleshed melon.
“Kier…”
He sets down the tray and clambers into bed with me. He is the taller, an impressive seven feet, but he tucks his lean body easily around mine. Black fur is velvet smooth against my bare skin. He winds his long tail around my legs and takes a segment of melon between his claws, placing it on his rough pink tongue and leaning over to give it to me. I take it from between razor sharp white fangs and as the fruit dissolves on my tongue, he is kissing me. His muzzle is warm, his jaw firm as I stroke him, his cat-ears pricking up as I let out an involuntary groan.
When I first arrived here he spent every moment like this, dying to touch each other properly for the first time. How many days did we spend, simply lying so close together you could not slip even one of Nabraska’s ethereal blades between us? I remember the shock of his fingers, so strong and smooth as he laid me down in our huge bed and peeled me out of my humble traveller’s clothes. So beautiful was he, clad in nothing but star light, inky black against the vision of the sky. I was with him in ways I never was with Draven, that, after all, was just sex. Being with Kieran, that’s like coming home. It’s being whole.
And now he feeds me my breakfast while stroking my body with his hands, a sort of hero worship I would get used to if it wasn’t often interrupted by teeth and claws. I heal fast, thankfully, or my back would be a net of scars where he clings to me, his claws short but sharp. The bite mark over my collar bone is fading slowly. With Kieran I have grown used to my body, but I suppose that came also with time. I have been here months. But time moves differently everywhere and I have no doubt that the human world, the one from which I emerged at least, is much as I left it.
He purrs in my ear and settles down in the crook of my shoulders, gazing at me with his beautiful eyes. I tilt my head to kiss his cheek and fall back into the pillows.
Is it time to get up?
Technically I don’t even need to speak the question in my mental voice. To think it would be enough for Kieran and I, we are linked too deeply for words to describe.
You don’t have to.
Good.
But I’d like to go to the Sante today.
Go then love.
Come with me, please?
He speaks as though I can resist his voice. We both know I can’t, that I am bent to his will, just as he is to mine.
Vox, dressed in nothing but a cotton wrap around his hips, hair drippy from the shower, is waving to us. His green scales glisten in the sun and his amber eyes shine. He comes to hug us both.
“Where are you going Silvan?”
“To the tower,” I ruffle his hair and marvel again at the snake boy’s, smooth chest and petite form. He used to have a tail, but that is long gone, “Just for the day little one.”
“Not little.” Is Vox’s stubborn reply.
“You’re smaller then me,” is Kieran’s reply.
Vox looks at him plaintively.
“Even Sidi is smaller than you!”
Sidi, is Obsidian, the shadow creature, Vox’s mate, who now comes slinking out of the house to wave us off.
They stand, side by side, to watch as Kieran calls his blade between his hands, Anarion, blue-black and laced with silver veins, shines in the sunlight, as Kieran flicks it, almost lazily, cutting a hole in the air, through which we step, I closing it with Nabraska behind us. We spend very little time in the Way, the entrances from one house to the other are so close together, we step almost directly into it.
The lands of the Espiritosante are similar to those of GateWay. But these come directly from Kieran’s mind. The sun shines, but here it is already late afternoon. It is also autumn, the leaves of the trees are gilded gold and bronze and the air is crisp and clean rather than hot. It is warm, but there is snow on the not so far distant mountains. The river glows as it widens over the smooth pebbles, flowing out for miles, barely a foot deep, until it reaches the sea. Kieran splashes across the ford, this is one of the few times I will ever see him happy to be around water, and I step swiftly across too. The Tower is ahead of us, a pillar of white stone, shining white, against the horizon. I love the silhouette it cuts, like a knife against the sky. From one of the top windows a voice calls out.
“Yohilida!” and it brings joy to our heart to be greeted in Kieran’s own language.
He raises a hand to the figure, which, to my surprise, for I do not recognise him instantly, leaps out the window, opening out wings on the way down. One wing is black and lathery, the other white a feathered. This is a figure all about contradictions, all white and black, his hair the same, and his eyes. It is Rathamos.
“He’s been here a while,” Kieran says to me, his real voice deep and animalistic, “I’ve been teaching him Felenorian, but he’s not too fast.”
“Hey!” Rathamos, twenty years old, beautiful and bare chested, settles down before us. His dark eye, in this sun, is slightly closed, and he tucks his leathery wing close to his back, “You’ve been gone a long time Sil!”
This comment is not addressed to me, but to Kieran. We share the same name, a sometimes annoying trait, and while the name was his first, he is the one who will more readily take another. Rathamos is one of the few people who will call us both the same and be able to make the distinction in his voice. He holds out his hand and I grasp in firmly, then I am enveloped in a lung crushing hug. I am not weak, but Rathamos, with his extra wing muscles, is very strong.
“Silvan, it is so good to see you,” he lets me go, bowing, “Haba dat?”
“You are inviting me to come into my own house?”
His bites his lip.
“It’s OK Rath, you just wanted to test out your skills.”
We begin walking in and Kieran begins to berate poor Rathamos on his appalling pronunciation.
Part way through the single long note I begin to change, my eyes closed, and the note drops in tone as I turn. Wolf now, I leap out into the grasslands, running at full pelt until I reach the southern ridge in order to turn and look out across the ocean. The white horses that are standing on the shore are the same as the ones that gather around the jetty at GateWay. That is the same ocean. We are just on different sides of the same world. Technically you can walk through the Espiritosante caves and come to the white rock where the blades rest and continue on to GateWay. They are linked that way to. Going through the Way is just so much faster.
I howl from the ridge at the rising moon, only half full, and my red eyes smile with delight at being here. Good smells waft from the Tower and I can’t believe that I have been so lucky. At that moment, a deep terrible pain hits my chest. I miss my friends, my human friends. I miss the Earth, I miss London and Draven, Shamani. I miss the Grange gardens. I want to go back and gather them all up, and bring them here. I want to show them my Kieran, show them I was right. I want to take them to GateWay, a place where everything is right with the world. They’d love it, apart from the lack of people and computers.
I turn away from the thought. My friends wouldn’t even recognise me now. I leap from the ridge, flying for a second, before running on back down to the Tower, exhausted and human and hungry.
Standing at the side of the bed I am helpless to my lust as he shifts onto his knees, black furred hands undoing my shirt, pulling it from me, undoing the fly of my trousers and pushing them slowly off my hips. His warm breath caresses me and I want him even more. Agile pink tongue creeps out and curls along my length. I have grown used to my reaction to this, but not used to the pleasure it causes to course through my veins. I want him, and there is no other remedy. We are silent, not even needing mind-speak to make our wants known. He brings me down on top of him, wrapping his legs around me, his tail capturing my ankle. I kiss him with equal fervour as he flexes his strange incredible spine to let me enter him.
It is sweet bliss from there on in, hot and tight and everything I have ever wanted or imagined. His moans are music to my ears and his hands clutch at me skin.
“Ah…Kier…”
“Sil!”
When he comes his tail leaves a strange dark spiral bruise around my ankle and up my leg. I can take no more and I follow him swiftly into oblivion.
Kieran hangs back, and without words I know that this has been sent to test me. I call Nabraska to me, but I am still too slow and the bacca is already leaping through the air, bloody muzzle open in a roar, doing anything to protect its kill. I bring Nabraska up horizontal, only in time enough to catch the creature’s paws and send it over my head. The force knocks me on my back and my shoulder is already bleeding. I roll to my feet and use the blade to fend off a second attack. The bloody thing is almost as tall as I am, and my weapon doesn’t seem to be giving me much advantage. I grin and in a couple of seconds I have forced a change into half wolf form. Now I tower over the beast and it is the work of a few more moments to cut into it with Nabraska’s crystal blades. Once, twice and then I drop the weapon as it charges. As its claws dig into my back I grab its head, one huge hand holding the muzzle closed, and I wrench its head around to hear its neck snap with a sickening crunch.
The pelt, along with the antlers of the dear and all the beasts’ long fangs, are hanging on my wall in GateWay.
Kieran draws ahead of me, bounding along on all fours, his strange spine flexing in ways no human ever could. I pace I cannot match. He isn’t really racing me, but racing Juno, the white griffin, Vox, and Obsidian, who draws ahead like a wraith in the wind. I love this, being here, among all these laughing faces that are so familiar and so strange. I never want to leave. And yet they are going away from me. Why do they run from my outstretched hand? The blue sky splits above me and the earth shakes. My friends stop and look around, Kieran knows I am the cause, he makes straight for my figure, kneeling on the ground. Flame coils and sparks around me, flowing up my arms, its heat making my hair float.
I miss my friends, my human friends. I miss my family. I want it back, all of it, the melodrama and the angst. I want Jonni’s tears and Sparrow’s exasperated groans as I disappoint him yet again. But I want this too. To go back to earth, to England, what if I wake to find that this has all been a dream? What if the Dreaming is playing its tricks on me as well? If that is so I don’t want to wake up. And I can’t have it both ways, that knowledge is killing me. There is also a harder, less pressing pain. I have a job to do, sooner or later, if this turns out not to be a dream, I am going to have to report to my Master and start to do it. I don’t want to. Here in GateWay at least I am free, I do not want that responsibility. I do not want to see people die, though in the memories I do not yet have I know I have killed, things, people. I have collected their souls.
Opening my eyes I find myself in bed, comfortable and alone. A voice by the door, out of my vision, is speaking in low hushed tones to Kieran, who growls once, although I know it as a sound of agreement. His presence fades away, and I want to scream, even though I know he is only going downstairs. I look up into a pair of familiar inverse eyes, a shroud of white hair falling over me. Peace invades my heart, flooding me to my fingertips. And now I know for sure Shamani’s true power. He leans down and places the softest ghost of kisses on my forehead. I have the sensation of a glowing light, Zirishiri, the crystal around his neck like a star and my vision clears.
Silvan Arown Elendal, it is Shamani’s voice, almost singing, the words like liquid silver, The Son of Arda, Child of the GreyMane. Boy who was once a beast, listen to my voice. Let it guide you back to a time before. You were Amunsa, the Mountain Star. To you was gifted many names. Which will you have, strange child of the night time? Boy-girl, wolf-beast, shining light, hear me now. You once guarded him with your life, as he now guards yours. Let the hurt go and then you will see, you can be again with those you love. No physical barrier can keep you from their minds. You are strong, like the Dragon after which you were first named. Child of Gods, Herald of The Pale Rider, Messenger to the Morning Star. You are Torran. Your name is music in whatever language.
Rest now. I will see you, in time. Sleep.
What worries you my darling?
I get no reply, but I never expected to. He doesn’t look a day older than he did the last time I saw him. That is a lie, he looks more peaceful, less heart broken, there are no tears as I leave, not through my own choice. He tore me to pieces, my heart shattered, the pieces scattered. I thought, in that cool distant existence as a star, that I would never forgive him and never live again. I forgave him, that is clear enough. I hold him tight to me and pray, to no one in particular, that his self destruction will end and that this time, we will be together always. I don’t think I could take him leaving again.
Forward and back, faster and faster we move, my heart rising as I swirl the blades, faster and closer to myself than I have ever before. For Kieran, the ultimate training to is fight his own shadow, sometimes as solid and real as himself, for me, my ultimate training to fight myself, externally and mentally all at once. This is a thing that can kill me. Outside myself the blades are coming ever closer, so sharp that they slice the air, within I grapple with the beast of my soul and we tear at each other, tooth and claw. For a moment, everything is still and spinning all at once, I am locked with myself, both of us fixed, trying to overpower the other.
Then the wolf topples me, the spinning stops, Nabraska slicing into my leg, blood on the blue blade. Sweating, panting, I lean on my weapon and open my eyes as Kieran comes toward me. Sensible as ever in these situations he kneels to examine the wound. A clean cut, already closing, he lays a hand over it and soft words help the cut to close faster, I can see the magic, little blue dust motes on the air around him, knitting my flesh back together.
“Daitzi,” I murmur to him.
“You should be more careful,” beautiful sky cloud eyes look up at me reproachfully, “Maybe next time you’ll do something a manta spell can’t fix.”
I ruffle his ears.
“Doesn’t matter, you’ll always be here to help me.”
“Always,” he stands and pats me shoulder, “Silly boy.”
We walk back to the house, hand in hand. Little Vox is waiting for us in the doorway, looking worried, Obsidian is standing behind him, and he looks scared and defiant.
“What happened?”
“He was here.”
“Who?”
“He left this,” says Obsidian and holds out for me a long wooden box wrapped in black silk. I open it in his arms and draw back and velvet covering. It is a sword. About four feet long with a vaguely leaf shaped blade and a multitude of strange inscriptions, the hilt is bound in black leather and the blade is wreathed in pale ghostly fire. This is the sword of my Master, my sword.
I take it and weight it in my hand, then turn to Kieran.
“I have to go.”
“I know.”
“I’ll be back soon.”
“I know.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder, I have changed already, he can see it in my eyes as they swirl darker. I am his Star, his Silvan no longer, not for now. Now I must be my Master’s servant. Now I shall be the Herald of Death.
My Master comes around the corner, eight feet tall and swathed in black darker than the void of the sky. He is murmuring to himself, his mental voice solemn like a tombstone. At his side, at about the level of his elbow, walks a cat. Its small paws spark up little flurries of what seems to be blue snowflakes from the air it walks on. My Master’s pet and friend. As one they see me, standing in the great arched doorway, dressed in what passes for my uniform around this place. Close fitting tooled leather over silk. All black and grey. The sword hangs in its scabbard by my side.
“My Lord.” I bow.
And so you see fit to return to me at last, Arda’s son. Get up Silvan, there is much work to do.
I will not tell you what transpires in my work, only that it is long and hard and the memories of the people whose souls I have touched haunt me always. That first day I took the souls of a King, an old witch and a small girl of twelve from my Earth who was beaten by her father before taking her own life. One of the few I wished I hadn’t turned up early for.
I miss them so much.
Didn’t Sha say-
Shamani can go to hell! He was lying, I know it.
Do you want to see them again?
Yes.
Kieran looks at me, his eyes glowing with his love for me.
Well, let’s go back and see them
No.
Why?
I’m scared that if I go back, this will all be dream.
I feel the power of mind press against mine, an embrace warmer than the sun.
After all this time you still think that? Darling, there is no going back, there never was.
Is this our destiny after all?
He chuckles.
Even I cannot see that Star.
I stand staring at the circular paved fountain in the centre of the small walled formal gardens within the grange. Here was where I wrote about Thomas and Sera, this was a sight of pilgrimage for my friends. I have met them now, those pretty boys, and I know they would be proud of their infamy. The sun is shining and there is not a cloud in the sky, I look up, straight to Zenith and for the first time I see the colour I longed to see here. The perfect summer blue, I have been searching for it for years. I am dressed for the occasion in black jeans and boots, a white wife-beater sleeveless shirt with a blue cheesecloth over shirt, open and floating in the light breeze I have stirred up. I turn on my heel and leave the formal gardens, going out into the Grange main, where small children run and play and college kids sit and sunbathe. A Frisbee whirrs silently overhead.
There they are, sitting in the dappled afternoon shade of a big oak tree, a rough circle interrupted by a pair of portable speakers, I hear Postal Service from a distance. As always there are people I love missing, but most are there and I give thanks for that. Cauler, Jonni, Max, Jiu, Hope, Realise, Llyod, Smoke, Kiado, Vin Hamster, Aisling and next to her, lying supine on the ground, her wolf-other Ryre, silver in the sunlight. My boyfriend is there too, along with a new boy I don’t recognise, they are slipping each other furtive glances. The other boy is very pretty, collar length hair and a little heavy on the eyeliner. I am happy for him but annoyed. For I have only been gone a month and a half in their time and surely he has not forgotten me already?
From this distance, I tune into their conversation, a rambling affair, but someone mentions ‘Summer’ and there is a moment of stillness. Perhaps I have died. My eyes soften as I watch them, standing on the other side of the dry canal, in the shade. I lean against the slim tree trunk, smiling, and Kieran comes up behind me, winding his arms around my form. I lean back into him and together we watch them, my friends, who I can never go back to.
Ryre raises his head and sees us, Aisling, who can only feel him, not see him as I can murmurs “Silvan?” and looks up. Suddenly she is on her feet running across to me, I leap the canal easily and sweep her up into my embrace. The others are turning, standing, exclamations of delight and surprise fill the air…
I shake off the pleasant, impossible vision. But Ryre has indeed raised his head, amber eyes puzzled. But he lowers it again to his mistress’s knee and I am left disappointed. I take the Polaroid camera out from the bag slung over my shoulder and click twice. I put the second photo in an envelope and seal it, on the front I have already placed a wax seal, the feather on my ring, and I send it floating across to them on my own breeze.
“What’s that Ais?” Jonni asks me.
“Dunno.” I turn it over and show her the red wax seal. It’s Silvan’s mark, the one she used to seal her letters with. The words A feather is a wish, all that I can give, run through my head. I open it, now looked upon by everyone else. Inside is a single Polaroid photo. Of us, of our group. I turn it over, on the back, in black ink is Silvan’s signature mark, the strange zigzag that is the last part of her name in a shape. Below that are the initials S & K, Silvan and Kieran. We show the photo round and then, as one, turn to look at the spot from where it was taken. There is no one there now, but we can all see the large white feather that has been tied to the tree.
A strange breeze plays around us and I swear I hear my name whispered on it, and Ryre’s. Later on everyone said they thought they heard something. Whatever Bert heard make him shake and worry for a long time.
They aren’t dead, they’re out there. Somewhere.