Chapter 43. Transformation

yhric fled toward the narrow steps that were carved into the cliff face.  He did not know what he would find at the docks, but it was the only way off of the island and he had no intention of staying.  Moments before he had watched Ashekoroth’s black robed figure stalk fiercely toward the cluster of buildings.  It was now or never.

In the darkness he stumbled carelessly in his haste, his breath soughing loudly as he clawed at the rocks that lined the narrow stair to steady himself.  The wind howled eerily over the craggy island and chased him down toward the sea. 

Instinctively he clutched the battered sword as base fear caused the hair of his nape to rise.  The ground shuddered and the sounds of pursuit scudded down the stair after him.  Not daring to gaze back lest he become frozen with terror, Tyhric hit the wooden planks of the pier with a resounding thump and nearly ploughed into Drakkonus.  He would never forget the man’s face, not after his vile deception.  The elementalist swore at him, unable to react with the limp body of a man draped head down over one shoulder.

Tyhric wove past him and nearly stepped on the woman lying bound near the end of the pier.  The small boat moored there resounded with yelling and toil as the gangplank was seized and hauled back board, the mooring lines already released.  The imprisoned woman moaned in agony, her chains clinking as his foot clipped her shoulder. 

The howling grew louder and yet the air was still.  The ghostly chorus was now accompanied by a seething mass of swift figures pouring down the stairs, a cascade of foam white hounds.  The hideous dogs roared into view and the water began to boil with them.  He was surrounded.

“Find Bei Zhou An!” the imprisoned woman cried, “Tell him they have Pendaran.  Run!”

The terrified sailors were busily unfurling their single lateen sail and attempting to get their craft underway.  He gazed hesitantly down at the red haired woman.  She was wounded, her skin raw and scorched where the elementalist had no doubt struck.  Tears gleamed upon her pale face but there was a harshness in the set of her jaw and she grew angry as he stood there staring at her.

“Flee while you still can, Fool! Find help for us!” she cried.

Tyrhic nodded, dropping his sword and running to the end of the pier.  With his gathered momentum, he made a flying leap as the water frothed and snarled beneath him.  His hands grasped the railing as the chill breath of the ghostly hounds curled over his scrabbling legs.  Crying out in horror as they leapt and snarled below him, he hooked a leg over the gunwale, hanging on for dear life as the terrified sailors backed away at his intrusion.

There was no wind to fill the sail and so the boat bucked and lolled amid the teeming white water.  The crew numbered five currently, and when they saw that he was firmly aboard their vulnerable vessel and outnumbered, they grabbed oars, gaffs and belaying pins and prepared to make him leave.  Of course they would want him gone.  He did not blame them given his own fear of Ashekoroth.

“If you stay here he’ll kill you all,” Tyhric shouted, uncertain whether the Canthan sailors understood him or not.  They hesitated for a moment, clearly not of the same cloth as pirates or brigands.  They were terrified; their eyes darted toward the water and back to him as they weighed their options.  And then they stared in horror at the pier behind him and Tyhric dared a glance back.

Ashekoroth stood at the end of the pier, a dire finger of blackness pointing accusingly at the sky as lightning forked down around him.  His robes curled and fluttered like the dire wings of a nightmare carrion bird.  Magenta fire coiled and gathered around him.  But it was his voice that chilled Tyhric to the very marrow of his bones.  It rose above the scrambling claws and howls of the unearthly hounds; it silenced the straining timbers of the little boat.  For a moment the world held its breath as Ashekoroth made his tolling utterance and a sound like shattering glass emphasized each seething syllable.

It was a language unknown to Tyhric, perhaps unknown to all creatures that walked beneath the sun.  His body twisted in agony as the words wrapped around him, his limbs burning with chaos as he fought to win free of the terrible spell. 

“Help me!  Gods!” Tyhric screamed, his voice suddenly husky in his throat.  Fighting to escape, he instead crashed against the deck kicking and groping toward the mast as the sea called to him. 

“Come join the pack.”

“No!” he howled as his flesh popped and cracked, lashing him with pain as his hands deformed before his eyes.  His fingers thickened and ivory claws sprouted from his nails.  Fine white fur erupted from his pale flesh as his clothes ripped and fell away.  His paws scrabbled uselessly over the wooden decking as he fought to regain his feet.  But he had no legs, only lean muscular haunches.

The weather mage uttered a panicked incantation and filled the sail with a powerful gust of wind.  The boat lurched as if slapped, tilting sharply so that Tyhric’s paws scraped as he slid toward the opposite gunwale. 

He yiped despite himself, his long jaws strange and horrible before his startled eyes.  Oh gods.  No.  What had Ashekoroth done to him? 

He stared up as the burliest of the sailors rushed toward him with a long pole that had a gaff hook at its end.  It was lowered toward Tyhric but the sailor’s fear was so great it wove a trembling circle before Tyhric’s pale snout. Tyhric realized that what he did now would either doom or save him.  His only option was to scare the sailors so badly they would not dare to dislodge him.  He would take over the prow.  They spent most of their time amid ship and aft where the rudder lay.  He could defend himself where the boat grew narrow.  With a throaty snarl, he lunged toward the quivering man, his powerful jaws latching onto the pole and snapping it in two as if it were no more than a dry twig.  The sailor screamed and wet himself, his bare feet slipping in his own accumulating puddle of urine as he attempted to flee.

The water still frothed with the ghostly figures of the hounds, but now he understood their horrible cries.  They sought blood and warmth and vengeance, for they also had once been human.  They keened for the loss of their flesh, spoke of their corpses gnawed to pieces by the tide.  They were dead, spirits now of the sea and slaves to a hated master.  They served him, became him, flowed and roared and melded with him.  He had given their limited human bodies to the cave, to the depths, to the myriad small creatures that fed upon decay.

He was not truly one of them and yet they called to him, called him brother, sang of the depths and the joy of hot blood upon their cold lips.  They would kill him that he might be made whole and perfect, that he might rove the waves with them.  Come into the depths, they sang, and let the sea devour your flesh.

Shuddering, Tyhric backed into the prow, averting his gaze from the seething figures that rushed along below him.  Their song tore at his heart, promised him companionship and meaning, and when that failed, they threatened to rend him and scatter his being to the four winds.

The bleak island became a diminishing hulk of blackness on the southern horizon as the elementalist poured his energies and will into the sail.  The little boat surged upon a crest of howling ghostly hounds.  But Ashekoroth was behind them and they were still alive.