Wolf & Hound

Prologue: Maes

The demon, Maes, sat on a rock on the sea shore, and studied the statue. The rock on which the demon sat was a hunk of masonry, rounded on one side by the sea but still square on the other. Debris strewed the entire beach, narrow bars and patches of sand punctuating a field of broken stone. The ziggurat that had once crowned the overlooking cliffs had fallen two decades ago, spreading its ruins the length of the beach.

Discovering the ruined city of Silveneir, Maes had explored, and wandered at last down to the beach, where hefound the statue. The life-size statue of a woman, cast in solid gold. Maes could not credit that he was the first to discover her resting place here, but she was buried amid the rubble and no idly moved lady in any case. Only the statue's hand and wrist showed, upreaching from the slurry of broken stone as if appealing for help.

Maes had attempted first hauling and then digging her out, but she was stuck fast. Her stony grave lay on the farthest point of the beach, accessible only at low-tide. Maes sat, and considered that the statue would be underwater again in an hour.

The demon itself manifested as a suit of plate armour, charred black. Its present host was a slender youth, straight silver hair spilling down his back and a mad twitch to his eye. He sat, smiling disturbingly into space, while the demon contemplated.

Gold was power. The demon did not understand recall much of its former mortal life, lost long ago, but it understood power, and knew that men put power in gold. If it would be a man, it would need gold.

Maes reached out, and took hold of the statue's reaching hand. Heat rose, shimmering around the demon's armoured shoulders, beginning to smoulder from his gauntletted hands. It took a long time, the heat transferring slowly to the buried statue, diffusing through her.

The tide returned, rising around the demon's solleret boots and hissing into steam. Maes paused, irritated to note white salt encrusting his black iron ankles. The tide continued torise and Maes addressed his task again, apply more heat until the golden hand turned soft in his grasp. He pulled, and the golden arm stretched slowly, the bright metal beginning to squish between hisfingers.

The demon swore, killing a seagull overhead, when the golden hand broke off in his grasp. Drops of molten gold fell like blood, solidifying immediately as they hit the water. Maes dropped the golden hand at his feet, and took hold of the stump of the statue's wrist. Soon he dropped another lump of gold, and applied himself to heaving aside enough rocks to get another handhold on thestatue. Over hours, he dug almost the statue's entire grave, reducing her piecemeal to chunks.

His armour smouldered by the time he was done, sizzling on his host's skin. The youth whined when Maes made him crouch to begin packing the gold. The objection was not pain; the demon's host was long inured to that. Rather, the possessed you thmewled at the use of his fine cloak as an improvised bag.

"Shh." The demon spoke in the voice of the young man it wore. "You get to be powerful, and I get to be a man."

Such was the contract. Together, youth and demon slung the sackful of gold on their shared shoulder, and started back up from the beach.