Azure Prologue

Prologue: A Becoming Smile

The shadows in the room’s corners roiled like an oily black liquid, Artax thought as he crept past them, his passage as silent as the footsteps of a cat. They seem like the surface of a lake at night, all sleek and flat and glasslike in the moon’s glow. He smiled at the thought, amused at his atypically poetic mood. Or maybe, he thought again, they are more like a deep pit, a vast yawning chasm that stretched endlessly down and down into some unknowable nether world. The thought died away almost as soon as it arose. On a night like this, introspection or daydreaming were likely to get him killed. In his mind, there were many things that were much worse than death, but he had waited for this night far too long to fail because of carelessness.

Turning his eyes forward, he saw a massive oaken door looming ominously at the end of the high-ceilinged chamber. It was tall and old and heavily bound in rusted iron, its aged timbers nearly a foot thick. A solitary pool of light danced fitfully across the floor at its feet, a pool of pale corpse-light cast there by the gibbous moon. The window that granted the light passage glared at him like a baleful eye; its pale sheen gleaming on alabaster pillars. He moved on, heedless of the sickly moonlight, the tapestries behind him fluttering softly in his wake.

When he reached the door, he seized the iron ring embedded in its surface and pulled back with all his strength. Normally, it took two creatures to open the door that led to the chambers of the jarl-king. Corded muscles stood out in long, sinewy lines on his shoulder, but the door did not budge. Finally, after several moments of silent exertion the door swung outward with agonizing slowness and a faint protesting squeal of rusty hinges. When he had created a gap just big enough to squeeze through, he wormed his way past into the corridor beyond.

On the other side of the door, he crouched cautiously for a moment and surveyed the narrow hall that stretched away before him. It was empty save for a few guttering torches that were trying intrepidly but vainly to dispel the encroaching shadows. He sunk back into the gloom of a corner, searching, his eyes roving the length of the hall. Some distance ahead and nearly obscured by the darkness at the hall’s end was a doorway. Beside it, he could just make out two indistinct shapes, sprawled unceremoniously on the floor. He smiled wickedly and reached toward the reassuring weight resting on his left hip. He rose to his feet and moved forward, his padded paws cushioning the sounds of his stride, until he stood over the haphazardly collapsed corpses of two wolves. One was partially propped against the wall, his eyes wide and staring, legs splayed, right paw still gripping the hilt of his now useless broadsword. The other lay facedown beside him, his limbs twisted grotesquely, his back arched into a ridged unnatural position. A telltale pewter chalice lay on the ground at his side, dropped during his violent death throes, its contents splattered across the stones. Artax smiled savagely and even quietly clucked his tongue.

“That’s what you get,” he chuckled softly. “Reveling on guard duty? Shame, shame. If only you were more concerned about the safety of your jarl, you wouldn’t have to worry about hemlock in your hippocras, now would you?”

He turned away smiling, setting his attention on the door they had guarded so laxly. Reaching beneath his tunic, he clasped the iron key that nestled against the warmth of his chest suspended from a chain about his neck. His mother had given him the key many years ago to serve as a constant reminder of the purpose she intended for him. He had dreamed of the day when he could finally fulfill that purpose for as long as he could remember, and now that day had finally come. With one deft movement, he snapped the chain. Taking the key, he gripped the handle of the door fashioned in the shape of a snarling panther, and inserted the key into the keyhole beneath. When he turned his paw, he was rewarded with the gratifying snick of the door unlocking. After dropping the key in a pouch at his belt, he pushed the door slowly inward. He only opened it wide enough to slip past the threshold. Once inside, he closed the door soundlessly behind him and crouched once more to take a measure of his surroundings.

He stood in a small entryway, a mosaic of prismatic tiles, dulled in the darkness, felt cool and hard beneath his feet. There was nothing else in the entryway save for the final door that lay between him and his goal. This doorway housed no door, but a long, thick cloth that he at first took to be a tapestry. Artax moved towards it, his steps more meticulous and measured than ever. As he drew closer, he sneered in recognition. It was no tapestry, but the skin of a white tiger. Its head and splayed front legs were tacked cruelly to the lintel of the doorway, while its back legs and long sinuous tail dangled down to brush the floor. Artax looked at the gaping holes where its eyes had been, at the jagged slashes along its jaw and paws where its fangs and claws had been savagely hacked out to form necklaces, scepters, and other meaningless ornamentation.

The old fool likes to show off his trophies, he thought to himself contemptuously. How many jarls have slain one of the great Wytes of Arknia? Only one, he claims. Morak of Nahark alone owns the deathblow of a Wyte King of Greensward.

Artax snorted derisively at the thought. He knew what had caused this beast’s deathblow despite Morak’s attempts to conceal the truth. It had been no sword blow to the skull that felled Altair Keenblade whatever Morak might claim. It had been an act of treachery and cowardice.

He moved on, pushing past the hanging skin as quietly as he could. He gritted his teeth as he did for the skin was thick and cumbersome, and he could not avoid the muffled swishing sound it made as it brushed over him.

Idiot! He thought once more, If it weren’t for this thick, ridiculous hide between him and the door, he probably could have heard the death throes of the guards outside.

Finally clear of the oppressive skin, he had to bite down a sigh of relief. He went into his customary crouch to survey the room and felt a sudden wash of tingling exhilaration. He was here! At last! He stood mere feet from his target! He felt his right paw itching in expectation. He was quick to suppress this dangerous feeling almost as soon as it emerged. He could not afford to let his emotions goad him into making a mistake. Stealth and patience were more important now then ever. He forcibly calmed himself and examined the room. There was a single window in the far wall through which he could see the bloated, corpse-white moon trudging disconsolately through a clump of greasy clouds. The room was bathed in its phosphorescent, swampy light, seeming to come alive with will-o’-the-wisps and foxfire. Even in the eerie glow, the room’s lavishness was obvious. Tapestries and exotic furs, their bright colors muted by shadows, hung from every wall. Ornately carved chests and tables of ebony stood all around him, edged with carved ivory or gilt. Clothes of silk, censers filled with incense, silver plates, goblets encrusted with jewels, and figurines craved of jasper and onyx were only some of the wonders the room contained. But in one corner, propped against the wall, stood the greatest treasure of all, the greatsword Calvnir, its ebon blade darker even then the shadows in which it rested. Even in the gloom Artax could see the moonlight glinting on its silver quillons and the ruby in its pommel. He felt a sudden sweep of longing; he desired nothing more than to seize the bone carved hilt in his paw and claim the sword as his own. The sword should be his by right. Morak had no more right to it than he did the title of jarl. Reluctantly, he pushed the feeling away. Majestic and enthralling as the blade was, it was not his true target, at least not yet. He turned to his right and could not quite repress a sudden sharp intake of breath. There. He thought malevolently, there is my target.

There, across a pile of furs taken from the corpses of his slain enemies, lay Morak Wyteslayer. The old wolf was stretched out on his back amidst the furs, sleeping soundly and blissfully unaware, his head tilted back with his mouth agape, and his paws stretched out above his head. His fur, once black, had faded to whitish silver around his muzzle and eyes. His once hardy and hale frame was wizened and thin with age. His narrow chest rose and fell with each breath, and Artax could hear each inhalation rattle raggedly inside his stark ribcage.

Artax stalked across the room until he stood directly over the pallet where Morak slept. His paw moved delicately to his left side where it closed over the hilt of the stiletto secreted in its small scabbard and tucked beneath his belt. He raised it upward slowly even as the rest of his body began to sink into a low feline crouch. The sickly moonlight cast a single faint glimmer on the blade’s wickedly sharp edge. He leaned forward, not daring even to breathe, and let the stiletto hover mere inches from Morak’s throat. It hung in the air for a moment, as he savored the feel of its hilt in his grip, his paw and the very blade itself seeming to tingle in bloody anticipation.

He thought, almost ceremoniously, as he held the blade poised over Morak’s throat, of what had brought him to this decision, to this moment. He thought once more of the old wolf’s arrogance, of his swaggering strut, of his oily, supercilious voice, of how he struck or killed those who dared to look him in the eyes. He thought of the old wolf’s boastfulness, of how he claimed to have killed the mighty white tiger Altair Keenblade, of how he had done what no other jarl before him had done, of how he had united all the warring clans of Nahark. But for all his claims, Artax knew the truth. He knew that Morak had never stood face to face with his enemies; he knew that Morak was a craven wretch who had never won a battlefield; he knew what had truly slain Altair Keenblade. He thought of all of these things, but mostly he thought of Morak’s contemptuous, deriding smile. That contemptuous smile had been cast upon Artax more times then he could remember. Again and again, since he was little more than a cub, he could remember Morak’s smile. Whelp! It seemed to scream. Wolfling! You are nothing to me. You will never be anything to me. Bastard excuse for a son, go mewling back to that half-dog bitch mother of yours. Even now, Artax felt his shoulders tensing and his paw trembling in raw fury as if the smile was directed at him this very moment. He had waited long enough; no longer would he be cowed by a spineless wretch who did not deserve the title of jarl. No longer would he be subjugated by one who was his inferior in every way possible. Morak was a coward, and so he deserved to die the ignoble death of a coward.

With deliberate suddenness, he let the blade fall. He felt it slide neatly into Morak’s throat, as neatly as if he were merely cutting a wedge of cheese. He felt a sudden bubbling, fizzing warmness well up between his fingers and over the handle of the stiletto. He felt Morak lurch suddenly; he heard his breaths turn to a gasping sputter. He heard him choke and hack in gargling liquid gurgles. He watched his eyes snap open for one moment and then go wide and icy. He watched as a frothy liquid foamed and dripped from the corners of his mouth. He felt him shudder a final time, and then go suddenly limp, his eyes still open, his limbs contorted.

Artax leaned back smugly for a moment, leaving the stiletto stuck deep into Morak’s throat. He pensively watched the blood drip from his blunt claws, savoring each scarlet drop as it hung tenuously in the air for a moment, and then struck the furs below, staining them with splotches of crimson brilliance. He wanted to lick the edge of his fabulous blade; he wanted to howl his ecstasy to the gibbous moon; he wanted to watch the blood drip from his claws forever. Instead, he reached out and took hold of the stiletto handle once more and as quickly and easily as if he were cutting butter, he sliced a crescent gash deep into the flesh of Morak’s throat. He sliced him neatly and fastidiously from ear to ear, and then he took the blade up and held it poised in the moonlight. Looking down, he saw the gaping, oozing slash he had cut into Morak’s neck. It tilted up slightly at the corners much like Morak’s contemptuous smile. Artax laughed aloud. “I think, father,” he said at last, “that this smile is much more becoming.”