Twilight of the Wolves

by Edward J. Rathke

  The eyes mesmerised, this large stranger with short hair and wolfhide covering his nakedness. The fire blazed behind him but before the Ancestral Tree, the backdrop to his tale.

  The wolves, the old gods. Fear them, yes, but in the west they fear us! The days of the gods, of demons and Angels, of Arcanes is over! We make a new world. A safe world. No more shall we fear or struggle.

  Sao stood away from the others, his face masked in disgust and fear. Watching the wolf, his heart quickened but felt fragile, made of glass.

  This wolf here, he slapped the great beast and it snapped its jaws at him. Gasps from the villagers and laughter from Oya, the stranger. Be warned, a wolf never knows when to stop fighting. Some say wolves can even speak but don’t believe such talk. They are nothing but beasts, tired, withered, old gods who have forgotten who and what they are. Soon we shall be rid of them.

  After finding the trail, we tracked for days. We drove this beast through the trees and towards the river. At the river, we cornered the beast. Surrounded, we shot—he shot his rifle into the air, releasing a plume of smoke and the reek of sulphur, causing a frightened roar from the villagers—until he stopped moving. They aren’t hard to kill if we have the correct tools. Ten shots. One wolf.

  The villagers watched in awe, covering their ears, their mouths, watching the rifle in Oya’s hand. Muttering began and then shouting and cheering.

  Oya called for a knife and shouted, Watch as we kill the old gods! then sunk the blade deep into the wolf’s throat. It writhed and vomited blood while Sao vomited through tears.

  That night they ate the wolf. Together.

  Crying in a tree, staring at the fragmented moon through the moaning treetops, Sao hid, the wolves howling far away.

  Oya’s teaching us how to defend against the wolves, Laska washed beside Sao at the river.

  He undid his topknot and dunked his head.

  Chenoa and Wicasa are there.

  He continued washing his blackhair.

  Oya wants to meet us.

  Scrubbing his hair, squeezing the water out of it, his eyes unmoved by her voice.

  She stepped to him, took his hair in her hands, touched his face, Sao, please.

  He lowered in the water, head back, and let his hair spread in the weak current.

  Too old to act like this, Laska said and walked away. Roatag told him it is important to fight but Sao let the current take him drifting past Roatag.

  Their bodies returned. Mangled. Wicasa halfeaten, Chenoa’s innards falling away. Their bodies brought to Sao who wept through the night and refused Laska’s comfort, but she held him anyway in their nakedness, lying awake spooned round him until the redsunrise.

  Laska was locked away by her parents after and Sao watched over their bodies, waiting for the Deathwalkers, singing for them beneath the Ancestral Tree. Only Roatag knelt beside him, joining his voice, carrying him through his tears, through the ravaging of his heart.

  It came like a shadow, silent with a black cloak, and took Wicasa’s festering head in its hands, singing, and breathed him away, then the same for Chenoa. The Deathwalker’s song continued, the melody meeting theirs, and then it disappeared.

  Oya came to his home that he once shared with Chenoa and Wicasa, We have lost them. No need to speak. Understand. The wolves, these beasts, we can stop them. We must stop them. We will kill them and then we shall eat them. Chenoa, Wicasa. Sao, be them again if eat the wolves. Sao, brother, we will help. We will save them.

  Sao stared at him redeyed through tears but Oya’s eyes darted in all directions while speaking.

  Sao, brother.

  Not brothers. Oya is not us. Sao’s cheeks flushed, his pulse increasing.

  Oya blinked in surprise, mouth still open, then laughter. Sao, brother, that’s funny. Ever beyond the forest?

  Sao did not blink but his eyes seethed, deep and dangerous, his brow lowered, furrowed, lips tight, teeth grinding. Oya looked away and stood.

  Beyond the forest, there are ones like you—he pointed at Sao.

  Sao scowled, his eyebrows lower.

  Oya spoke quickly for a moment in a language Sao did not understand but sounded like music, then, Sao, brother, others beyond here—he pointed at Sao.

  Sao raised an eyebrow, his lip curled on one side.

  We are not you. You are not them. Understand?

  Go away, beast. Go away.

  Oya laughed, his head thrown back, We will get him brother. We will. Oya gathered up his loosehanging pelts and left, smiling, laughing.

  Sao is not us, they said and he nodded.

  Sao is not us, and they pushed him away.

  Sao is not us, and he ran.

  The howls all round, he followed the music of the trees through the forest. The canopy blotted the sky, the grass slowed his steps but the music carried him. He walked, eyes closed, grazing fingertips against the bark of the trees. The roots as thick as his leg, the bark coarse and brown, the grass, at times, as high as his waist. Everything was alive, the bugs as big as his fist, the animals hidden but all around, above, below, ahead and behind. His nostrils full of fecundity, the constant growth, the lightness of life surrounding and comforting. He slept with his tears in the thick grass and bathed in the rivers he found. Eating what the forest gave, from fruits to nuts, what animals he caught, which he did rarely. The trees shifted round him and his path turned wildly, always following the course of the music of the forest. A constant allure, shifting, elegant, the whines of strings tempered by soft winds and the percussion of rain, of falling leaves, of running animals, of buzzing insects.

  At a pool in a clearing, he gazed at the suns above purpling all the world. He drank from the pool and swam in it, back and forth many times, splashing, drinking, laughing and smiling. He studied his reflection for a long time then took his knife and cut off his topknot, his hair falling unevenly.

  The night came moonless and he stared at the fire, at the stars, at the shadows consuming him. He masturbated and threw some sticks into the dying fire. Eyes closed, he rolled back and forth, then went swimming, then masturbated again. Climbing a tree, he watched both dawns blur through the veneer of his tears and then walked on.

  A howl far away blustered against the forest’s symphony. A cascade and the music changed, all the notes subverted, redirected by and for the howl. The forest closed and expanded around him and he ran.

  The howl grew louder until it fell silent and he followed the song of the trees.

  Large and white, it watched him with wide amber eyes. Blood stained its jaws and its pelt from shoulder to paw. Its hindleg caught in thick iron jaws, immobilising it.

  Sao stopped, his breath short, his heart screaming, caught in its glare, the bright stars of the wolf’s eyes. Tears ran down his cheeks and he whispered no words and he trembled, shivering, his body splintering, his throat raw and cracked. He fell to his knees and grabbed the grass, pulling his head to the ground and rubbing his forehead in the grass until it was dirt. Whispering nothing but doing it over and over, he rose and took step after step towards the wolf who watched him without blinking, an intense flame behind its eyes.

  Closer and closer, the wolf did not move and then it bared its teeth but Sao did not stop and then it growled and his tears poured and his bones weakened and his heart fell apart one beat after another. He reached a hand for its face and it snapped at him. Reflex pulling him back, he reached forward again, and the wolf consented.

  His body lightened and he caught his breath, heart still rapid, but vision cleared. Softly, he brushed his hand against the wolf’s cheek and stared into its eyes, the iris unstable, like a vortex of light. The fur was soft and thick and he whispered an apology in a word he did not know. Comforting the wolf, he stroked it and found the holes inside it. Wounds from a rifle, from several rifles and more ironballs, the wolf still bled. He sucked on the wound, pulling the blood into his mouth and spitting it out. He pried open the iron jaws with a rock and a tree limb and the wolf pulled its le
g free. Standing it was taller than him by twenty centimeters. Hobbling it lay down again and licked its newly freed leg.

  Sao watched it, his hands heavy at his sides. He told it to wait and ran towards the river. Filling his canteen, he watched in all directions for hunters, then returned to the wolf. With the water, he cleaned its wounds and sated its thirst after three such journeys. He fashioned a splint for its leg with sticks and vine and led it away, urging it to hide because hunters were surely on their way.

  For a night and a day and a night, he nursed the wolf. Brought it food and water and tried to heal its wounds the best he could. The morning of the second day, it nudged him awake and he fell into its eyes, caught, lost.

  A voice spoke into his chest and shook the base of his spine. Thank you, Brother Sao. I will not live but you have saved me.

  Sao collapsed, mouth open, crying, staring into those large eyes. The wolf nuzzled against him and he wrapped his arms round its head. It licked his cheeks, once on each side, turned, and ran into the forest.

  It began with a stranger but there were many strangers in Luca. Merchants, hunters, and farmers came from the Vulpe Federation to the west and Kingdom of Glass to the east and Drache to the south and all the villages surrounding and in between to trade, to see, to exchange thoughts and people, ideas and tales, foods and textiles and cultures. Arcanes still kept the shrine and spoke with the Angels, taught the young and old, healed the sick. Temples and shrines of all types, sizes, and styles stood side by side, for wolves or foxes, deer or eagles, the old and new gods, the lost and forgotten to the failing and insufferable, and the many colors of humanity walked together speaking several languages.

  Structureless, a congested architecture of slums and complexes and hovels stacked upon one another, built inside each other, handshaking styles, exchanging tenants. The city was alive with a heart bigger than its body, an intricate anatomy dictated by its five great arteries and veins bringing new atoms and molecules to melt into the chaotic system of constantly cycling humanity. An equilibrium set by Death and migration, ghettos rising and collapsing upon and within, dictated by transient alleyways and labyrinthine stalls.

  A stranger, one of many, came to the market and coughed in his hand, wiped away the blood, and touched and rummaged and bartered for this and that, for young boys on the temple steps, for what was called a dragontooth in front of the Drache Pavilion, for a child, for a dog, for Sorean silk, for many and all things available, for every taste imagined.

  Strangers come, strangers go.

  Alexander ran his hand of flesh over the mechanical one and smiled, the muscles of his left cheek pressing against the metal fused to his skull around his still living greeneye. The suns hidden by stormclouds and the wind blew strong as he exited the train with his three companions, Frederic, Elrik, and Willem. Four Rocan gentlemen, three youthful adventurers with his reluctant yet accommodating uncle. They left the trainstation and entered Luca when the rains came with a shuddering gash of light tearing apart the bleak black sky. The city touched by hundreds of stars lining the streets, the lamps casting a haze of light given shape by the downpour. Quickly, they ran into the nearest tavern where the Lucans stared at them, confused and intrigued.

  They sat at an open table out of the way and a thickhipped Vulpe woman came to their table, speaking Limpa, then Garasun, followed by Spreche. The men exchanged looks, laughed, and Alexander pointed to the bar then raised four fingers, smiling. The woman raised an eyebrow, her eyes running over their halfmetal faces and wholemetal limbs, sighed, then fetched their beer.

  Their barking laughter caused more eyes to turn on them and Alexander motioned for them to be quiet through his giggling.

  The beers arrived, thick and brown, and Alexander handed her iron coins, which she pocketed, then left with a short bow, shouting Idiots! in Limpa to the raucous laughter of the bar.

  I can’t believe we’re here, Elrik said.

  They mock us, Frederic snorted, It’s a womanish language, Limpa. Even their insults sound sweet.

  Alexander sipped his beer while Elrik and Willem stared at the other patrons, laughing quietly.

  The greatest landport in the world.

  That’s what they say.

  Alexander’s eyes roamed over the many people, the shadows playing against their redhair and bronze skin. Sipping his beer, pursing at the sweetness, he focused on the others while his men talked.

  Elrik, the shortest and thinnest, ran a hand through his blond curls, Look at the lips on these whores.

  Willem laughed and groped his testicles, A good fit, yeah?

  Maybe a child, Frederic slapped Willem’s crotch with his fingers.

  They laughed and the Lucan eyes weighed heavy on their guttural speech and guffawing.

  You never mentioned, Fred, how sweet the shit is here.

  Long and dour, Frederic gulped the beer, One gets used to it.

  Leave it to savages to gratify themselves like this.

  Elrik smiled looking into his beer, I don’t know, Em, Ric might be right, right, Ric? I think I’ll learn to love these small dark people and their tasty draught.

  Willem yawned, You’re right about their lips, at least. What does it mean, Fred? Their fat sucking lips.

  Finishing his beer, he exhaled slow through his long nose, It means they lie. Fat so as to hold back the truth, just as their skin is dark to keep out the Light and their forests overgrown to cast long and deep shadows. Their animals speak and their legends live and nothing is sacred, even their gods and their children. They’ll sell everything, everyone, for a few stones. Their small stature keeps their bodies warm because truth and reason are cold and stark, and so they’re taken by passion and whims. In only one generation we turned them from a land of trade to a land of money, giving their labor and food for a few rocks. Because they lack the faculties to think and rationalise, they give themselves to influences readily. Even their language, it’s soft and feminine because they lack the discipline to instil order and purpose. They’re a small creature living on dreams and the past world. In this way they remain beautiful, as children. Greedy yet pure and far from perfect.

  Faces, Ric, Elrik stuck his finger in the air and leaned forward, On and on and on he goes—Elrik mimicked Frederic’s expression and low, slow voice—The Rocan comes with might to make the world right!

  Willem choked and pounded the table, Look at him! Look at him, El! Always frowning like a sour whore, Fred, just like a sour whore.

  Frederic’s thin moustache flickered and he watched the Lucans, causing Willem and Elrik to break into more fits of laughter, He’s already tired of us, yes? Oh, to be sure, to be sure, El! Look at him, he’s wondering who the savages are. I can hear it already rising in his throat, yeah? That got a rise, didn’t it! That fathipped whore of a servant’s got his eye now.

  Which one?

  Willem and Elrik drank on and on and Elrik wandered the tavern approaching the young girls, speaking in low tones, then barking laughter and turning back to his companions. Willem criticised the size of the portions, Who cuts a roast this thick? Like they’ll be serving food for the rest of the century on this fat—what do they call this, Fred? This is cow? Doesn’t taste like a cow I’ve ever had. And what’re these, Fred? Apples, yes, too sweet, I think. Everything in this stupid world’s so sweet.

  Elrik returned laughing, beer staining his tunic, Well, the local talents want nothing worth listening to.

  Frederic yawned and swallowed more beer, What’s the next step, nephew?

  They looked at Alexander and waited. His cropped blond hair colored red by the candlelight reflecting off the sheen of his metallic cheek, he finished his beer, I think we’ve found home, boys. Not today, mind. But one day this will be mine and you’ll share it with me. All these that you see will be ours and that day’s approaching.

  On the westend at the confluence of the Aar and the Rau and across from the port loomed the ruins of an ancient temple. Over the centuries the large stone
tablets crumbled but the east wall remained whole. Wide stone steps led to the six meter square doorless entrance hewn from whole stones, the northfacing edifice appearing as if carved out of a mountain rather than built. Eight meters high and twenty wide and twenty deep, the temple’s pillars appeared as streams of water rushing into the ceiling to hold it. Atop the entrance stood a weatherworn and disintegrating statue of a creature with the fins of a shark but the shape of a woman. Headless, it watched nothing and no one but held a permanent vigil and reminder of the ancient world. Within were statues of long dead augurs and other strange creatures appearing to be both human and fish as well as great creatures of the oceans and seas, from whales to sharks to squids and dolphins. At the center, a pool of still water one meter deep and four meters in diameter set with the statue of a beautiful woman with alien features. From there the Aar bent east and the Rau continued south into the forest.

  Azura stood on the temple steps beside the others, his eyes painted, and his nakedness rubbed down in oil to take on light and glow. Watching the sailors bring their wares to the market, he catalogued the looks and the faces behind those looks, from young to old, male to female, shy to bold. Absently, he stroked himself, the blood running through and his skin on fire. Back and forth, the crowd of people a strange manylimbed organism, shifting and thrashing in all directions, shouting and singing and crying in thousands of mouths, in handfuls of languages, carrying and selling and transporting a million different things.

  Look at the fat hens marching the men, another bought boy with a thick black chest pointed at the Vulpen merchants shouting at their husbands and sons and men, making sure they did not drop any chests or wander too close to the temple steps and the crowd of young men flaunting sexuality.