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  When the shift was complete, his dark fur coat bristled in the wind. Any other animal with a pelt as thick and heavy as his wouldn’t survive in the heat of the desert. However, Tor was raised to withstand this kind of climate. It was home to him and his wolf. He turned his golden eyes towards Jane, who stared in awe at his beastly form.

  With fluid, humanlike movements, Tor hung the canteens arounds his neck since his shoulders were now too broad for the straps to fit across, and carried the staff in his mouth so all four limbs would be free to carry them onward. He then crouched down so Jane could climb on top of his back once more. The last time anyone road his wolf form in such a way was when the young boys in training to be priests begged for him to play in their games.

  To feel her hands weave through his thick mane and her body pressed flush against his broad back, Tor did not feel burdened any longer. Quite the opposite. He felt as if he could finally carry the load with pride. Not just her, but the expectations of the expedition and his responsibility as their guide.

  Tor took off, leaving a trail of dust kicked up in his wake. He came upon the slope and could feel the earth incline under his paws as they beat against the sand. When he reached the rocky base of the cliff, his claws dug in and continued to propel him forward.

  The scent of water and the ethereal pull of the unknown became stronger. Air huffed from his flared nostrils at the tip of his muzzle and his tongue lolled out around the staff he carried between his jowls. Whenever he felt Jane’s hold begin to slip, he bucked his hips to keep her on.

  He could see the edge of the plateau ahead, taunting him to reach it. Tor pushed harder, his instincts driving him to run faster, climb higher, and leap farther across the ridges that twisted down the slope. Jane let out sounds of distress each time he defied the odds, each time they could have fallen to their deaths, but he kept them safe and moving up the cliff.

  His paws gripped the edge of the plateau and he launched himself over. The indescribable force that called to him had not disappointed. Before him, less than a mile or so off, lay a town. No, a city. Its stone walls towered high above the sands, some massive stones dislodged and lying half-buried around the edge of the perimeter. The wooden gates, preserved by the dry air, lay propped open and waiting for them to pass through.

  “Arnathia,” she gasped. “It’s really here.”

  Tor wasn’t too sure it was Arnathia, but the scent of water was coming from deep within that city. That was enough reason to explore it. He detected no humans, no other signs of life within the abandoned walls, so he hurried forward at top speed, the canteens knocking together around his neck.

  There was a new energy in Jane that fought back the life-sapping sun. Her fingers gripped his fur and she sat up a little straighter to gaze upon what she believed to be the fated city for which they had been searching. As Tor grew closer, he wondered if it just might be. That, however, was not his first concern.

  Tor skidded to a stop just before the gates and lifted his head to study the deep gashes and claw marks that scarred the thick wooden panels. Where the two halves would have met, a giant and jagged hole had been made. Perhaps the lingering reminders of a battle or war? It was not a promising welcome into a city that was supposed to be the center of peace.

  Looking to each side along the city walls, he could now see that they angled off, somewhat curving to give the city’s footprint a more circular shape.

  Jane elected to climb down from Tor’s back and dashed ahead of him to enter the city. Tor ran after her and stopped her from proceeding any further. If this was a trap or there was lurking danger within the crumbling structure, he would be the first to discover it, not Jane. He rose onto his hind feet to stand and took the staff from his mouth to wield in one of his massive paw-like hands.

  The inside of the city reminded him of places in his ancient homeland. Tall, brick and stone buildings with open doorways and large apertures in their walls lined the sandy streets that curved with the city’s perimeter and forward. Tor admired the way so much natural lighting filtered into the rooms, how open it was to nature despite still resembling something that belonged in a civilized world. His wolf appreciated the design.

  Tor led the way to the left and looked upon the cracked and decrepit buildings that stacked higher in two, three, and sometimes four levels. Their thatched and straw roofs were caved in by in-blowing sand from past storms, but he could sense the life that must have existed here before the place was left to be consumed by nature.

  Upon closer look, he found that the homes did not have one entrance, but two. The first and most obvious one, permitted inhabitants into the part of the homes that they could see from the street. The other went deeper, beneath the earth.

  Tor went first, poking his muzzle around the corner of the doorway to find a hall that emptied into a cooler, darker part of the home. Jane followed and let out a sigh of relief. Inside the basement of the home, there was no light. Nothing of the sun shined past the hall and perhaps the builders specifically designed it that way. The walls that made up the hall served as a sort of light barrier that gave the room its dark ambiance.

  Apart from the sand that had made its way inside to coat the floor in a thick layer of dust and dirt, the cellar would have been a perfect home for a vampire. Perhaps this was Arnathia. Vampires and werewolves could have easily lived side by side in these homes.

  While Jane leaned against the cool earth wall to rest, Tor left the confining space to follow the still elusive water.

  The streets of houses and homes were occasionally broken up by stretches of structures that looked like market booths, though they had been abandoned long ago. What could the Arnathians have possibly sold here?

  He spotted a bit of a broken bowl around the doorway to one home and lifted it out of the sand. Its painted and carved patterns were simple, yet beautiful. A ring of running wolves circled just below the rim.

  It took a moment, but Tor finally detected the blood and raw meat that had been served in the dark clay bowl. Wolves would have never devoured such a high concentration of blood, though the meat would have been more than acceptable. Was it possible that the vampires and wolves ate together? Side by side, using the same bowl?

  Tor continued on around the edge of the perimeter, avoiding the center of the city for now. What he came upon puzzled him. Against the inside of the city wall was a round tower that dwarfed the other buildings.

  Yet what drew his attention most was the massive carving of a wolf head above the main portal to the tower that had been all but worn away by time and possibly the same violent vandalism that marred the gates. He passed through the entrance, unsure of what he would find.

  There were no stairs, only wooden ramps wide enough for even him to easily walk upon. They led from level to level that was lined with empty racks and shelves. Spears, swords, and lonely arrows littered the floor. The air was dusty and seemed to carry the residual energies of those warriors who had come here to arm themselves for battle. Pride for one’s city and their people, hatred for those who opposed them, and fear of the coming devastation.

  In a corner on the third floor, Tor spotted a helmet too large to belong to any man. He sniffed it and detected the signature scent of his kind, of werewolves. The metal was tarnished and slightly rusted from the sweat and blood that had been caked upon its surface for centuries.

  With hesitant paws, Tor set down his staff and took up the helmet and raised it over his head. His pointed ears slid easily through the notches that had been cut for its previous owner and no edge or point impeded with the shape his wolfish snout and eyes.

  He didn’t let the helmet stay on his head for more than a few seconds before he knew that it was not meant for him, even if it fit him perfectly. None of these things, the weapons or the armor, represented him or his values. War and violence was sometimes a necessity, but if he had lived here millennia ago, he would have never been a soldier of Arnathia.

  Tor quickly set the helmet back wher
e he found it and exited the armory. Jane was in the streets, ogling up at the buildings and the tower. They rejoined without a word and carried on.

  To the western edge of the city, they found another gate that was just as battered and beaten as the other. The scent of water led him to look toward the innermost portion of the city. They took to the path that wound through the many buildings and apartments until another structure loomed overhead.

  A segregated part of the city from the rest, but different from the city’s perimeter. The corners were squared, not rounded or angled to a lesser degree. Yet the gates were remarkably different.

  Two imposing and identical statues stood guard over the gate to either side. The figures of a woman, stared with her eyes wide open to danger, looking towards the outer walls of the city and over the dwellings of the citizens.

  Her long hair draped over her shoulders, her body covered by a flowing dress, adorned with carvings of beads and tassels. Her bare feet sat upon the stone pedestal that was just higher than Tor as he stood beneath the magnificent effigy. Her face retained a regal look with high cheekbones and eyes that not only could spot danger, but see through to the very soul of it.

  An inscription was carved in massive letters on the pedestal, but it was in a language that Tor did not recognize.

  “Tor, look!” Jane cried as she ran from the base of the monument to a place along the wall to the north.

  He followed and found her leaning over the edge of a fountain. Hope kindled in his chest for just a second, but then died as soon as he saw the bottom to be just as parched as the desert that surrounded the city. Still, the scent of water was strong. In its prime, this fountain might have supplied many residents with water. A dozen feet wide at its greatest, it was just large enough for Tor to lay across the bottom.

  Jane pounded her fist on the stone edge that came up to her waist. Tor set aside the canteens that still hung around his neck, then hopped into the fountain and tapped the bottom of his staff along the floor of the dry fountain. The water must have come up from somewhere. If he could just find where the earth was thinner or the reservoir that fed the fountain in the ancient times, perhaps he could reawaken it.

  As he listened to his staff rapping the ground and felt the vibrations beneath his feet, Tor edged closer and closer to locating the source. Once he thought he found it, he dropped down to all fours and dug away the soil and sand.

  The deeper he went, the more mud caked around his claws and between his digits. Tor scratched away the layers until the cool water spilled out over the fur on his paws. Yet he kept digging, widening the path for the water to flow through.

  Soon, the bottom of the fountain was submerged in a thin puddle that steadily grew with each second that passed. Jane uncorked each of the canteens, flasks, and bladders to fill them.

  Tor stepped out of the fountain and shook the water from his legs and tail, spraying some on Jane in the process. She squealed and flung some of the water from the fountain and into his face. They could afford to be playful and waste their resources now.

  With one challenge out of the way, Tor felt as if he could breathe a little easier. Hunting desert game would be no trouble for him once they were settled in the city, and as long as the underground water supply didn’t deplete too quickly, he knew the party would survive.

  Yet, looking around at the sea of buildings, monuments, and ancient language that seemingly appeared to be written everywhere, Tor knew their journey was far from over. If this was Arnathia, there would be many more days of discovery, research, and enlightenment ahead.

  8

  Arnathia, 1570

  From the moment Michael, Giovanni, and the rest of the expedition party arrived to Arnathia, the scholars barely slept. Every waking hour was devoted to studying the city, mapping out its walls and exploring the many buildings and houses.

  What they found was a complex and interconnected design. It didn’t take them long to find the four libraries and record archives hidden away in four of the twelve towers along the city’s inner perimeter walls. In each scroll and codex that lined the dusty shelves of the libraries, they found ancient texts written in numerous languages. Tor assisted them with the translation of some, while Michael worked with Giovanni to compare the parallel texts, so they could read and understand the Arnathian language that was inscribed everywhere around the city.

  What they learned was both fascinating and astonishing. Every aspect of the civilization, from the number of towers to the statues, had cultural meaning.

  There were four gates into the city, each pointing toward a cardinal point on the compass, each with a name. The city was shaped by the high, twelve-sided, brick wall that protected it from the outside world.

  On the interior angle of the outer perimeter was a tower devoted to a certain aspect of Arnathian life. Between each of the four gates stood three towers. One dedicated as an armory, one to knowledge and the records of the city, and the last was deduced to be a meeting place for the community with tables and benches for congregating. Giovanni reasoned that it might have been a religious center, but they found no relics in the sand around the entrance or inside to confirm it.

  Not all three tower clusters were the same, however. Two sets seemed to be constructed to accommodate the werewolves of the city, with their open doorways and expansive windows to let in light and air. They were positioned between the north gate and the western gate, and between the eastern and southern gates. Opposingly, the remaining sets were closed towers with no windows and only a single doorway, similar to those that led to the cellar portion of the dwellings that filled the open space within the city walls. They reasoned these towers must have been exclusively maintained by the vampires of Arnathia.

  What Tor found most intriguing was what lay in the center of the city. A four-storied building, the most ornate and grand in architecture of all the structures in the city, was guarded by stone deities. Giovanni was the first to learn from the ancient scripts that they were gods and goddesses, each with their own stories and purposes.

  The woman, the first of the twin statues they had come across when they first arrived, was that of the vampire Erisitia, goddess of mercy and vitality. She faced to the northern Claedan gate, while her male counterpart, Oxthalo, god of knowledge and wisdom, faced to the south Plaora gate. The other male, Nuvdalo, was the werewolf god of war and strength. His mate, Amagitia, goddess of fertility and motherhood, faced to the east gate of Smesia while he watched over the western gate of Uthusan. Together, they had founded the city of Arnathia to be a home and refuge for werewolves and vampires. Peace and cooperation reigned as long as these four presided over what took place within the walls they guarded since immemorial times.

  The building they guarded, referred to in the legal texts as Lavtio, was described in detail in the political and legal records that Michael studied. With its great stone columns that held up the domed roof, it served as the place of council for an extensive and complex government system that controlled the lives of vampires and werewolves everywhere. Within the Lavtio, the officials from both races decided on territory borders, laws, and settled disputes between alphas and coven leaders.

  Inside, the assembly hall was set up with row upon row of stone benches and seats that circled around the center where a speaker may stand and recite minutes or present their case to the council. Tor stood in the center once and when he spoke, it could be heard from every point in the massive chamber.

  There existed a network of judicious council leaders who made the laws and kept order between the races, but the king and his queen were the ultimate rulers. Tor recognized this system as a proportionate mix of his Egyptian heritage with its pharaohs, and the mighty Roman Empire that Michael boasted about with its republic and elected senate. Such similarities begged the question if Arnathia was a precursor to these great civilizations.

  Arnathia was the capital, much like Rome in Italy or Memphis in Egypt. It was a place of pilgrimage, a place of communion and p
rosperity. Trade and commerce did exist within the walls and spilled forth into the outside world as the residents traveled across the known world.

  Within just a few days, Michael, Giovanni, Tor, and even Yaverik, read through mountains of documents and records to find out more about the people who once lived in Arnathia. They encountered countless translation fallacies, along with many surprising facts. Unlike much of what they knew of history up to that point, there were no slaves in Arnathia. The majority of the population was made up of those who were staying temporarily within the city, and the officials and their families. No slavery or servitude existed, hinting that the vampires might have fed on their werewolf neighbors or that there was some co-dependency agreement between the races.

  Women were afforded the same rights and privileges as the men, while the children were educated equally and with the utmost care. Leaders, philosophers, engineers, and clergy all played their roles within the society and the scholars were just scratching the surface. Giovanni and Michael worked tirelessly translate the script, while Tor explored along the perimeter walls for more clues or hints to what exactly happened to these people to make them feel as if they had to abandon this great city.

  Michael requested that the blood servants learn everything as well, but Tor could tell from the few times he had stepped in on a lesson that the only one who seemed interested was Marco. He suspected it was because Marco had been with Michael for so long and might have shared in his ideals about cooperation among the races. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have been a devoted blood servant.

  Francesca and Angelo, on the other hand, were far more interested in seeing the ruins of the city. Tor had seen them alone together and heard them laugh and talk around the gates during the twilight hours.

  Now that they were able to relax and recoup from their long journey, everyone took time to themselves. Jane was no exception. She studied the scripts as well, but she wasn’t as interested in the political and cultural aspects of Arnathia as much as she enjoyed the legends and myths that were recorded in their sacred texts. After Giovanni and Michael learned the language, they taught it to Tor, who in turn taught it to Jane. As soon as she knew how to read the scrolls, she would steal away a few volumes and retreat to the top of a building whose roof was still intact.