…must never speak to the draga their words are poison…

Alaric knows the creature speaks the truth. He can feel the severity of his wounds. He knows that he is only alive because the creature wishes it to be so. He believes that the draga can end his life if it so chooses.

He makes his choice.

“My only wish is to not die on this day. In this place.”

“That is all? I can grant this and so much more. Accept my gift, and fear no death or shadow.”

“I accept your gift.”

“My name is Abraxas, and I have come across a vast ocean of stars to find you, Alaric. Swear fealty to me, take me as your master, and I will take you as my own hand, the executor of my will.”

“I swear fealty to you, Abraxas. I claim you as my new Sundin.”

Alaric falls to one knee. The firelight glows white, surrounding him in a circle of suffused light. There are markings embedded in the light ring that he cannot understand. Then his attention is drawn by a rustling among the vines of the obsidian tree. A strange serpent slides from Abraxas’s maw and slips down along the side of the tree and onto the floor, then begins to slither toward Alaric. Yet Alaric feels no fear, even as the thing unfurls into barbed tentacles that crawl up his arms, cold and slick. He feels the barbs embed themselves in his neck and chest. The tentacles being to pulse, and Alaric feels a disorienting sensation as Abraxas begins pumping something cold into his body.

As his consciousness begins to fade, the voice of the old god Abraxas whispers in his ear, telling him to have no fear.

****

Alaric awakens in warm blackness. To his joy he feels whole, unblemished. He attempts to twist his body and feels fleshy resistance all around him. He tries to push with his feet, and his head presses against a skin-like wall of something. He feels it give. Light begins to invade the dark place.

He presses again, and blinding white light obliterates the darkness as an opening appears. The fleshy material surrounding him begins to tear as he struggles. He wriggles from side to side, and the mucus that covers him helps his upper body to slide free, unpinning his arms. He uses his arms to tear the cocoon wide open, and his body flops onto the floor like a fish.

He slips across the metal floor in the strange cave, and he knows nothing, save for the cold. The brightness. The roar of sound where formerly there was only silence. When he cries out, he hears the voice of a stranger, much deeper and richer than the voice he remembers. He looks behind to see the vehicle of his metamorphosis. But it is gone, wilted to sad little tangles of vines and desiccated organic matter.

Who am I? Where am I?

He is completely naked. His skin has paled from nut-brown to fish-belly white. He stares at his hands, which seem to have grown larger. His arms ripple with sinew and sensuous mass.

“Rise, Alastor. You have at last become what you were always meant to be.”

Yes. Alastor. It is my name.

He worries these new syllables inside his mind. They do not ring true, but he cannot quite grasp why. Some piece of mind, something integral to his very being, has been taken and replaced. It dances in the shadows, just beyond the glow of his consciousness. And then it is gone, a dead man’s whisper carried away by spring’s last wind.

Alastor rises to his feet. He runs his hands across his chest, collecting translucent mucus and flinging it to the floor, his pectoral muscles rippling. He smiles as he surveys biceps the size of the eggs laid by the man-sized birds that dwell among the plains in the shadow of the mountain.

“What am I?” he asks.

Something stirs inside him. All around him. An ageless intelligence rouses itself. He looks up and sees the draga’s broken body, trapped inside the tree that seems to have grown up around him, swallowing him whole.

He remembers.

“You are the first. You are my son,” the voice says.

“Son? My father is…”

A flurry of muddled images. He sees a man with a kind face and large hands. On the man’s lap is a boy, small for his age. The boy’s eyes, his eyes, burn red.

No. Something is wrong. I am…

“Say it,” the dragon commands from within his prison, but also from without. Inside Alastor’s head.

“My father is…” He pauses. “Abraxas.”

“I am proud of you, my son. You are truly a sight to behold. A man with the body of a god! Look upon yourself now. See what I have given you.”

Forgotten machines, ancient yet infinitely complex, clatter to life. Glowing orbs descend from the ceiling above, raining flakes of rust and other detritus down on Alastor’s shoulders.

REAL-3D holographic projectors, he tells himself.

“A quick study. Good,” Abraxas says.

Red beams of light scan his body, tracing its contours, slicing through the motes of dust that dance in the air. Before long another Alastor—this one composed solely of light—materializes before his very eyes.

He is alarmed at how unalarmed he is in the presence of such magic.

Not magic. Machines. Crafted, just like the swords and shields my people wear. But made of many small parts with tiny fires inside that give them life.

“Yes. That is right. Not magic. But power, nonetheless.”

Alastor surveys the copy of himself. He appears to have grown two heads taller, and his chest is broad and thick. His arms are thick like bundled firewood.

“What would you have me do?” he asks.

“I have a plan that will take us to the farthest ends of the galaxy. You do not know this word, but it means that we will be traveling far beyond the star maps your people scratch in the dirt outside your hovels. But you must first tend to the beast outside so that you can return to your people.”

“Master? You want me to leave you? I do not understand.”

“Go back to them, Alastor, and claim your birthright. You will become the new Sundin. You will lead your people to glory they can only glimpse in their dreams.”

“Edulf. He will never give up his throne. How can I take it from him?”

“Are you so dense, my son? Perhaps I should choose another. Hrogar, perhaps. He shows great promise…”

“No. I know what must be done.”

****

The she-bear is waiting. She has at last wrenched the blade from her eye socket; the ragged skin around her ruined eye tells the tale. She roars, her cry full of fear and madness, brought on by pain and the reek of death coming off her body.

Alastor roars back at her, and as he does, he feels a strange sensation in the back of his throat. His jawbone cracks as his mouth attempts to open like a viper’s. He feels some strange thing stirring in his gut, something he knows is connected to his belly and the hunger that smolders there.

NO. NOT THIS ONE. KILL HER, BUT DO NOT FEED UPON HER.

The thought of eating the bear hadn’t crossed Alastor’s mind, but there is no time to ponder this—his body seems to have succumbed to its own will, moving at the whim of hideous instinct. He charges the bear.

Something horrid and slimy flicks past his face. Was it some strange creature, some base cave-dwelling worm attacking him? Revulsion fills him as he realizes that there are many of them, and they are coming from inside his mouth. He regains some semblance of control and beckons them back inside.

The bear attempts to swat him with a paw the size of a boulder, but he catches the creature’s forearm and feels the bones snap as he squeezes and pulls. Snarling, he shoves the bear’s paw deep into its own stomach. The bear falls onto its back, bawling.

Alastor leaps atop it, and it rakes the claws of its good limb across his side, tearing the flesh to tatters. He grabs the paw with a free hand, the other grasping the matted fur on the creature’s chest for purchase. He twists and pulls, and the bear’s paw separates from the arm, spraying his naked body with blood. The she-bear mewls and lies back on the ground, exposing her neck, surrendering. He reaches forward with both hands to tear out her windpipe.