The HaRT Knight Decaverse

Heir of Magic

Chapter 20

The Tale of Merrick The Wolf

The werewolf stared up at the sky as dawn approached and howled one last time. Alexander moved forward, still staring at the beast. The werewolf showed its fangs with its most menacing growl yet. He moved carefully, glancing down every now and again to see the moment he passed over the border of the symbol.
When he did, he said, “I trust you, Merrick. I know you’re still in there.”
The beast let out an ear-splitting howl that reverberated with a sense of agony and sorrow. The moon had gone, and the sun was rising. It was over. Its hair fell out and the silver chains pulled themselves free from both stone and flesh. Within minutes, the naked man replaced the giant wolf.
“You’re a bloody fool, mate,” Merrick said in a weak voice.
“It’s never foolish to trust in a friend,” Alexander said and threw his cloak around the other man. He gathered up Merrick’s possessions and flung the bag over one shoulder, and Merrick over the other. Using aeroturgy and a flat stone, he lifted them out of the cavern. They made their way back to the oasis where Dante was waiting for them.
The wizard helped Alexander place Merrick against a tree, then said, “Now you know he’s a werewolf, I take it?”
Both Alexander and Merrick’s mouths fell open.
“You knew?” Alexander asked reproachfully.
“I’ve been around for one-hundred-and-seventy-four years, I think I know how to spot a curse when I see one,” Dante said. “I will admit, however, I only realized you were a werewolf when I heard the howling last night and saw both of you were gone.”
“And you didn’t bother to come to see if we were all right?” Alexander said.
Dante shrugged. “You said you trusted him.”
“And that was enough for you?” Merrick said in amazement.
Dante nodded. “It was.”
Merrick laughed. “You’re both mad,” he said. “But I should have told you sooner.”
“I understand why you didn’t,” Alexander said.
“No. You trusted me with your secret—a much deadlier truth than mine,” Merrick said.
“Well, now is your chance. If you’re willing to tell it, we’d be willing to listen to how you came to be cursed.” Dante said.
Alexander nodded his agreement and asked, “Who did this to you, and why?”
Merrick looked hesitant, but he nodded. “All right.”
Dante and Alexander sat down across from him and listened.

You ask how I came to be cursed; you wish to know who is to blame—I wish I could blame someone or something, but the truth is, I, and I alone, am to blame for the tortured existence my life has become. I have always been a sinful man; it was these sins that brought this fate upon me. The truth is: I deserve much worse. I can accept that, but it’s the weight of guilt I carry for the fate that befell those I loved that is the heavier burden. So, you can understand why I have rarely recounted the tale of my origins, it only serves to remind me of the terrible monster I am.
I was born over a century ago in Svartalgard—back when the country was still a democratic republic. I was the son of a whore who worked at a brothel outside the capital city of Devarastra. My father was a fisherman with a proclivity for games of chance and women of my mother’s vocation. While such a beginning might be a source of embarrassment and scorn for many—and I am ashamed to admit there was a time I was among them—I’ve since learned how fortunate I was.
Growing up in the slums with no money as an actual “son of a whore” I always envied the lives of my betters and resented my parents for not giving it to me. I have since come to realize how fortunate my early childhood was. Most whores would have taken silphium to end the pregnancy while most men who impregnate a whore would not care less, my mother carried me to term, and my father made a point of it to visit me as often as possible. Neither of them could give me much, but they loved me. On the occasions things grew truly hard, my mother would starve while ensuring I had something to eat. My father couldn’t help financially, but every time he visited, he would bring me a new toy he had whittled himself.
Like so many who take good things for granted, I only appreciated my mother and father once I lost them.
On my fifth birthday, I had my first encounter with the Sinful Empire, a group made up of crime syndicates who would one day take control of all Svartalgard. My father’s love of dice meant that he had gotten indebted to them for a significant sum. For the debt he owed, the Sinful Empire sold him into slavery and I never saw him again. Less than a year later, my mother fell ill and couldn’t even get out of bed. I tried to look after her as best I could, but I was only six and she was dying. She was all I had left in the world; I could not lose her. So it was that I sneaked into the city to find help. As a penniless son of a whore no medico or priest would give me the time of day. The medico would not even meet with me while the priests demanded offerings, preferably in the form of coin.
In my desperation, I took to the streets to beg. But even back then, Svartalgard was already an abyss of corruption, crime, and inequality, and the streets of Devarastra were overflowing with begging urchins.
After three whole days of begging, all I got to show for it was one copper coin, several bruises from people who chased me off with violent outbursts, and two broken ribs from the same man who gave me the copper—he seemed to think the coin was enough compensation for my pain and injuries.
At the end of the third day, I crawled home, only to find my mother had died. I cried myself to sleep that night, and the next morning, I buried her as far away as possible from Devarastra. At her grave, I swore I would never again be so poor that I could not help someone I love.
To achieve this new ambition, I returned to Devarastra, only, this time, I chose a less ethical route. I became a thief and pickpocket, and a rather successful one I might add—which was unfortunate. My actions brought me to the attention of the Pilfering Prince, the leader of one of the largest syndicates in the Sinful Empire. Crime in Svartalgard has always been more organized than anywhere else in the world, and only those in the Pilfering Prince’s employ were allowed to steal in Devarastra. They might have killed me if I had been older, but I was still a boy and one who showed a great deal of promise. And so, instead of death, they forgave me my transgression and made me a part of the Pilfering Prince’s syndicate. It had its benefits, most of the guards were under the Prince’s employ and wouldn’t get in anyone’s way who bore the seal of the syndicate. On the occasions I got in trouble, or needed an extra pair of hands to steal something big, one of the prince’s men would help. If I had only been content with my small position in the group, I might have led a better life, not an ethical one, but a lot fewer people would have suffered.
But my greed got the better of me. I wanted more, and I was not happy that as part of the syndicate, the lion shares of what I stole would go to the Prince. It seemed too unfair, but if I were the Prince, I could just sit back and take the money from the others. It would have been easy enough to accomplish. You see, the leaders of the sinful Empire earn their places by obtaining one of six rings which are the symbols of the offices. You can earn the title of Pilfering Prince only by stealing the ring from the current Prince—proving yourself to be the best thief in all Svartalgard to have earned the ring to begin with. In my youthful arrogance, I believed I could steal from the king of all thieves. As you can imagine, I was caught rather easily.
For my punishment, the Prince forced me to follow in my father’s footsteps. He sold me into slavery. I ended up as the houseboy to the most wretched woman who's spent her leisure time torturing her servants. I became her favorite toy because of my—as she called it—demon’s tongue. She did her best to break me, to beat me into submission, but I only grew more troublesome. I made it my mission to pay her back for every scar she gave me. I caused mischief every day, putting cow dung in her slippers, stirring her drinks with my cock, and one occasion, letting a greased up, randy pig loose in her chambers. When I was thirteen and lost my virginity to her daughter, she had enough of me.
She sold me to Master Peter Marot, the best thing that could have happened to me. He was a kind man with no family of his own who needed help to run his business, a company that traded in teas he imported from Wánggá. To help him, he taught me to read, write, and do sums.
As it turned out, I had quite the knack for business. By the time I was sixteen, Master Peter retired and left the day-to-day management of the business to me. I did well under my limited control, but it was not until two years later, when Master Peter died and his will revealed that he had freed me and left me everything he had that I really shined.
Free to implement any changes I saw fit, I turned Master Peter’s small tea business into the largest trading company in all of Svartalgard. You have doubtless heard of it; I named it after my mother: The Elcamean Trading Company. It made me one of the richest men in the country, and with that, came social status.
I’m afraid all my success meant that I grew rather full of myself. Pride and profligacy became the first bricks in my road to damnation.
I liked nothing more than showing off, and my favorite way to do so was to throw the most lavish parties’ money could buy. Every week my ostentatious manor became a grand display of opulence, excitement, and scandal. There were fountains of wine, tables that creaked under the weight of the most decadent food, rooms filled with orgies, and I even brought in fire flowers from Wánggá to light up the night sky. Soon, my name became synonymous with indulgence.
You would think I would have been happy, but you would be wrong. When I remember those days now, it is with disgust. Not so much for what I did, or the wastefulness of it all, but for the person I was. I hated myself back then. It’s hard to be content when you’re a self-loathing narcissist.
But there is one saving grace from that time in my life. Her name was Megara, the daughter of a senate consul. We met at one of my parties. Her friends had forced her to come and see the wonders only the richest man in the country could produce. I can still remember the moment I met her with perfect clarity. She was the most beautiful person there, and I lusted after her the second I saw her, but I only fell in love with her when we spoke and realized how fierce, challenging, and pure she was.
That night was the last time I felt the need to throw a party to show off. I no longer cared for the adulation of others. All I wanted was Megara. I spent weeks pursuing her relentlessly. But she eventually gave me a shot. We started courting, and in no time, we were both madly in love. We married within a year, and for the first time in my life, I was happy.
However, as is the pattern of my life, my good fortune became the soil from which my suffering grew.
The Sinful Empire—who had been keeping a close eye on me since they sold me into slavery—had been concerned about my newfound wealth, fearing I would use it for revenge. While I was partying and wasting my money they were at ease, but my sudden betrothal to a consul’s daughter looked like proof of my plot to their paranoid minds.
They tried to have me killed on three separate occasions until I hired a warrior from the Steredenn Islands to teach me how to defend myself. So, the Sinful Empire changed their tactics, and instead of trying to kill me, they did everything they could think of to kill my business. They set fire to my warehouses while pirates stole my shipments at sea and highwaymen stole them on land.
But all was not doom and gloom in these years, in fact, I received the greatest treasure of my life during this time. Megara gave birth to our daughter, Alexiares. The instant I held my little Alex in my arms, she became my everything, the center of my world and the personification of my heart. It was my love for her, and my desire to ensure she would never need to face the same trials I had that kept the Elcamean Trading Company going for six long years, despite the Sinful Empire’s best attempt to destroy it. I might even have won, if not for the fact that it was at this point the Sinful Empire took control of the senate and the entire Republic of Svartalgard. Now I was not just facing off against criminals, now the government was against me. There was nothing I could do to stop them anymore. They seized the Elcamean Trading Company and most of my lands. Even Megara’s father, who was consciously oblivious of the corrupt state of the senate, turned against me and tried to annul my marriage to his daughter.
The unfairness of it incensed with anger and I was overwhelmed with fear for my daughter and wife. It was only a matter of time until the Sinful Empire tried to have me killed again, only this time, they could send republic soldiers after me and have me executed. If they wanted, they could kill me and leave my wife and daughter to fend for themselves like I had once had to, or worse, they could target Megara and Alex in my place and take everything from me. I was powerless to do anything to stop them. Megara begged me to take her and Alex and leave Svartalgard for Wánggá to start over.
How I wish I had listened.
Wrath consumed me and my pride would not allow me to run. And so, I made the biggest mistake of my life. I had learned of another enemy of the Sinful Empire, a man held deep in the Devarastra dungeons, a Blood Mage called Melzor Kornandon. What I didn’t know then, what my wrath had blinded me to, was that Melzor was not just the enemy of the Sinful empire, but the enemy of the entire world. He was a malefactor, a priest of He Who Slumbers, the great evil beneath the roots of the celestial tree. I could tell he was a monster far worse than anyone in the Sinful Empire, but all I cared about was the Empire’s destruction.
So it was that I used the last of my fortune to fund the escape of Melzor Kornandon and I hid him away in The Green Firwood Forest where we met and he promised to repay me for my aid. He told me to return at midnight on the last day of the week and he would perform the ritual that would grant me the three things my heart desired most.
And so, on the last day of that week, at midnight, I returned to the cabin where I had hidden Melzor. It was only then, as I arrived at the ritual sight, that I realized the mistake I had made. My desire for revenge and my apathy for the consequences had allowed a demented man to be free, and with that freedom, he had captured and tied up six innocent people he had arranged around ritual sight. When I asked him what he was doing, he replied with, “Paying the toll.” And then, slit the throat of a young teenage boy.
“Their blood,” he said, “will fuel the summoning of the Aka-Manah.”
I tried to stop him before he killed another of the people, but using his dark magic, he pinned me to a tree, and no matter how hard I struggled I could not free myself. He forced me to watch, as one after the other, he sacrificed the people—a boy, two women, and three men, one of which was old and feeble. When the cut the old man’s throat, he must have believed it too late for me to stop him because he let me go. But as I dropped to the ground, I knew I had to fix my mistake. I had set this monster free on the world and now I had to stop him. I used the ornamental dagger I always wore in my belt and stabbed the blood mage in the back, piercing his heart like my teacher from the Steredenn Island had taught me. He fell to the ground in the middle of his ritual sight and bled out in minutes.
I remained in the Green Firwood Forest for the rest of the night as I buried the six innocent people who had died because of my desire for revenge and my apathy. As I worked, I considered taking Megara’s advice. I decided that as soon as I got back home, I would take her and Alex and leave Svartalgard. But Wánggá did not feel far enough anymore. Not after what I had done. The southern point of Mag Findargate, I decided, was where we would go.
It would have been a beautiful life. I buried Megara and Alex’s bones there, in a moonflower field next to Arc’han lake in De Kassel. Alexiares would have loved it there. She always loved moonflowers.
But she never got to see the fields, because as I filled the grave of the teenage boy, Melzor got back to his feet, or, I should say, the thing in his body got to its feet. The Aka-Manah, the living dream of He Who Slumbers had been summoned, but my interference meant the summoning was incomplete, and for that, it was not pleased with me. But the rules of summoning meant it had no choice but to grant me the three things my heart desired most.
It has been over seventy years since that day, but when I close my eyes, I can still hear its voice as it said, “Three things you fear, three things you desire, three things I shall grant. Powerless is what you were—to save your mother or stop your foes. You fear your weakness will cause you to lose more of what you hold dear. I shall grant you the feral power of nature herself, you need no longer fear the price of your weakness. You fear for the two you love the most, that your enemies will harm or kill them. I swear that no foe of yours shall ever spill their blood. Like most, you fear dying, but not for yourself, you fear leaving your daughter as your mother left you. No more do you need to fear this, for the Shepherd King shall never have you.”
As the Aka-Manah finished, it tapped my chest with its middle finger. That single second of contact is the worst physical sensation I’ve ever felt. My blood felt like sludge, my lungs as if maggot-infected curdled milk filled them, and my stomach full of writhing creatures with tentacles. My head spun, and I fell to my knees as I wretched.
And then, it was over.
The thing in Melzor’s body was gone—with the body—and the sickening feelings that had filled me might never have been there. It seemed like it was over, though I should have known better. But like so many fools before me, I confused what I wanted to be true with what was.
I left the Green Firwood Forest and returned home. I told Megara about my plans for us to move to Mag Findargate and it elated her. We set about selling off everything we had left in Svartalgard and made the preparations for our journey to our new home, but before we could leave, I fell ill. I had a fever so high it felt like my blood was boiling. My bones ached and my lungs struggled to draw in oxygen.
Megara brought a medico to the house who sold her an expensive jar of snake oil and assured her I would be fine. But as the days passed, I only grew more ill until the night of the first full moon since the events of the Green Firwood Forest. Though I was not completely healed, I was well enough to once more tuck Alex in and tell her a bedtime story, a ritual I had missed in my weeks of being confined to my bed. Once she was asleep, I returned to my room and Megara and I made love for what would be the last time.
There is a tiny mercy in the fact that I can’t remember what happened next.
I awoke the next morning in my daughter’s room, the white walls painted red with blood. Megara’s lifeless body was in the corner, limbs missing but shielding the shredded remains of our daughter with her body. The shock of the moment knocked loose a single memory of what had happened that night. The memory of me, with hairy arms and claws like daggers standing over my bleeding wife as she wailed over the corpse of our daughter. My shadow, a distorted bestial thing grew larger as I walked closer. Crying, Megara had asked, “Merrick, why?”
There are no words to describe to you the pain, sorrow, and guilt I felt at that moment—which I still feel to this day.
I had lost everything worth living for, and it was my fault. There is not a single person in this world who could experience such agony and not desire the sweet release of death. I took a torch and set the house on fire. While the flames grew, I hugged the lifeless bodies of Megara and Alex to me. I would burn with them and hope they would forgive me in the afterworld. As the flames closed in around me, I cried like a child, not for my life, no, I no longer feared death, in fact, I welcomed it. My tears were for my wife and child and the thought of pain I had caused them. The flames swallowed all three of us, and as my flesh burned, I welcomed the pain, for it was a shadow compared to the agony inside.
It was night again by the time the last embers died. The fire had reduced the manor to only a few blackened pieces of wood surrounded by mounds of ash, and in the middle of it all, I sat surrounded by Megara and Alex’s bones. The fire had burned me to a crisp, reducing me to a blackened simulacrum of a man, and yet, I was alive. My eyes, which had ruptured from the heat—had already grown back, and I could watch as my skin reformed and the charred pieces of flesh fell away to be replaced by healthy red muscles.
While I still struggled to overcome my confusion and shock, footsteps approached, through the blacked remains of my home. The Aka-Manah in Melzor’s body strode in and smiled at me.
“Rejoice, for I have granted the desires of your heart,” it had said.
“No. I would never desire this,” I protested, and it began to laugh.
“You felt powerless, so I made you a werewolf, the second I’ve ever made. You were afraid that your enemies would kill your wife and child, now they never can, for you already have. You feared dying, and so, I increased the already remarkable ability of the werewolf curse to keep its host alive making it near impossible for you to die.” It laughed again. “You will live forever, knowing what you have done to those you love, and with every full moon, instead of paying a price for your weakness, you shall pay one for your strength as you lose control and harm more people.”
With that, the Aka-Manah turned its back on me and vanished. I do not know what happened to it, I’m not sure it can even be killed. It’s likely still out there, somewhere, spreading more suffering because I allowed it to be summoned.
The rest of my story is of little importance. I spent a long time trying everything I could think of to kill myself, but nothing worked. No matter what I did to myself, my curse would heal me. In time, I learned that I heal slower when the injuries I incur were received from another, however, this only applies when I receive the injuries while trying not to die. Perhaps this is something the Aka-Manah did on purpose, to ensure that if I ever came after it, it at least, could kill me.
Nevertheless, I spent another ten-years getting into every fight I could find, everything from a tavern brawl to battles of war. My curse was too effective. The strength and speed make me hard to kill, and with every battle I survived, my skill increased, making it even harder for me to find someone who can beat me.
I eventually gave up on dying and accepted my eternal punishment. For half a century, I did little but drink and feel sorry for myself. It was only fourteen years ago that I met a young woman who shook me out of my despondency. After one last conflict with the Sinful Empire, I dedicated all my time to finding a cure for my curse so I can die. My search led me to The Wandering City where I knew the largest remaining treasure of magical objects was hidden in Talitha’s Tower. And well —

“—the rest of the story you already know,” Merrick concluded.
At first, neither Dante nor Alexander spoke, they just stared at Merrick with mixtures of sorrow and pity.
After a few minutes of silence, Alexander said, “Dante, isn’t there anything we can do to help?”
Dante shook his head. “I’m so sorry, but as far as I know, there is no cure for lycanthropy. Even if there were, there’s no guarantee it would even work on your curse, Merrick. You didn’t become a werewolf in the normal way.”
“Then we’ll find another way,” Alexander said. He turned to Merrick and added, “Enemone said that if you help me, you will find what you want. So we’ll help you break your curse, I swear it.”
Merrick smiled gratefully at him.
“We can try,” Dante said. “But Alexander, the thing that cursed him—an Aka-Manah might just be a living dream, but it is part of the most evil and powerful being in our reality. I’m not sure there is a way to break a curse from something like that.”
“Are you saying I should just give up?” Merrick asked.
Dante seemed to think about this for a second then shook his head. “If what you say is true and Talitha’s descended believes you will find a cure by helping us, then it sounds to me like there is still hope. In fact, the answer might present itself sooner than we think.”
“What do you mean?” Merrick asked.
“When I was still a young mage, studying at the order of Zacchaeus, I recall reading a tome about curses. The author likened the soul to a fire. He believed that a curse, like the one Merrick suffers from, is like a spark or ember of evil buried inside the person’s soul. When the curse is triggered—like when Merrick turns at the full moon—that ember becomes a fire that overwhelms the flame of the soul. If that is true, then fire magic might hold the answers we seek. The pride may be able to manipulate the fire of Merrick’s soul to help him.”
“I met a member from the Pride once, he said something like that but it sounded insane the way he explained it,” Merrick said.
“It is a long shot, I admit, but it's worth a try,” Dante said. “Besides, fate seems to be on our side on this.”
“For once,” Alexander said sardonically.
Dante ignored Alexander and said, “I suggest we get some rest. Come sunset, we’ll set off for the Palace of the Pride. That seem to be the place where all our paths converge.”