Elfin Thyme

Attempt thirty-one. Thursday.

Me and my assistant Annieta stood by the monkey cage in the laboratory – a dimly lit basement – closely monitoring what was happening.

The concoction had caused the monkey’s nails to grow several times longer, turning into claws. But not only the nails had grown.

The concoction provoked a transformation. The monkey was bigger. Fiercer.

The beast looked around, as if newly awaken, and then unprovokedly attacked the bars of the cage. The metal rang. Luckily the monkey wasn’t as strong as a forest elephant. After thirty attempts, it wrapped its arms around itself as though hugging itself.

Admittedly, the experimental objects were animals, but they seemed to be able to simulate something reminiscent of human pain. The discovery was fascinating, but unfortunately not the aim for this study.

Annieta stomped her foot, her sky-blue eyes flickered for a moment. I scribbled down my impressions of the reactions and icy sounds of the beast, but when I looked up from my notes, the monkey was pulling large tufts of bloody fur from its shoulders.

I sighed. Another failure. I shook my head and stroked my beard.

The monkey pulled and teared, and the upper part of the back became bloodier and balder. Muscles and membranes shone in the dim light. But despite the pain – or at least the simulation of it – the monkey’s rage grew, and it continued to skin its back, until only a few pieces of fur hung between its shoulders; it failed to reach there. It sat surrounded by bloody piles of fur with a bare back. The blood flowed and the scent seemed to excite the beast. It chewed on its shoulder, and discovered that there was more fur on its belly. The claws pierced the skin and underlaying abdominal muscles.

I wished to look away, but as a scientist, it would be misconducted to obey my impulses. Rationality must conquer the emotions – wasn’t that the reason Vihanril created us? The human that knows that she knows. A being separated from beasts.

An animal would have backed away.

Primitive creatures wouldn’t conduct an experiment, and I needed to understand all details to improve the concoction. So, I observed.

All previous subjects had died of blood loss and internal injuries, or because they could not tolerate some of the ingredients in the concoction.

But this was the first time any of the test subjects performed auto-cannibalism. The beast tore long ropes of intestines out of the abdominal cavity, unravelled by mesentery, and ate them. The metallic smell of blood and fresh flesh stung my nose.

I gulped. Annieta put her hand over her mouth, turned around and walked away. I reached for her, but realized that I had nothing to give her, and went for the crossbow instead. I must put that abomination down.

Presumably, the hyoscyamine, one of the key ingredients of my concoction, caused this otherworldly tantrum. You only extract it from the poisonous nightshades such as witch cabbage, mandrake, and bola roach; none of them however as enriched with the substance as thornapple, which I used. And I needed high doses of hyoscyamine to be able to trigger the transformation.

The side effects of the high dose was however hallucinations and tantrums. Given that I mixed several different substances with each other, the hyoscyamine from thornapple may have been enhanced by some other ingredient in some wyrd cocktail effect.

Could I find out how?

I may have to increase the dose of thymine, a substance from elfin thyme, that relieves the pain – simulated or not – that thornapple inflicted, as well as functioning as a muscle relaxant.

Yes, that must be the answer: an increased thymine dose should calm the test subject, so that the negative side effects of thornapple wouldn’t frighten it, or make it furious. Thymine might even make it enjoy the transformation.

I should keep the same amount of thornapple-derived hyoscyamine, but I must increase the amount of elfin thyme-derived thymine even more.

Weighing the leather purse with elfin thyme in my hand I concluded; it’s too light.

Dusk. Sunday. The beginning of the harvest month.

We landed by my go-to elfin thyme location outside the village Okafemeja, a tius ride from my hometown Gudfus. I tied my wingbeast to a tree outside the burial ground, on the perfect distance for not awakening the wraiths and their fury, but also for being a fast escape route. The beast folded its long wings over its back, waiting in a quadrupedal pose. Its long neck curved when it turned its elongated head towards me.

The silhouette was dim under the light of the full twin-moons.

This was a magical night.

The large burial mound was surrounded by several moss-covered graves and monuments. This was a perfect locale for elfin thyme.

The burial area was no longer used by the villagers, since they went to the cemeteries where the memorial stones stood in rows.

Here the graves were located around the largest hill, and at first glance they seemed to be all over the place. From above, the graves however created an intricate spiral pattern, starting from the hilltop. The ingenuity of my ancestors was reverent, and pride swelled in the breast: I was their offspring.

Still, the hand sought the symbol of Vihanril: the hammer and the womb. It comforted me as I took steady steps towards the largest burial mound, a passage tomb situated on the hilltop.

The graves looked unassuming, several covered in peat. Some were overshadowed by some large ash, oak, or rowan. Their roots dug deep into the monuments. Cattle grazed freely here, according to old traditions, as the burial ground was part of the outfields of Okafemeja.

The awe-inspiring passage tomb had been erected on the large hill that I ascended. The scent of the summer night was heavy. The air always vibrated with something ancient here. The hill must be a remnant from some ice age. It had been extended vertically with large boulders, which formed the foundation of the passage tomb. Did my ancestors use forest elephants or other ancient mega-beasts to move the boulders?

An ancient oak the size of a cottage had its standing place on the foundation, its roots giving the boulders ghostly contours reminiscent of spiders. At the top of the foundation sat, what at first glance looked like the top of the hill: the grave itself. Leading up to it was a bluntly square corridor, ten fathoms in length, almost a fathom high; the passage was the only manmade thing that nature hadn’t crawled back over.

There they were, outside the passage tomb entrance, in the silver light of the twin-moons: a blooming carpet of fragrant and evergreen elfin thyme. They had reddish-violet densely gathered flowers.

Spring bed straw, Freya bed straw, kvendal, hill bumblebee, Batphédat sepriiph on Verdum itself; a beloved child bears many names.

The inside of the grave was – thank Vihanril! – not my goal. I readied my purse and knife to collect flowers. I had to gather enough for many concoctions, but if I picked them all, there would be fewer for future use. A tough balance. This was the only place with active elfin thyme within a day’s flight from Gudfus.

A creaking sound above me. I took a few steps back without thinking.

“Slemme”, I hissed.

A corpse sat on top of the passage of the tomb, with the oak as a throne behind. The body was clad in a worn, ragged robe that still looked somewhat noble, despite the eternal gnawing of decay. The skin was stretched, taut as leather, around the bones and tendons. The eyes were closed and desiccated. Jewellery adorned its ears, neck, and robe. The creaking must have been the hand falling out of the lap. My heart raced and I tried to calm it with deep breaths.

How could I have missed the carcass on my arrival?

Last time I foraged here, countless wraiths had chased me, and I almost dropped my purse with elfin thyme. Without the wingbeast, I would have joined the congregation of the dead. The heartbeat was by no means calmed by the memory.

It was said that some people indulged in outsitting to acquire the knowledge of dead spirits; the mind of these people must be corrupted.

I gulped, sneaked up to the flowers, and squatted down to continue collecting. My pulse rushed in my ears and pressed on my intestines, and I breathed deeply so as not to get nauseous, and to avoid cutting myself. Regularly I took quick looks at the corpse. It was probably not a wraith, for it had not moved an inch. I worked quickly but carefully. Stressed, I leaved every third flower. The last ones grew by the entrance to the passage tomb. I crawled there – anything for science, my people, and my benefactor. I picked as many flowers as I dared and got up.

I relaxed. I was done.

I had my leather purse in a tight grip.

Black shining gaze. I backed away with a shout, stumbling on my feet. The eyes of the corpse were open, and he grabbed my arm. I fell, but he had me in an iron grip. My fingers closed spasmodically around the purse. Heart pounding in the chest.

This was new; a trap? A rattling crackling sound – the laughter of the wraith? Was it mocking me?

“Who were you?” I was surprised by how rough my voice was; however not comparable with the ancient creaking of the wraith, as of bones rubbed against each other.

“Álfr!” The wraith laughed, but drilled his black glowing gaze into me.

The vocal cords must have been eaten by the tooth of time or of someone else, but the spectre still spoke. Wraiths – draugr – were different from other ghosts, who through unsolved deeds lingered after their death. Wraiths, on the other hand, were undead malevolent people who returned to haunt the living. This must have been a black-hearted Earl calling himself an elf. We were hardly related. The flame of rage was lit inside me.

“May Vihanril curse you, elf draugr”, I roared. May the elfs forever burn!

I couldn’t bend myself out of the grip of the elf draugr without letting go of my purse. Helplessness trembled in me, which made the fire inside rage even more.

“What do you want from me?”

I found a solution and threw the purse towards the wingbeast.

“Thiefur”, the wraith shouted. ”Backthyme belongir Álfur!”

“You’re dead”, I yelled, trying to pry open the wraith fingers while avoiding his other hand. “You bloody invader!”

”Vilsne hálfviti!” grumbled the elf draugr. “I namer Álfur. I borned hære. I am ríkest af them ållum!”

The wraith attacked me, roaring. The grip on my arm loosened just enough, and I tore the fingers apart; they cracked. With a pounding heart, I rolled to the side. The gust of wind caressed the cheek, and the smell of decay painfully made the breath stop. I jumped down the foundation, had a bad landing and fell. I rolled a bit, crawled to my feet, sprinted to the pouch, grabbed it with a handful of grass, and mounted the wingbeast.

“Up, by Vihanril, may Slemme take you otherwise, wicked beast!”

It flapped and caught the wind in its membranous wings. We left the ground, my belly twitching, which was a familiar feeling that was now also soothing. I patted the beast and breathed out. A pair of black shining eyes sparkled up at us in anger.

Still, something gnawed my mind: was the wraith really an ancestor?

“Thiefur! Backthyme belongir Álfur! Vilsne hálfviti!”

I didn’t envy the villagers of Okafemeja. They would have a rough haunted night.

But thank you, Vihanril, for life, and for granting me my elfin thyme.

Now when I had enough of the ingredient, the experiment was entering a whole new phase.