The Tower Window

Once upon a time, there was a small kingdom called Ravaria, ruled over by a king and queen. They were good rulers, who governed their subjects with a kind hand, and defended them from their more sizable neighbors to the West with their sharp wits and meager forces. But as seasons passed, they were growing older, and still had no heir to one day rule Ravaria in their place. When another Spring had come and gone and they still had no son or daughter, the king and queen sent a hawk into the forest, a plea for help tied to its leg.

They heard no word for almost a fortnight, and then one day while court was being held, the brown and burgundy raptor cried out to alert the king and queen of its return, and the arrival of the person they had so desperately summoned. Entering on feet silent from years of sidestepping snapping branches and crackling leaves, the woman walked in a straight path towards the ruler’s thrones, courtiers and common folk alike parting the way for her, equal parts awed and fearful. The Medicine Woman had rivers of silver running through her black hair, a reminder to all in attendance, the king and queen especially, that she had spent years perfecting her craft, and could wound them as surely as she could aid them.

“Why have you summoned me from my abode?” the Medicine Woman asked, her voice dry and sharp. The king and queen exchanged a look, and turned back to the woman to say, “One day an heir will need to take our place, and yet we have none. We were hoping that you would have some spiritual insight or a potion for our problem.” The Medicine Woman narrowed her eyes in irritation at the request, but answered them nonetheless.

“I suspect that your problem lies in you bluebloods keeping the power in your family lines, but I will consult my guides, and decide whether your plight is worth my time.” The old woman walked out the way she came, ending her meeting with the king and queen before they had a chance to object. Their day continued on as any other would, and the Medicine Woman stalked back to the trees. She did not return home, instead going to a clearing outside the city walls, and smoke from a great fire could be seen wafting from it.

The Medicine Woman returned to them the next day, and she came with an answer. “Under the guidance of the spirits, I have prepared a tonic that should remedy your situation.” She presented them with a small orange bottle.

“What is it made of?”

“Gentian and Juniper Berries, Pennyroyal and Hemlock, and Black and White Hellebore, all gathered from the weeds and gardens and forests of your city, and prepared at dawn. The blood in both your veins is at fault, so share the tonic. You will then wait seven days and seven nights, and when the full moon graces the sky, your heir will be conceived. But the spirits did not offer this aid without a stipulation.”

“What is your price?”

“Your child will grow into wisdom and strength, and become a great ruler when they sit on your throne. But they will not be able to grow to such heights within this city. An enemy will come from the East. They will claim to be friends, but they bring doom in their wakes. When pale beasts are released on this land, both those filled with greed and those with a hunger for flesh, you are to put the child into my care, to be raised away from danger so that one day they can be your kingdom’s salvation.”

“Why should we accept your demands, witch?”

As the sentence passed the king’s lips, the air grew still and silence fell over those in court. The Medicine Woman’s dark eyes filled with fury, and as she raised a finger full of malice intent and pointed it at the royals, she said, “I am no witch. I do not steal the skins of nature’s creatures to hide my form, or the skins of innocents for my brews. Witches corrupt the land, and when I’m not helping fools like you, I fight against them. If you call me a witch again, I will gladly leave your kingdom to crumble under the coming threat.”

The Medicine Woman’s threat hung in the air, the silence that followed it continuing to stretch on as the king and queen carefully sorted through their next words, lest they lose support of their potential ally. The queen spoke, in a tone still firm but not as haughty, “We will take the brew, wise one, and graciously accept your aid, both now as well as in the future, it seems. But before we formally accept, by what name should we and your future ward call you?”

With a saccharine smile, the Medicine Woman said, “You may know me as Nokomis.”

And what the Medicine Woman, Nokomis, had promised came to be. Both king and queen sipped from the orange bottle, and lay together only once the Full Moon had risen. And sure enough, the queen began to feel the signs of a new life forming. As fall frosted over into winter, and the snow gave way to green, she gave birth to a healthy daughter. Because of the contents of the drought that made her existence possible, the girl was named Aiyana, and she had the beauty one could only find in an untouched field of flowers.

But Aiyana’s birth was not the only thing that came to pass. Like Nokomis’s warning had said, travelers from the East arrived at their shores a few months after the queen began to swell, bringing spices and furs and all other manner of goods. They had skin pale like milk, and though some had hair like the denizens of Ravaria, many had tawny tresses. The king and queen were overcome with love for their daughter, and wanted to get out of their deal with the Medicine Woman so they could raise her where she would one day rule. To ingratiate themselves with the foreigners, they accepted the Easteners with open arms. They hoped to prevent whatever doom Nokomis had seen coming, but to no avail.

When they brought the pale strangers into their kingdom, they showed them the castle, the wonders of the city, and pointed out their most striking landmarks. Chief among them was Aashta, Ravaria’s sacred mountain. It was where those of the royal bloodline were buried with their ancestors, their crypts also storing some of their most precious artifacts. It was this knowledge that spurred the captain of the Eastern sailors to put his plan in action. His men were sent to mingle with the soldiers of Ravaria, and by duskfall, most of them had fallen prey to what the foreigners had mixed into their mead. They set out for Aashta with empty carts pulled by mules, intending to gather whatever riches they could find and return to their ships. They had left a number of sailors behind to keep their ships ready to depart. But their compatriots never returned, and when Ravaria’s soldiers realized the subterfuge that had taken place, they were led to the dungeon. And the Easterners who disappeared at the foot of the sacred mountain remained missing.

Seven times the sun rose over Ravaria, and seven times the moon took its place. While Aiyana was cared for by her parents in the castle, soldiers searched the mountain side and its foothills for the Easteners, but found only traces of their presence. And then, one of their hounds caught the scent. It led them to an icy cave carved out among the dark crags of stone, and inside, they found only one of the foreigners. He had a rusty brown stain around his mouth, matching the stains splashed across his torn clothing, and bones, hundreds of them, some seemingly gnawed on.

The man was led in chains back to Ravaria, and stored in the same cell as his co-conspirators. While the king and queen mulled over what to do with the Easteners, Nokomis returned to the castle, and told them that the time had come for the Medicine Woman to take the princess into the safety of the forest. The queen prepared to tell her that they would not be putting their daughter into the clutches of the wild, when screams erupted from the city.

The thick iron door that had been keeping the Easterners imprisoned had been torn off its hinges, and from the dank cell stalked monsters that had long disappeared from Ravaria. The sole foreigner they had found in the mountain cave had been silent on their journey back to the castle. He accepted no water, and no food except for some meat the knights had hunted. And when they rested at night, he didn’t sleep, only sat there, blank eyes staring into the fire. What the knights didn’t know was that this behavior was not that of a man who awaited a bleak future, but one who had begun a terrible metamorphosis.

As the king and queen deliberated on his fate, and that of his fellow betrayers, the man’s skin continued to pale as the blood drained away, and stretched as his bones grew. When his companions grew concerned, he slashed at the one that approached him, tearing open his throat with a strength three times he had before. With yellow nails that grew with his bones, he slashed skin and muscle from the corpse, and shoved it down the throats of the rest of them. Soon, they were overcome with the same transformation. Before long, nine Wendigos of ancient lore were stalking through the city.

As innocent blood sprang free to greet the air, the queen held in her renouncing statement. Instead, she picked up Aiyana, and gave her daughter, the princess of Ravaria, the last kiss she would receive for some time. “Good choice, girl,” Nokomis said with a small grin. The Medicine Woman swept the infant under her cloak of furs, and rushed through the secret passageways laden throughout the castle, the same ones that she had arrived in. They spat her out deep in the woods, Aiyana’s new home.

18 Years Later, To Be Continued