Trickster Races the Lightning Wolf

by Meghann McVey

able to face defeat,” Trickster said.

  Yeves growled. “I do not face defeat! I will not believe it!” Yet his tone and eyes were wary, guarded.

  Trickster experienced a surge of relief that even the gods were bound by some inescapable laws; otherwise Yeves would have torn him apart by now. Nonetheless, lingering seemed ill-advised.

  “I’ll be off, then,” Trickster said. “If you want me, I’ll be at the gate.”

  Yeves rumbled his wrath. “Mark me, mortal. If I find the true victor’s rose buried in this mess, the snake, and the turtle will –“

  “You have not yet found it,” the bobcat pointed out. “And I have seen no other roses in your entire realm.”

  Yeves gave a bark that caused Trickster to jump and the bobcat to bristle. “Perhaps you should also seek the victor’s rose, too, since the fairness of the match is your charge.”

  The bobcat turned her attention to a paw. “This is not my realm. Nor are you my master. I advise that you speak to me with courtesy.”

  Yeves turned back to his task, ripping the ground with a ferocity which nearly caused Trickster’s calm to desert him.

  “Mortal,” the bobcat said when she had washed her face. “I will give Yeves until sunrise to dig up this field. Until then, stay away from his treasure.”

  “I will.” His second lie. And still the gods said nothing.

  He was about to leave the meadow and begin the long hike to Yeves’s lair, when Nath stirred.

  “Your wound!” Trickster squinted. Perhaps the dim was fooling his eyes. But as he ran his hand down the serpent’s body, he felt only unbroken scales. “How…?” he whispered. Suddenly it was not so surprising. Nath was a god’s steed, after all.

  As they flew from the meadow, Trickster stared after the lightning wolf in awe. Even if Yeves were his enemy, he was a legend brought to life!

  “You’ve done it,” Elbadu was saying through the medallion. “I can’t believe you swindled him!”

  “I had to retaliate for the surge,” Trickster admitted. “I want to get the treasure as soon as possible. Who knows when the real victor’s rose will emerge?”

  With Nath’s help, Trickster soon returned to Yeves’s lair. Gathering the wolf’s wealth, Trickster estimated he could carry just enough to regain his family and perhaps one or two pieces to serve as mementos during story-telling. How he wished for a caravan to carry away the impressive statuettes and strange weapons, for entire saddlebags he might devote to precious metals in their different shapes.

  A crash resounded from the other side of the chamber. Trickster yelped, then stuffed a fist into his mouth. He peered out from one side of the mountain of gold and nearly dove back behind it when he heard something scraping against the floor. Then Nath came into view, dragging a solid metal key as big as he was.

  Trickster nearly fell from relief. “I suppose you should get something, too,” he said. “You are the reason we won.” He came closer to Nath and stared, puzzled at the giant key.

  “You don’t want that, surely. It’s so dingy, probably not valuable at all.”

  Nath’s amber eye blinked, but the flying serpent made no move to release the key from his talons.

  “Okay, if that’s what you want.” Trickster hoped Nath’s treasure wouldn’t keep him from flying. “Let’s leave this place. I have the feeling that Yeves is going to pounce any minute!”

  Nath lowered himself so Trickster could mount. Their flight to the gate was brief and uneventful – if rather crooked and bumpy from Nath’s load. Several times the normally-smooth flier dipped, unbalancing Trickster’s load and sending jewels and coins into the mist.

  “What did you choose?” Elbadu said when Nath and Trickster returned to the gate.

  “I’ll show you.” Trickster emptied the treasures of his coat and shirt. “Nath wanted something, too,” Trickster said.

  “What would he…? Oh Nath!” Elbadu exclaimed when he saw the key.

  “What is it?” Trickster said.

  “How fortuitous,” Elbadu said. “Trickster, take the key from Nath and press it against the top center of the shell.”

  Trickster scratched his head. “Very well.” He supposed it was the least he could do for Elbadu after the god had given him the second chance to race Yeves.

  When the metal touched the shell, fog poured from the place, golden as though the sun shone behind it. Trickster gasped and stumbled backwards. The key landed in the grass. The gate to Yeves’s realm, which had been so subtle when Elbadu called on its power, flashed lightning blue. Then a gentle rain pattered from the clouds. To Trickster’s great surprise, a ray of light, pure and clean, skipped across the land. A dozen more shone forth. Upon the hand he raised to his eyes, Trickster felt a gentle warmth. “Amazing,” he had barely whispered when he saw how his companions at the gate had changed.

  No longer was Elbadu the gatekeeper, a leathery old tortoise deliberate and slow. Were he a Yioka tribesman, he would be the size of a youth, only so slender Trickster thought of the delicately-carved reed flute it was Prudent Song’s talent to play. Elbadu’s skin was the green of new leaves, and in his eyes, youth and age were present simultaneously.

  “Thank you, Trickster.” No longer did Elbadu speak with tortoise’s crusty baritone. His voice was neither male nor female; it blew as wind in the riverside thistle and drummed as the mightiest of waterfalls.

  Then came a hum, drowsy summer above the prairie grass.

  “Nath thanks you, too.” Elbadu smiled with teeth like white pearls.

  Nath hovered beside him, a dragonfly with a body as thick as the dark serpent he had been. Now, however, he shone cerulean and violet, with iridescent wings humming from his sides.

  “We showed Yeves, didn’t we, Nath?” Trickster’s heart felt so light he thought he might float beside the dragonfly. “Such stories I will have to tell Prudent Song and the girls when I come home!” Speaking their names, Trickster remembered the wealth he had taken from Yeves’s chamber. “Thank you both,” he said to the god and his dragonfly steed. “I would that I could stay with you. There is much to talk about. But my family needs this wealth.”

  He reached down to gather up his treasure. However, when he did, his eyes bulged. The treasure that would save his family was oozing down the side of the gate, turned, it seemed, to mud!

  “No,” Trickster whispered.

  Elbadu’s slight shadow fell over him. “Haven’t you heard the stories? When riches from Yeves’s hoard are taken from his realm, they are reduced to earth.”

  “But we are still…”

  “The key broke his spell. I am restored to my rightful domain, and so the riches are no longer in the territory of Yeves. Were you to return to the hoard’s source, you would find the same fate has befallen the wealth there.”

  “That can’t be.” Trickster slumped over the sludge and let it run through his hands as though doing so would restore its original shape. “No tale I ever knew of Yeves so much as mentioned that his wealth could not be carried away intact.”

  “It appears that he has paid you back, trick for trick,” Elbadu said with mild laughter. “Or that mortals remember only what they wish. Oh, it will be grand when this realm is green again. That will be the first step in clearing this infernal mist – Trickster, what is it?”

  “I came so far,” he murmured. “If there were any chance before, now it surely is too late.”

  “Too late for what, Trickster?” Elbadu asked.

  “I never told you; my shame was too great. But I came to this place seeking a treasure that could buy back my wife and daughters who I lost in a bet. I was already losing badly. I had to take the chance to restore what was mine, no, my wife’s. She would have been angry if I had told her how much I lost. Of course, she was far angrier to hear I lost the bet with her and our daughters as stakes. I was to have six days to redeem myself. I do not know how time passes in
this strange place. Perhaps it was too late many nights ago. But now, with this…” Again he cupped the sludge in his hands.

  “Do you have the bones that I changed into white roses?” Elbadu said at last.

  Gods, Trickster reflected, had strange notions of what was comforting. “I do. All but the one I pretended was the victor’s rose.”

  “Good. Get them out for me, please.”

  Elbadu came beside Trickster – now that the god was restored to his original size, there was more than enough room for both of them atop the ancient gate – but did nothing. Several cycles of sunlight and shadow passed over them until Trickster felt quite confused.

  Then a wind passed over the gate, not heavy and oppressive as those preceding the wrath of Yeves, but as gentle as a caress and clear and fragile as a shallow sunlit puddle.

  When Trickster turned his questioning gaze from the god back to what had been wealth and bones, he saw a fine pot in the roses’ place.

  “Lift the cover,” Elbadu insisted.

  Trickster did, and together he and Elbadu savored a scent so green and fresh it seemed taken from the day earth herself was born.

  “What is it?” Trickster asked, replacing the cover.

  “Have you ever wondered what Deft Hands does with all the wealth he wins?” Elbadu asked.

  “All of us have. Prudent Song once said he must bury it before we leave a campground. Many young boys and some not so young stayed behind to dig up the ground when we left.”

  “Yet they found nothing. You remember