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Darkmoon 33, 2603 R.M. — Maresde, Turod, Litheran
DERITH SYLVARADO SNAPPED instantly upright, his face in a cold sweat. He was in his own bed, not the woods. His room was spartan but distinctive enough to leave him with no doubt as to his location. His plain, brown sheets covered him, but his hunting clothes had been replaced by a long nightshirt. He still had a few splotches of mud on his skin. His bow was hanging unstrung on the wall above the door to his personal washroom, where it usually was. The muffled chirps of morning songbirds showed he had been unconscious all night.
His mother and Searin were sitting in chairs nearby, both doing their own things. His mother was working on knitting something, although she was too early yet in the project to know what it was.
Searin looked up from the thick book in his hand just at the right time to see Silver sit up straight. “Well, well,” he said in a cold tone. “Look who finally decided to wake up.”
“Wake up?” Silver asked, rubbing his still bleary eyes.
“The Mayor and company have been breathing down our necks about seeing you for three days,” Searin answered, hunching up in his chair exhaustedly.
“Three... three days?” He was not quite understanding.
“Three.... three days,” Searin mimicked.
“Searin, be nice,” Silver’s mother said quietly.
“It’s fine, mom.” Silver defended Searin so frequently it had become a habit. “Mockery just how Searin shows he’s listening.”
Suddenly, memories of Silver’s duties flooded back to his mind. He grabbed the sheets and threw himself out of bed. His legs were wobbly and gave out under him, causing him to reach out for the bed, but he landed on the floor anyway.. “Oh, no! The... the village is going to be out of food. I didn’t bring back...”
“Relax,” Searin spat out in the way he was so famous for. He held out a hand as if to lift Silver up, but, like usual, did not actually get close enough to touch his person.
In the end, Silver had to stand himself up, his legs still quivering underneath him. “Thanks, Searin,” he replied with expected sarcasm.
“You’re welcome,” Searin answered without irony in his voice, or any tone for that matter. “I’m no Derith the Hunter, but I’m not half bad with laying traps. I went out after some small game when you were found passed out. It’ll last us a week, give or take.”
Silver sighed with relief. “That’s super brave,” he stated, still a little delirious. He blinked his eyes slowly to try to stop the room from spinning, but it just got worse. “You’re a regular hero,” he stated, worried it would be the last he would say before passing out again.
Searin shrugged. “Hero? Me? Nah. Anyone can lay some traps and wait around for their prey to let their guard down. You’re the real hero.”
Silver gave him an inquisitive look. “Me?”
Suddenly, Silver’s already ringing ears were met by the loud crashing open of the door and a startling cry of “He’s awake!” Silver’s father suddenly burst into the room, his enormous arms grabbing his son tightly enough to choke him. “Looks like my little hero finally woke up!”
Silver squirmed out of his dad’s thick, muscular arms. “Why does everyone keep calling me a hero?” he asked, the fog in his brain only just beginning to clear up.
His father beamed at him with great pride. “Why? ‘Cause it ain’t every day someone from Maresde kills a Shifty! You should be proud of yourself, Champ!”
Those words hit Silver like a ton of bricks. If he had not been awake before, certainly he was now. The man, Stracht, was one of the shapeshifters, a cursed race of tricksters talked only about in legend. Silver had been unaware they even existed, much less that he had met one. They must have thought Silver had killed the man he met in the woods. Of course, in a way, he had. He had shot the arrow that delivered the final blow. The deer transformed into a man at the last moment so as not to be eaten, knowing he could not save himself.
“I killed him...” Silver muttered.
“Sure did!” Silver’s father said with pride.
“You’ve saved us all, Derith,” his mother said with a slight smile.
“What they said,” Searin echoed.
“I killed him...” Silver repeated.
“I thought we just covered that,” Searin grumbled.
“I killed him...” The finality of it was making him sick.
“Are we going to go through every possible way to say that sentence?” Searin mocked.
Arith, Silver’s father, put his massive hand on his son’s shoulder. “You should be proud of yourself, Champ,” he said in an unnaturally quiet voice, one that could only be heard two miles away.
“Proud...” Silver said, his breathing becoming irregular. “Proud? Of killing? Of killing him? No. No, no, no. No!” He burst into tears and ran to the washroom, ignoring the aching in his legs. He slammed the door behind him and stood with his back against it, hyperventilating.
His mind was teeming with confusion. He had been told his whole life that murder was wrong. Then again, killing someone in defense of self or family was not murder. Right? Plus, Silver had not truly killed Stracht. He looked like he had been attacked before Silver got there. But Silver had shot an arrow into his leg... Then again, Silver had tried to save him. But his botched cauterization of the wound actually finished the job.
If he let Searin help Stracht, would he still be alive? Would Searin have known Stracht was a Shifty? Would he have killed Stracht on principle? Would he have been the so-called “hero” instead?
Why did Silver care? The shapeshifters were evil. Everyone had at least heard stories about them. They were monsters who walked like men. They could never be trusted. But Silver had no reason not to trust Stracht. He was the victim. Or was he? He was dressed like a warrior. Maybe even an assassin. Why would he come to Maresde? It was an impossible journey to make for a vacation. Had he been sent to kill the Mayor? That would make Silver a hero after all. But...
He heard Searin’s muffled voice on the other side of the door. “I figured he’d be upset,” he said harshly. “He’s too soft.”
“Come now, Searin!” Silver’s father in a loud but still comforting voice. “Killing an animal is one thing, but killing an intelligent being is another.”
“I’m surprised to hear anyone call the shapeshifters ‘intelligent beings’,” Searin said with more wonder than sarcasm. “But, yeah, I guess you’re right. It just drives me nuts we’re all going out of our way to praise his ungrateful hide and he’s got the nerve to get hot under the collar.”
His mother responded gently with, “He’ll cool down eventually.”
Silver nodded. That was what he needed: to cool down. He looked down at the washtub on the floor. He quickly drew a warm bath and stripped himself of the hunting clothes he was wearing. He dipped a toe into the water to test it, but found it far too warm. He waited a minute before getting in, but, after testing the water again, he found it even warmer than before. It incinerated his skin from just a brief touch. He tested the water with his finger next, but the pain sent shocks of agony through his body. He tried to reach down to the bottom of the tub to drain it and fill it again, but the pain was so great that he could not get past his wrist before it felt like a thousand tiny suns were exploding in his hand and throughout his whole body.
He yanked his hand from the water and noticed it looked different. It had shrunken down in size considerably and his fingers were as thin as bones. It only took a minute for his hand to return to normal, so he wrote it off as a figment of his imagination.
He tentatively dipped his hand in the water again, but the pain was so intense as to literally repel him from the tub. He hit his head on one of the copper pipes lining the wall, cursing for the first time in his entire life that Maresde had developed indoor plumbing. As sparks exploded behind his eyes, he screamed and glared into the offending water. “What’s wrong?” he whispered. The answer instantly became evident.
As he watched his reflection in the washtub, blue marks began to streak down his cheeks like iridescent tears. They started at the sinuses directly beneath his eyes, and traced down in an arching pattern until touching the outside edges of his lower jaw. Another line streaked up from the inside of his jaw and continued in a steeper arch until connecting with the starting point, forming a crescent-moon shape. Blue streaks began to appear inside the moons until the surface of his skin was entirely blue inside the marks. The color was identical to the upturned crescent on Stracht’s forehead, before death had dimmed it. As if a voice from inside the mark was speaking to him, he knew at once what had happened: he had become a Shifty.
Is this what Stracht meant by “guard the power”? he wondered. Maybe somehow, the Shifty gave his power to me? Trying to comprehend this revelation only confused him more.
For the first time in a long time, Silver was scared. He had, by some quirk of fate, gained dark power. He had always been told the Shifies were evil, but he did not feel evil. In fact, he felt no different than before. He had compassion for the people of his village. He felt their need for food and the hunger of their children. He felt love for his family and friends. Could he have somehow become evil without knowing it? Could an evil person feel such emotions?
He needed answers. He had suddenly gone from a very important resident of Maresde, the village hunter, to a wanted fugitive by no fault of his own.
At least he assumed it was not his fault. For all he knew, he could have been meant to be a Shifty all along. Maybe he had a Shifty ancestor he knew nothing about and the power had laid dormant in him all along. Then again, Stracht had exhaled a blue gas the exact same shade as the blue mark now lining his face. Could the gas have been magical? Could it have transformed him into a Shifty? And how had nobody seen the mark until now? Each shone with the luster of the full moon on a cloudless night.
There were too many questions and no answers. He could not step foot outside his washroom without revealing his secret to the world. If it were only a matter of telling his parents, he would have walked proudly out and told them to their faces that his face was now altered, perhaps forever. They would accept him without question. Searin would probably not care one way or the other. Plus, Silver probably had other distant family members who would happily welcome him into their homes just as they had before.
The catch was the Mayor. He was a stickler for the rules. The heavens knew Maresde had broken enough of those in the past. Maresde had been heavily fined some years ago when the Count who had ruled over the town was discovered to be a half-Elf, having a Human father and a Syl mother. Since then, the newly demoted village had been forced to hold mayoral elections instead of benefiting from the rights of being a county, which were also seriously fewer since the start of Uthak’s reign. Each candidate had to have his pedigree looked over by a court official from Bladrill to determine if he had any non-Human blood.
Since then, Mayor Grak had been certain to keep the citizens in his domain in line. If he or anyone else, much less someone from the central government in Bladrill, were to learn Silver was a Shifty, anyone who had known would certainly be executed as traitors. He could not stomach the thought of someone he loved with three arrows shot into their hearts. Worse yet, they may end up in prison for life. Certainly a life of captivity was far worse than death. He would not do that to his parents. The burden was his to bear and his alone.
There were only two things to do. First, he needed to learn to hide the marks on his face. If Shifties were able to change form, maybe they could hide the glowing mark by covering it up with skin. Then, he would see if he could find any information at the vast Sintrice Archive, an enormous library belying Maresde’s isolation. If he could learn anything at all about the Shifties, it was bound to be somewhere in that vast vault of knowledge.
Recognizing he was not going to get the bath he had wanted, he put back on his clothes. The cloth itched his skin almost as much as the water had. Touching his clothing felt like petting a porcupine. It only took a few moments of walking in his clothes before the stinging became too uncomfortable to bear. He yanked the clothes off with a force so intense, they shredded like paper. Great, first I have to go outside in nothing but my skin, and now I’m so strong I won’t be able to open a door without tearing it off of the hinges...
Thinking of the man in the woods, Silver honestly had no bad impressions. He supposed Stracht had made enough of an impact on him in the short time he sat nursing the wound in his side to change his opinion of an entire race. All the dark stories he had heard as a child drifted away and he was left with only images of a man covered in blood, struggling to get out a message with his last few breaths.
“Guard the power...” Silver muttered. “How am I supposed to guard it if I can’t even make this mark disappear or wear clothing?”
Silver stared into the washtub again. He focused on the blue lines on his face, concentrating on making them disappear. Slowly, lines of flesh color began to streak across the glowing surface. Soon, the mark was gone and in its place was nothing but skin.
He remembered the clothing the dead Shifty had been wearing: the black tunic merged right into the skin around it. In a second, he had an idea of how to solve his clothing problem. He concentrated on the outer layer of his skin. He cut out of it the simplistic threads of a tunic and pants. His feet morphed easily into a pair of riding boots. The laces were difficult, as he needed to extend them like tendrils from his flesh. In the end, it looked like someone had carved him like a flesh colored pumpkin.
He thought to make the boots brown and shirt brown and the pants black. It would look enough like his normal clothing that nobody would get suspicious. He opened his eyes, only to see the same skin-coloring clothing. He shut his eyes again, and this time imagined wearing the clothes the color he wished they were. He cracked open his eyes to see the shades he had imagined, but with such even coloring that he doubted even his family could afford clothing of such quality. It would suffice, he decided. His family was well enough off that nobody other than his parents and Searin would think twice.
Last of all, he slipped the chain with his lucky silver fivemark around his neck. The metal did not itch like the cloth had. It slipped easily and painlessly into the shirt he made from his skin. He was shocked at how simply the power flowed through him. He felt no different than before, yet, somehow, he had the ability to change his form. He checked his reflection again to make sure the mark was not showing, then straightened his hair and walked to the door.
He had not known before that the Shifties were incredibly strong and wondered if their strength could be muted so they would not destroy everything they touched. He touched the doorknob very lightly and, thinking about being as weak as a kitten, twisted. The door swung open just as easily as normal. Taking one last glance in the washtub to be sure the mark did not reappear in the process of opening the door, he walked cautiously but resolutely from the room.
His father and Searin soon faced him. “Ya feeling better, Champ?” his father asked.
“Yes, sir,” Silver replied, trying his hardest not to sound facetious. “I had some time to think, and I’m feeling better now.” He cracked a weak smile. “I’m glad I was the one to find him out there in the woods.” Silver had a strict policy of honesty, so hopefully no one would start asking him more direct questions. It would not be easy to keep up the facade without having to purposely deceive anyone.
“That’s just great! It’s a great chance for you to prove just how strong and brave you’ve become,” his father said, cracking a grin. It was then he noticed the high quality of Silver’s clothes. “So, Champ, where’d you get the fancy new duds?”
“Haven’t you seen these before, Father? They’re practically a part of me.” He worked hard not to visibly react in any way to his own deceptive rhetoric. “I need to look my best if I’m going to the Sintrice Archive.”
Silver started to leave when his father caught him again. “Well, good luck with your research or whatever, Champ.”
One might have said Silver’s father was inattentive, but he had always taken care of the needs of his home and been nothing but a good father, in spite of his frequent long absences. Mostly, Arith trusted Silver enough not to question his choices. Though Silver was still almost a year from becoming an adult, he had earned a covetable level of autonomy in his own home. It was this autonomy he now needed to exploit to hide his newfound strength. If Arith learned his son was now a Shifty, he would certainly disobey national law by not killing him.
Silver turned in the other direction, but his father immediately turned back and threw in: “Oh! I forgot to mention: your ma’s out arranging for a festival for ya sometime in the next couple of weeks. She wants to throw a big party the likes of which are unheard of here in Maresde, in honor of the Shifty Slayer.”
Silver’s heart skipped a beat. He did not want them to acclaim him for doing something great, especially if that “great thing” happened to be murder. He was still depressed by Stracht’s passing, and especially at what involvement he had in it. He smiled anyway, just to be polite. He could not let them suspect anything was different. He left the house with a warm smile from his father and a blank stare from Searin. He hoped beyond hope neither of them could tell there was something different about him.
