Twilight of the Wolves

by Edward J. Rathke

  A different pull not from Death but from You, Mother! Not a pull but an elation yet the dread fills along with the hope and anticipation and the new year almost here! To feel the touch of Your hand again and the reverberation of Your voice!

  Who are you? Her voice like warm water from a strong current working as a torrent within, washing through and soothing, regenerating, birthing again and again.

  This one is no one.

  She frowns, Are you?

  The blood stops and the shell cracks spilling the memories before Her. Cast in Her bright Light all looks bare and stark and inadequate and the knees hit the marble and the forehead crashes down with a thud over and over, the base of the spine stabbed by a thousand knives that roam over the body below the surface of the skin and there are no shadows to hide in, no darkness to console.

  Rise, no one.

  Not to look at Her, to hide but there is only Light blinding the eyes and the tears and blood vaporise on the skin.

  What have you done this year in the world?

  The throat closes and locks and breath does not enter and the body convulses and the stomach empties but there is nothing and nowhere and the Grey is nowhere but the Ravens’ soft hands take firm hold and Her brilliance scorches away all without and the throat clicks and shallow words expel from a ragged and rotting voice, This one was afraid!

  And the storm ends and the Light softens but one cannot look and cowers from Her touch. The knees strike the floor with a bony crash and the forehead hits the marble over and over.

  This one has failed You, Mother, sweet Mother, eternal child. This one has failed The One Who Lives.

  Her hand and the skin sloughs away and the shell is lost but She consoles and the tears burn away from the skin bursting with Her Light, Dear no one, Her voice swirls and rearranges all within and the Light creates something deep within, Do not fear Me.

  The blood rolls down the nose from the forehead and the blood from the nose rolls over the lips without taste.

  You were not ready and there is no shame there. You have died a thousand thousand times for Me this long year away, all alone. It is a trying time with the humans killing themselves endlessly. We need all of you to do the best you can and I see the year now and know your doubts and your fears and your desires. But no one must have no desires and so you will stay here for a year. You will wash and you will read and copy. But you will learn to leave the body behind. Ever since you were born here, you’ve held on to the past and the living. The past is the body and the living. Who are you?

  This one is no one.

  And what have you done?

  This one died to live and die forever.

  You are Our daughter and you will die forever.

  This one is Your daughter and will die forever.

  What was it like?

  It was frightening and terrible. This one could not control or bear to see it anymore. The boys are all dying and their limbs fall off or are blown away or burnt away. The world is on fire and drenched in the blood of children. Why do only the children suffer?

  It is always those without choices who suffer most from those who do.

  Mother, oh Mother, the pain within and without and all around was unbearable and unfathomable. At first there was only the forest and the world was a forest. This one felt the vast expanse of history stretching all back to the wolves. It was all visible and within but seen from without. Comprehensible and personal, every detail as if it always existed within.

  All the world exists within us. All memories of the past and the future exist, even from past and future worlds. Every echo is the sound of the past and every dream is the mark of the future. You who do not dream do not know but the future is written in the surreal skies of the Dreamers who are the only creatures touched by the Mother.

  The Dreamers, Mother, dear Mother?

  Not now, no one. Some day you will know but it will not be today. Go rest and hear and wash, you have journeyed long but now you’re home. Tomorrow you will be born again.

  He carried her and she cried. She cried and did not stop. Watching him with the child, the wolves lay huddled together. The female rolled over and offered her teats with a moan. Large golden eyes on him, he looked at the child and back to the wolf. Sitting beside her and stroking her fur, he said in his own tongue, Afraid.

  The village was small and he approached as they ate the first meal of the day, the suns hovering in sync at the horizon. Soft feet and they did not hear him until the child cried causing them all to stop eating and turn to the stranger with long black hair and pale skin approaching.

  The child needs a wetnurse, he said in Limpa then Garasun and his own tongue.

  They watched him, chewing, turned to one another and, to a signal Sao did not see, a handful—three women and a man—rose to meet him.

  Holding the crying child, brown and screeching with limbs wriggling and tears absent, he studied their hard round faces.

  In a dialect of Limpa the woman said, Where did you take her from? Her tone accusing, her face scrunched in consternation.

  Look at him, the man said, He stole her! We can’t let him keep her.

  What’s that on his cheeks, uh? Not normal, some kind, uh?

  Think he’s a prisoner?

  Maybe worse, the first woman said and took the child from Sao. Turning, they left him at the edge of the clearing.

  She comes from Luca—they did not stop—I went there to save them—they did stop but did not turn—the soldiers came and burnt it down. Luca is no more and she is all that has escaped. If you would rear the child, that would be best, Sao turned and began to walk away.

  Stranger, the woman bouncing the child in her arms spoke, Is it true what you say?

  Ng, he nodded.

  Why, the man said, would soldiers destroy Luca?

  Which soldiers?

  Does it matter?

  Uh, it does to me! The Crown’s not the Federation and if Drache then the war’s not going well.

  Vulpe burnt her to the ground and slaughtered all who tried to run.

  More of the village gathered round and listened, nodding grimly. Stranger, she said, come and eat with us. Tell us your tale.

  I have wandered for over six years through the forest and the Federated States and finally made my way to Luca when I saw the soldiers. I ran ahead unseen and warned them but no one would listen. The soldiers were dressed for war with their swords and their rifles and fire. The fire did come and it burned long after I left. It may still be burning. It will burn through all history. Mighty Luca reduced to ash. Within, a woman stopped me. Her skin was melting and her body was broken. She smelt of Death so strongly I was shocked she could see, but she held the child to me and begged me please. And so I took the child but the child needs milk and I have none. So I am here to beg you to care for the child.

  He sat on the ground with the somber faces circled round, watching him, some with tears in their eyes—My boy went to Luca to make a living and now I may never see him again, one wailed—their lips small and grim on their faces. The large fire burned behind the concave crowd of villagers congregated to investigate the outsiders. Past the fire were the homes of the villagers and past that the forest cast shadows. The suns rose together in the east and made their slow travel across the sky. She nursed the child, her face pleasant and round with plump cheeks and a thick ruddy neck, What is your name, stranger?

  I am Sao.

  Welcome, Sao. I am Mira and this is Hun, my partner—he waved, smiling—These others—some smiled, some stared indifferently—are, well, they can tell you their own names, huh. This girl is hungry! What is her name?

  I do not know.

  Well, that won’t do! We’ll have to think of one for you, won’t we, uh? She bobbed the child and spoke in lilting song.

  Breakfast carried on and the village’s delicate ecosystem shifted to accommodate the newcomers. The converted choreography of the village, men and women bowed in and out to do their day’s work, and ch
ildren came to stare at the child and the pale stranger with the curious marks upon his cheeks. Sao smiled and played with the boys and girls who pulled on his hair, laughing, singing, calling him Auntie.

  They tended the fire and maintained a meter-high flame adding more and more wood to it.

  Why do you keep the fire even during this summer heat?

  A short woman with wide hips and a thin face cleared her throat, Don’t all do as this? These days of the dualsun—she pointed to the rising stars—when they mate in the sky as a single bright flame, The Season of Fire, uh? We purge the last year away in fire for the Red and Blue gods. Uh, never heard of such, uh?

  Sao shook his head.

  Hun returned from the fire wiping the sweat from his face, Where are you from?

  Far to the south and west.

  Several voices grunted at once. Mira fed the child—She’s a hungry one! You weren’t kidding!—smiling and halfdancing, humming a melodic and repetitive tune.

  Auntie, a girl with crimson hair and almond skin grabbed Sao’s hand and leaned heavily on his shoulder, Is it true you don’t know about the gods of Light? her face so close that her breath was on his face.

  He set his bowl of millet down beside him, I have never heard.

  She laughed and dropped into his lap, kicking her legs, Auntie! Mum, did you hear what he said?

  A thick woman with sagging breasts nodded and smiled with scant yellowed teeth. The girl rolled out of his lap and ran with the other two and three year olds, circling Sao and the other, always returning to his orbit and running hands through his hair, against the fabric of the blue vest he still wore.

  I would be honored if someone would inform me about these gods.

  Hun snorted and rolled his eyes and a few men and women did not acknowledge the words but sat around the fire drinking a clear liquid in small sips. An old woman with rotting teeth cleared her nose and spit, and waddled over to Sao, squatting on her haunches. I will tell you, she said, her eyes small on a round face canyoned by age: Before there was the world there was an egg. From this egg emerged a great tortoise. The tortoise swam through spacetime from edge to edge and through the fabrics of realities layered one after the other through the many planes. It discovered a great eagle flying alone through spacetime. The tortoise asked the eagle how she flies through eternity to which the eagle asked how the tortoise swims where one is meant to fly. The eagle soared away and the tortoise swam in the opposite direction. They continued in directly opposite ways but converged again a thousand thousand years later. All alone in the vast emptiness of spacetime, the tortoise asked the eagle if it would do the tortoise a favor to which the eagle obliged. What would you have me do, said the eagle, and the tortoise said, Take me in your talons and show me what it is to fly. The eagle laughed but took the tortoise and flew through the infinite. After a thousand thousand years the eagle let go of the tortoise and laid a red egg. Seeing this the tortoise laid two eggs, one blue and one green. The red egg hatched and out came the seven moons and a red dragon. From the blue egg hatched a blue dragon and the green egg did not hatch. The red and blue dragon coupled and mated and the red dragon gave birth to three suns, one red, one blue, and one purple. The eagle and tortoise were pleased and eagle asked if tortoise would show it what it meant to swim through eternity and so tortoise and eagle swam away. The green egg that did not hatch became the world and it circled the three suns and the dragons watched over their children. The red sun and blue sun grew closer and closer and fell in love but the purple sun became jealous. It grew a face and teeth and legs and wings and a tail and became a dragon. The purple dragon ate its parents, the red and blue dragon, and chased its sister suns through spacetime until they became lost and could no longer see one another. The purple dragon raped the red sun and it bore its offspring which descended to earth as the dragons who would become human. After a thousand years the blue sun found its sister and swallowed the purple dragon, and the red and blue suns embraced and promised to never lose one another again. And so twice every year the suns come together to remind one another of their promise.

  That is beautiful, Sao said.

  The old woman smiled, And that’s why the fire must burn for all of summer, as sacrifice to the gods above for protecting the sky and freeing the world from the jaws of dragons.

  What do you sacrifice?

  She laughed, a hoarse and sour noise, which softened her face and made it more pleasant though dirty, Oh, this and that. Sometimes a rabbit if we’re lucky. Truth, uh? Life is a struggle and excess mounts to mostly shit! She cackled and hobbled back to the fire.

  The suns wandered directly above them and the fire burned. The men who tended it were drunk and loud but ignored Sao and the crowd of children. The villagers loitered and wandered back and forth, not working but not sitting idle. Mira carried the child with her back and forth, talking with Hun and the men, with the other women, laughing and singing.

  A young woman with shallow eyes and limbs as thin and frail as sticks sat beside Sao. Her breasts were small with large black pointed nipples and her hair curled slightly about her face. Smiling she said, I’m Onca.

  I am Sao, he picked up his forgotten millet and pushed it around with his wooden spoon.

  She ran her small hands through his hair, eyes wide and mouth open, It’s so soft, she pulled it to her face, smelling it, rubbing her cheeks. Uh, never have I touched hair like this. You are a special man, Sao.

  He smiled but did not look at her.

  Braiding his hair she sang without words and the young girls returned with flowers they dressed and tied into his braids. Onca leaned closer and closer until her breasts pressed against the skin of his arms, You’re on fire, Sao. What does that mean, uh? Sao?

  Star, he smiled at her.

  She inhaled sharply, her eyes grown, Your eyes! Uh! You have the most beautiful eyes! How did they come to you, uh?

  Sao smiled and looked down, pushed the millet round the bowl, the flowers covering his head.

  Leaning close, nose almost touching his, Onca’s eyebrows curled, Sister Sao, what is upon the cheeks there, uh?

  Sao looked at the bowl of millet in his hands and ate, It is the mark of the wolf.

  She gasped and lurched back to her elbows, the others turned to him as he finished the bowl and set it down and did not meet their gaze.

  Onca was on her feet pointing at him, He is marked by wolves! Slowly the men began to rise and the women stepped away, the children stopped where they were, watching the angry faces of their families and the placid expression of the stranger. Onca stepped back on her skinny legs, He’s a demon! A wolf! By nightfall they’ll be howling within earshot, uh?

  A man ran into a home and returned with a rifle and Sao’s vision narrowed on it. His heartbeats came in rapid succession but he did not move, his anatomy calculating the aberrant gusts of spacetime.

  You’re cursed! a new voice rose, breaking through the silence. He’s cursed, uh, and bringing it to us! The wolves’ll be here, uh, warrant they will!

  Sao heard the rifle click and he rose, I will not let any harm come to this village as long as the child is here, as long as hearts yet beat.

  Hun’s frown was deep and he tugged at the ends of his long stringy moustache, Uh, he’s a demon, his voice was soft but harsh as the cleave of an axe. The child is a spawn, a seed of evil. He plants it here and nurtures it to eat us all alive from inside out. That’s why it’s nameless and hungry, because it needs the blood of humans to live—his voice rose with each word—Take it back! Mira, put it down or throw it to the flames!

  Mira’s face grew from anxious to frightened to despair. Hun ripped the child crying from her hands and ran to the fire. Mira’s expression, complex, emotional geometry, she rubbed her empty hands and hugged herself.

  Hun shouted, his words and movements slurred, We have our sacrifice! The demon’s child! This wolfspawn!

  A wind boomed through the villagers knocking them clear and they turned to see Hun’s
headless body fall from Sao’s hand with the crying child in his other.

  They ran from the fire and into their thatched huts and Sao stood staring at his hand. Still, the wind blowing, flowers fluttering from his hair. Tears came and he covered his face in his hand, the blood painting him monstrous, the child screaming. Staggering away from the village, he turned back to see the faces peering at him through the small windows, then his gaze fell to his bloody hand. Slow steps away, the screams followed him into the forest and for many days after.

  The child will die if you do nothing, her voice inside him, deep and sonorous, reverberating against his bones.