Volume
One: The Road Out
Chapter One
Verse Six: An Ass Transformed
The wendigo didn't so much run as it
scrambled across the ground- Marion thought that thing was trying to
run on all fours, but was being hampered by the proportions of its
body which were still nominally human. The creature seemed bled dry,
both of colour and of body fat. The Wendigo was so thin it might have
passed for an Egyptian Mummy, save that it was very rapidly closing
on Marion.
Marion took a moment before a thought
occurred to him. Vision or not, tumour or not, he should probably be
running right now. The wendigo was now close enough that Marion could
count its teeth and smell its acid breath. That was enough of a
preview for Marion.
Marion fled from the Wendigo.
The grey clay mud underneath Marion's
feet didn't make flight easy and he scrambled along, not to unlike
the Wendigo getting covered in grey as the paint like liquid clay
sprayed up from his thrashing attempts to flee.
As he ran he heard bits and pieces of
conversation.
"Is that a Wendigo?"
"The Knights of Purity will kill
it."
"Who is that it's chasing?"
"Must be a savage, might turn into
a Wendigo at any time."
"Maybe a spy for Blackhart?"
"Doesn't look like part of
Blackhart's tribe."
"We should kill it just to be
safe. Blackhart's raiding parties will starve us all."
"Maybe we should try to make
peace?"
"Don't say such things, the King
will send the Hound for you."
"He should send the Hound for
Blackhart."
"The Hound can smell fear. It will
cleanse the heathen and the infidel."
"I don't think Blackhart feels
fear."
Most of the people's faces remained a
blur as Marion ran through the muddy streets. Nobody got in Marion's
way. But he did notice a woman dressed in considerably better than
the undyed grey wool clothing of the other villagers. she was dressed
in black with red bird-like patterns lining the sleeves and hemlines.
Her appearance seemed ageless, she might have been thirty years old
and might have been eighty. Her hair was raven black with a streak of
grey running through it. Her eyes bore the hard expression of
somebody who was used to being under attack and she used those eyes
to stare Marion almost to a stop. She looked at Marion, and nodded
with an expression that one might use for a business acquaintance or
a distant relative.
The snarls of the Wendigo reminded
Marion that he should be running. Beside the woman, three Soldiers
turned and noticed the wendigo and the fleeing stranger. They were
dressed in white tabbards with white leather plates visible
underneath. On the tabbard in black was a sword engulfed in flame.
One of the soldiers looked distinctly older, one was built like a
large fat toad and looked unsettlingly familiar and the third was
tall and thin as a paper cut and looked just like Percy Wheately.
"Lady Morrigan, we must destroy
the monster." The eldest of the three soldiers said.
The woman nodded and the soldiers
joined the pursuit without another word. Marion didn't look back to
see how far behind the wendigo the soldiers were and simply ran on.
"Rule number one about horror
movies: When running from the monster, don't look back and trip."
Marion gasped to himself as he ran. But the grey mud under his feet
was hard to get any traction on, and Marion found himself sliding and
stumbling for more than he would like to be given the circumstances.
He rounded a corner and found himself staring a stone well directly
in his path. He tried to swerve and found he feet slipping free from
the sloppy surface beneath him. His legs kicked skyward and his swung
his arms wildly in a desperate attempt to first regain his balance
and then, belatedly, to break his fall. His chin hit the ground first
and he bit his tongue. His vision and his hearing faltered, and
Marion found himself in a brief sea of white light and distant
ringing bells, and then he was aware that he was lying in the liquid
grey clay. As his hearing returned, Marion noticed the sounds of
battle: the metal clang of swords, the the yells and grunts of
physical exertion, the snarl of a cornered beast.
Marion pulled himself to his hands and
knees, aware of the taste of blood in his mouth and feeling that
blood trickling down his chin. Marion looked behind him to see the
soldiers locked in combat with the wendigo, which they had back
against the earthen wall of a nearby hut. The wendigo was unarmed,
but even with just claws and fangs the monster was keeping both
soldiers firmly on the defensive.
Marion tried to gather himself, and as
he wobbled to his feet he noticed that a crowd had gathered. And
again Marion became aware of bits of conversation from the crowd.
"Look at the savage. Look at the
blood on his mouth. Who did he bite? He'll turn for sure."
"No, he has to actually eat them,
otherwise every overactive lover would turn."
"It's not about eating, it's about
the symbolic act of cannibalism. A person has to devour something of
value, a betrayal of their people."
"That's rubbish, you watch. he'll
turn any minute now."
A man screamed in pain, and Marion turn
his attention back to the fight. The Wendigo had ripped out the
throat of the fat soldier and taken his sword. The wendigo was not a
skilled swordsman, but the extra ferocity of his attacks drove to two
remaining soldiers back. The tide of the battled had clearly turned
against the remaining two soldiers.
Marion shook his head. The soldier
weren't winning. Marion wasn't sure they that they were going to
survive. Marion glanced around and saw the crowd had dispersed. Now
the villages cowered behind doors and peered over window frames. They
weren't going to be helping any time soon, and Marion didn't see
other soldiers nearby.
"At least in the first dream like
this one I had my Tomahawks. What were they called: Victor and Edgar?
Weird names, okay- but that fits my brain. Either way it would be
nice have them so I could help."
As he was speaking, Marion noticed that
his hands had closed around two cylindrical objects. He looked down
and discovered that he did in fact have the tomahawks in his hands.
"More proof that this is a
hallucination. But maybe I can win the hallucination." Marion
said to him.
He sized up the Wendigo, now spattered
with the soldiers' blood. It didn't look friendly. But at least
compared to his last hallucinated battle, the odds were good here.
Marion clenched his teeth and joined the fight. He didn't know how to
fight, but he made the most of his position. The wendigo had pushed
the soldiers back and Marion was now behind the creature. He charged
silently and swung both tomahawks down onto the Wendigo's shoulders,
cleaving into the creature and causing both its arms to fall limply
to its sides. The Wendigo spun around to face Marion, arms
pinwheeling like sock puppets, and the Wendigo lunged teeth first and
Marion, causing him to stumble back and fall hard to the ground. The
impact of the fall drove the air from his lungs, and Marion looked up
in terror at the advancing Wendigo as Marion struggled to force air
back into his lungs.
The Wendigo now had it's back to the
soldiers and they took advantage by thrusting swords through the back
of the wendigo, metal triangles protruding from the creatures chest
pinning it to the sky above Marion as it thrashed and frothed and
slowly died.
Marion scrambled out from under the
quivering wendigo, and the eldest soldier placed a booted foot on the
creature's back and pushed it loose from the two swords to land in
the liquid clay.
Marion started to thank the soldiers,
but stopped short noting that they were staring at him with
expressions that didn't scream gratitude. Marion suddenly noticed
people whispering about his tomahawks.
"I saw him summon those weapons."
"A wizard."
"Those are the weapons of the
savage."
"A witch."
"A wizard."
"He'd have slit our throat while
we slept."
"Worse than a Wendigo. We're
probably lucky the Wendigo flushed him out." The Mr. Wheately
Guard muttered
Marion shook his head as the soldiers
began to advance upon him with their swords pointed forward.
"I've got to get a rabbit's foot
or something. This luck is going to kill me."
Marion spun his heel in the mud and
grabbed the well for support and then bolted. Soldiers gave chase.
Marion could hear them behind him. They were armoured, and Marion
noticed that they hadn't caught him and the Wendigo until he had
fallen. Maybe he could outrun them. Although where he would run,
Marion was entirely unsure. He didn't know the layout of the town,
and he expected that the soldiers did.
Marion couldn't see any street signs
and the repeating collection of mud house, log house, sod house
quickly blurred in Marion's mind and he found himself running wildly
down slippery mud streaked gaps between buildings that all looked
alike.
"I'm lost in a hostile dream town
in the middle a hallucination, any minute now I'm going to find
myself in my underwear." Marion gasped between ragged breaths.
Marion had been right about being
faster than the soldiers, but he was starting to wear out. And to
make matters worse, the Soldiers clearly knew the town well and had
ambushed him several time by popping out in front of them. Marion had
scrambled down a different alley each time, but he had the distinct
sense that he was being funnelled and there was little he could do
about it.
Marion's fears were confirmed when he
scrambled out of an alley and found himself staring a vertical log
walls on three sides, trapped against the wall outside the bailey of
the castle.
"I see you're in danger Dreamer.
Perhaps I can help." Marion turned to see the woman from earlier
leaning over the wall to look down at him.
Marion shook his head, "Who are
you? How do you know me? I mean besides this being my hallucination
brought on by a brain tumour? Should I be doing this, having a
discussion with my hallucination about the brain tumour causing that
hallucination?"
"I am Morrigan. This is not a
hallucination, this is a vision of the Shadowlands. This is story.
That is how I know you, you are one of the Storytellers, and I need
your help."
Marion heard the sounds of armoured
bodies moving towards the corner where he stood, "What kind of
help?"
"Aid my children. They need the
help of the Storytellers. Dreamer and Walker are the ones that the
story says will guide them to their destiny, and without the help of
the storytellers, they will never be free. This is the price of my
help. Decide quickly."
"I don't have much other option,
unless I want to find out what it's like to die in a hallucination. I
don't much like that option. In those dreams where you're falling,
you always want to wake up before you hit bottom. So alright. If I
ever meet your children, I will help them."
"You swear on your role in the
story?" She asked.
"I hear him." One of the
soldiers whispered," He's talking to somebody."
"Yes, fine. I swear."
She clasped her hands and drew a symbol
in the air and then leaned down to tap Marion's forehead. Marion's
vision went black for a moment and then he blinked and found himself
standing where he had begun. He looked down, he clothes were unmarked
by the mud.
"Yup," He said quietly,
"Hallucination."
He grinned, and felt a slightly
crackling on his lip and chin. He reached up and wiped cracked and
drying blood from his lips.
"okay, there's a perfectly
reasonable explanation for that." He whispered.
