Wynnderlan II
07.09.10 by Elisa Williams

I was alone. Floating; drifting but for the spike in my chest that pinned me to the hard surface underneath. Faces with burning blue eyes, heads crowned with antlers and pointed ears advanced and faded.

This is death? I could not feel my limbs, only the spike of pain in my chest. I tired to draw a breath. Like a hammer hitting water-soft wood, my lungs convulsed once and seized in my chest.

I arched up off the hard surface I lay on, suddenly desperate for air. Pain slammed through me. I trashed, fighting to break up the solid matter that my lungs had become. Something broke loose and I retched. Congealing blood and foam came up with each heave of my frozen lungs. I gasped for breath, choking up fluid and clots of blood till I was exhausted, my throat a raw ruin. It was then, lying face down propped up on my elbows I realized I was naked and soaking wet; underneath me wet rock, sea water lapping about my legs. Over a low bluff the half moon hung like a swollen womb. I was in a sea cove, lying amongst the driftwood that littered the beach and bobbed in the low water, bone-white in the moonlight.

I coughed once; a weak, wet cough that tore at my throat and made my stomach heave. My breath misted the air but I felt no cold. I looked down at my hands.

Dead-white, like a corpse, the skin loose and flaccid. I bent my fingers. The skin pulled away from my hand, sliding off in a long swath. I stared, unable to feel either shock or revulsion. I turned my hands and scraped them along the stone. Thick, dead skin and flesh peeled away like cod under the dressers knife. A corpse. I was a rotting copse.

My moan turned into a cough and I lay my forehead on the rock, fighting to still the spasm. Blood dribbled from my mouth, striping the white flesh of my arms. My scalp crawled, a sensation that brought to mind worms burrowing in soft earth. My senses rocked. The chill night air lifted me and carried me away.

Water running into my nose brought me back. The tide was moving in. Clouds had moved to cover the moon, leaving the beach a mottled patchwork of rock and sand and driftwood. I moved my legs and felt returning sensation. All over my skin tingled with a deep almost painful prickling. I lifted my head and took a breath. The cold air burnt my raw throat. I fought the urge to cough. My dead white skin seemed to glow in the night. I raised my hand before my face. The skin was smooth and whole, no sign of a mark.

Realization dawned and my blood froze. I stretched out both arms. Where they should have been torn and punctured with the teeth-marks of the dogs they were whole and untouched, pale in the returning moonlight. Patches of memory floated in my mind like moving fog...Frozen ground and blood, lantern light and echoing voices.

Almost of their own violation, my fingers moved to my throat. Here too the skin was untouched where it should have been torn and gaping. In the uncertain light, I examined the rest of my body. Whole, unscathed. In parts dead skin was still peeling away as it had on my hands and arms, new skin showing brighter underneath. My hands went to my head and came away with a chunk of hair. I stared at the long dark strands dumbly. I opened my fingers and let them fall to the rock. Rising water run over it, working at carrying it away.

Slowly, I stood. The breeze moved against me and there was a burning sensation over my shoulder blades; light and voices teased my memory, a presence I knew but now missed. It faded almost immediately, like a moment of dizziness one gets when rising from a bed, leaving me only with the huge and awful realization: I had been brought back from among the dead.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Landercastle was a city older than the country that it resided in. Burnt and rebuilt, beset by plague and purged by religious massacre, it still moved and breathed, an ancient beast, older and wiser than time. The stone architecture had given way to brick and mortar as the centauries of plundering the material had left the land naked for miles and miles ‘round. Overlooking the city were the ruins of fortress Landercastle, the castle of kinds long dead, now only broken stone and tumbled walls.

On this morning a heavy winter fog hung low over the city, pierced by steeples and bell towers, curling at the doorposts and sending long fingers swirling across the paved streets. My borrowed cloak was wet through, clinging to my skin in places the tunic did not cover. Carriage lamps bobbed in the mist, the rumble of wheels muted; the only near sounds were the drip of water and the thud of an axe. I passed the lower city summer-market, the stalls shuttered and silent. Beyond it the streets were like a rabbit warren, houses mixed among the shops and taverns. The mixed smells of smoke, wet brick, animal and sewer hung heavy.

The window shutters on the second story of a smoke-stained building that housed an herbalist's shop on the first floor were raised and a cascade of descending water narrowly missed me. The pungent scent of herbs and spices momentarily wafted on the mist-heavy air. I glanced up. The herbalist's amber-eyed daughter met my gaze. She nodded in acknowledgment as our eyes met but there was no recognition in her gesture. I lowered my eyes, moving on down the street.

Three turns and a dozen shops and ale houses later I arrived at the back of a white stone building. Two black cats with gold eyes watched me from the back steps. They rose and stretched as I climbed the steps and lifted the door latch. The hall lamps were still unlit. The cats slipped in behind me and made for the kitchen doorway. A weary scolding followed their entrance. The back stairs were narrow and dark but as familiar as my own face; the thought made me pause. The face I was familiar with was the face of Afon, pickpocket and petty thief. Not the face I had now. Not the face of a dead man awoken. A reanimated corpse.

I raised reluctant fingers, running then along the jaw line of a face that was not my own. It had been a disorienting experience to look into the wavy mirror hanging over the basin in the farmer's cottage and see a stranger. Like a face seen in a dream and then forgotten, tantalizingly familiar though totally foreign. Every line had shifted slightly creating a completely new visage, yet retaining some evanescent tie to the Afon that had climbed the cliffs of Dungard la Roch. With the bald head of a mountain monk, I could not have been more unrecognizable.

Deep in these thoughts I climbed the narrow stairs avoiding the loose and squeaky steps out of habit. The scarred door with the tarnished brass handle seemed a relic of the past but it had been a mere fortnight since I'd last closed the door behind me, that dark-destined night Hadyn and I had gone to rob a Barwn.

I turned the knob and swing the door open. The room was empty. Bare floor boards collecting dust in the corners and overlaying the tiny window panes and sills. Stained ticking and a wooden bucket remained in the corner. As expected, Hadyn was long gone. I would have been truly disappointed in his good sense to have found him still in residence. I stepped back and closed the door, leaving the way I had come in, avoiding any contact with the others in the house. There would be no message left for me.

Outside in the street it was already dark, shadowed by the buildings and overcast sky. The illogical streets lead me further into the warren. The houses became more ill-kept, their disreputable outsides matching the business transacted within. A boy in a ragged a velvet coat and ruffled jabot stood outside a coffeehouse as if waiting for his girl to finish her work for the evening. He glanced in my direction, passing me over with dark eyes, dismissing me. I had been a thief since I was old enough to dart through the busy streets, lifting ill-guarded purses and handkerchiefs; I knew my own kind. The young thief turned away to look in the window of the coffeehouse, like a fretful lover hoping to catch a glimpse of his girl. I knew the glass afforded a view of the street behind him.

The streets became narrower and more confused, if such a thing were possible. Piles of offal blocked alleyways hardly wide enough for a child to run down. Three fat sparrows hopped and fluttered from roof top to rain gutter watching me with bright black eyes. They followed me down the narrow, refuse-filled gap between the backs of two houses and perched above the paint-peeling door, three steps off the street, hopping and bobbing as I knelt to inspect the lock. From my cloak pockets I took a pewter kitchen knife and the handle of a bottle brush, the top broken off; articles I'd secured for this anticipated need. I worked on the lock, listening to the sounds around me, careful of any noise from within the house. There was the flurry of wing beats very close and something light hit my shoulder. I turned to inspect the sparrow, perched inches from my face.

It's tiny, scaly claws gripped my sodden cloak; it fluffed it's feathers, raising it's lower eyelids, regarding me from slitted eyes. I stared back, mildly surprised. The city sparrow's close proximity with humans did not tame them but rather made them all the more wary. As such, this behavior was entirely out of the ordinary. Perhaps this one was a tame sparrow, escaped or set loose.

I moved my shoulder. The sparrow swayed and adjusted it's grip but did not take flight. I plucked it from my shoulder and set it aside. The first few drops of rain fell. The lock clicked open and I stood, the sparrows fluttering out of my way.

Hadyn and I had worked with Renfrew in the past, even eaten with his family and lived in his home for a time when our own rooms had been under scrutiny. He could be trusted but I was not so sure of the thieves he worked with or whomever might be in temporary residence. I did not wish to been seen by anyone but Hadyn or Renfrew himself.

The door opened into a dim, unswept hall. The raucous sounds of a game of chance came from the kitchen with the smell of baking fish and parsnip pie. I ignored it and made my way to what had been at one time the library. Now the shelves built for books held cloth-wrapped trinkets, waiting to be taken away on the morrow. Rugs heavy with dust and scarred wooden furniture filled the room. A large desk sat in a shadowy corner, it top bare but for a inkwell. I knew it would be empty, Renfrew kept no records of any kind.

It begin to rain, streaking the dirty windowpanes and sending a damp draft from the chimney flue. Footsteps sounded in the hall and the door latch rattled. Renfrew entered and went directly to the shelves, picking up and unwrapping one of the smaller bundles. Some sense of my presence must have warned him for he looked up, glancing around the room. He started when he caught sight of me sitting behind the door. He turned, re-wrapping the soft-glowing strings of pearl. "Who the deuce are you?" he demanded. He approached, his eyes swiftly scanning the room for any sign I was not alone.

I stood, removing my wet cloak and dropping it on a chair.

"Afon?" Renfrew stared at me.

"Aye." I glanced towards the closed door. "Who is in house?"

"Lord and lady! It is you," Renfrew exclaimed, moving to examine me at both sides like a horse trader looking his purchase over. "What in the name of the dead have you done to yourself?"

What could I say that would be believed? Tales of death and reawakening were fine for fay tales and talk over a cup but the people of Deadman's quarter lived with the deep and unshakable belief of demon lore. Dead men had no place walking among the living.

"Haven't done anything to myself but starve and freeze till I couldn't stand it anymore, then took off my hair and stole some clothes and came here. I need to talk to Hadyn."

"Ah...out of twig, eh?" Renfrew couldn't seem to take his eyes off me. The grey-haired fence stepped forward and put two fingers under my chin, tilting my head towards the watery light from the windows. "All the gods lad, you have a way with disguise. I'd swear I mistook you for...I hardly recognized you a'tal." We both knew my answer was not satisfactory, but Renfrew was letting it be for now. I brushed his hand aside and stepped back. He gave a wheezing snicker. "We should have known better than to expect Afon to get done in by a mere Lord Knighted."

I wondered what tale Hadyn had spun for Renfrew. I could tell from his manner he was testing me to see what I might drop, never trusting anything a person might tell him.

I ignored him and asked again, "Where's Hadyn?"

Renfrew bared his teeth in a wolfish grin. "Why, nowhere but in my kitchen eating up my children's bread. We'll fetch him in for a private chat. No need to let the rest of the fellows know you're back, just yet." He gave me a conspiratorial wink. At the door he paused. "Never could see you getting lost," he said cryptically. With another grin he was gone, closing the door firmly behind himself. I stood, to chill and stiff to sit again, and waited.

Low voices preceded Hadyn and Renfrew's entrance. Hadyn came in ahead of the fence. His eyes widened and his skin lost some of it's ruddy color when he saw me. He said nothing but stood staring.

Renfrew locked the door and turned to regard Hadyn and I. "No warm welcome for Afon?" he said and there was a nasty tone to his words.

"I thought you were nabbed for sure," Hadyn said, calmly. Renfrew watched us like a cat does a bird. I held my tongue. I wasn't going to be able to talk to Hadyn until we were alone. Renfrew was fairly boiling with suspicions. The silence stretched, heavy and unbalance. Renfrew broke it abruptly.

"You fit to work?" he asked, glancing me over again. "I can always use another pair of good hands. It's low season now and Hadyn came to me with naught but his empty stomach and one less a partner."

Hadyn spoke up before I could respond. "It's better Afon and I lay low for a bit longer."

"Here in the city?" Renfrew's mouth made a straight line of disapproval. "Nary a one looking for you here or you'd have been sleeping in chains a sennight already." His eyes darkened as they flicked my way; an intense, searching look as if he would peel away this new skin to read the secret beneath it.

The talk was running over my head. I shivered in my damp clothes. "Do you feed your house guests, Renfrew or will I starve in front of your very eyes?"

Renfrew chuckled and wagged a finger to indicate both me and Hadyn who scowled back at the fence. "No man feeds a lame horse."

"A little while more to shake anyone still interested in us, that's all," Hadyn barked. He stalked to the door. Renfrew chuckled and turned back to me. "Best you sleep in here tonight. That way you wont be disturbed by the others. I'll bring along some food and something for a bed. It looks to be a cold night, build up a fire if you want," he said with a hearty generosity. He left the room and I heard the key turn in the lock outside.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


I was in a farmer's cottage, sitting on the rush-strewn floor, my back against the rough, chinked wall, the mistress of the house crouched in front of me. Naked and covered in clay, I'd arrived in the wee hours of the morning when even laborers such as these folk were still abed. It was no wonder the good woman watched me as one would a demon, her husband close beside with a knotted walking stick that would do for a bo staff. From the looks of his tall, muscled frame and scarred arms, he was no stranger to fighting.

"Where could he have come from at this hour with naught a thread on him and lookin' pale as a haunt?" she whispered. "And shaven like a holy man, too."

The master of the mean little abode extended his stick and prodded me, not ungently. Too exhausted to move I shook my head, to indicate I was no threat. I only wanted a drink of water and to lie by a fire, though I was already unnaturally warm.

A short ways from the sea cove I'd awoken in, all my strength had left me, suddenly and without warning. Weak as a newborn babe I'd crawled, near crying with weariness, till the challenging bark of a mongrel had alerted me to the presence of a human habitation. There I stopped moving and for all I tried, could not again stir a limb on my own; while the mutt sniffed me over, growling all the while, and till the tall farmer had arrived with a fatty candle and drug me indoors.

The mistress got awkwardly to her feet and I saw she was some months along with child. She went to the water bucket and dipped out a cupful. Approaching me, she glanced at her husband. He nodded and stepped back. I had been determined not a demon.

"Water," she murmured, lifting my head and holding the cup to my lips. I moved my tongue and worked my throat to swallow. But instead of the cool water it should have been, the spiny legs and feelers of spiders. They ran over the rim of the cup and down my throat, their feet sharp inside me. I pushed away from the wall, turning my head from the cup. Powdery snow chilled my fingers, inches deep around me.

I turned my head from the cup, pushing away from the cottage wall that kept me pinned in a corner. But the farmer's wife had grown claws and they punched through my skin, deep into the flesh. Hounds teeth, grinding on bone...

A blast of frigid wind hit me in the face, burning my throat and forcing back down my rising scream of terror. The creature that held me in it's claws roared, a formless, disorienting sound; pressure inside my head, a spear of ice through my gut. It's mouth was a spinning black hole, endless and soul-destroying. The curved antlers of a deer came from it's head, rising above pointed ears. It spoke one word to me. "Griffin!"

I felt my body would tear to pieces. All breath was sucked from my lungs.

I woke with Hadyn's hand covering my mouth and nose, his crouching shadow blocking the sickly light of a half moon through the window. I batted his hand away and sat up gasping. In the backwash of my nightmare, in the half light of a strange moon, Hadyn seemed a total stranger.

Hadyn withdrew his hand and stood, waiting. Across the room damp air blew in through the open window but the door to the hall remained firmly closed.

I asked no question but stood and pulled on my boots, a pair lent me by Renfrew, as were all my clothes. I had no idea what Hadyn had done with my things, I hadn't yet had the chance to speak with him in private.

Hadyn crossed to the window and pushed it wide. He stepped onto the sill, disappearing below. My stomach lurched to watch, even though I knew the drop was a bare seven feet.

Chill, damp night air touched my face as I crawled out into the sill, pulling the window closed after me. Swinging over the edge I hung there for a second of irrational fear before I forced my hands to let go and dropped the few feet to the pavement. Hadyn said nothing but started off towards the street. I followed.

The streets of the Deadman's Quarter were not a healthy place for a midnight stroll. Each morn dawned with another rash of killings; stripped bodies thrown into rubbish heaps, never to identified but buried in unmarked graves. Built as a wealthy quarter, plague had swept away all the traces of it's notable beginnings. The once stately houses were now darkened and fallen into disrepair. I followed several steps behind Hadyn, aware of the subtle sounds of a city feigning sleep. Ahead loomed the ghostly outline of the church of Glad Majorum, it's smooth stone walls hung in mist. Houses crowded in on either side of the crumbling courtyard wall yet the huge building remained empty and haunted. During the months of plague that had left the quarter desolate the church sanctuary had filled with the sick, lying row upon row, till the nuns who cared for them had succumbed to the illness. The bodies had been burned inside the church, blackening the walls and destroying twenty-three of the two dozen intricately patterned glass windows. Now it was the haunt of vagabonds and thieves.

Hadyn lead the way past the court and to the graveyard behind where tumbled headstones mingled with building rubble amongst unearthed graves. Here he stopped and turned to me.

"What happened at Dungard la Roch? Where have you been for this past fortnight?"

I faced Hadyn across a squared headstone, still standing firmly rooted over it's unturned grave. His question was bland but I knew Hadyn well enough to know it was asked out of deep suspicion. Through the course of events, for being apprehended in the Barwn's mansion to plunging over the cliffs-edge into darkness and nightmares and coming back to life in blood and water, my focus had strayed far from the machinations of a livelihood of thievery. Hadyn's suspiciousness brought me back with a cold shock.

"I was caught." I hesitated, wondering how much I should tell Hadyn. I needed to have him believe me.. "There was quite a stir when they found someone had taken off with–"

Hadyn made a sharp movement with one hand, silencing me mid-sentence. I did not have to look around to know we were still alone in the mist-covered graveyard. Hadyn was nervous.

"I went through a window and they set chase - some big bloody nobblers with dogs." I didn't have to fake my anger and fear as I related the events of that dark, wet night. "I got away down the cliffs and stayed on the sea marshes; I don't know just where. You would. I didn't come back here till I was so cold and hungry I thought I was near dead." I forced a grin.

Hadyn's face was in deep shadow. He stood, studying me in silence. I knew he was aware I was holding back, but he did not pursue it. Instead he stood and crossed the space between us in two quick steps. He grabbed my arm and yanked up the sleeve of my shirt. From shoulder to fingertip the skin of my arm was whole and unscarred. Grabbing the collar of my shirt he torn the garment half off me. In the grey light my skin looked deathly pale and completely free of the dozens of tiny cuts thick, brittle glass gave you.

"Bastard," Hadyn sneered. "Through the window? You haven't got a mark on you. You bloodless piece of shit, I should have helped you off that window ledge when I had the chance; should have known you for a blower. There wasn't a word about the Roch anywhere I went but I knew the Barwn wouldn't give up the swords that easy."

I knew I was in danger but the knowledge was distant. White-blue smoke was filling my head and there was a whispering inside my ears. "Curse it all, why would-"

Hadyn's fist caught me in the mouth, sending me staggering back into a crumbling headstone. "You wouldn't climb down those cliffs even if it was to save your worthless life," Hadyn sneered, advancing on me, now with knife in hand. But instead of using it, he used his free hand, delivering a blow to my kidney in a short vicious punch, slamming me back against the headstone.

"I sent them off to Cillberdd," I gasped out, forcing myself to uncurl and stand up. The pain was excruciating. "After a man named Lloyd. You think the Barwn would trust someone like me to get his precious swords back? They think I'm dead; they wanted me dead."

Hadyn leaned his forearm against my throat, crushing me against the tombstone, pinning me much the way the Barwn had.

"And what has you so changed the dead Lord himself wouldn't claim you? You didn't get this way jumping through windows or crawling ‘round the cliffs."

"Bloody fool, you think the Barwn did this to me?" My shout was a whisper, wheezed through restricted airways

"The bastard reeks of black arts. Every dumb bugger knows what the Barwn is."

I was out of air and arguments. My limbs didn't seem to work, and not because of my inability to breathe properly. Shards of memory cut through my mind - so intense, my inward visions clouded my sight, leaving my surroundings dim, Hadyn's face a blur.

"Damn you Afon, I thought I could trust you," Hadyn hissed, leaning his weight into my throat.

"...why would I come back here...for a bloody Barwn...who'd kill me...the second I wasn't useful anymore!"

Hadyn's face was shadow and light, his eyes hidden. "I wont give up the swords," he hissed. I looked at Hadyn through blurred eyes and knew: He was going to kill me.