It was the height of noon.

A yel­low sun shone heavy on the drover’s lane. It put a shim­mer­ing heat in the clay, filled ruts cut by hooves and wag­ons’ wheels with grub­by, liq­uid mirage. It lent a loud ener­gy to the insects sat bur­ring in myr­tle-green thick­ets, and an oily gleam to the wings of loi­ter­ing, brash crows.

Up the lane, through the shim­mer, a lot of whif­fling swine crest­ed the hill. Some six spot­ted, bristly backs tanned by sun-cracked mud. Their trot­ters threw up a spill of dust and dry leaves. They grun­tled idly, nipped at sweet bego­nia pix­ies flit­ter­ing along the hedged lane.

A twig­gy lass trailed behind, wear­ing a sticky straw hat and a lot of acne. Bored, she twitched the hogs’ heels with a wick­er switch.

“Hal­lo, Bierde,” said a small voice near a shad­ed stile.

Bierde turned, squint­ing, and espied a mouse atop a fence post under a thick shade of mistle­toe. He wore his shirt open, clutched a clay jug bead­ed with con­den­sa­tion. “Hal­lo, Klein­wick,” she said, smil­ing.

Klein­wick leapt atop the hog near­est Bierde, sat. “Cider?” He said, prof­fer­ing the jar. “Been press­ing all day with Haroldt. Nicked some ice chip­pings for it.”

Bierde drank grate­ful­ly. “Ya, you’re a good mouse. Fine thing for the heat.”

“Cursibly hot, this sun,” Klien­wick mused, pink nose twitch­ing.

“Aye.” She hand­ed the jug back.

“Where’re you bring­ing these swine?”

“Next coun­ty over. Some rich young mas­ter in Laarssumph wants them.”

Klien­wick twitched his ears. “Long way to take such a small drove.”

Bierde shrugged. “Wants them sore­ly. She came call­ing spe­cial­ly. In a coach. Said she heard we’d the best sows in the land.”

“Who’s is it, then?”

“Mas­ter by the name of Sen­guier.”

“Oh,” squealed Klien­wick. He reflex­ive­ly straight­ened and put his ears back.

“What?”

“Ya, I’ll bid you good luck with that.” The mouse leapt to a near­by fence, jug slosh­ing cider.

“What’s wrong with Sen­guier?” said the swine­herd.

“Farewell!” called the depart­ing mouse.

Bierde frowned. She switched a dawdling pig’s heels, kept on along the lane.

Over the hills she took the beasts, through drover’s paths cut through field and thick­et. The ways were old, but clear­ly demar­cat­ed, oft set with ancient mark­ers etched in runes, like non­sense mile­stones. Clay, pun­ished by sun and trot­ters, dis­in­te­grat­ed and lift­ed into dust. Its gray, pow­dered leav­ings trailed after the trundling parade, caked both swine and sweat­ing swine­herd. Bierde stopped her charges often at rain­wa­ter cis­terns built along the way. They all drank eager­ly.

Well after noon­time, they descend­ed into the bog­gy vale of Laarssumph, and the sun did not fol­low. There, the path wound through mazy high ground midst wide peat-bot­tomed pools of opaque depth. Pines over­hung the way, dripped chill con­den­sate onto black and bruise-pur­ple scrub. Bierde’s charges twitched their ears in com­plaint, for the mos­qui­toes were thick and scathing.

In the low bel­ly of the vale, sun­set had near already come. Bare streaks of remain­ing sun­light peered over the dis­tant verge of hills, cast orange streaks on opaque pools. Nightin­gales called close at hand. The swine car­ried on slow, cau­tious.

Even­tu­al­ly, the drover’s lane inter­sect­ed with an old road, near-over­grown by boglife. There stood a way­stone plant­ed atilt in peat. In its sur­face, over shal­low, worn-out runes of old, were cut new direc­tions. Bierde squint­ed at the marks. The pigs stared, too, blinked their white-lashed eyes, no more lit­er­ate than their herder.

Bierde craned her neck, peered down both wind­ing lanes. Down one, midst the sticks, a lantern shon, affixed to the height of a wrought iron gate. Bierde flicked her wick­er switch. The drove set off that way.

They passed under onto a cob­bled dri­ve. Ahead, light showed through the droop­ing boughs of dead pines. Can­dle light, hoary in win­dows high and sag­ging. A manse of some old esteem sat there; its grounds long-ago over­tak­en by bog, its stone façade worn and green­ing with algae.

Bierde mar­veled as she grew near, craned to peer at sneer­ing gar­goyles clung to mossy sills and machico­la­tions.

The swine began to whim­per and champ. Bierde looked about quick, star­tled as well. A broad fig­ure in a duster stood not far off, round a low, wood­en out­build­ing beside the house. Its head was hid­den in a large, deep trav­el­ing hood. It approached at some speed.

“Hal­lo?” Bierde said, star­tled.

The fig­ure kept on. Bierde backed off. Her swine stamped and squealed. Anoth­er appeared from the out­build­ing, like­wise hood­ed, but in over­alls and a woolen coat. It marched to join its fel­low.

“Please, I’m look­ing for Sen­guier,” said Bierde, voice crack­ing. She took a step back.

The pair grew quite close; huge, leather-gloved hands gripped into fists. They huffed weird­ly, as if enraged. Bierde dug in her heels to flee.

“Kein, Kern, be gen­tle,” called a sharp, high tone. The large pair quit, humbly.

At the manse’s stoop had appeared a woman. She wore an expres­sion of neu­tral com­mand; pulled cross high, flat cheek­bones too lined for her age. Her stained over­alls were worn incon­gru­ous­ly over a bil­lowy silk shirt.

“Mas­ter Sen­guier” said Bierde. She removed her hat, wiped her hair-stuck brow.

“My apolo­gies,” said Sen­guier. “My ser­vants are twins. They are sim­ple, and often boor­ish.”

Bierde looked to the broth­ers. They had come close and knelt to rub the swine, who grun­tled and huffed socia­bly, nuz­zled with flat snouts. At this dis­tance, it was evi­dent the two wore burlap sacks under their out­sized bulk of hoods, with naught but wide-spaced holes torn for sight.

“You two keep the pig­gery?” frowned Bierde. The pair did not react, instead pet the swine ten­der­ly with thick hands.

Sen­guier smiled. He approached to stand amidst them. “They do not speak, Bierde. Blight has tak­en that from them, and their faces.”

“Oh.”

“Broth­ers, do take the pret­ty sows to see their new home,” com­mand­ed Sen­guier.

Bierde moved to help, but one broth­er rose, stepped to block her. The swine­herd spied one dark, watery eye under the burlap. Impas­sive, white-lashed. Bierde frowned.

“No,” said Sen­guier, sharply. She pulled Bierde aside, smiled thin. “You’ve done enough. You’ve worked hard to bring them out to me.”

“Oh.”

Qui­et­ly, the broth­ers ush­ered the sows away. The beasts fol­lowed, tails eager­ly whip­ping.

Sen­guier pro­duced a small, heavy enve­lope, hand­ed it to Bierde. It clinked on her palm. “For that hard work, I have includ­ed a bonus.”

“Thank you.”

“You’d best get back soon, yes? The Sumph is a dread­ful place, at night.”

Bierde blinked at her, at the queer, red-brown stains on her over­alls; at the yel­low tang of formalde­hyde.

Notic­ing this, Sen­guier gave anoth­er quick smile. Some­thing like exas­per­a­tion showed in her lined eyes. “Yes?”

Bierde mused. “You’re an aris­to­crat, ain’t you, Mas­ter? What d’you want with sows?”

Sen­guier paused. She exam­ined the swineherd’s round, acned face. Some­thing twitched her lip. From the out­build­ing sound­ed squeals, then the bel­low­ing chor­tle of a hog. Sen­guier smiled weird­ly. “For the piglets, of course.”

Bierde scam­pered hur­ried­ly all the way home.

Rough, blunt fin­gers pawed over the mark­ings. Sticks, spurred cir­cles, inter­twined and cut deep into black gran­ite.

“ ‘Beware,’ ” read the hand’s own­er, a tiny, hairy guide in a green woolen hat. He sniffed his feel­ered mole’s-nose, hold­ing a stub of can­dle close to the marks. Light flick­ered in the recess­es. He squint­ed through beady eyes. “ ‘Here­in lie our arts.’ ”

A posse of five hard-bit and leathered cut­ters stood about him, watch­ing anx­ious­ly. The space about was quite dark, deep, save for can­dle­light play­ing over the round, runed por­tal. It smelled of rot and ammo­nia.

“And here,” he said, point­ing to a pair of harsh lines. “ ‘Seruk ast ul derun.’ ” He moved down a line, licked his lips. “ ‘Junkil ast ul derun.’ ”

Silence. The lead cut­ter, a one-eyed man with yel­low teeth, spoke. “Aye?” he prompt­ed.

Small, dart­ing eyes squint­ed up at him. “ ‘Things to be for­got­ten; places to be for­got­ten,’ ” recit­ed the Guide. “The Litany. * Thought you’d know it.”

Some mut­ter­ing rose from the oth­ers. One-Eye rolled his remain­ing orb. “Sure, I do. Just not in that cursed tongue. S’why we hired you, Sortholt.”

“Keep read­ing,” snipped a woman in a lensed spec­ta­cle helm.

“Keep your trousers on, Viré,” said Sortholt. “I’d not be so excit­ed to get in there, if I were you.” He felt for the next line, kept read­ing.

“ ‘Head of ser­pent, thew of ox; born of gall and iron moth­er.’ ” Sortholt shrugged. “It rhymes, in the old tongue. Means there’s a chimera of some kind.”

One-Eye nod­ded. “A kæto­blepas. Ready lances, you lot.”

Each cut­ter opened his or her pack, pro­duced four steel rods with thread­ed ends. Steel squeaked, turned in rough hands. They con­nect­ed each, mak­ing longer poles. ** Atop these were screwed long, cru­el bay­o­nets.

One-Eye read­ied a long-haft­ed sledge, took up next to the door. “Y’sure it’s not trapped?” he asked.

“Aye,” said Sortholt, back­ing clear away. “You know how to kill it, yeah?”

“Oi, shut it. Sure we do,” One-Eye scoffed. “On three.” He hoist­ed the sledge. “A’one, two–”

‘Three’ was lost to a crash of stone. Rub­ble clat­tered and slid from its pock­et in the wall. Dust and cloy­ing, ancient putrid­i­ty rushed with­out. The cut­ters choked and spat.

A match flared. One-Eye shone a bulls­eye lantern at the open door.

“In.”

In went the five lancers, back­lit by lantern light. They entered a broad plain of stone, walls lost to dark­ness. For a small moment, only foot­falls and ner­vous, bat­ed breath sound­ed in that great space.

Some­thing pale flashed into the light. Ser­pen­tine flesh, stringy like frayed, dry mus­cle. Impos­si­bly long, extend­ed from the dark. Fangs hooked into flesh, and a cut­ter jerked scream­ing into the black.

The com­pa­ny began turn­ing in pan­ic. “Hold fast!” shout­ed One-Eye. “Keep togeth­er!” He swung the light about, tried to fol­low the tak­en cut­ter’s cries. Pil­lars showed under the beam, dis­tant, car­ven with organ-like con­vo­lu­tions. Amidst them, in a broad space lit­tered with white bones, hunched vague bulk of the chimera.

It was a dolor­ous thing. A mighty grey ox-like hulk with a sinewy neck thrice as long again. From that neck hung a bes­tial face, drooped heavy and indis­tinct. It bent to regard the blood­ied cut­ter it had snatched, almost mourn­ful. Gore dripped from long fangs, min­gled with clear ven­om. It did not look to the light. Its eyes mat­ted and dull with cataracts.

“Point and advance,” said One-Eye, breath catch­ing on the foul air.

The lance-points wavered in fear­ful hands. Their wield­ers stepped once, twice, a dozen times; near­ing. The mon­ster did not raise its head. One cut­ter sti­fled a gag. So close, it stank of putrescine. Urine.

Neath its drip­ping head, the wound­ed cut­ter whim­pered. She lay trem­bling, eyes locked with the fanged vis­age. The dull eyes.

“Keep at it, strike,” whis­pered One-Eye to the oth­ers, his tone of con­fi­dence erod­ed. He set down his lantern to face the thing, drew a saber. “Strike!”

Four lances flashed. The long neck jerked, pierced. It seized into strik­ing motion. Some­one cried out. Hooves clapped against the floor. Steel and teeth grat­ed against bone. Liq­uid bespat­tered stone. All grew silent, save for the wheeze of stale air flee­ing a col­lapsed lung.

Long min­utes lat­er, two cut­ters stum­bled from that cham­ber: Viré, sup­port­ing a bare­ly-uncon­scious lad. Both were bat­tered and stained, trem­bling.

“Kill it?” said Sortholt, wor­ry­ing his rough hands. 

Viré nod­ded, lay the lad down. “Bare­ly.”

“Did­n’t have a clue how to, did he?”

“Not a whit,” laughed Viré, half sob­bing. “But it knew how to kill us.”

“Aye,” nod­ded the guide. He looked through the tomb’s bro­ken gate.

“That’s what they’re made for.”

Chimeras

For every sor­cer­er, there is a caul­dron. A pit­ted iron bel­ly warmed by coal. A gap­ing gut fed with gore and obscen­i­ty. A womb from whose clot­ted lip are born chimeras.

A chimera is a recom­bi­na­tion of flesh. Dis­parate pieces of man and beast, bro­ken down, boiled, and reassem­bled in the caul­dron’s roil. An arti­fi­cial organ­ism, pur­pose-built; greater and more awful than the sum of its com­po­nents.

This recom­bi­na­tion is a sor­cer­er’s most fun­da­men­tal art. An avenue to ever greater domin­ion over life. By its pow­er, the sor­cer­ers of old ruled for great ages, sus­tained by armies of what are today’s most dread­ful mon­sters of lore. †

And all the while, they devel­oped more.

Patterns

For mil­len­nia, sor­cer­ers toiled over their iron wombs, puz­zling out the rude ges­ta­tion of new chimeras. A mil­lion and more pat­terns, they test­ed. They cut, and flayed, and stitched flesh into new shapes, put it to the amni­ot­ic boil in hopes an effec­tive life tried out. Dog, ser­pent, babe, and crow. All dis­sect­ed and rejoined in the pot. Ox, toad, scor­pi­on, and tiger. Recom­bined in the bur­bling gore.

The sor­cer­ers’ suc­cess­es came slow. Their fail­ures were numer­ous. Often, the caul­dron yield­ed weak, gorm­less com­bi­na­tions, no bet­ter than the count­less fetal wrecks that nev­er lived at all. For every half-promis­ing exper­i­ment, a hun­dred thou­sand wet fail­ures were dragged from the caul­dron’s caked rim.

When suc­cess­es did come, though, they were ter­ri­ble indeed. These pat­terns they record­ed, kept with spe­cial jeal­ousy. It is these pat­terns that we know today as among the Coast’s most fear­ful mon­sters.

Now, long after the height of sor­cery, these pat­terns are secret­ed deep away. They lie in the buried tomes of old sor­cery; in the sequestered, chained stacks of deep acad­e­mia; or in the flawed, stolen pages of mad folk and hedge sor­cer­ers. To acquire one is no easy feat, for a recipe for mon­sters is pre­cious indeed. ††

A selec­tion of most notable pat­terns are detailed below. 

Man­ti­core has exist­ed in Coastal lore since its first deploy­ment by the rel­ic-lords of old. Its name, oft-incor­rect­ly assigned to the mere tyger of the far South, means sim­ply “man-eater.” It is a name well-earned, for the manticore—fused from tyger, por­cu­pine, and human babe—sports three rows of teeth in an ear-to-ear, can­ni­bal smile. Neck-down, the beast is akin to a broad tyger clad in red-tipped spines. When erect, these spines are a fear­some weapon: Sub­tly barbed, and apt to stick in flesh like arrow­heads. When laid flat, they are bet­ter than iron maille. The worst man­ti­cores, brewed from a pat­tern per­fect­ed in Ancient Naus­sia, sport a giant scor­pi­on’s sting for a tail. Both pat­terns were intel­li­gent and high­ly obe­di­ent; an arche­typ­al sor­cer­er’s pet. Reports claim man­ti­cores live yet today, prowl­ing high moun­tain haunts and guard­ing the deep Under­world fast­ness of their sleep­ing mas­ters. 

Kæto­blepas is an engine of ter­ror, a tox­ic wretch spliced from man, ser­pent, and ox. It is a mis­er­able thing: A wiry, ungu­late hulk, large as a bull, with a ser­pen­tine neck twice as long again. From this trunk hangs a bes­tial head; down­turned, drool­ing between fangs an emis­sion so putrid, so nox­ious, it poi­sons the land the kæto­blepas treads. This putrid­i­ty is a chem­i­cal weapon of metic­u­lous design, arous­ing irra­tional pan­ic and appre­hen­sion in those who breath it. When paired with a glimpse of the kæto­blepas’ death-mask vis­age, the stuff elic­its paralysing fear in all but the most stal­wart foes. Kæto­blepas was once pro­duced and unleashed as a ter­ror unit, meant to sap and pun­ish ene­mies and sub­jects alike. It’s use was oth­er­wise lim­it­ed, for the mon­ster was, from its birth from the caul­dron, unpre­dictable and quite mad. In mod­ern times, it is prac­ti­cal­ly unknown, save for a final few rumored spec­i­mens who roam the very far­thest wilder­lands and Under­world keeps, insane even before the long ages rot­ted their minds.

Lam­pa­go is pro­duced by boil­ing a human babe with dou­ble its weight in young dogs. The result is a tail­less, long-limbed, nude thing with a long-muz­zled human head. It is intel­li­gent and high­ly obe­di­ent, capa­ble of com­ply­ing with com­pli­cat­ed tasks such as patrol and recon­nais­sance. For the lat­er task, it is par­tic­u­lar­ly use­ful, as it may come to pro­duce human lan­guage after just a year in age. ‡ Estab­lished sor­cer­er-king­doms could pro­duce lam­pa­go in sig­nif­i­cant batch­es after estab­lish­ing effec­tive slave bases or tithe-lines from dom­i­nat­ed states. Such bulk pro­duc­tion occa­sion­al­ly birthed mutant spec­i­mens with mul­ti­ple aux­il­iary heads. These were short-lived, but quite prized if hardy. Dis­taste­ful leg­ends yet abound of sor­cer­ers glad­ly boil­ing their own off­spring to pro­duce lam­pa­go. Such beasts often fea­ture as sor­cer­er’s famil­iars, in leg­ends. These days, though the pat­tern for lam­pa­go is dan­ger­ous­ly well-copied in aca­d­e­m­ic occultism, it is most often seen as a heraldic char­ac­ter, in the minia­tures of man­u­scripts, rather than in the flesh.

Cal­ca­trix is a pur­suit pat­tern brewed from the flesh of toad, bat, and cock­er­el. Its rub­bery body is that of an out­sized, naked bird, with four long hand-limbs like a bat’s, but with no web­bing. When com­mand­ed to take a scent, it will pur­sue its tar­get to the end of the world, even if set to pur­sue from lands away. Unlike a good and nat­ur­al hound, it will not sim­ply immo­bi­lize caught prey, but lac­er­ate them with long fin­gers and a hooked beak. A recipe for cal­ca­trix’s cre­ation is said to have been found in a Chicol-era sor­cery tow­er in the South. A Tevil­lan Vis­count is rumored to have repro­duced the mon­ster for pur­pos­es of hunt­ing both fox­es and men. 

Pig­men—or “long hogs”—are a recent devel­op­ment in the art of chimerism. Cre­at­ed by nou­veau prac­ti­tion­ers of unearthed sor­cery, pig­men are not true chimeras. Rather, they are hybrids made pos­si­ble by the com­pat­i­bil­i­ty of human and swine-flesh. Their gen­e­sis is labo­ri­ous, but requires nei­ther mag­ic stone nor caul­dron. ‡‡ While the first lit­ter of man-piglets is hard won, requir­ing sev­er­al infants and the sur­gi­cal pro­fan­ing of a sow’s uterus, lat­er gen­er­a­tions come easy, for pigman—always born male—are capa­ble of obscene repro­duc­tion with aver­age sows.

Pig­men make apt sor­cer­er’s min­ions, if rude ones. They grow fast and robust­ly, read­i­ly sur­pass­ing 100 kilos, mak­ing fine builders and brutish guards. Ade­quate­ly fed, they reach adult­hood, or are “ready for mar­ket” with­in 9 months. § By this point, their cog­ni­tion equals a four year-old child. They can car­ry out rel­a­tive­ly com­plex plans, han­dle gun­springs, and dri­ve car­riages, though they do so clum­si­ly and at a high­er rate of acci­dent than humans. How­ev­er, they are crude, unpleas­ant crea­tures, inca­pable of speech or thor­ough hygiene. Poor com­pa­ny for the vain­er sor­cer­ers of the world. Poor­er still for those desir­ing an admir­ing flock, for pig­men are not ador­ing min­ions. They are obe­di­ent, but inca­pable of real respect. Begrudg­ing, care­less, and oafish, they are moti­vat­ed only by fear, food, and their desire for sows’ com­pa­ny. Easy enough levers to manip­u­late, if inglo­ri­ous ones.

So long as they go undis­cov­ered, a small troupe of pig­men can great­ly assist a would-be sor­cer­er in their dark ambi­tions. The Office of Secrets is con­cerned­ly attempt­ing to trace these new-age prac­ti­tion­ers and their long hogs. They are alarmed by tales of depraved magi­cians birthing or steal­ing infants for pur­pose of pig­man gen­e­sis; dis­tressed for the nation­al secu­ri­ty impli­ca­tions of rogue pig­men spawn­ing fast with­in Firl­ish bor­ders. Most of all, the Office is afeared for one very real pos­si­bil­i­ty: The ush­er­ing-in of a new age of Coastal sor­cery.