Alpanu Lasas

Creation

Alpanu Lasas was created by writer/artist Peter Gross, in The Books of Magic issue 69, in the year 2000.

Major Story Arcs

Alpanu Lasas is a minor goddess of vanity and indulgence from Hungary. She enjoys living in high society, and is at a fancy masquerade party in Budapest, toying with the attention of others when a man without a mask comes up to her.

He recognizes her even with her mask, and knows who she is. He is the Master of the Wild Hunt. He tells her that the Wild Hunt will come after her tomorrow at dawn.

She leaves the party in fear.

She goes to other gods who live in the area, but they will not help her, knowing the reputation of the hunt.

She runs into a cloaked figure who knows her. He offers to help, and she agrees.

The figure is Auberon, who takes her place. It is not completely clear, but presumably the figure that seems to be Alpanu Lasas in the rest of issue 69, up through issue 74, where she appears again--is actually Auberon and not really Alpanu.

"Alpanu" goes into the wilderness and knocks a member of the Hunt off a cliff, and meets Cupid, who is now a member of the Hunt. They give her a choice--defeat a member of the Hunt or die. She chooses the man she already knocked off the cliff, thus winning, and joining the Hunt. She eventually sleeps with the Master.

Alpanu/Auberon asks the Hunt to next chase down Tim Hunter, who is the only person with the power to lock them back up in another dimension. They follow his trail to Accasbel's Safe House, but he isn't there, so they trash the place. Alpanu tries to argue for them to stop, but that is not the way of the Hunt.

"Alpanu" finds Tim and wears a glamour stone to look like Tim's human mom. She makes him wonder why his mom needed a stone to look like herself. She tells Tim the Hunt is after him.

When Tim finds the Hunt first instead, he challenges the Master to a game of trivia. "Alpanu" reads the questions, and the Master loses, and has to leave the Hunt.

"Alpanu" begins to teach Tim to be a man, showing him how to hunt a deer with a bow. She explains that he can wear a helmet that gives him magical senses, if he feeds it with blood from hunting. She and the others explain that the Hunt kills gods who no longer have a following.

"Alpanu" says that the magic storms that have ravaged the realms have been caused by Tim's Other--and suggests that they hunt him. When Tim finally kills a deer in preparation for this hunt, Alpanu watches, now looking partly like Auberon.

They hunt Tim's step-brother Cyril, and then the demon Barbatos, searching for Tim's magic, to fight the Other. "Alpanu" guides Tim along the way. When Tim leaves the Hunt, he wants Alpanu to be the Master, but she kisses him and says he wouldn't survive her challenge, so Cupid becomes the new Master.

Later, the real Alpanu stands next to Auberon, wearing her shape. He says that he wanted the Hunt to be free, because only then will new gods be born. The real Alpanu will now take his place in the Hunt.