by M.C. O'Neill
***
Gun’dun Skodd moved away, rather fled, from his native kingdom of Thuless’in when he was just an elfling. He hailed from a family of farmers who relocated to Atlantis during a period of extreme civil strife when King Ron’dagg IV ruled with an oppressive fist. The tyrant was given the moniker “the Good,” much to the irony of the citizens. That particular regent was anything but, and it was speculated that his own court gave him this nickname out of their mortal fear of him. Thousands of elves had been killed by the horrors of starvation or executed for some minor offense. Thousands more had just disappeared. When Gun’dun’s father received an “agricultural reclamation notice” in his mail one day, he knew his whole family was on the chopping block for either some trivial bureaucratic reason or a pitiful and fateful filing error.
After fleeing the ludicrous rule of King Ron’dagg, the Skodds were welcomed into the fair (by relative comparison) and democratic society of Atlantis and it wasn’t long before the elder Skodd could establish his farm once again on their foreign shores. Since the majority of Atlanteans were vegetarians, the farm specialized in the cultivation of vegetables, herbs, and a variety of fruit orchards. They even hosted a mushroom farm in a small network of underground tunnels. One particular livestock his family continued to raise was the dire wolf. All Thuless’in farmers took great pride in wolf breeding and the Skodds were not about to let this tradition slide, despite their alien surroundings.
Years later, Gun’dun inherited the farm and he was known throughout the region as one of Atlantis’s top dire wolf wranglers. These gallant beasts were over five feet long from snout to rump and were perfect for security, hauling, and defense purposes. The Skodd farm became so famous for their stock that they soon supplied Corosa’s civil wardens with all of the wolves which were used in their lupine division.
On that remarkable late afternoon when the pyramids arrived, Gun’dun was taking one of his clutches of wolves out to the far pasture of his land. All morning, the beasts were agitated and seemed to be a bit spooked by lunchtime. The herder couldn’t figure out what the problem could have been and all of his ranch hands agreed that his stock was behaving rather fidgety. The weather reports told of no storms and after two perimeter searches, no intruders could be found. Gun’dun knew that dire wolves were, by inherent nature, keen when it came to detecting danger; natural or otherwise. Considering all the wolves were acting more like sheep, and not just an isolated beast or two, he had become very concerned himself.
The pasture was wide and could accommodate the monstrous beasts’ exercise with ease. With much reluctance, the wolves trotted out with the ranch hands; many of them were whimpering as if they had just been whipped. One particular wolf tried to turn back in horrified desperation from the direction of the pasture and nipped a ranch hand who tried to arrest him. Even a slight nibble from a dire wolf required fair medical attention and Gun’dun’s employee had to soak his fingers in manasalve for the majority of a week after the attack.
As the animals were led through the corral, the ranchers set back and observed the sprawling pasture. The wolves were not moving, nor were they responding to any calls or whistles. The entire clutch faced one direction and pointed their bulky maws toward the sky. It was almost as if they were stuck in some flat loop, like a computer glitch. In unison, the dire wolves let out a howl that was so strange in that it was harmonious and consistent. Within seconds, it was cut short without crescendo.
The flat land of the green pasture on that fine, late-spring day and the husky grey wolves that dotted it were replaced in a split instant by a giant pyramidal shape that swirled with color, almost as if from chrome, but the tones and hues eddied from the inside of its surface rather than on it. Gun’dun ran out of a nearby shed and into its immense shadow. It took him shocked minutes to figure out that his expanse was no longer a field, but a site. As his ears began to experience a burning sensation, he fell to his knees and fainted.
Later that evening, he awoke from his stupor in a medic’s tent of the Atlantean Defense Forces. He was met with a barrage of questions that he couldn’t quite answer as he had forgotten in that moment how to speak any language other than his native tongue. Within minutes, he fell back asleep.
