The Journal of Morwyn mac Tíre
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Standing in the ruins of luxury beneath jagged moon-burning shardlight. Ready for battle and afraid of what comes after. Didel rushes forth from below, huge and bloody. Lost deep in the bloody depths of her killing mir and not what I expected. Her war form was not wolf or bear or rat or cat but Namus-lulul, a possum. A possum hybrid large as an ogre with dagger-fangs and shortsword-claws, screaming her rage and hunger and stinking of blood and violence.
My soul writhed as we met her at the head of the stairs. These were my pack, strong and bright and fighting together. Hatsuko-enzidh and Vivian-bhakiir and Drashi-irmirska were a line of steel and claw. Enzidh‘s blade cut and parried and danced around claws that left ragged wounds in their wake. Bhakiir was a shadow and a storm, worrying and severing and hamstringing Didel to hold her back. Irmirska…
Drashi-irmirska was a goddess of war. Heedless and powerful. As confident now with a greatsword as before with words and lore. She shrugged off blows that would have staggered Enzidh or killed lesser souls. Struck with reckless, glorious strength and power. Shining arcs of steel and blood and scale and sinew. Inspiring…
Didel’s shrieking roars kept the others back but did not slow their courage. Leera-ninna‘s arrows struck like rain and thunderbolts, spreading frostrime like blood with each strike. Lishan-azah‘s magic turned aside blows and saved lives by grace of magpie wings, though could little hurt Didel directly through the shield of her Rage. Charlotte-zaazi‘s spells were precise and lethal as a knife-dancer’s daggers.
The Rage rose like fire, burning me to meet Didel claw to claw. The pack was fighting so fiercely. I needed to fight. I hungered to stand with them. To feel meat and bone splitting beneath my claws. Kept it back, teeth grinding and spitting words of power and fierce magic at Didel as long as I could. But it was not enough. The Rage rose too high and I felt myself fall not just into the Wasu-Im but into the true dark depths.
I met Didel eye to eye clad in my killing form. Tore into her with claws sharpened with moonshadow magic, rent her flesh and exulted in that feeling. And overstepped. Overreached in my exultation. Didel had been cautious, wounded and playing possum. Faking injuries and false death to lure us in. And I was lured. For all the fury of the gauru, Rage is not skill at arms and she saw the chance to strike. Tore me from my feet and splintered me like firewood. Sent tumbling, half-broken and alive only because of the last gasps of Rage she tore out of me.
Didel found renewal in my wounds. A resurgence of strength that she turned on the rest of my pack. She coughed forth oily darkness and stole all our eyes, stalking and striking in the new night as arrows and blades tried to bring her down. Used the last of my magic to wrench consciousness from her, to force Didel and her Beast into slumber before she could kill anyone else, then let the last of my Rage fade and pain take me into darkness. Stupid old wolf…
Next I knew was Zaazi was lifting me up to pour a healing draught down my throat. It was sad. Why was it sad? It called me friend and did not want me gone. But my misstep let Didel almost kill us all. Almost break free and devour the herds of Brolko. Did not have the strength to say anything, let the sharp warmth of the draught heal my wounds and chase away death before She could claim me. And I saw a knife in my hands and Knew.
A flash of memory. I remembered being laid upon a stone altar. A masked woman holding that knife. The one in my hand. Carving into me, working a Rite on my flesh. And I knew that Rite. The Pealing. A dark and terrible thing but a way to help Didel. Part her from the endless hunger of her Beast and give her life and freedom. I did not think. I simply acted, working through the memory.
The blade cut through the sleeping werepossum, carving off its pelt and leaving a sleeping halfling woman within. Every fibre of me was fire as I cut. My soul was screaming with all of her pain and mine and the bloody flesh-cutting memory of being atop the stone altar. I collapsed again, lost in bloody memory and fires of pain. I heard Erissin-irelum arrive overwrought at the bloody ruin I had made, and a pair of eyes lurking in the darkness that met mine before I passed out. The Hoarmother thanked me for the gift. What had I done…
I woke again outside to many many questions. I had few answers. Told them what I knew, that the rite had parted Didel from her rage and hunger but she will remain as empty within as any who have borne a Beast. Some changes cannot be undone. Didel remained asleep through all this and Irmirska let her slumber on her coils. Kind hearted snake.
Some of us braved the tomb again to find any answers that remained there and recover the skeletal remains Didel had cradled in her bloody madness. Perhaps it would bring her peace. Found the tomb was succumbing to age and time. Blood that had flowed endlessly fresh was spoiling and clotting. Vermin were creeping in to feast and despoil. Without Didel’s Beast it had no more purpose. It was simply a place to be consumed by time. We found the remains, a few other oddments and the pelt that I had cut from Didel which sung of magic and dark trickery. Nothing else remained. The ragged body of the Beast was gone, without trail or scent or sign of its passing.
Wounded, half-broken and exhausted, we set to rest and heal before travelling on. Irmirska wished to travel with us. Saw her noticing me, writing and drawing things in her journal. Will not blame her or any of them for wanting me gone after seeing all that happened in that tomb. Yet they do not. Strange kindness.
Irmirska had theories about how old the tomb was, either a few centuries or much older. Centuries or millennia, but built with no great cultural signifiers that she recognised. I have theories as well but did not say anything. My memories are fractious and broken things. What have I forgotten? What did I know?
I must talk to Enzidh. Her blade is talking to her now, stirred to wakefulness by the violence in the tomb. It must be one of the Angels come down, but what does that mean? Is Enzidh Kin or simply happenstance or coincidence? Threads are moving behind the world and I do not yet know the shape that is forming. But I must speak to her, to know and to know if the pack will still have me after all they have seen…
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