The Wolf Age

by James Enge

  "Yes," Rokhlenu said, remembering as if it were a thousand years before. "It was the three of us. The three of us against all of them."

  "Well," Wuinlendhono said, gently taking his arm, "there's a few more of us now." She guided him toward the door. "Call on me, my dear, if there's anything you need."

  "I need my Hrutnefdhu. Send him to me if you see him, please."

  They descended the dark stairs to the street, already streaked with the long shadows of a strangely summery winter's afternoon.

  "Let me put it this way," Wuinlendhono said then. "I give you a dragon's tooth as a courtship gift, and before sunset I have to watch you on your knees, begging another female to take it. Fairly accurate?"

  "Yes," Rokhlenu said glumly. "I understand if this means you're done with me."

  "You silly chunk of meat, I'm barely beginning. Five was always my lucky number. Come on along; let's see if a certified dragon slayer can't find a place to sleep indoors tonight."

  dead man who carried his severed head like a lamp was walking beneath the walls of the empty Vargulleion.

  "A fine manifestation," signified a passing snake. "But to what purpose, if no one is present to see it?"

  "It pleases me," signified War. "It reminds me of the battle that was in this prison house, while the scent of it is still fresh."

  "But the battle is over," signified the snake, a manifestation of Wisdom. "There will be no new deaths."

  "Deaths are incidental to war, Wisdom. I'm surprised you don't know that."

  "You can't have a war without deaths, can you? What is more essential?"

  "Courage, and cowardice. The need for cunning, and the uselessness of cunning. Victory. Defeat."

  "You could get all that in sporting competitions-"

  "Are you trying to see if I can vomit in this manifestation?" War wondered.

  -or elections."

  "Perhaps the way the werewolves run them. I always look forward to their election year."

  "Primaries are beginning. The Sardhluun begin picking their representatives tonight."

  "Yes, and I visualize that both you and Death will be manifest there. You wish me to accompany you."

  "I do," acknowledged Wisdom. "I dislike this plan of hers, whatever it is, and I think it may be time to reacquire her oath for our pact."

  "I did think there would be more fighting," War admitted. "I'll go with you and see what she signifies."

  The snake and the corpse with the severed head transited-by-intention to a neighboring locus of space-time.

  It was the great arena of the Sardhluun Pack. The time was well after sunset; Horseman the second moon was high in the west; the sky around it glowed indigo. All the werewolves crowding the stands had transited to wolf form.

  The Incumbent's Gate swung open in the arena wall. Out of it, a werewolf trotted proudly into the center of the fighting pit. The gate slammed shut behind him. His black fur was silvery on his muzzle. He had a great many honor-teeth: there was a great torc of them hanging around his neck. In his jaws he carried black-and-green streamers, the standard of the Sardhluun Pack. He was the incumbent gnyrrand, the citizen who, for the last year of choosing and several before, had led the Sardhluun's electoral band.

  But the crowd did not esteem him: they yodeled his name in contemptuous tones: Wurnafenglu, Wurnafenglu. They called on the sacred ground of the fighting pit to swallow down the misbegotten luckless citizen who dared to pollute it. They howled insults against his relatives in elaborate verse forms.

  He trotted back and forth across the arena ground, indifferent to their hostility, secure in his bite. If anyone wanted the Sardhluun standard or his honor-teeth, they would have to fight him for them.

  Finally, one werewolf in the stands took up the challenge. He leapt down into the arena proper and barked a challenge. He was a whitish beast with black bristles running from his head down his spine all the way to the end of his tail. He wore a necklace of honor teeth-more than a few dangled there, though nothing like as many as the incumbent carried.

  Wurnafenglu dropped the Sardhluun standard, since his right to it had been challenged.

  The werewolves in the stands grew silent. They sat down to watch. The election was beginning.

  A never-wolf slave entered the arena through a door set into the Incumbent's Gate. She carried two bowls of drink in her trembling hands. The spectators near at hand leaned forward to catch a scent of the deadly brew, then leaned back gasping when they did, or thought they did.

  Everyone in the arena knew that the bowls contained an infusion of wolfbane.

  The never-wolf slave put the bowls down in the center of the arena and backed away hastily. She ran back to the door in the Incumbent's Gate, but it was now locked and would not open for her. She was the only person present who had supposed it would.

  A few werewolves chuckled mildly at her dismay, but all eyes turned now toward the Werowance of the Sardhluun, whose task tonight was to preside over the election of the pack's gnyrrand, its lead candidate in the upcoming general election. A silver-gray wolf with many cords of honor-teeth, the Werowance lay resplendent on his ceremonial black couch in a box set lower than the stands. He pressed a lever with one foot. A narrow opening appeared in the wall below him; a platform extended. On it was a ceramic bowl, brimming with antidote.

  The Werowance sang what everyone knew. He was the Werowance of the Sardhluun, chosen by chance, by destiny, and by bite and by the common will of the Sardhluun. It was his duty to lead the Inner Pack in times of peace and to preside over the pack elections. This challenge would choose a representative for the general election to come. Only the strongest, the most cunning, the most ruthless of the Sardhluun could hope to carry the standard of their pack, the youngest and greatest of packs, against the corrupt beasts of the older treaty packs.

  There was an incumbent, as they all knew: the detested Wurnafenglu. For many years, Wurnafenglu had tended the green-and-black standards of the Sardhluun like a herd of fat beeves. He had stood for the Sardhluun in the Innermost Pack of Wuruyaaria, even rising on occasion to the couch of the First Singer. But he had spent all his honor and all the glory of the Sardhluun in a single night of disgrace. Though he was the commander of the Var gulleion, the prison that (with the Khuwuleion) was the foundation of the pack's fortunes, he was absent on First Night, celebrating with his disgusting plurality of wives, when the prisoners rebelled. Many of his guards had died; he should have died with them. The subsidies from the city that they received for maintaining the prisoners would disappear; so should Wurnafenglu disappear. The Sardhluun were now a mockery among the older, weaker, less ruthless packs; so should Wurnafenglu be a mockery and a byword until the sun faded and the moons crunched its golden bones in their shining blue teeth. When Wurnafenglu might have done them all a favor by slinking away forever into the night of ignominy and shame, Wurnafenglu insisted on standing again for election to the Innermost Pack, as if to tie disgrace like a rotting puppy around the neck of the Sardhluun forever.

  The Werowance hoped that this young and vigorous challenger-whose name escaped the Werowance although it was no doubt a worthy one-could slay the shame of the pack, tear those undeserved honor-teeth from a ravaged neck, or at least prevent him from taking up the banner to represent the pack he had so deeply stained with the stink of dishonor.

  Either candidate could at this time withdraw, although he would of course leave his honor-teeth behind on the sacred ground of the arena's fighting pit.

  This was the burden of the Werowance's song.

  The two candidates bowed their heads and drank the poison in their bowls.

  The election would run until one of them had drunk the antidote beneath the Werowance's box, or until both of them were dead.

  War noted the manifestation of Death. She appeared to his god's eye as she often did: lightless, faceless, spider-armed, and many-fingered.

  She acknowledged the manifestations of both War and Wisdom and signified, "I visual
ized this encounter. I will not rejoin the pact-sworn intention."

  The werewolves felt the presence of Death, although only a few ghostsniffers could actually see her (and that dimly). A shudder ran through the audience, and they leaned forward to watch the election.

  Wurnafenglu had faced election many times; he knew the taste of poison well, and it didn't frighten him. The challenger stood in a different place entirely. He looked anxiously toward the bowl of remedy and licked his lips, still bitter with poison. If he ran straight toward the bowl of remedy and drank the antidote, he would not die. But he would gain no honor and another election would be held, with him as the incumbent.

  Wurnafenglu saw the uncertainty on the challenger's face and smiled a long sinister smile. He trotted around until he stood squarely between the challenger and the bowl of remedy. Then he sat right down and stared at the moon, drinking its light with his eyes, idly scratching his right ear with his right forepaw. Death was in him and he knew it. But he did not fear it.

  "I love that ugly black wolf," signified Death privately to War.

  "I consider him to be a fool," War replied. "He spent the better part of a year torturing two prisoners who had gotten the better of him. Then he walks away and lets his guards get snot-face drunk on bloom smoke, simply because of a date on a calendar. Now he must fight for his right to keep what he has, and he must do the same all year long if he wins here tonight."

  "Oh, he's a fool. No doubt of that. A clever fool. A cunning fool. A wise fool. That is my favorite kind of fool."

  Wisdom knew these signs were directed at him, but he did not acknowledge them.

  The challenger was growing anxious. He tried to lock gazes with Wurnafenglu, but the black wolf would not look at him. The challenger assumed a threatening posture and snarled at Wurnafenglu. The black wolf kept looking at the moon. Now he was idly scratching his left ear. The challenger barked that he would kill-kill-kill Wurnafenglu. His blood would be the challenger's most favored drink; his rotting liver would be given to the challenger's cubs for a holiday treat; his intestines would be used for sausages and sold for copper coins in Apetown, and the challenger would give the money away in charity to monkey-faced whores.

  Undaunted by these terrors, Wurnafenglu waited.

  "Your plan is not progressing as you foresaw," Wisdom signified to Death.

  Death emanated a reckless joy, more intense and bitter than mere amusement.

  The werewolves, patiently waiting for election developments, shuddered, thinking the warm winter night had suddenly turned chilly.

  Death signified, "You are right. The torrent you predicted is sweeping away my visualization of the nearer future."

  War grumbled, "This torrent which is so constantly in your signs does not appear to me to be very exciting. One battle in a whole year! And the Sardhluun did no more raiding than they usually do, and next year they'll have to do less."

  The citizens in the audience began to grow restless. They wanted a more eventful election than this-something they could talk about to those who hadn't witnessed it, to argue about with those who had.

  But the challenger was growing more anxious. His threatening posture had given way to a nervous dance. He capered one way, then another. He leapt back, then forward, snarling.

  Wurnafenglu waited.

  The challenger looked desperately at the moon, the stands, his enemy. His eyes were clouding; his vision was fading; his nervous antics were spreading the poison through his blood more rapidly. He scampered off in a long curving charge toward the remedy bowl.

  Wurnafenglu leapt and struck with his full weight on the challenger's right shoulder. The challenger rolled in the dirt and tried to rise, snapping frantically with his jaws. But Wurnafenglu pinned him. He forced the challenger's head to the ground with his back feet as the challenger scrambled ineffectively to free himself. Wurnafenglu fixed his jaws at the base of the challenger's spine.

  Hollow wolvish whistles of admiration echoed around the arena. Few in the audience would have staked a serious combat on a bite like that, where the backbone was strongest. There were a few skeptical yelps, and someone began a song to the effect that Wurnafenglu had made his last bad decision.

  These were silenced by the crack of the challenger's spine, a crunching sound that reverberated all around the arena.

  Wurnafenglu shook his opponent for a few moments, to make sure the spine was severed, and then he relaxed his jaws and let the broken challenger fall whining to the ground. He turned away and trotted calmly over to the bowl of remedy. Unhurriedly, without wasting a drop, he drank half the antidote.

  Carefully, he picked up the bowl with his teeth and sidled toward the challenger, who was staring desperately at the moon, trying to knit his shattered spine together in time to continue the fight. If there had been three moons aloft and no poison in his veins, he might have managed it, but things were as they were.

  Wurnafenglu held out the bowl of remedy to his fallen opponent.

  This rarely happened in elections of the Sardhluun, and it was a disgrace to accept. But it did mean life rather than death for the defeated candidate.

  The challenger weakly pushed the bowl away with his snout.

  Wurnafenglu offered the bowl to the challenger again.

  The challenger pushed it away again, more slowly and more reluctantly now.

  Wurnafenglu offered the remedy to the challenger for a third time.

  There was a moment of stillness. Then, in the sight of everyone, the challenger made a sudden movement to drink the remedy.

  Wurnafenglu sidled out of reach and the challenger was foiled.

  Wurnafenglu approached the sobbing challenger from the side and contemptuously poured the remedy over the challenger's genitals.

  The challenger writhed about, trying to lick at the spilled remedy, but because of his broken spine he could not reach it.

  Wurnafenglu smashed the bowl across the whining challenger's face and it shattered. Victorious Wurnafenglu ripped the honor-teeth from the defeated challenger's neck and fixed his jaws in the defenseless throat. He held his grip until the poison finished its work and the challenger was dead.

  He tossed the corpse from him and looked toward the audience for his due.

  They gave it-reluctantly at first, but then more and more enthusiastically. They howled their congratulations and applause. They ululated into the single-eyed night, saluting Wurnafenglu's victory. Everyone loves a winner, and he had proven, against their hopes and desires, that he was a winner. They wanted him on their side so that they could be winners, too.

  War attempted to signify something to Death, but then took note she was no longer manifest.

  "I signify this again," he signified to Wisdom. "Death is the strangest of the Strange Gods."

  "She is lying," Wisdom signified reflectively. "I think everything she signifies is a lie."

  "Then she's more reliable than most," War signified tolerantly. Lies are the normal form of communication in war, and he was used to them. "Oh well, I suppose the fighting is over." He ceased to manifest himself.

  Wisdom remained manifest, watching and thinking. He knew about lies, too, and he knew that people or gods lie largely because they are frightened. He thought it was important to know why Death was afraid.

  Now that the serious matter of the election was over, the lighter business of the celebration began. Wurnafenglu invited a few of his close personal friends down to the arena ground to help him kill and eat the never-wolf slave who had brought in the poison.

  Chief among his guests was, of course, his old friend the Werowance. The Werowance explained, in a song where tones of grief mixed with gladness, that he had only seemed to criticize Wurnafenglu because of his official obligations, and that he had always esteemed the gnyrrand as one of the greatest citizens in the history of Wuruyaaria, and that he hoped they could continue to work together for the betterment of the pack and the city they both loved so much. Wurnafenglu replied that he underst
ood the Werowance completely and that he hoped he would always esteem the Werowance at the Werowance's true worth.

  Wurnafenglu named a few other friends and foes to join him in the feast, and then they gave chase to the woman.

  She had been crouching in a shadowy edge of the arena, hoping against hope that she would be spared, or at least forgotten. When the wolves came for her, she tried to run, but there were several of them and no place for her to go. In the end, which came soon, she was cornered and she knew it.

  She stood in the moonlight, her back to the arena wall, as the great silver-muzzled black wolf approached. She shook her fist at him. "Kree-laow!" she screamed in the bestial face. "Kree-laow!"

  Then they took her down and killed her and ate her. Many minor guests were invited down to sample some of the meat and hobnob with the great ones, and the night was thought of as a memorable one, until the next election.

  Kree-laow, in the language of the dead woman, meant "He will avenge." The werewolves neither knew nor cared about this. At least, not then.

  n the third morning of the year, Morlock woke from a long, long dream. He stretched his crooked frame as he lay in the sun and wondered vaguely why so much of his terrible dream had involved werewolves. He opened his eyes and looked up straight into the face of a werewolf.

  True, she was in the form of a woman, but he had learned to recognize the long narrow face of a werewolf in the day shape. She had a mottled skin like Hrutnefdhu, too (if he wasn't just part of the dream). And somehow, somehow inside, he just knew she was a werewolf.

  He sat up and put one hand to his temple. He felt the healing wound there. The spike was gone. His Sight had returned.

  "Thank you," he said.

  Her eyes dropped. She seemed embarrassed. "I did what I could," she said eventually. "I'm not sure I got it all. You may ... there still may be problems."

  He closed his eyes and tested his insight. He realized she might be right. It was hard to tell; his inward blindness had gone on so long. But: he could dream. He could live. The world was as radiant with meaning as with sunlight.