Chapter 10: Introducing Lucian, the Master of Muck

2002 A.D.

And now completely lost in the silver of his own veins, the bloodsoul of Lucian flowed into the nether regions of his conscience…his body and mind taken over by slumbering hibernation. The liquid river addling his wits as the shards of a failed bloodseal obliterated all his memories of life before…

…except for one.

…o…

…o…

Silence…mist…and the dull sheen of sunlight trying to flow fitfully through a mesh of silvery wet vapour and vapid moorland. The river lies perfectly still as if nothing in this scenic place has stirred since the dawn of time. Indeed, time holds no sway for in two minutes, a lifetime could pass…or a breath…

…though none would know it for bloodsouls do not age beyond the last memory to grace their living bodies…

Lucian trailed his fingers along the silver water's edge, drawing his breath lightly through the bone-pipe held in his right hand. Both eyes were carelessly closed, and he lay along the riverbank in a simple woolen tunic…his feet bare and soiled from the muck of crawling through bogs, the dark hair tangled and free, yet melding with the coarse grass and mud beneath his form. Still keeping his sights dark, he nestled his torso deeper and listened carefully to air flowing in and around the newly fashioned sound-holes…

…silence.

Turning the pipe over to his left hand, he frowned into its mouth for a moment before swishing it vigorously through the river water on his left. Scarcely altering his position, he blew fiercely through the pipe several times, wiped it across his grimy shirt, and finally satisfied, lifted the dry instrument to his own (ever so slightly delicate) mouth once more. He took a breath of air, and blew upon the bone…

…and like the first blush of dawn, the sound came slight and unsure, wavering its way from weary lungs, but soon…as his lips became more attuned, a melee of haunting notes drifting clear and true across air, almost piercing the silvery mist that shrouded the (still vapid) moorland. The ground was freezing, and there was a strange calm about the morning…as if time had halted and the very birds had flown to escape dead silence. A pity they fled before he could charm them with such wailing melodies…although most would think twice about approaching a creature of his…roughness.

…but what was he doing here?

Bewildered and shaking himself among the reeds, he sat up and stared intensely at his nimble fingers…the palm of his hands…the veins running along his skin…the polished flute…and then beyond at the reflection upon the silver waters. Tilting his head from side to side, he frowned at his own teeth, trying to distinguish the source of his unease. By the blood running through his own heart, he was healthy. His cheeks were…rosy. His skin smooth as a lycan pup. The hint of a beard growing upon his chin. And indeed, there was nothing askew about his hearty bearing, but leaning himself down upon both elbows to peer closer at the river, he knew something was wrong. The dark hair, shorn to his shoulders and now hanging lank over water, thick and winding, creating small ripples where it touched…

Small ripples…

Soothed by the movement, he relaxed his posture and sat back, trying to sort out this strange sense of what lay about him. And as if by rote, the words sounded off in his memory, too practiced to be true, yet all he could remember as he continued staring at the shining causeway…

"I am seventeen years of age…and Janos has already informed me of my fate, taking me aside during the noontime meal not two days past. Come new moon, I am to be carted off to the breeding grounds of Viktor…"

Still gazing upon the silver waters of the river, the words turned and turned through his missing memories, an exhaustion built of years seeping into his youthful bones…and as the hours continued to drift by…hour upon hour…upon hour…it began to feel as if Lucian had always lived there among the reeds. As if he had always played this pipe. And, in truth, he could not remember when last he had returned to the keep, which itself, had already begun to fade away…