Wizard's Bane

PROLOGUE

In the darkest region of Uunatar, near the southern edge of the dreaded forest that men name the Werewood, a lone girl child sat alone and cried amidst the devastation of her miserable life.

Since the day she first recognized her existence, she knew she was unwanted, the seventh child in a family already far too large. From the day she could first walk, she was made to work... and work... and work some more. Her parents treated her little more than a laborer, and there was little love shared between them. Her siblings were no kinder, taking every opportunity to steal her food and make her work more difficult. She wondered often why she had ever been born in the first place, but she was apparently still too young to be let in on that secret!

Today was her birthday. She was seven years old. Yet she felt desperately older, and she was more lonely and bitter than any girl of any age should have to feel. In the midst of a great circle of oaks, she burst into tears and fell to the soft earth, and it seemed to her at that moment that she would surely perish, and no one and nothing in the world would be the worse for it.

She thought there was no one there that could hear her crying, but she was wrong. The forest was there, and the forest was always listening. The forest heard everything. And perhaps....just perhaps, it even secretly spoke to her. But no doubt she couldn't guess it's language, or even recognize its voice, and so at last it grew silent.

The day drew swiftly to a close. Darkness descended on the land, and with the shadows, the girl knew that the larger predators would soon begin to prowl. It was time to go back inside until morning light brought back the illusion of safety once more.

Fate is fickle and may change its whims in a moment. And so it went, for even as she watched the moon rising slowly above the treeline, a man was also watching her. Deep in the shadows he stood, and in utter silence. He was very old and very thin, dressed in a worn gray traveler's cloak that seemed much too large for him. His face was beardless, his eyes were deep and piercing and blue as the sky.

Now that man entered the glade which encircled the house, and she saw him for the first time. She was frightened at first, but there was kindness written clearly there in his blue eyes that was so unlike anything she had ever claimed from her family that she was momentarily paralyzed with indecision. He stood staring down at her. His hand reached down to touch her. She reached out to touch him.

All was revealed to her then, in an instant that could never be fully comprehended, she knew the secret of everything that had ever was or would be.

She would go with him. There was never really any question from that moment on. Anything would be better than the drear dull days of drudgery that loomed ahead if she continued her present path.

The man stood staring down at the crying child. He didn't seem at all surprised at what he saw. He smiled at her, then lifted her into his strong arms, and without further ado, continued on his way.

The glade was left empty once more.

I.

She now found herself to be one of three young girls living together in the house of a very ancient and powerful wizard.

Now, as you might have guessed, sharing the home of a wizard can be dangerous business, and in no way should be considered a sedate or normal family relationship. And this wasn't just any wizard! This was Azimuth Duul, thought by some to be the greatest and wisest sorcerer of that age. Others claimed he was insane. She only knew that he had saved her from the existence she'd been living as a laborer and drudge for her own birth family. He was her savior, her protector, and her teacher, all in one. And though he was too distant and strange for Kore to feel close to, he treated her and the other girls kindly enough. Life there in the haunted depths of Werewood was far better than any other life she could conceive of.

And so the girl, who Azimuth renamed Kore, was rarely unhappy. This was the only real home she had ever known.

Two other girls lived with the wizard, and both seemed much the same age as her. Melissandra lived in the back bedroom. She was blonde and thin as a skeleton, which enabled her to find her way into tiny spaces Kore could never fit in. She was adventurous and rebellious, and was often in trouble with Azimuth Duul.

Zara lived in the loft, and was more than a little strange, with her bright moon round eyes and her raven black hair and her assertion that she came from a tribe of people that lived under the earth!

She had no other companions, for no one other than a wizard would dare to live in the depths of a forest as haunted as Werewood. The forest was haunted by ancient specters, and had been accursed by a terrible magic. With the coming of each nightfall, the veils between the worlds grew thin there in Werewood, and the gates to the nether-world was momentarily opened. Thru that gap, with a fury came troops of demons, imps, trolls, werewolves, and perhaps other even worse things. All these roamed freely there in the forest until the coming of the morn.

Azimuth Duul had long ago constructed a series of magical wards which kept the army of misbegotten creatures at bay, else they would have devoured them all long ago. As it was, every evening they stood and pounded at the great iron doors, howling and gibbering against the invisible barrier that Azimuth had set against their entry. The girls learned to ignore this horrendous cacophony after a while, as one ignores the howl of the wind and the constant patter of rain upon the roof.

The years passed and Kore and her companions grew older. Yet Azimuth Duul never seemed to age, remaining as ancient as he had ever been. He would always greet them with smiles upon the morn, and in the morning, there would always be delicious things to eat for breakfast, though from what pantry the food had come and who had prepared it, the girls could never discover.

Sometime after the third year she had started her new life in the wizard's house, he began to instruct them in the ways of sorcery, and the art of dancing.

"It's very important that you learn how to dance," Akhmun informed them. "Music is the rhythm of the universe, and to know how to dance is to know the flow and essence of true magic."

Each day at one hour past mid day, Azimuth Duul gave them several hours of instruction in the rudiments of those arts which he himself had long ago mastered. Their minds flowered even as their bodies began to blossom into young womanhood. He taught them the words of potency, and how to guard one's self against curses. They learned the names of the god kings, and of the strange celestial beings who gave them their power. They heard tales of the ancient Lemurians and the beings called the Elohim who had come across the star bridge to become masters of the vast empire of Mu, which now dominated all the southern lands. They learned of the spirits of blood and nightmare which fed on the light of living souls. They discovered the essence of nature spirits and guardian spirits and spoke to the pale ghosts that wander thru the empty corridors of time.

And he taught them to dance, and to weave the integral parts of their essential selves into the fabric of time and space.

"It's very important to learn how to dance," Akhmun informed them. To dance is to know the flow and essence of true magic."

The three girls were close companions, though none of them would be eager to admit it.

Werewood in the light of day provided a welcome haven away from the constricting confines of the wizard's cabin. When they were not studying or doing the labors of the household, they ventured onto the twisted trails that led away from the house into the depths of the haunted forest. They discovered therein a magical and unexpected haven. An endless variety of creatures made their homes amongst those gnarled and twisted trees, and none seemed disturbed by the demonic carnival that ruled the forest night. Kore often wondered how they kept safe and hid themselves when the ghouls crept from the shadows, but she never discovered an answer.

When the hour of sunset drew nigh and the stars began to tremble uncertainly in the swift dimming sky, the three girls would wander into the meadow and watch the will o' the wisps dance amongst the flowers in the field. These enchanting orbs of light appeared at the onset of dusk, but always vanished before the chaos that ensued with the encroaching of night. Lambent, flickering ghosts of light, they faded in and out of existence without warning and drifted wherever they would. Nor could even solid objects deter them from their wanderings, as they passed thru trees and brush and even solid earth as they followed their myriad appointed paths. They were a mystery that was wholly inexplicable, much like the rising and falling of the sun and the moon, yet the girls never stopped speculating and arguing about their purposes and origins.

"They are ghosts," averred Melissandra, shaking her blonde hair out of her eyes and squinting to see better. "Spirits of the dead... perhaps they are those slain by the demons of the forest. They come here to warn others of their fate."

"I think they're faerie lights," argued Zara, playing with her rune sticks as she spoke. Her dark eyes glittered in her small face. "We cannot see their true forms because we would be blinded by their beauty. We see only their lights that trail in their wake as they make their way to the enchanted lands, crossing thru the barrier of our world on their way to a better one."

Kore's opinions changed as often as the day, but she was sure that the will o' the wisps were guided by conscious intelligent beings. There was something about them that made her feel as if they were trying to communicate some vast and elemental secret to her, only she was too blind or ignorant to decipher their message.

All too soon, the night would encompass the forest, and blackness would encroach. The unearthly lights would flicker out one by one, and no eyes could perceive just where they had gone. The howls of the night creatures would resound thru the forest, and they knew soon after they would overwhelm this clearing, shambling forth from the very heart of mystery.

Thus the days passed. It was not an unhappy household. The girls learned new lessons of magic and made new discoveries every day about themselves and their world. There was never any want of food or comforts and Azimuth was a sombre but gentle tutor. Kore often sensed there was an urgency behind his lessons, yet he never explained why he had chosen the three of them as his wards and apprentices in the esoteric arts of which he was master.

Though they never ventured far outside the magical boundaries that guarded Azimuth's house, they knew much of the outside world, for it was part of their studies to learn the lore and languages of the people of the earth in the days of the Lemurian lords. The lands outside the boundaries of Werewood were of much interest to them, and the subject of many a fantasy as to what they would do if they could visit those places. They knew that the nearest town was Holdstock, and that it was here that Azimuth Duul went to replenish their many supplies when he went away on his monthly excursions.

There was a shadow inside her that she kept hidden from Azimuth Duul, which made itself known as a loneliness that was often more than she could bear. Azimuth, though a great and wise sage, was usually distant and preoccupied. He spent most of his time poring over books, scrawling illegible notes on scrolls, and concocting obnoxious smelling potions. He was no fit companion for man or beast, for the subtle arts of sorcery had long ago made him their consort.

Living out her childhood in the shadowy depths of Were Wood, fueled on the esoteric knowledge of ancient Lemuria, perhaps there's small wonder that she became somewhat fey and strange. She practiced her rituals daily without fail. She knew the name and purpose of every herb in the forest. She could converse fluently in seventeen different languages and had learned as well the art conversing with the many beasts and birds of the forest and field. She was well versed in healing arts and the science of illusions. In fact, she was well versed in the all the forces that govern the natural world. But she was wholly and utterly ignorant to the laws which govern human nature, which is another matter entirely, and so after all, she was still naught but a naïve young girl.

Her dreams began to reflect the weirdness and uncertainty of her waking life. In her nightly journeys thru forests haunted and still, she was often felt as if she were pursued by some unknown terror. The hours before waking were filled with such strange visions, and there was something more, something more persistent.....a face......a cruel, fierce face, one that both frightened her and excited her into a kind of delicious frenzy, until she awoke from her dreams to find the apparition had been sadly unreal. No dark haired stranger awaited her at dawn.

She grew more distant as the years passed, and if Azimuth Duul noticed her drifting into dangerous fancies, he seemed to pay her no heed. Who is to say what is in the mind of a wizard as ancient and as learned as Azimuth Duul? Legends said was near four centuries old, but the legends lied, for in truth he had walked the earth for over nine hundred years. The thoughts which pass thru the mind of such a man must be far beyond our meager comprehension, and so little wonder that he seemed distant.

As time went on, there came moments when Kore began to notice certain changes in her body, and these were strange to her, because they had never been proscribed in her lessons. Her breasts began to grow to an alarming degree, and a soft fleece of hair started to sprout above her pubic mound. More than this, she began to feel odd stirrings within, and found it excruciatingly pleasurable to caress herself. She would spend delicious evenings with her body and her fingers delving into the nooks and lines and curves of her body, delighting in the sensations her own touch engendered in her sensitive nerves.

Then came a day when she found that she was bleeding from her private parts, and though she was sure she was dying, she kept her shameful secret to herself until soon after the bleeding just stopped.

She was driven in her studies to discover more about this new mystery. She found that there was indeed a woman's secret, a knowledge that had much to do with the cycle of the moon. As she continued her studies, she began to realize the truth had been there all along, but it was hidden in subtle innuendos and code words, as if there was some blasphemous secret connected with the whole subject, and that it was somehow a dangerous taboo.

Finally, she spoke to the other two girls about her feelings. She knew that they too had been displaying outward charges in their bodies, though they didn't seem to be subjected to the insult of overlarge breasts. She was not surprised to find that they had been having similar experiences, but she was genuinely chagrined to discover that Zara knew more about the subject than she did.

"The bleeding is known as a "woman's time" and it signifies that her body is now fertile, that is, that she can have children." she explained.

"Does that mean we'll all soon be with babes in arms?" cried Melissandra with some dismay.

"Nay!" laughed Zara. "You must lie with a man to do that."

"Lie with a man?" asked Melissandra. Does that mean we are to lay with men like those men we have seen in picture books?"

"There must be more to it than that," Kore said. "What magic can there be in just laying with a man?"

Zara blushed. "It has something to do with the man having putting his member inside the girl's sex, and somehow that makes the babies happen. I know nothing more of it than that."

"Where do you learn these things?" asked Kore.

Zara hesitated. "There is an old book which tells about it, but I've only seen it once," she admitted at last.

"But where?" asked Melissandra. "I've never seen a book like that in the library."

"Not in the library," replied Zara. "It was in Azimuth's private study."

"His study?!!!" Kore nearly shouted. "But that's forbidden!"

"I was only there for a few moments," Zara explained, frowning. "It was open on his desk and I did not even dare to turn the page, but I saw enough."

"When did you go in there?" Kore asked.

"The last time Azimuth made a trip to the market," Zara answered.

"The next time he goes, will you show me this book?" Kore asked.

"Kore, no!" squealed Melissandra. "The reason we're kept out of Azimuth's study because it's too dangerous. Who knows what events you might set in motion if you disturb anything in that room!"

"I just want to look at this one book," said Kore. "No more than that. Zara saw it and no harm has come from it."

"It's madness," said Melissandra. "And though I'd never betray you to Azimuth Duul, I"ll have no part of this plan!"

Kore tried to soothe her and convince her that she would give up her idea, but Melissandra knew Kore too well to believe she would change her mind so easily.

2

Melissandra was right of course, and the next time Azimuth left on his overnight journey to Holdstock, Kore was prepared. As soon as Melissandra had gone to bed, she sneaked into Zara's room and woke her.

"Show me which book you saw," Kore begged. "That's all I ask. You don't even have to stay in the room."

"I think you're mad!" snarled Zara, trying to pull the blankets back over her head.

"Come on, Zara," Kore wheedled. "I've done as much for you and would do so again, you know that!"

"All right," she hissed. "I'll show you! But why do you want to see? What good will come of it? There are no boys here In Werewood."

"I don't care about that," Kore said. "I just want to know. I want to know the truth."

"Azimuth always has reasons for what he does," Zara pointed out. "He would have told us about this if he knew. Perhaps it's somehow dangerous?"

"Dangerous to know more about ourselves, to learn more of the mystery of our bodies?" Kore asked.

"There is danger in all knowledge," said Zara. "Some things are best kept hidden."

"I'll be sure not to tell you anything that I learn then," Kore mocked.

The door to Azimuth's study was massive oak, and Kore had stood before it many times, but never when the wizard wasn't there. She pushed lightly on the handle and it opened easily. Taking a deep breath, she opened it wider and looked within.

The room was smaller than she remembered, or perhaps it was just more cluttered with scrolls and books and other diverse paraphernalia than usual. There were bookshelves along the walls, but the books did not confine themselves to them, but literally covered every horizontal surface. There was a sense of tentatively organized and barely restrained chaos in the meandering stacks, an almost artistic rendering of unbridled lunacy. Everywhere Kore looked, a wondrous collage of amulets, wands, scrolls, crystals, feathers, a sumptuous cascade of magical wonders met her eyes.

"There is the book," whispered Zara. Kore saw that her eyes glittered with fear and awe. "It sits on the end of the desk, though its no longer open to the page I saw."

"Thank you, Zara," Kore said sincerely. "I'll ask no more from you. Go back to your room now if you like. I'll meet you there in a few minutes to tell you what I've read."

"I wish you wouldn't," said Zara. "I wish I'd never told you about it now! Look if you must, but if you find terrible secrets therein, I don't want to know them. Keep them to yourself."