The Kieran Chronicles

Elsewhere, in a space of another time and place, there dwelled a land unlike the one we live in now.

Here, Magick lived, and Dragons were real. Wizards of many lands used their powers to do good and evil. Here, knights of faraway lands did brave deeds, and dealt with elves, dwarves, and humans of cultures unheard of and unknown, in a way that we poor mundane common folk have only read of.

Bored individuals of our own culture, unable to go here to this place, created games of random choice to go here in our minds. The rules are such that anyone might travel there; otherwise, we do not know the way .

This is the place I am taking you. For, you see, a people of my acquaintance now live there, too. I have met them elsewhere, in a series of stories written by someone who must have visited them in her own mind. Their honour and savagery, has thrilled me from the first. They are called the NalKuymal, which means: "men that are wolves.” This is a story of how a human mage became one of them without wanting it so. Despite his human birth, he, too, had honour.

Thank you for coming along with me on this journey.

Greetings to you all.

I am KaiJuval Tarl Malar of the Eresha clan from the NalKuymal people.

Once I was human, but a group of evil mages saw to it that this, too, would change.

I, too, was a mage, but I did things they did not want me to do, like find them, and punish them for doing whatever they wanted to. They used magic to change me so that I couldn’t use magic anymore.

That was their intent.

Once I was a Hunter named Kieran Balthasar, an ancient wizard city torn apart by rampaging dragons. I counted among my colleagues the great Danon the Wise, and Cassandra the Eternal, as well as many elves and mighty dwarves. I had never met a NalKuymal before, the people I was to become. I had heard of them only; so far I knew two things. They were not human, but said to be descended from the savage wolves, and they not only did not do magic, but could not. I had never even seen a picture of one. I imagined they looked like intelligent werewolves actually. I had no concept.

I had a noble purpose in my duties: when evil mages did whatever they pleased, against the edicts of the Wizard’s Council of the Eight Known Worlds, I was to find them, bind them, and bring them to the Council’s Justice. I used, from a very early age, the planetary magic of whatever world I stood on. It whitened my hair, and lengthened my life. It did not harm me, nor cause me infirmity. It invigorated and filled me with pleasure and the wind of the spheres. It made music inside me; I loved it.

A band of unholy mages were displeased with my ability to root them out. They used blood magick, which I hated, to form an alliance which would bring me to their own dark justice. They found someone. He told them the only way to stop me was to disconnect me from the magic only I could command. They paid him to find a way. “Change his race,” they were told. “Make him not able to do magick.”

Others had found a way before they did: these were people who wanted the strengths and abilities of the wolf race, never thinking of the fact that no NalKuymal could do magic. This, however, was exactly what the evil circle wanted. He found a way of finding me, and they used their magic to cast the spell upon me.

But I am stronger than any one spell. Although deprived of my magick, I gained friends and allies and many cousins… more than any human could know.

We NalKuymal have two sayings: “Today’s always a good day to die” and “there is always a reason.” Also: “bare is the back without merla (cousin).” But an elf once, before my own bizarre rebirth, said it best, I think. I will remember it always:

“Never lie, never cheat, never break your word. Never steal or sell your soul. That’s the way of honour, friends, and that’s the way we go. But if you try, and then you fail, it’s not the end you see. Just say you’re sorry, pay the price, and try again with me.”

I hope I have done all this with honour. For that is the way of it. Once again, I have found them, bound them, and have delivered them up to justice. Wolf-style.