Searching the Darkness (Erythleh Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  All too soon, it seemed to Elthrinn, they were saying goodbye. She wasn't sure what she had expected, that Serwren might stay the night, that their farewells might be prolonged? She knew that Serwren didn't want to leave Ulli for longer than she had to. Elthrinn, having considered Serwren a kind of mother for years, was hurt that Serwren wanted to return so quickly to her blood offspring, rather than spend some brief moments with her adopted child.

  If nothing else, it crystallised to Elthrinn that she was alone in the world now. She would be surrounded by people in this new, protective bubble, they would be partners in a daily life constricted by the rigours of a holy existence, but she was still alone.

  The priestess that had served them food guided Elthrinn through the corridors of the temple to her room. Elthrinn was initially horrified at the Spartan nature of the space, for it was no more than that. Then, as her eyes took in the desk, the single chair and the thin bed, she gave thanks that this cell was her own, and not to be shared.

  She was handed a bundle, the colours of which telegraphed its contents. She knew it was the holy robes that were to be her only clothing for the rest of her life. The strange woman waited, but did not speak, and Elthrinn understood, a little uncomfortably, that she was to change immediately. She stripped, with a greater degree of self-consciousness than she had realised she possessed. She handed her own outfit over to the priestess, who then left the room. She knew without being told that she would never see those garments again.

  Elthrinn discovered that she had to bind her hair for it to be comfortable under the cowl of her robe. She wondered if some of the initiates cut their hair off, but she could not do that, not unless they demanded it of her. With everything else, her clothes, her belongings, her friends, her home, stripped away, her hair was all she had left. It was no fantastical colour; it was brown, so deep to be almost black, and that shade was common in Felthiss, but it was hers. She plaited it into a tight braid and bound it with a scrap of material that she found languishing with the dust under her bed.

  A series of bells, a tinkling like a cascading waterfall, rang out throughout the building. Elthrinn looked up and around her cell. She had no idea what the bells meant. She had no idea if she should leave, where she should go, if she should stay where she was.

  A knock came at the door. When her visitor did not automatically grant themselves admittance, for Elthrinn knew it wasn't locked, she twisted the handle and opened the door. Another novice, clad in an exact replica of the outfit that Elthrinn now wore, was waiting patiently. Elthrinn tried to ask what the bells meant, but the novice only lifted a finger to her lips and beckoned with her hand.

  Unsure, afraid, and desperate not to cause offence, Elthrinn bit her lip and followed her guide with tentative steps.

  ~o0o~

  Elthrinn settled into life at the temple well enough, but she did not feel at home there. She liked her sisters in devotion well enough, but she was not like them. The other priestesses had all come to the temple because they were desperate to serve the goddess, they all thought themselves children of Doohr. Elthrinn had come to the temple only to escape the possibility of her life, not because she wanted a special relationship with a deity.

  She had to fight hard not to scoff at their devotion. The other devotees truly believed that their prayers, whispered in such a hallowed space, reverberated throughout the world. They believed that their pleas and entreaties brought peace and goodwill. Elthrinn knew differently. Elthrinn had seen the devastated tears of the mother who had lost her child from her womb before it had even been able to take its first breath; she had seen the hunger and heartache of a family when the premier male had lost a limb to an accident with a plough and could no longer till the fields. Elthrinn had seen for herself that these prayers weren't worth the breath they were whispered with.

  Elthrinn had never considered herself particularly talkative, but she found a new depth of silence at the temple. The very stones seemed to be imbued with a lack of speaking. Elthrinn began to miss Ulli's incessant chatter, even the absence of chatter when he wasn't doing the chores he should have been, because she would have been calling for him. She even missed Bexus, the obstinate goat, the impatient chickens and the stray cats that pestered her for scraps.

  Without the communion of language, Elthrinn found that she could not forge real friendships. She became adept at discerning which of her fellow acolytes were more amenable to sociability, but it was a promise never to be fulfilled. All their attention was supposed to be devoted to the greedy goddess. If she spoke to anyone at all, it was in hushed whispers that could convey no inflection of tone. It was a tradition that was hard for Elthrinn to comply with, but ultimately, she had no choice.

  The routine of her days was steady, boring and predictable, but there was something to be said for that. Elthrinn was assured that her safety was complete, even as she felt her soul atrophying in the stifling atmosphere.

  She had been worried about the extent to which the priestesses would demand personal grooming. She was relieved to find that they cared for it not at all. They did not try to shave her, or to insist that she shaved, or that she prepared her body in any way. The gowns they gave her were voluminous and covered almost every inch of her body. Apparently it didn't matter to Doohr what she looked like underneath them.

  On the first year's anniversary of her first prayer at the temple, she was presented with a solid silver ring for her neck. It had no fastening, only a split in the metal. One of the senior priestesses sealed the split shut with a pair of red-hot iron tongues that singed the hairs on the back of Elthrinn's neck. If she hadn't bound her hair up so tightly for the ceremony, she might well have lost her braid entirely. Elthrinn knew that she would receive an identical ring for each year of devotion. Some priestesses had been in the temple for so long, that they could no longer drop their chins. The quantity of rings around their throats forced them to hold their heads proud and high, even though some of the rings overlapped. Elthrinn dreaded ever owning such a collection of jewellery.

  They received few visitors at the temple, so her daily routine was monotonous on a good day. There was cleaning, dusting, washing, laundry, husbandry and gardening to be done, all day, every day. Occasionally she took a turn to work the looms, spinning delicate threads into the robes that they wore. Some of the other, more senior, priestesses undertook the dyeing of the fabrics once they had been woven. While Elthrinn worked on them, they were colourless shades of white and grey. Some days, Elthrinn turned animal grease into candles, or helped with the milking of the temple cows. There was cheese and butter to be churned, and eggs to be collected. The only chore that raised her heart rate was the collecting of honey from the bee-hives.

  Elthrinn's life passed her by almost without her realising that the river of time was flowing.

  Prayer aided the speed of the passing days. Six times a day, every resident of the temple gathered in the prayer hall. The hall was a large, echoing space in the centre of the temple and was dedicated only to devotion to the goddess. The devotees spent an hour on their knees on the cold, unforgiving stone floor, supposedly in quiet contemplation. Elthrinn guessed that her sisters were indeed quietly contemplating their devotion. She usually spent each hour contemplating the life that she was not living. Over the days, during the prayers at dawn, mid-morning, noon, mid-afternoon, dusk and midnight, Elthrinn had accumulated a lot of time thinking about what might have been.

  That there were no men or boys in or around the temple was as much of a blessing as it was a curse. Elthrinn had built the idea of a physical, sexual relationship in her head based on the experiences of people she knew, and the sum total had been a terrifying one. She had been in no hurry to become physically intimate with anyone. But some days she felt possessed; hormones surged through her blood and Elthrinn was sure that if she did not touch the bare skin of another human being she might wither and die like a plant denied sunlight. But again, she had no choice. This was the life she had had to choo
se; this was the life she had to endure. Her fellow residents seemed to struggle much less with the concept of eternal solitude than she did, and that brought Elthrinn immense feelings of shame and guilt, that she didn't have better control over her own mind and body.

  Elthrinn went about her days, and tried not to think of the life beyond the temple walls, the life she'd left behind. She tried not to think about what those few people; Serwren, Ulli, Aileth and Mara were doing whilst she was absent. She knew that she had to stop thinking about them, or she would drive herself mad before her second year was through. But Elthrinn could not deny herself thoughts of home; they were the only treasured possessions that she still had.

  Elthrinn no longer had a sense of herself. She did not recognise herself as a dedicated devotee of the goddess, or as the girl she had been before. She knew that he was missing out on the life, the experiences, the daily trials and tribulations that would become the sum total of the woman she wanted to be, but after long months in the temple, Elthrinn felt more like a wisp of a person than a vibrant, living being. She wandered the corridors of the temple, and performed her duties, with all the substantiality of a ghost. Her soul was not with the goddess, nor was it with her. It had fled, leaving her an unfulfilled husk that simply breathed and ate and continued, day after day after day.

  Chapter Four

  It was that time of the year, the time that every resident of Dorvek looked forward to. At each passing full moon, they would raise their faces to that glowing silver orb, and anticipate with wistful expectation, this full moon, Dythegg, the twelfth moon of the year.

  Gorren was standing with Delban, Ornef and Jorm. Their little group was on the outskirts of the crowd. There was not much order to be found in the chaos, but generally speaking, the king and queen and their family could be found in the centre. Their most prominent friends and supporters would be allowed to remain in close proximity, but beyond that it was a jostling anarchy, every man and woman for themselves.

  Gorren had once claimed a place in the centre of the crowd by birthright; tonight he had voluntarily rejected it.

  Despite the snow, every single person in the crowd was completely naked. They did not feel the cold as the people of other nations did, and they had no use for clothes on this night; garments were an unnecessary hindrance. Shyness was unheard of in Gorren's culture; embarrassment about the naked form was not their way. That did not mean that people didn't look at each other; there were always appraising glances, after all, it was the ideal time to find a potential mate, but every single person had their pride. Everyone had honour and respect for their neighbours.

  There were flashes of colour against the stark brightness of the snow that covered the ground and blurred the vagaries of the landscape. Tattoo artists were revered in Dorvek. No one born within the borders of the land saw the point in hanging paintings or drawings on a wall, trapped in a frame. They brought their art to life, and wore it on their skin for all to see.

  Tonight marked the fourth moon since Gorren had left Cranak Hall. He did not regret his choices, he did not regret giving up his place in the centre of the pack, but he did miss his mother. The youngest of two brothers, strangely passive for a second baby, Gorren had been his mother's favourite. She denied ever having a preference, of course, but he knew. His mother, whose russet hair bore no strands of grey, and whose beauty, like wine, seemed to have improved with maturity, was the one person he truly regretted leaving behind. He hadn't said goodbye to her, because he had known that if he had tried to bid her farewell, he would never have found the strength to leave. He hadn't had the opportunity to speak with her since.

  The people around him were looking at him whilst trying not to stare. Gorren held his head high, and tried to imitate a pride that he was not sure he felt. He stood by his choices. If he had to, he would make them again, earlier probably, but that did not lessen the thorny prick of those furtive glances. He did not like being the centre of attention; he certainly did not like being the subject of local gossip.

  The king, his father, the leader of the pack, let out a long, undulating howl that disturbed Gorren's maudlin musings and tugged at his soul and gut. That was the signal. As one, the crowd began to move. People bent backwards, they dropped to the ground, they moaned and groaned, they stretched and curled; they began to become wolves.

  The change from man to wolf was not overtly painful, nor was that of wolf to man. It was not pleasant; it was slightly uncomfortable. If asked, Gorren would have likened it to the feeling at the end of a long day of training exercises, the kind of day when their commander had insisted that they run up and down endless hills, or swim in icy waters, the kind of day that left a body aching and tired and desperate to fall into bed. As the stretching and kinking precluded Gorren from looking at anyone around him, he concentrated on the change, feeling the snap of his bones, the stretch of his sinews and tendons, the pull and release of his skin. For Gorren, there was no difference between the states of wolf and man; he felt equally comfortable, equally strong, as both.

  The people of Dorvek did not have to wait for their king to allow them to change. Indeed, they did not all even have to be present at Cranak on the night of Dythegg. They could all change at will. The onset of puberty brought with it the ability to shift between forms.

  As soon as a child was identified as having reached that stage in their lives, they commenced lessons with the elders of their community to instruct them in the proper etiquette and behaviour to enable them to fit seamlessly into their pack. The transition was ceremonially recognised on the shortest night of the year, Kwek, the sixth moon. The new wolves would change in the presence of the most senior person in their village or town, their pack leader, in an event known as the Prowv.

  They would receive their first tattoo. The symbol of Dorvek would be worked onto the left shoulder of every new wolf. The icon was the head of a wolf with teeth bared in aggression, whose neck became a crescent moon. The tip of the crescent almost touched the nose of the wolf, making the whole design ostensibly a circle, a full moon. Gorren's sigil had once been obliquely black; it was faded now with the passing years, but it still bore pride of place in the multitude of designs on his left arm.

  There would be merriment and eating and drinking, until darkness fell. In Cranak, and in a similar fashion elsewhere in the country, the initiate pack members would gather before King Dorll, out in front of the great hall, with its intricately carved doors closed behind them. The king would issue the call, and they would all change together.

  Then the initiates would have to run the gauntlet of the Prowv; they would have to fight. They all fought the same wolf, the Barnoor, a wolf designated by the king or pack leader. The fights, serious, but not deadly, were designed to reveal the status in their pack that the junior wolf was destined for. The gates to the hall would remain closed until all the initiates had faced their challenge. Gorren still bore the scars from his Prowv; his father had designated himself Barnoor that year.

  Both males and females could shift into the full form of a wolf, indistinguishable from the natural animals that inhabited other countries, but only males could shift into a half-form. It was a fearsome thing to behold, a line of Dorvern soldiers clad in their purposely-dulled breastplates and embossed leather armour with their weapons held ready. This unique ability was a talent they utilised only in battle. To adopt the half-form at home, alone or in the presence of friends and neighbours, was a sign of vulgarity, of a lack of control.

  On this night, every wolf in the nation changed as one. The residents of Cranak gathered around their king and queen, but throughout the country, in all the towns and villages, packs would follow the lead of their elders and run on four paws, bathed the light of the moon. Children who were too young to yet change would remain in their beds. Their parents mixed a sleeping draught for them, so that they might remain safely tucked beneath their covers. There were no adults to mind them, for there were no residents of Dorvek who did not have the ability
, latent or active, to adopt a lupine form.

  The king, the strongest wolf, completed the change first, followed almost immediately by his queen. As was their custom, Dorll set off at a run, followed by Rehan. Any wolves who had not yet completed the transition would simply have to struggle to keep up. Gorren, who had dropped to four paws shortly after his father, pounced from his haunches, directly into a gallop. He was eager to feel the wind ruffling his fur, to feel the burn as his muscles were tested. He was eager to hear the crunch of his claws breaking through the snow, eager for the scent of pine to prick his nostrils as it was borne on the fresh, sharp, frost-edged air.

  He was not the only one chasing the king. Gorren recognised his brother to one side, and he knew that his friends were not far behind. He could feel them through the instinctive sense of pack, a sense that had been honed during his time in the army. He knew he was stronger and faster than they, but not by much. There were others with them, behind them, people that Gorren knew, but did not care to call friends, or even acquaintances. He paid them no mind.

  Gorren tried to stay on the edges of the group. He had no wish to engage with his father, and the thought of running with his mother, of potentially enduring the chastisement of his father for daring such an impudent action, was too hurtful. But despite his efforts to remain apart, Gorren did not try to slacken his pace.