BECMI Chapter 353 – Betrayed by Silver
Neuva Vascovune, the Principality of Grandmaster Nathanial Jean-Arc, Thaum, most powerful wizard and Immortal sponsor of the magocracy of Zanzyr.
There was a hill in the middle of the country. It was in an inhospitable area, basically the spur of a mountain, surrounded by naked rock, no value to the area beyond the forest slopes a bit further down its sides, but mostly it was just a piece of the horizon, nothing living too close to it, and even dragons and birds didn’t deign to perch on it much.
There was a subtle shimmer as the old and very thorough Illusions upon it couldn’t totally hide the lights of the Runes of the fifty-step, thousand-foot-high massive Pyramid erected three hundred years ago, carved out of this spur of the Neros Alpes before the House of Verdain ever immigrated from its alternate Earth to here. It had been waiting here slumbering all this time, unnoticed and ignored by Immortals and mortals alike, the same Illusions that gave substance to the stones and scrub covering it also shooing off anything wanting to nest or roost here, making it unimportant to remember, and even cleaning off most of the plant life that wanted to grow upon it with unseen Phantasmal Servants diligently keeping it clean under its aegis.
It gave the Pyramid a lot of time to grow quietly in power, hook itself into the ley lines of the lands about it, and merge ever more smoothly into the Land.
It actually wasn’t part of the land, its lowest tier floating an inch above it, an inch that was kept clear and never filled save by the currents of magic that moved through it.
Now it woke up, and underneath shadows of stone, Silver flashed.
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Louis Pierreto had a great secret, one he’d kept very, very well.
He was one of the finest sommeliers of Vascovune, his sense of smell and taste impeccable, a true asset in the oft-competitive world of vintners and wineries. His family had been raising grapes since the emigration to this new world, bringing along precious cuttings from the vineyards of the old land to replant, cultivate, and nurture into sprawling fields that covered sunny hills, the terroir of the land slowly and continuously reshaped to raise the heavy, sugar-rich grapes that were so perfect for the manufacture of wine.
He was, of course, a werewolf, as his forefathers had been before him.
He was one of the fortunate ones who had also proven capable of learning and wielding arcane magicks, which meant he was eligible for the nobility, and even taking over local governance of the lands his family winery was situated in. This also came with power and authority, to make local laws and ordinances of benefit to himself and his own, and in this case, that meant his fellow natural lycanthropes.
The lack of clerics and druids meant they had little to fear from the normal humans of this world, especially out in the wilds. Misdirecting lycanthrope hunters, even ambushing and eliminating them if they were persistent, lucky, or foolish enough to stumble upon the truth, was part of his position and his duties, but most found his little dominion a place of rest and a bucolic paradise that not even the raiding humanoids from the mountains bothered overmuch, mostly because werewolves would eat them if they dared set foot in his territory.
Still, when the moon came up and his wildblood surged, it was time to join the population who quietly closed their doors and wisely paid attention to the old stories and rumors that one should not travel under the light of the moon, turning such nights into time for the family, and old stories rising up, and glad that there were no such dangerous threats here in these lands of Vascovune.
If travelers and wanderers vanished into the woods and were never seen again, well, this was Zanzyr, and there were many dangerous magical beasts and things around, ready to swoop down in the night and make off with those foolish enough to be outside on the night of the bright moon.
‘They were eaten by a dragon,’ was the common phrase around here, shaking their heads at such foolishness.
Foolishness begat foolishness, but it wasn’t the travelers who were the only fools…
The magic shifted.
Louis was outside, sternly watching the men working for him. Most of their families had worked for his for generations. He knew them, and he took care of them. If any proved to be trouble-makers, rebellious, or too curious about matters they shouldn’t be, they foolishly stole outside for inane reasons—secret lovers, to drink, to go fishing, to pull pranks, to work mischief— and did not come home. Their friends and comrades would shake their heads knowingly, as troublemakers didn’t long threaten the peace of the vineyards.
He felt the shift in magic, noting with a predator’s awareness that several of the men, who might have vestigial magical talent that was left fallow and not to be encouraged among his workers as the danger it was, had also twitched and were looking around.
Something had happened, but what?
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It felt… strange. Like a tingling on the skin? He looked down at his hands, and noted there were indeed some silvery sparkles upon them…
Then he looked up, and noticed all the men were staring at him… behind him?
He turned around, seeing nothing, but looking back only saw expressions of mounting horror and realization on the faces of those looking at him.
“Papa!” he heard his daughter cry, and spun back to look at her.
At her, the silver sparkles over her skin, and the horrifying black wolf with the red jaws looming over her, coalesced from those silver sparkles, and bearing her eyes.
Werefolk preying upon you as sheep. Shapechangers taking your face and names. Grab your silver and fire and end them. Let only the bears live.
The voice had a distinct Transyvian accent, cutting and abrupt, and it was laden with an edge that seemed to cut through all fear and doubt. In that second, Louis knew that they knew.
The faces of men who had respected him, who he had drank with, supported their families and guided for years, went cold and dark as the truth loomed in front of them.
He, and his family, had been preying on them and theirs for years. No. Decades.
Generations!
The wild shift of confusion to fury was terrifying. He had never imagined a day like this could come so abruptly.
Some of them roared as they leapt at him with knives and tools that could not harm him at all. Some ran for the lanterns and the oil… and the wine.
The change was impossible to resist, and as the fur exploded out of his skin and his body warped and changed as the first defiant growls returned their anger, the roars of the humans grew even more furious, instead of frightened.
It was Truth!…
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Mirror Portals flickered open and closed in towns all across the dominions loyal to House Verdain. Fires were raging here and there, people were screaming and running back and forth, and in places, things that were not human men and women were running about crazily, images in black and red and purple dripping blood looming over them, marking them as shapechangers who had innocent blood on their hands, while they ran crazily about, trying to hide and finding being girt in silver Faerie Fire made it very hard to hide or heal themselves.
The men and women who came out of those Portals had serene auras about them, and symbols of the morning sun at their throats, or silvery crescent moons. They calmly took up places at the town and village squares, watched by startled and stunned eyes who rapidly recognized what they were. Then they spoke, and were heard throughout the towns and villages.
“If you have been wounded by a werebeast, come to the central square, and your wounds will be healed and made certain that their Curse does not spread to you.”
And they sat there and they waited, these very, very illegal Clerics in the heart of the domain of the man most opposed to clerics in all of Zanzyr, the very Immortal who had driven them forth… and not a man there dared raise a hand to drive them out.
Wizards could not remove the Curse of lycanthropy, after all…
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Thaum appeared in the air well above the land, cloaked from mortal sight and properly angry.
His Divinations were telling him nothing, but it had not been too difficult to find the center of the effect exposing the werefolk and shapechangers throughout his Principality by simple triangulation of the effects, and thence appearing close to it and surveying the area.
The nondescript hill looming over the forest rather caught the eye, even if it was jagged and steep and… clad in a level of Illusionary magic worthy of an Immortal, now that he was close enough to discern it directly and focusing upon it!
The once-aged wizard grit his teeth in irritation, spending Immortal Power to raise up a spell to see through this Veiling, and reveal what… what…
“Dragon’s bones…” he swore, staring at the fully intact, gleaming, and very, very intact and functional Pyramid sitting there before him, the shadow of the Veiling concealing it still obvious, but no longer masking what was below.
It was also a sacred edifice. He could see the images of sun and moon carved on every visible stone, the level of detail and precision it unnatural, inhuman, clearly made by an Immortal hand equal or superior to his own. On the very top level, there was a plain altar, covered in lovely runework and flowing patterns, rising to give homage to sun and moon and stars.
Yet he sensed no Immortal Power, only a mighty flow of magic that was hooked into and anchoring the land with a grasp that would be utterly devastating to break.
His quick examination of the ley lines revealed a shocking and unpleasant truth to him: if he destroyed this Pyramid, or even shut it down, he would disrupt the ley lines violently throughout all the surrounding lands, crashing the magical network there and ripping it apart.
Neuva Vascovune would become a territory of dead magic, a magically barren landscape in the heart of Zanzyr.
The surge and disruption of magic would also feed right into the Core of All Magic located beneath Zanzyr City. The disruption might crack the entire area inundated by the Radiance and leave all of Zanzyr a land of dead magic!
How had he missed such a powerful, dangerous, and ancient monument on his territory?! Even the most casual temporal view could see it had been here for centuries, before too much obfuscation interfered with the magic!
The symbols were too universal, but this did not feel like mighty Quarzion’s work, who chose the sun as His various emblems. Nor was the magic anything like the moonwork he had carefully felt elsewhere, the moon an often neutral symbol that could be claimed by good and evil priests alike as part of their night-centered worship.
What he did know was that it was here, it had been here before him, and for some reason it had been activated!
Someone had done something upon that altar, and in doing so, revealed every werebeast and shapechanger in central Zanzyr to everyone!
The violence of the results had been predictable, as the evils those beings had secretly inflicted on the folk of Zanzyr wrought endings of fire and bloody silver and rage. Entire families of werefolk were put to death, burned alive or stabbed with silver to slay them, as even the youngest of them had blood upon their jaws, having sampled the flesh of humans with their parents during their first hunts, or when brought home to sample.
The prey had found the predators, and the predators had paid the price…