by Candy Nicks
She removed it immediately and dropped it onto the decking. “I don't wear jewellery. It will not survive the change."
"Then don't change.” He slipped the necklace over her head and threaded his fingers under the heavy weight of her hair. Carefully, he teased out the strands, while Tian watched him with startled wolf's-eyes. He had no idea whether her sight had fully returned. The necklace settled into the v of flesh exposed by the gaping collar of her coat. Tian touched one delicate shell.
"Now sit,” he ordered. “And talk to me. I want to know why I came all this way to find you. Who or what I've found."
"There really is no need to worry about me. How many times must I say it?"
"Nevertheless, I will."
Tian lowered herself to the step, groping for it with an outstretched hand, her eyes never leaving his. “This will not change my mind."
"Tell me who you are,” he said, settling beside her. “Share with me, Tian. Convince me you truly do not want companionship or the love of your family. If you don't want me your brother will be glad to take you in. Here,” he said, taking the Crystal from his pocket. “Don't fear it. It won't harm you or trick you. Listen to the Crystal. Let it show you what's out there. Or better still, return with me to Wolf's Valley for the winter and if you find yourself pining for this place, I'll bring you back when the snows thaw."
"You would?"
A small spark of hope flared deep inside him. His brain scrabbled for more words to hold her in place. “Wolf's Valley was named for your half-brother, Finn. Did the Crystal show you the life he's made with my sister?"
"Yes.” The word came out on an exhaled breath. Her gaze dropped to the Crystal which pulsed gently under her scrutiny.
Two of their children are Lupines like their father. Like you. You could be happy there."
"Perhaps I don't wish to be happy."
The note of recrimination in her voice startled him. Who did not wish for happiness? Her body language, the way she folded herself inwards, told him he was losing her again. He wanted to howl in frustration. Bundle her up and take her, regardless of her wishes? How could she ever know the dangers she faced here, alone?
"Can you, or the Goddess, not understand that I want to stay here, near to my mother? She gave her life in return for the cloaking-magic. Her spirit lingers. I promised my wolf its freedom and I will honour that. We will blend with the landscape and become part of the mountain. Live here for as long as the Goddess allows us life."
"Yes,” he said. “I believe the spirits of the dead linger and watch over those they left behind but the magic does not. For her own reasons the Goddess has cast you adrift, Tian. She did it knowing that I would be your anchor."
"She wants me to prove myself and I will.” Tian raised a hand. “In my own way. Please do not be angry with me, Sol. Go into the hut and fetch a drying cloth from the chest in the sleeping-room. I will strap your arm. Let us part as friends."
Her quiet resolve would not be broken down with anger. Inside the hut, he tossed back the lid of the chest, glared at the carefully folded linens. To vent his frustration, here in a space blessed by the spirits of the dead, would be a desecration.
The Eagle warrior wanted action, results. To return home brandishing the fruits of his victories. The Moon-Child in him continued to whisper and counsel caution. Tian was not as removed from her humanity as she liked to believe; her gentle tending told him that.
The strapping holding his arm tight to his body was symbolic of his inner struggle. When he shivered with the cold, she draped the jacket around his shoulders.
"Go inside. Rest."
"Come with me, if only to console the story-harp. I think its heart is broken. It weeps for you, Tian."
"Take her with you,” Tian said. “Give her to a female descendent that the line may remain unbroken."
"It can't be done. Not while you live."
"Soon Tian will be just a memory. Rest and heal. I wish to be free of my obligation to you. My wolf is calling. I must go now."
"Stay, please.” He made the mistake of touching her, grasping the coat to hold her in place. Going too fast. Too little time to convince her.
She left him with a tantalising glimpse of her naked body as she wriggled out of the coat and transformed. And frustrated, in more ways than one. Then he felt guilt because he wanted her and the thoughts of her strong thighs clamped around his hips as he drove into her addled his brain when he needed a clear head.
The wolf merged silently with the trees. Before re-entering the hut, Sol dunked his face into a bucket of icy well-water. It helped, but only a little.
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Chapter 5
The wolf poked its head into the crevice that had fractured the high rock-face long ago. It wrinkled its nose, sniffing the dry musty air. This cave could make a cosy winter den for its tender, human side. No signs of recent occupation. It flattened itself and wriggled inside, turning to reach for Tian's bag of treasures. Waited for its eyes to adjust to the gloom. A good hiding place. Both from the man Tian called Father and Sol.
The next priority was to hunt, eat and grow fat for the lean times ahead. It exited the cave and stood surveying its domain, nostrils twitching, its thickening winter coat rippling in the breeze. Below the mountain slopes, the plains covering the southern approaches stretched to the distant horizon. To the place where, every day, civilisation and human-kind crept ever nearer. One day the empty spaces keeping man and beast apart would be covered with Settlements and Townships. The forests felled for lumber, the stone quarried for housing and roads. The Crystal's prophetic vision saddened the wolf. Would human-kind remember to leave a space for the wild creatures roaming this world? Or would they simply grab the best for themselves and drive the wolf to eke out a living on the highest, most inhospitable peaks?
My coat. Tian's voice echoed inside its head. We must go back for my coat.
We have fur, Tian.
I need my coat, the voice insisted. Even if I could stand the cold of mid-winter, I cannot wander around naked. Not in front of Sol. What if my father comes?
The wolf curled back its lips, revealing teeth and a feral grin. He seeks us, Tian. When he comes, he will find only death.
No. If you kill a human, you endanger the lives of all the wolves on this mountain. They will be hunted for it. And he's my father. I will not kill my father.
He is like Sol, only his cage will have bars that cannot be broken. You saw the visions?
Tian pushed back the wolf and gasped at the icy blast hitting her skin. This high up the wind was a constant companion, rattling around the high peaks and shaping the mountain with the battering of stone and grit on rock. Bringing up her knees, she hugged them with her arms to conserve heat. At these temperatures, she could only remain human for short periods of time. She really did need her coat. If her wolf would not co operate, she would go down after dark and find it, along with her boots and a few more items of winter clothing.
You see, the wolf said. How impractical it is to live around humans. Too much to worry about.
"Yes,” she agreed, and continued with her all-too-human worrying; not only about Sol's welfare, but of the man himself. Tall and golden. Full of enticing promises and the sophistication of the outside world. Gently spoken for such a big man. And so warm. She wrapped herself into a tight ball to ward off the cold, shuddering uncontrollably now.
Foolish girl. The wolf said. If you want his body, take it. He will not resist. Did you not feel his desire for you? Have him. I will not stop you. Then forget him.
"It's not that simple. I am curious, yes, but Sol would complicate it with talk of love and commitment and he would be hurt."
Why do you care?
"I honestly don't know,” she said, blinking back the image of Sol sitting patiently while she strapped his arm to a chest so broad, she could barely reach around to tie off the drying cloth she'd used as a temporary sling. The caring, she could understand. Who would see som
eone in pain and not do all they could to help? These odd and very disturbing feelings inside, she did not. Romantic fancies were for sagas and songs, not for a wild-woman who was part wolf.
"Wolves mate for life, do they not? As a human, I think I would want the same."
When food is plentiful, a wolf will sometimes take more than one mate.
"For breeding purposes, that is sensible,” Tian laughed through the shudders. “Oh wolf, what a strange conversation. A mating with Sol might produce a child and then he would never relinquish his claim to me."
True. In that case, put this man from your mind or you will go mad. In spring some of the males from the mountain pack will leave to form their own packs. We are strong and beautiful. How will they resist us?
"How indeed?"
Wistful longing—an odd sensation. Her mother's death had left an empty space inside her which Sol was filling with his smile and his promise of companionship, and perhaps love. Could he see the loneliness that she would never admit?
The wolf crept forward, anxiously regaining control before Tian's body lost too much precious heat. And before she started believing the fanciful notions forming in her head. Jealously, it guarded its newly-found dominance.
This is the path we chose, Tian. What we both wanted.
Yes, she agreed. Safe from within the shelter of the wolf, the world took on another perspective. Humans needed too much, both emotionally and physically. As the wolf she could just be, knowing that nature would provide.
I will keep you safe, the wolf told her, picking up on her mood. Together, we are strong.
The wolf pushed Tian down in the farthest recesses of the strange limbo they entered when one of them had dominance. The easy balance they'd shared was shifting. The partnership becoming too great a struggle. For the first time, the human inside felt like a burden rather than an adventure.
Keep you safe. Deep inside.
My coat. I need to fetch my coat.
Fur. Fur is the best coat.
Wolf? Listen to me.
Hush Tian. Hush.
Wolf?
* * * *
Sol draped Tian's coat over a low branch of one of the pines on the edge of the clearing. Two days later it lay muddied and wet on the forest floor. He rinsed it out and re-hung it. Exercised the horses. Stared endlessly into the shadows between the trees. Ate, washed and healed. On the eighth day, he unwrapped his shoulder and walked to the grave to place a mourning stone of his own. A symbolic act which should have marked the end of this foolish vigil for a woman who had clearly forgotten him.
One more day. While the weather held, there was always one more day.
He spun around, hair flying. Something moved on the edge of his vision. “Tian?” he called and plunged after the dark shape. Bursting through the tree-line, he came face to face with a billy-goat, horns down, challenging him to test his strength. Hysteria gripped him as he re-sheathed his dagger. The goat eyed him suspiciously before turning to flee from the madman whose uncontrolled laughter disturbed the quiet of the day. Sol shook his head and breathed. The solitude he could cope with. This constant edge-of-the-seat feeling he most definitely could not. Every moving shadow, every shimmering shape was her. When he pursued them, he found only figments and ghosts. Or goats, he thought, still in the grips of the hilarity.
It subsided at last. Stay sharp, he cautioned. Fate had a strange way of balancing its books. He didn't believe in coincidence. His logical mind told him that, veiled though her true intentions were, the Goddess would not have sent him all this way, at this time, without good reason. He touched his neck, an involuntary gesture he made whenever he thought of Finn's father. The man who'd also fathered Tian in his never-ending quest for a captive Lupine.
He trudged back to the hut and removed the Crystal from its pouch. If only it would give him something. In his grasp it lay cold and dead. Unresponsive to his pleas. Whatever secrets it had to reveal, it was not about to divulge them to him.
Sol laid the blast-gun on a wooden block, solar recharge cells pointing towards the weakening autumn sun. The Eagle sword ritual, each step imbued with precision born of years of practice, occupied a little more of the time that seemed to be meandering now, with no thought of where it was leading him.
Tian would never tolerate a cage. If a confrontation with her father came, it would not be pretty.
Later, after eating a meal of vegetables roasted in the embers of the cooking pit, he sat on the porch, clutching at the last threads of hope and watched the sun disappear behind the mountain.
"Goddess. Why give me this strength if only to sit here and wait for something that will never happen? I rode here with all haste, and now this?” He waved angrily. The gesture jolted his injured shoulder, making him curse. Why? Why did he put himself through this, when he could at home, helping to prepare for the great winter hibernation?
There is more to strength than the physical, my son.
Sol shook his head, shoulders shaking with barely-suppressed laughter. “I knew you would say that."
Then why did you ask?
"Because I'm human and you are a Goddess. You have the answers, not me."
We Gods gave human-kind free will. You would prefer I withdrew that gift?
"You call this free will?” Uncharacteristic anger bubbled inside of him. He tamped it down, thanking his Moon-child mother for the ability to temper anger with reason. “With respect, Goddess. If I had free will, Tian would be halfway to Wolf's Valley by now."
You mean if I stopped meddling, you would be on your way home? Soft laughter floated around the clearing, filtered through the trees. You amuse me greatly, Sol. And please me, too, she added at Sol's defiant glare.
"These long years, I have trained and waited and watched over your children. I have dedicated this worldly flesh to you, and your cause. Tian needs me. Let me help her."
What she needs most is your patience.
"She has it,” he snapped. Then bowing his head, he said, “Forgive me, Goddess. All right, hold back the snows and I will wait for her. If I am to stay, the horses need to graze. Surely you would not have me sacrifice them?"
Should I wish it, I would ask everything of you. Everything, Sol. Would you give it?
His mouth was too dry to form the words of acceptance. Instinctively, he glanced at the dark shapes of the two animals tethered at the side porch rail, weighing their lives against Tian's. Of course her life carried more weight. But could he stand and watch these two noble beasts die of hunger?
"I'll set you free before I see you starve,” he said rising from the porch, driven by a need to connect with his most loyal friend. Unburdened the horses might be able to out run the snow and make their way to fairer climes. Better that they returned to the wild or risked capture by predators, than perish here. He leaned his cheek on Balan's neck and breathed in the familiar smell of the horse he'd helped birth, rear and school.
"Don't be the price,” he prayed fervently. “Please don't be price."
Balan snorted and strained his neck, nuzzling for treats. Sol divided the last of the dried apples and fed the horses a sliver each, stowing the rest in his jacket pocket. How little he'd been physically tested since he last saw the man Finn and Tian called Father. Were they destined to meet again, and this time fight man to man? Would his first human kill be the father of the woman he would have as wife?
"Tian!” he cried out. “Tian! If you can hear me, please come down. Let me take you home. I want to take you home."
How long had he been here, in this place where time passed like the last drips of cider oozing through muslin? Each moment stretched out, then gone. Stretched out then gone. He'd even started counting them in the silence of the long dark evenings.
Solitude. An escape from life, or a prison, in which you eventually went mad? How heartless she was to condemn him to this agony of waiting. Could Tian not return for a simple goodbye? To say thank you? He listened in vain for a response to his plea.
; None came.
* * * *
She missed the feel of sun warming skin. Wind lifting hair. The taste of meat roasted to melting over the cooking pit. Her voice had become a soundless echo inside an empty void. With no one to listen to her, she fell silent. The world unfolded through her wolf's eyes now and from her cage, she watched Sol keeping vigil and saw the hope which had shone so brightly when he'd arrived, quietly drain away.
On the tenth day, he retrieved the larger of the saddle packs from under porch and filled it with the clothes he'd washed and slung over the rail to dry. Her name echoed around the clearing. He sounded angry with her, and with himself.
He's leaving, she thought with a rising sense of panic. Let me go to him. To say goodbye. To make sure he's fit to travel.
Tian. The wolf spoke firmly. He's not leaving. Not yet, anyway. Raising its head, it sniffed the air and scrutinised the man from its vantage point in the trees. A few flakes of snow spiralled to the ground and melted. Soon the earth would be cold enough for the snow to stick.
Why is he packing his belongings?
Snows are coming. Taking them inside, perhaps? But he will leave soon, when the snows start in earnest.
He wanted to be home for the winter. Don't you see? Our absence is keeping him here. He's like a ... lost soul waiting for answers. He needs to see me again, for closure. Let me give him that.
The wolf considered. Tian's weakening struggle to re establish her human self both heartened and saddened it. One day she would give up the fight and rest meekly within. They would become the wolf and embrace life in the wild forever.
If you change, Tian, you will remember what it is to be human. Too dangerous.
I do not want to be human all the time. Only to ... breathe a little. Wolf, this isn't working. I need to be human once in a while or I will cease to be. We will cease to be.
You need to be human because you want to be with him.
To say goodbye only.
The wolf turned deliberately away from Sol, who was now hauling water from the well and looking far too at home in the simple hut it had shared with Tian and the woman she'd called Mother.
