I was at peace in the void. There was no pain or anxiety, just the gentle caress of the sea, stretching away from me as a blanket of deep blue. It was the world of spirits, beyond the glass of the real world, and the only place I felt no pain. I’d been here for several hours. Soon, my strength would falter and I’d have to leave the realm of void, returning to the realm of form.
I wanted to stroll away from the coast, kicking my bare feet through the warm sea water and the dancing spirits within, but I couldn’t move. However peaceful I found the void, I couldn’t forget that, in the real world, I was tied to a wooden post by the wrists and ankles, half-submerged in freezing cold water. I’d broken the glass and stepped to the void when the brackish water had reached my chin. The tide would have receded by now, but the temperature would only have gotten worse. I closed my eyes and took a last long breath of pure air, before letting myself slip back through the glass.
I immediately howled in pain. In the real world, night was turning back to day and I could no longer feel my hands or feet. The black sea water was neither gentle nor warm, and the stinging wind forced my eyes to close. I howled again, as my bare chest and face were enveloped by oncoming waves. The water churned, broken only by the rocks of the Bay of Grief, forming a horseshoe around my wooden pole.
“I am a Sea Wolf. I am Eastron from across the sea.” It was barely a grunt, but I said it again and again, until my throat was dry and sore. I coughed out sea water and phlegm, retching between heavy breaths.
The rocks around me were muddy green, mottled with seaweed and algae, and high enough to block my view of the hold. But there was no-one waiting for me above and there had been no sound for hours. A day and a night is a long time to wait, and no-one would return until my time was up. I could have drowned yesterday, and my body would not be retrieved until the proper time. Only a Sea Wolf, with strong wyrd, able to stay in the void for hours at a time, could stop from drowning and survive the ordeal. Though no-one expected me to survive.
I retched again and shook my head. I could barely open my eyes wide enough to see the air before me, let alone focus sufficiently to break the glass. My strength was gone. I’d used up every ounce of my wyrd to stay alive. I couldn’t stop the water rising and I couldn’t travel to the void. My only option was to hope that they’d release me before I drowned.
The sun was rising, but only slowly. They’d be back soon. They’d pull me out and I’d be a Sea Wolf. Like my brother, my father, my grandfather and grandmother, like every Greenfire since the Years of Ice. Perhaps everything would be better. Perhaps my pain would end and I’d be free.
“You alive down there?” asked Taymund Grief, appearing on the rocks above me, just as I began to contemplate my death.
“Please, help me,” I spluttered. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m so tired.”
Two more shapes appeared, creating three silhouettes. There was a nasty chuckle from Arthur Brand, but a warm smile from the pup-master. They’d have both reckoned on my death, but had different reactions to my survival.
“You’re alive, young Duncan,” said Mefford, the pup-master. “Your wyrd is strong, even if your body’s weak. Taymund, pull him out. Try to be gentle.”
The young duellist was over six feet tall and his shoulders were almost twice as wide as mine. He crouched and sliced his cutlass down through my restraints, making me fall, weakly, into the ice-cold water. His hairy hands then roughly grabbed me by the arms and hefted me backwards. I wore loose woollen leggings, tucked into heavy sailing boots, but was bare-chested and freezing cold. Leaving the water, to cough pathetically on the stone shore, was a massive shock to the system, making my muscles tighten and my lungs empty of air.
“The last man of your age to take the rite drowned the first evening,” said Mefford. “Seventeen is too young. Though, for certain families, tradition disagrees. Now, put a blanket over him.”
I was too tired to respond. I rocked into a foetal position on the cold rocks, as Arthur Brand reluctantly covered me with a thick, woollen blanket. I grasped it with shivering hands, letting the fabric hug my wet skin. I panted, then coughed, then whimpered. I had no dignity left, and to pretend so would accomplish nothing. But I was still alive. I’d proven my father wrong, and I would be a Sea Wolf after all. I’d proven everyone wrong.
I clenched my fists, slowed my breathing, and started to laugh. I wanted to raise my head and shout fuck you all to the world, but I just laughed. It was enough for now.
“If you can laugh, you can stand,” said the pup-master. “There is one more thing to do.”
They gathered around me. “Your wyrd is strong, boy,” said Arthur Brand, a seasoned duellist of the Severed Hand. “Do you have enough left to break the glass? Or do you need me to carry you?”
I stopped laughing and rubbed my eyes. I wasn’t strong enough. I didn’t want him to know it, but I’d used all my wyrd. For at least the next few hours, until I’d had a chance to rest, I would be just a normal man, with no wellspring of spiritual energy to set me apart.
Mefford grunted. “Did you have enough when we fished you out? Duncan survived the rite. He’s not a pup anymore. He’s a Sea Wolf, and he’ll be tested no more today. You can take him through the glass, Master Brand.”
Arthur Brand straightened his stained sea cloak and crouched next to me. He was in his late twenties, perhaps thirty, with black hair and a hard face. He and his twin sister, Adeline, were senior duellists and children of the Battle Brand, elder of Last Port. They’d most recently returned from pillaging Dark Brethren merchants in the Inner Sea. Like most Sea Wolves, he was much larger than me and wore ship-leathers, bonded with steel plates and fitted to the contours of his body.
I sat up on the rocks and faced him, extending my arms and letting him help me to my feet. “How old were you when you took the rite?” I asked him, already knowing the answer.
“Nineteen,” he replied. “My surname is not Greenfire, Blood, or Red Claw, so I have to wait my turn. Only privileged little pricks like you get to die at seventeen.”
“Too young,” repeated Mefford, with a shake of his head. “But still, he survived the rite. Now, let’s bind him to the Severed Hand.”
Mefford and Taymund took a step towards the water, with Arthur moving me into line, facing the Bay of Grief. Each head went back, and each set of eyes turned a crisp white as we broke the glass. Arthur’s hand on my shoulder pulled me with him, and an intense feeling of dislocation followed as we stepped to the void.
The four of us stood on shimmering blue rock. The void-air was clear, and caressed my throat as I took deep breaths. The hazy vista of the Bay of Grief now seemed benign, as if I’d survived its torments and was now immune. Even the Outer Sea, flowing away over the horizon, was calm and flowed only gently.
Everything was crisper in the void. The colours were more vibrant, the sounds more acute. The rocks and waves appeared alive, dancing in the glassy air, somehow larger and more defined than in the real world. Nothing dead or artificial existed beyond the glass, just life and the endless tide of spirit and wyrd. Buildings disappeared, roads and walls were nothing but subtle veins of form. It took practice to interpret the language of the void, to read the signs from the real world and orient yourself. But, above all, it was treacherous, and we were taught never to wander far from what we knew.
Each Eastron looked different in the void, their wyrd shining through intense patterns of light. Arthur’s arms were a sparkling red, like all duellists, and his head was crested with a dense lump of wyrd, shielding his mind. Taymund’s arms were similar, but a jewel of light emanated from his heart. Mefford shone from every inch of his form, though the shine was dull in places.
My wyrd was subtle and layered, like a coiled spring that had yet to be released. I shone far less than the glowing Sea Wolves to my left, each of whom had moulded their wyrd into forms practical and strong.
“Speak as one,” said Mefford. “The spirits are listening.”
“To the First Fang I pledge my arm, my head and my heart.” I too said the words, but they sounded awkward and felt hollow. “To the Severed Hand I pledge my loyalty and my wyrd.” Arthur Brand’s voice was the loudest. “To the Eastron from across the sea I claim brotherhood. From the Bright Lands I am come. In the Dark Lands will I prosper.” It was called the duellists’ oath, but was required of every Sea Wolf.
“Step forward, Duncan,” said the pup-master. “It is the one hundred and sixty-seventh year of the dark age. The year you became a Sea Wolf.”
The landscape around me responded, and wisps of void energy danced from the rocks to envelop all of us. The void rippled, accepting me as a creature of wyrd. My breathing had slowed and my mind was again at peace.
Then, from the ethereal sea, a spiritual wave broke from the glassy surface, rising above us and forming into a shimmering blue wolf, ten foot tall and ravening. I gasped and took a step backwards. Mefford and the others showed equal surprise, though Arthur Brand stood his ground. The enormous spirit eclipsed the calm of the void, like the moon passing in front of the sun on a clear day.
The pup-master dropped to his knee. “My Lady of the Quarter,” he said. “We did not expect you.”
I’d heard of it. Every young Sea Wolf knew of the spirit, called the Old Bitch of the Sea in tales. It was the totem of the Severed Hand, but rarely appeared unless summoned by the spirit-masters. Each of the great holds had a totem, but ours had not appeared at a rite of passage for decades. I was honoured and scared at the same time. The fear was stronger. I’d never seen so large a spirit.
“Nothing to say, Sharp Tongue?” said Taymund Grief, the young duellist. “I’ve never seen you lost for words.”
“I’ve never seen a spirit that powerful,” I replied.
“Both of you, stand up straight,” said Mefford.
The Old Bitch of the Sea padded its ghostly feet onto the shore. Each footfall caused blue, foaming water to bubble from its paws. She towered over us, her teeth bared and slobbering. Mefford didn’t move an inch as the spirit loped past him to look at me. Not Arthur or Taymund. The spirit was definitely looking at me. Its eyes were globes of endless blue light, plunging far into the void and showing me vistas beyond imagination. It’s inelegant to admit, but I wanted to be sick. The surge of wyrd from the spirit was almost more than I could bear. Mine was powerful, but the Old Bitch of the Sea was made of the stuff, assembled from the boundless tide of wyrd that flowed through the void.
In my head, the spirit spoke. The glass breaks, the sword falls, the sea rises. The she-wolf nudged me with her huge muzzle, and I felt soft, warm fur caress my face. Her eyes narrowed, as if she were assessing me. Then she spoke again. Greenfire must let his wyrd shine.
Then it was gone, disappearing in a flood of blue, ethereal water, its huge haunches and slavering teeth vanishing in an instant. All that remained was a swirl of lesser water spirits, appearing as snapping wolf pups, but fading slowly from view.
As the void again became calm, my leg began to hurt.
*
I walked with a limp, but I was good at hiding it. When I ran, I dragged my left leg, so I tried not to run; and, as long as I kept an even pace while walking, the limp was almost invisible. On cold days it was worse, but it always hurt, and occasionally made me wince. I was good at hiding that too. I’d learned to suppress the pain and turn the wince into a slight twitch. Only the void provided peace, and it never lasted long.
I couldn’t remember a time before the pain. It had been a part of me from the first time my father took a leather whip to the back of my legs. The beating started when I was four or five, and didn’t end until I was ten.
On my tenth birthday I was awoken before dawn by a restraining hand over my mouth. “Keep quiet and get dressed,” demanded my father, looming over me in the moonlight. “You’re coming with me.”
I spluttered and wriggled under his hand, trying to free myself. When he was ready, and when I’d stopped struggling, he removed his hand. “Quickly now, boy.”
He turned his back and faced my bedroom door, allowing me a modicum of privacy. I grasped my left leg and grunted, trying to keep my weight off it as I turned out of bed. The wound was still raw from my father’s most recent displeasure, and even the touch of my hands caused me pain. I limped the three steps to my wardrobe, with the left side of my face twitching rapidly.
I was too afraid to question him, too tired and uncomfortable to think about where we were going and why we had to go there in the dead of night. I just put on my clothes and winced in pain. When my trousers were on, my tunic tied at the neck, and my boots laced up, my father turned.
My father, Wilhelm Greenfire, High Captain of Moon Rock, was short for a Sea Wolf, but his wide shoulders and unwavering glare drew attention away from his height. Members of my family were all short. My elder brother, Kieran, at just under six feet, was judged tall for a Greenfire. My father looked to him as his heir. My inconvenient presence in his life was embarrassing at best. He beat me to make me strong. But I’d never be strong. I was clever, but weak. So he beat me. Until I was ten, when he woke me in the middle of the night and dragged me from our house.
Moon Rock was built on a slope, from low pastures to huge overhanging cliffs, thrust into the Outer Sea. Two huge jetties formed an arc around the harbour below, and the light from a hundred ships cut through the darkness.
“Where are we going?” I whimpered.
He turned away from me, his fist clasped around my forearm, as we travelled left and right, down the dark, narrow streets of Moon Rock. “We are going to make you strong,” he replied. “Or kill you. I have waited ten years for you to show me strength. I am sick of waiting. When your brother was ten years, his arms were already shining with wyrd, and he slept with a cutlass.”
I was just a boy. Kieran had tried to protect me from our father, but he was now a Sea Wolf, wearing a red cloak and swinging the blade of the Severed Hand. He could no longer protect me. I was a terrible student, with a weak arm, and no aptitude for combat. My wyrd was volatile and I had no idea how to channel it. And all my father wanted was a warrior.
We stopped at a dingy shack of wood and clay, lying at the top of a winding cobbled street. Below, the harbour was hidden behind buildings, but the sound of waves against wood travelled up to meet us, and the salty tang of the sea caught the back of my throat. The shack had no name and no markings. There was nothing to suggest what lurked within.
My father banged on the door. “Clatterfoot! It’s time.”
A moment later, the door opened, revealing a slice of light and a thin, bearded face. It was Ronald Blitz, called Clatterfoot. He was a spirit-master, though not one who commanded much respect. He was rarely seen in the hold, and I only recognized him due to his broad wooden leg, ending in a black steel foot. He stepped aside and ushered us into his shack. I was given a firm shove in the back and stumbled from cobbled street to wooden floorboards.
The shack opened into a small room of dust and clutter, with low doorways snaking away into musty darkness. There was a single chair, nailed to the floor in the middle of the shack, but all other furnishings were pushed tight against the walls.
“Put him in the chair,” grunted Clatterfoot, hobbling away from the door. The spirit-master wore thick furs, adding bulk to his shoulders, but his face was thin, almost skeletal, with deep-set eyes. The eyes and the face would haunt me for years to come. He’d appear in my dreams as a skeleton wrapped in thorns.
“What? Why?” I spluttered, terrified of some new kind of pain.
My father grabbed my shoulder and turned me to face him, making me shrink under his hateful eyes. He didn’t say anything. All I really remember is the hate.
I was seated in the chair, with Clatterfoot walking around me in circles. His metal foot, a single piece of black steel, pounded a dull note, and my father stood back. Whatever was to happen here, was at the bidding of the High Captain.
“Pain is a strange thing, boy,” said the spirit-master, grunting between words. “It can be dull or sharp, acute or chronic. It is an axis of thorns, upon which any kind of discomfort can be plotted.”
“Is this necessary?” snapped my father. “He’s as scared as he’s going to get. It doesn’t take much with this one. Your flair for intimidation is lost on a sniffling child like him. They call him Sharp Tongue. Not a name to command respect. Just summon the spirit.”
Clatterfoot was hunched over, his long face twitching at the interruption. “As I was saying, Duncan Greenfire, called Sharp Tongue, son of the High Captain, pain can be precisely controlled … by a skilled artisan.” He stood facing me, neither smiling nor frowning. He showed an alarming neutrality, as if he could kill a man without his heart-rate changing. “I’m going to hurt you, Duncan,” said the spirit-master. “I’m going to cause you more pain than anyone else you will ever meet.”
“Enough!” said my father. “Just summon the spirit.”
Clatterfoot was displeased, but it only showed in his eyes. He was not fool enough to question the High Captain. He backed away, hurriedly moving to one of a dozen wooden bookshelves. There were books, but most of the dusty wood was filled with stained glass jars and alchemical equipment. On the highest shelves were stuffed animals of various kinds, all posed rampant, and facing downwards. The thin spirit-master gathered up a wreath of thorns from a lower shelf, and caressed it sensually.
“The natives of this land, the Pure Ones, can’t step to the void,” said Clatterfoot. “They’d never heard of the glass until we invaded from across the sea. For thousands of years before us, if they wanted to speak to spirits, they had to bind them into talismans.” He remained hunched, as he loomed over me, holding the wreath in his open palms, like some kind of offering.
“Wait,” I whimpered. “Father, please!”
“Strength, boy,” he replied. “It always was your hardest lesson. You will endure this until you reach eighteen years. In that time the pain will either kill you or force strength into your feeble body. I’d rather my son was dead than weak. If you reach seventeen years and can take the rite, the Bay of Grief will finish you off. But you will never be a Sea Wolf and dishonour the name of Greenfire.”
Clatterfoot hooked the wreath around my left thigh and connected the ends, forming it into a belt of thorns. He then turned his skeletal face upwards and closed his eyes. The air around him crackled as he summoned his wyrd. Like all spirit-masters, he was taught to reach through the glass, without having to step to the void. It enabled them to treat with dangerous spirits in safety. It was the first time I’d seen it done. A window of blue energy rose in the dark hovel, vibrating at eye-level in front of the one-legged spirit-master.
“The talisman has been built with skill,” intoned Clatterfoot, speaking to an unseen presence. “It will be a fine home for you. All we require is pain.”
I was just a little boy, who didn’t imagine such pain could exist. The spirit-master put a folded length of leather between my teeth, which stopped me biting my tongue off, but the pain, and my father’s malice, changed who I was. When the spirit entered the belt of thorns it was angry and scared, and darted around my body, making every muscle tense with pinpricks of spite. I was ten years old, and forced to understand a father’s hatred and a spirit’s anger all at once.
But my memories of that day appear with variable clarity. Sometimes I remember seeing the pain spirit be bound around my leg; other times I just remember wanting to die. I begged my father to kill me, over and over again, but he just grimaced and shook his head. I spent hours in the spirit-master’s hovel, as the bent old man tried to find the perfect balance of pain, but my father said nothing.
Clatterfoot called the spirit Twist, and the talisman a thorn clinch. Over the years, I’ve come to understand the fluctuations in pain that the spirit causes me. Though I never understood why Wilhelm Greenfire had so much hatred for his youngest son, but he never beat me again.
Twist has mood-swings and a chaotic personality. The spirit allows me periods of respite, and punishes me when he feels like it. He refuses to let me even think about removing the thorn clinch, and prefers that I hide its existence. I’m forced to comply. Only in the void is he powerless, as the talisman is bound to the realm of form. But a few hours beyond the glass was the most my wyrd would allow. At first. As I grew, and my father’s sneer lengthened, I pushed the limits, staying in the void for longer and longer to avoid the pain. It made my wyrd strong, but my body remained small and weak. I never became the warrior my father wanted, but neither did I die. Somewhere, deep in my form, wyrd bubbled forth, and the stronger it became, the less I could control it.