PART SEVEN

     On the morning of the third day since they left Royal Road, the wagon crested a hill and the forest fell away beneath them.  Sparkling along the horizon was Lake Cascade, a massive U-shaped body of water.  Evon stared at it, awestruck, as they began to descend the other side of the hill.  The trees had thinned out; the forest was finally ending.  The canopy soon blocked out the lake from view, though.
     "I don't suppose you've ever seen a lake like this before," Frederick said.  "It's the largest in Sylaxa, fed from the northern mountain streams."
     "So one of the streams near my village might…have made this?"
     "Once upon a time, perhaps.  The Royal Road cut off most of the streams.  It's mostly the ones that feed into Odin River that get this far anymore."
     "That's too bad," Evon replied, a touch of disappointment in his voice.
     They lapsed back into silence, Evon practicing his hand signals and Frederick thinking about what lay ahead.  They would be with his friend soon, and they could stay at the lake a long time if they needed to.  His heart yearned to return to Vel Tir, though.  He only needed to wait for the full moon to pass, anyway—that would be the true test of Evon's self-control.
     Fog rolled in as evening fell.  The space between the trees was wide now, and they could barely see more than two of them at a time.  Frederick had shape-shifted and was constantly looking around, sniffing the air, and tuning his wolf ears to each sound, but he never changed the wagon's direction.  Evon shivered and rubbed his arms against the cold.
     "There are some blankets in the wagon," Frederick said, "but you probably can't reach them now.  You'll be warmer if you transform."
     The thought of being covered in fur was tantalizing, but as Evon thought it the wolf jumped back to the front of his mind, eager.  He dismissed the idea immediately, not willing to risk losing control again.  As the sun disappeared and the night cold deepened, however, his resolve weakened.  The wolf mind pestered him persistently until he gave in and transformed.  The cold fled as his thick black fur covered him.  Much to his surprise, the wolf mind also retreated, content.
     It was only trying to get warm, Evon realized.  I…I guess I was putting myself through that needlessly.
     The fog began to clear, and a massive shape loomed up at them from the night shadows.  It was a stone building, even larger than the church in Fondur.  It seemed to stretch impossibly high above them…to a sudden end.  Evon's wolf eyes could see that the top of the castle was gone.  The walls were full of holes; the windows were all shattered.  It was in ruins.  Stones littered the ground at its base, some larger than the wagon, all covered in moss and lichen.  The rusted remains of the iron portcullis lay mostly-hidden under a blanket of grass.  An air of ominous silence pressed down around it.
     Frederick stopped the wagon just past the gate, next to a large wooden door, and jumped down.  Evon followed his lead, unsure of what to expect.  For a moment, Frederick just stood there, staring up at the stone wall, then he unleashed a long, piercing howl.  It was like nothing Evon had ever heard.  Unlike a normal wolf howl, it seemed to change pitch and tone melodiously, like a mournful song.  Without even realizing it, Evon joined in, matching Frederick as best he could.
     The song faded out, and Frederick gave Evon a wolfish grin.  "That was very good," he said, "at least for your first time.  Just don't try it again anywhere else.  That special howl can be heard by any werecreature for a great distance.  We're safe enough here to use it as a doorbell of sorts…this castle had been abandoned for centuries before my friend and I found it."
     He climbed back into the wagon seat, Evon behind him.  The trained their eyes and ears forward and waited.  And waited.  Five minutes passed, then ten, and there was no answer.  Frederick seemed unusually tense as the silence stretched on.  As the twenty-minute-mark passed, Evon got back down, too restless to remain in the wagon.  His breath formed little clouds in front of him; the cold was becoming too strong, even with his fur.  Frederick followed him down, clearly uneasy.
     "She should've answered by now," he muttered.  "This isn't like her."
     Trying to suppress a shiver, Evon pressed against the door.  To both of their surprise, the door swung inwards, neither locked nor latched.  There was no light inside, but their wolf eyes easily penetrated the shadows.  Glancing hesitantly at each other, they stepped inside.
     The interior of the castle was as much in ruin as the exterior.  Moss and lichen clung to the walls like ancient tapestries, and the charred remains of braziers littered the floor.  The air, however, was cool and fresh, blown in through the empty windows.
     They made their way through the hallways, Frederick deftly avoiding fallen stones.  Evon stubbed his toes so many times he was sure that his claws were near breaking off.  Rats scuttled out of the way as they passed by, the only sign of life in the stone walls.  They spent ten minutes delving deeper into the bowels of the ruin, until an awful smell reached their sensitive noses—the smell of a dead animal left out to rot.  Wrinkling their noses, they pressed on, Evon starting to lag behind.  His mind raced as he tried to figure out what could be making that smell.
     And then they came to an abrupt halt.  The corridor had ended.  A door sat slightly ajar in their path.  The smell was coming from beyond it.  Frederick glanced back at Evon hesitantly, both of them dreading to proceed, then put one hand on the door and pushed.
     "Oh god," Frederick breathed, stone stiff.  "Oh god.  No.  No no no."
     It was the female werewolf—what was left of her, anyway.  Her body was strung upside-down from an ancient chandelier by cords around her ankles.  She was still in wolf form, although that was only apparent by what little fur hadn't been burnt off.  Her face was completely unrecognizable, and the rest of her body was only moderately less mutilated.
     Evon failed to hold back the bile that rose in his throat.  As he stepped back from the mess on the cold floor, Frederick slowly walked forward.  He stretched out his hand and caressed the remains of her face.  "She was beautiful," he whispered, his voice wavering.  After a few minutes of silent reminiscing, he snapped back to the present and turned around.  Evon was gone.
     The young werewolf hadn't even heard Frederick speak.  He had ran.  He'd had no choice.  He was compelled to run, to get as far away from that room as he could.  All he could think about was how that would be him—someday, somewhere, that would be him, unless he found the cure to his curse.  Even the good werebeasts weren't safe.  And so he ran, blindly, not caring where he went or how deep into the ruined castle he was getting.
     Evon slowed to a stop, sick and exhausted.  He leaned against a wall, his chest heaving both from the exertion and from the trail of vomit he'd left behind.  The stone was cold against his bare skin—at some point he had become human again.  Taking deep breaths to calm his racing heart, he staggered into the middle of the hallway and looked around, unsure of which way to go.
     A sudden sound sent his heart pounding again.  It was like sandpaper on wood, something he was familiar with, but in this setting it was sinister.  He stood still, not daring to move.  The sound came again, closer this time, and then silence fell.  After several minutes, Evon began to relax.  He had regained his balance, and his fear had quelled the sickness in his stomach.
     Just a rat, he thought, steadying himself with another deep breath.
     A sharp pain in his neck, a swirling blackness, and he fell, unconscious, into a cold, muscular grip.