Fantasy For Good: A Charitable Anthology Page 11

*~*~*~*

  One morning, not long before dawn, Snow Wolf awoke with the feeling it would soon snow. He left the sleeping closet quietly, that he might not disturb his wife, and stepped almost as carefully around his henchmen who were sleeping in the central hall, along the pit where the embers of last night’s fire still smoked. He went out the front door and, standing before the house, looked into the sky. Light was beginning to rise in the east, but the sky was still the dark radiant blue of predawn.

  The sky was clear, but Snow Wolf’s feeling became a certainty. It would snow soon. He must leave, or he would change.

  Suddenly he had another feeling–as if a spirit standing behind him had whispered, You will not escape the change this year.

  Then he did hear someone behind him. Snow-white hairs rising on the back of his neck, he turned. His wife was standing at the door of the house.

  “I’ll be leaving today,” he told her.

  She looked at him sadly. “I knew it would be soon. Your hair has been foam-white for a week.”

  From among the things he might have said, he said this: “You were to tell me.”

  For a moment she said nothing. Then she whispered, so low he could hardly hear her words, “Stay with me this year. Don’t go away. I miss you so.”

  He knew that she took other men while he was away. But, though this hurt him, he did not blame her. He knew it made her unhappy, too. And: he had loved her because her blood was hot, like summer, like the south. That was why he had chosen her.

  It was his blood that he blamed: the blood that brought the change.

  “It’s for you I go,” he said, knowing she would misunderstand. (No one who had witnessed the change had ever survived.)

  “We don’t need the gold,” she said desperately, misunderstanding. “It’s you that I need.”

  If he could have sung to her, as he sang when the change came upon him, then he might have explained. But he could not sing, he could not explain: all he could do was say.

  “I will leave before nightfall,” he said.

  She turned and went back into the house.

  Before sunset, he said to the spirit standing behind him.

  Too late, the spirit sang. Too late: you will not escape the change.

  Snow Wolf knew the spirit, which he recognized as his own, was right. But the man within him was still stronger than the other. He might fail. He would still try.

  *~*~*~*

  Snow Wolf left Hvitaness and went to a place among the Westfjords. Trading ships were still there and he took passage on one to Norway. But a storm blew out of the south and east, driving the ship against the lee shore of Snaefells Strand. The ship broke on the rocks and the dark blue sea poured in. But Snow Wolf was taken up by the waves and thrown alone onto the shore. If any others from the trading ship survived, they do not come into this story.

  Snow Wolf lay on the shore for part of a day. He had broken one leg and a shoulder in the wreck of the trading ship and could hardly move. Before sunset some people came down from Ulfstad to the shore. They found Snow Wolf and carried him back to Ulfstad between them. They put him to bed in a servants’ sleephouse and tended his wounds.

  Evening Wolf was displeased when he found what his servants had done. He did not like strangers or beggars, he said, nor servants who wasted his stores and spent his money. (Because it was clear the shipwrecked stranger would have to stay the winter.) And when he heard Snow Wolf’s name his face became terrible to see and he snarled like a dog.

  His servants knew it was no use talking to him in his evening mood so they left him alone. The next day Evening Wolf grudgingly gave out that the stranger could stay. But his eyes were red as blood as he spoke, and it was obvious he would have preferred it otherwise.

  From that day Evening Wolf became increasingly bad-tempered with his own people, prone to sudden rages and little given to useful work. He spent much of his time pacing around the garth of the stead, and especially around the sleephouse where Snow Wolf stayed. He sniffed the air constantly and complained many times of a stench, but people paid no attention to this.

  One day, about two weeks after Snow Wolf’s arrival, Evening Wolf was in the main hall of Ulfstad talking with a neighbor who had come to get some advice. (Evening Wolf was shrewd and capable; he was always ready with advice or any kind of support for those he considered his friends.)

  The neighbor, Nord of Nordstad, was sitting in the hall before the open front door, for it was one of the last really warm days; Evening Wolf was opposite him. They were discussing the matter in hand when suddenly Evening Wolf looked out the door with an expression of sheer hatred.

  “He stinks,” snarled Evening Wolf.

  Nord looked out of the door also. He saw a small well-knit man with snow-white hair and beard taking a few limping steps in the yard. He guessed this was Evening Wolf’s unwelcome guest, of whom he never ceased to complain.

  This was the first time Snow Wolf had walked since his bones were broken, and his skin was beaded with sweat in the cool sunlight. But his face was calm. He walked from the sleephouse to the garth, then walked slowly along the garth, supporting himself with one hand. Nord admired his determination (the exercise was obviously causing him great pain) but did not say so to Evening Wolf.

  “His sweat stinks,” the red-eyed man continued. “His piss stinks. His shit stinks.”

  Nord did not say anything to this.

  “I go out and piss by the sleephouse every night,” Evening Wolf said confidingly, “but it does no good. It still stinks of him. I think he’s been pissing around the yard. If I catch him at it, I’ll kill him.”

  Nord began to think he had better go. It seemed as if the evening mood were coming over his host, though it was hardly past midday.

  “You know why he came here?” Evening Wolf asked.

  “Men say he was shipwrecked,” Nord replied.

  Evening Wolf laughed derisively. “He came to take my bitches and kill my cattle. Kill and eat, kill and eat, that’s all he understands, all he wants. And he wants my followers, too. There’s many a man of them capering at his heels already. The young ones, the stupid ones. They’ll find out. I’ll rip his throat out, and then they’ll know the bark and the bite and the blood like never before. Kill and eat. Kill and eat. Kill and eat. They’ll kill ‘til they’re sick of killing, eat ‘til they’re sick of eating—”

  He was shouting by this time, having risen to his feet. Nord rose also, but could do nothing other than stand and stare.

  Then Snow Wolf approached. He limped over to the front door of the house. Evening Wolf fell silent. It was the first time they had faced each other. Snow Wolf spoke through the open door.

  He greeted Evening Wolf and Nord politely and by name. “My name,” he added, “is Snow Wolf, but I would be only a dead dog were it not for the hospitality of Evening Wolf the magnificent. I am indeed grateful. I shall not trouble him any longer, now that I can keep to my feet. My humblest thanks to Evening Wolf the magnificent, whose wisdom, courage and generosity are famous throughout Westfarthing.” And he held out his hands and lowered his head in an odd gesture of submission.

  He did all this seriously, without the slightest trace of mockery or sarcasm. But it was not, Nord thought, as if he were really being humble. That proud white head was incapable of real humility, of real submission. To Nord it seemed rather as if he were being magnanimous, trying to allay Evening Wolf’s insane anger for his host’s own good, no matter what it cost Snow Wolf in the esteem of those standing nearby. (For Evening Wolf’s raving had drawn quite a crowd of open-mouthed workers.)

  But the gesture of submission seemed only to increase Evening Wolf’s rage. He advanced through the open doorway in curt deliberate steps. “Get out! Get out!” He was shouting in short staccato bursts. “Go! Go! Go! Get out! Go!”

  Snow Wolf bowed his head even lower and backed away slowly.

  Evening Wolf screamed, like a hunting bird or a berserk. He leapt at the retreating man as if to a
ttack him. But Nord and many others rushed after Evening Wolf and held him down as Snow Wolf retreated to the sleephouse.

  Evening Wolf was screaming and snarling and snapping with his teeth like a mad dog. Then towards evening he grew more quiet, and they left him alone as usual.

  Nord stopped by the sleephouse before he left to return home. Snow Wolf had fallen unconscious on returning to the sleephouse and had not awakened yet. His broken leg was bent at an odd angle that reminded Nord of a dog’s leg.

  “Tell him when he wakes,” Nord said to the servants who slept there, “it will be better for him if he leaves here–better for him and for your master. Bring him to Nordstad when he wakes; he can winter with my people there.”

  Riding home, he almost regretted this offer. For there was something strange about Snow Wolf, a sanity stranger than Evening Wolf’s insane fury. But he owed much to Evening Wolf; if he could keep his old friend from the crime and shame of having murdered a guest, it would be a very small repayment. So he was well content by the time he reached the garth of Nordstad. But his meditation and his content came to nothing in the end, for Snow Wolf never went to Nordstad and Nord is now out of this story.

  *~*~*~*

  When Snow Wolf awoke it was already long after dark. He woke to the heavy complex rhythm of the servants’ breathing in the dark sleephouse. He felt his broken leg and decided it was strong enough to carry him. It would have to…

  Evening Wolf’s jealous rage proved that the change was very close upon him now. Indeed, Snow Wolf could feel it himself; he had almost forgotten why he had ever wanted to escape the change. He no longer wanted to.

  But, if the change came upon him here, it would destroy many of those who had so foolishly saved his life. He did not want that. His kind and their kind were enemies; one would prevail and the other would be destroyed. But Snow Wolf did not want to destroy them. So he had to depart and go into the unpeopled lands, before the snow fell and the change came.

  Carefully stepping over those sleeping by him, he walked over to the door, unbarred and opened it. The darkness outside was radiant with moonlight and the air was bitterly cold. He drank down the deadly air like beer and felt the change almost start within him in response.

  Then he became aware of the other; a hot feral stink rode the air. He glanced to one side and saw a hunched animal shape slinking toward the sleephouse. Its narrow doglike face was just visible in the half-shadows and its eyes in the moonlight glowed red as bright fresh blood. Then, without a single sound, Evening Wolf leapt.

  Snow Wolf slammed the door and threw his weight against it. Instantly the door was shaken by the impact of the leaping wolf. Snow Wolf, feet braced, managed to hold it shut and when the attacking wolf had retreated to strike again he lowered the bar and set it against the door.

  He was safe. A wolf’s strength is to pursue or flee; its ferocity is to rend and feed; its cunning is to seek out the hidden. No wolf or werewolf is fitted to carry out a siege operation against a house with locked doors and shuttered windows.

  Snow Wolf returned to his pallet and slept. He was still unsteady on his feet and he guessed he would get little rest tomorrow. As he dropped off he could still hear the wolf, snarling in frustration at the barred door.

  *~*~*~*

  Snow Wolf awoke before dawn and before anyone else. He made his way quietly to the door, unbarred and opened it.

  Evening Wolf, in human form, lay naked across a threshold thick with morning frost. His eyes were open, bloodshot and staring, but he was obviously not awake.

  He was not dead, either; Snow Wolf knew that from his smell. It would take something chillier than a morning’s frost to kill one such as Evening Wolf. He stepped over his naked senseless host, speculating on what the servants would say when they found him there. Would there be surprise? Or had it happened before? Would it be an occasion for retelling old stories, remembering old rumors, asking old questions?

  It was not his business, anyway. He climbed over the garth and walked away from Ulfstad, north and east, toward the stony unpeopled lands.

  *~*~*~*

  Steam and the comforting sheeplike reek of his people surrounding him, Evening Wolf awoke at noon. He was warm. The dry bitter stink of his rival, the cold heavy presence of an alien wolf in his territory, was gone. He sighed in content. Perhaps it had been a dream. Or perhaps he had killed Snow Wolf last night and had not remembered it yet.

  He sat up. He was naked in bed. Several of his servants were standing nearby, with stiff expressions on their faces.

  Then he knew. Without a word spoken he knew. They had found him naked and unconscious, scratch marks on the door of the servants’ sleephouse. The last he remembered was lying in front of it, snarling and whining.

  “Where is he?” he shouted.

  There was no need to explain whom he meant. “He left sometime during the night,” one of the servants said.

  “Gone?” Evening Wolf snarled. “Escaped? No!”

  That no was a hunting call, a howl that would gather his kin so that they could hunt the stranger, the victim, the prey. But the servants were not his kin. They stared at him in sheeplike confusion. They neither wagged their tails nor offered to touch noses. They must be insane.

  “Bring me clothing!” he barked.

  They paused and glanced at each other. Their master was clearly ill. Nord had been sent for, as well as other respected men of the region, who might be able to tell them what should be done. But these had not yet arrived.

  The servants brought him clothing, blue as death: tunic, trousers and cloak.

  He dressed in front of them, pulled on his boots and walked out of the house. He took no weapons and no provisions. He leapt over the garth and loped away, east and north, toward the stony unpeopled land.

  He had good hunting that day. The dry cold stink of his prey clung to the blue bitterly cold rocks, the thick dry turf, (gray with apprehension at winter’s approach). The wind, too, was rich with the scent. The blue clouds covering the sky threatened snow; he remembered that his prey was crippled and laughed.

  In late afternoon the trail crossed a scrub wood; the thick dankness of the scent proclaimed that his quarry had rested there awhile. Some of the wood had been cut and broken and he found a few scraps of torn cloth. He guessed that Snow Wolf had fashioned a brace for his hurt leg, so that he could travel more quickly. Evening Wolf laughed again. He liked a clever rival. Snow Wolf was clever, in a way. But he was not clever enough. It was stupid to be weak, clever to be strong.

  He continued the chase. Not much later he spotted his prey, hobbling among the upthrust rocks and ice-sheer slopes of the broken land.

  He shouted. He saw Snow Wolf’s white head bow down. The prey scurried even harder into the wasteland of broken stone. But it was too late for him, Evening Wolf told himself happily. Dusk was rising into the sky; the sun had set behind the dense blue clouds. Evening Wolf felt his mortal veins pulse with the magic of the change.

  There was always a brief emptiness when the change came. Evening Wolf had been running on two human feet among the high shattered stones of the waste land. Now he was rolling on his back, paws stretched out imploringly toward the dark starless sky, a human scream dying in his wolfish throat. His blue clothing lay in rags about him.

  He rolled to his four feet and tested the air. His prey had made some headway while the change was on him, but not much. He loped off in pursuit, soon catching up with Snow Wolf.

  Evening Wolf began to sing, that music of the werewolf more demanding than the strictest skaldic discipline, where word and music are one, the kennings as intricately complex and radiantly clear as polished gems. He sang readily, with practiced skill, as his padded feet traced a subtle shifting path among the rocks that lay roughly parallel with the gasping Snow Wolf’s course. But he broke off his song with dismay when he found he had abruptly lost Snow Wolf’s scent.

  The wind had steadily risen, driving hard through the broken passages of rock. But th
is was not a trick of the wind. Evening Wolf still caught the trace-scent of Snow Wolf’s path, the places he had passed. But the live smoking scent of the prey now eluded the predator.

  Evening Wolf leapt forward, running a swift arcing path ahead and around the end of Snow Wolf’s path. But the prey still hid from him. Grimly Evening Wolf continued the arc until he came almost full circle, crossing Snow Wolf’s trail. He abandoned the arc and followed the trail step by step. As he ran, nose to the ground, he kept his eyes with human cunning on the high broken pinnacles of rock on either side.

  Suddenly he was assaulted by a still pool of prey-scent, thick in the air, smoking with life. His eyes snapped down to the ground, where a pit yawned blackly before him. Two white hands were scrabbling scrabbling feebly at the verge.

  Evening Wolf snarled and lunged. The hands let go their precarious grip and disappeared in darkness. Evening Wolf heard Snow Wolf fall gasping to the ground.

  This was the answer, then: blind with fear, the prey had run straight into this pit and was now trapped there. Evening Wolf laughed and, laughing, wove his laughter into a wolfish song of triumph. He knew his prey could not survive a night’s cold in the pit. It would remain there and die. It would come out and fight. Either way the victory was his. He would kill and eat. He sang on.

  Meanwhile the wind was still rising. Dark shapes moved among the clouds.

  *~*~*~*

  Snow Wolf lay at the bottom of the pit. His improvised brace had come apart on his first fall and his leg had broken again on the second. Clearly he could flee no more: this business was almost over. A cold turbulent peace, not unlike a winter storm, began to settle on his heart.

  But there was one more chance. Evening Wolf was not now fully wolf any more than he had been fully human by day. If that lingering human part could be reached, perhaps he could convince Evening Wolf to go away. It was a feeble hope, but the one remaining to him now.

  “Listen,” Snow Wolf shouted to his enemy, “listen to me. I am a shape-changer, like you. You have guessed this. When the snow falls I’ll change—”