Mike Wild - The Clockwork King of Orl

Moon looked at the ogur again, and frowned. The efficacy of the amulet couldn't be denied — he was, after all, alive — but nevertheless something seemed to be wrong. For one thing, the process was meant to be almost instantaneous, and for another he… didn't feel quite right. Whatever was happening here wasn't happening the way it was meant to, and apart from his own discomfort it was evidently prolonging the agony of the poor creature before him. As Moon watched, the ogur's body and features seemed to shrink in on themselves even more than they already had, the blue wisps that were still being drawn from it by the amulet seemingly extracting its essence still. Moon was, as yet, still too weak to move, and so he had no choice but to witness the process continuing for another few minutes, at the end of which time he turned his eyes away. For the amulet had taken everything from the ogur, and now, in the end, the beast all but disintegrated before him, collapsing into a desiccated heap on the cave floor.

The amulet snatched what wisps of it remained in the air with a sigh.

Wrong, Moon thought. That was wrong. And the other ogur in the cave obviously thought so, too, because now they were stirring from their prone positions, grunting with what sounded like growing confusion and agitation. What was happening? Now that their alpha was dead, had their deferment to him ceased? Was he now as exposed to their primal hunger as Kali would have been had she remained in the cave?

No, Moon thought, it wasn't that — but it made his situation no less dangerous. Something had to have changed about him during the revitalisation process — perhaps something as simple as his scent — and the reason that the ogur were no longer deferring to him was because to their senses he was no longer the man they had deferred to before. The end result, however, was the same. He was no longer welcome here amongst the ogur — not as anything but food, that was — and he had to get out of their cave before their slowly revising opinion of him resulted in his being ripped apart.

Moon rose from the cave floor, slowly and cautiously, noting as he did that his resurrection seemed to have booned his old and tired limbs with a renewed resilience and strength that he had not felt for a good many years. This was hardly the time to celebrate the fact, however, because while the ogur's state of confusion seemed to have passed, their agitation had grown markedly. Their grunts were becoming more frequent now, their mannerisms more threatening — and their gaze more hungry.

Slowly, Moon bent to retrieve his staff and backpack, and then with equal slowness he eased towards the tunnel that led out of the cave. The ogur gathered about him as he moved, sniffing at him, clawing curiously at his clothes, and Moon realised that it was probably only a matter of seconds before one of them actually lunged. He was having to push his way between them now, and could feel their clawings becoming heavier, more insistent. And then one of them did what he'd been expecting and grabbed him roughly by the arm, attempting to rip the limb away.

Moon batted the ogur off and roared.

What? he thought. What had that just been? What had he just done? That he'd actually been able to physically repel the ogur? That he'd made that noise?

Oh, this wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.

It was not, however, the ideal circumstance to dwell on the matter, and for now all he could do — what he needed to do — was take advantage of it. The remaining ogur, it seemed, had been as disturbed by his unexpected actions as he had himself, and their clawings had become more hesitant, in some cases even ceased. And the ogur that had lunged for him was actually retreating submissively back into the cave.

What is happening? Moon wondered. Were the ogur, after all, deferring to him? Or were they perhaps sensing some of the alpha whose life essence he had stolen away? Whichever of the two it was, he knew that he needed to press the issue before they changed their minds again.

Instinctively, he roared for a second time. And this time, without even thinking about doing it, he repeatedly thumped the rock of the cave walls in warning.

By all the gods, what was happening?

The ogur — all of them, now — backed off into the cave, and, free from their threat, Moon turned towards the exit. A second later he emerged onto the ice plateau and, again before he knew what he was doing, began inhaling deeply of the air.

No, he realised, he wasn't inhaling it, he was sniffing it.

And on it, he could smell Kali Hooper.

Impossible. It was just impossible. He had no idea how long he had spent in the cave but it was not an inconsiderable amount of time, and yet Kali was there on the air, as if she had left him only a moment before, her scent traceable despite the stench of the ogur cave and the blizzard that still numbingly blew outside it. She was as clear as day to him, as vital as if she had remained nearby — but she hadn't, he knew and he realised he was smelling a scent that should long ago have become undetectable to the human nose. A human nose but not that of a creature that survived by…

Moon remembered the resilience and strength he had felt as he had risen from the cave floor, remembered the batting away of the ogur and his roar, remembered his hammering of the cave walls. Most of all, he remembered that he had not felt… quite right. Gods, he knew there was meant to be a fleeting transference from a victim but was it possible the amulet had somehow — ?

He lifted his palms to his face, feeling the features there. He half-expected to feel those of an ogur bulging beneath his fingers but, no, his face still felt like his own. He looked down at his body, and it too seemed to be the same. Only…

He gazed at one of his own footprints, frozen in the plateau ice. The footprint was from before he had entered the ogur cave and he turned to place his foot beside it. And the footprint was smaller.

Merrit Moon's heart sank. So, he had changed, then. Perhaps was still changing. The only question was, to what degree and at what pace? The artefact that he had brought with him into these mountains in the hope that it — if it became necessary — would buy him more time to complete his mission had, instead, infused him with not only the ogur's life essence but part of the ogur itself. How and why that should happen, he didn't know — perhaps it was something to do with the ogur's body chemistry, or perhaps the fact that their species were so different that it was the only way the amulet could cope with the transference — but whatever the cause it left him with but a single thought: Oh gods, Kali, what have I done?

Thinking of his protEgEe made Moon's heart sink even further. He had taken no pleasure in not telling her about the amulet, in fact it had pained him greatly, but how could he have told her when even he was not sure whether the artefact would work? As she had knelt over his dying form, what right had he had to build up her hopes by telling her he might yet live if there was a danger those hopes would be shattered if the artefact failed to work? No, he couldn't have done that to her, any more than he could have let her touch the amulet at the moment of his passing. Damn Munch, he thought, because if that little thug had finished the job instead of leaving him to suffer then it would be him who would now be lying on the cave floor, as dried and as drained and as dead as he deserved to be.

Moon caught Kali's scent on the air once more, and he wondered where she now was. Had she succeeded in finding the information she needed, and was she on her way to protect the other keys? One thing he did know, he needed to find her, not only to help, if he could, but to let her know that he lived, even if it was not in quite the same fashion as he had lived before.