Twilight of the Wolves Page 16

  They found Hreao and Faoi sleeping but Aya scooped water into her hands and dumped it on Hreao’s head. He opened his eyes and smacked his jaws twice, grumbling, Children, and the humans laughed.

  Aya collected twigs from the forest and thanked the trees, bowing and running her hands over their bark, the heat kissing against her skin, the voices speaking gratitude and love into her even as their song continued in pain.

  Hreao, what is this place? she said.

  Hreao yawned and Faoi said, If we are the old gods than these are the oldest gods.

  Who?

  Sao built the fire and stared at the moons while Faoi continued, From when the world was the ocean. I do not know them but they were here before the trees. This was built by the ancient humans for those gods of the water. As dragons are the gods of the skies and wolves are the gods of the forest so these are the gods of water.

  I thought nothing was older than wolves.

  Hreao snorted, The world is unfathomably old and its memories stretch back infinitely. Even the dragons do not know its origin or what first existed here.

  An Angel flew overhead and they all watched it cross the sky like a shooting star.

  Five moons glowing, the wolves slept with Aya, and Sao watched the moons, Where are your sisters? he whispered.

  A song floated through the trees, different, not theirs but from another source. Beautiful and full of desire, sensual, Sao’s blood surged and he became engorged. Soft steps dancing through the long grass, she appeared. Standing naked at the edge of the trees, long redhair framing her pale body, redeyes glowing like the sun. Sao held his breath, sinking into the grass, his body light, burning. Approaching, one tentative step at a time, as if the high grass were a powerful river.

  The soft breeze blew against his erection but he did not move, did not blink, her image swimming into him, the taste of Life in his mouth, his eyes expanding, swallowing her.

  The song echoed in his ears, his brain rewiring, the notes connecting, expanding, melodies proliferating and taking root.

  And then Hreao stood, his fur bristled. The woman stopped and slumped with an audible sigh, the song ending. Smiling and winking, she turned, fell to all fours as a great fox, her seven tails lit by the moons, and she trotted into the trees.

  Hreao lay down and curled into himself.

  Sao held his breath, his heart waiting, the music gone, the night quiet but for the wind in the leaves and the elegy of the trees, What was that? he whispered.

  A fox.

  What did she want?

  Hreao snorted, It is hard to say but rarely good to know.

  Staring at the moons, Sao smelt the stone around his neck. He touched himself, holding his erection, the heat in his palm blazing, then let go, and rolled over, waited for dawns.

  Her hair falling down her back and sprouting between her legs grown slender and long, she huddled with Faoi in the fire’s glow.

  Am I human?

  Hreao snorted and Sao turned to her, his eyes soft, the sickle moons on his cheeks darker and his hair growing lighter, Of course you are. We’re human.

  Then why don’t we ever stay with humans?

  Humans can’t be trusted.

  But Faoi says that humans need one another. All the stories are about people together but there is only ever you and me. When we stop we leave too soon and we avoid them. I can tell. Why don’t we ever stay with the humans?

  I’m sorry, Aya. It’s not so simple as that. Humans fear wolves.

  But we’re not wolves. Faoi and Hreao don’t have to come too.

  Hreao snorted and yawned, The child wearies of our company.

  Aya frowned, her eyes lowered, her voice soft, Don’t say that. I love you, but you don’t need us around. You don’t even like humans. I just meant you could be near but you wouldn’t need to stay with us in the village.

  Faoi rubbed her head against Aya’s stomach and moaned until Aya scratched her great head causing Faoi to roll onto her back, where Aya scratched her chest and rubbed her stomach.

  I want to meet other humans.

  I’m sorry, Aya.

  She stopped and stood, You always say you’re sorry but you never do anything about it! I want to meet another human! I know you can take me and I know we avoid them. I’m not an idiot and I’m not a child anymore. Why are we hiding? Where are we going? I’ve spent my whole life in this stupid forest with you and your sad silent nights! Where are we going?!

  Sao faced her, his eyebrows turned upward, I don’t know.

  Stop looking so sad! I can’t take it! You’d think you were dying out here!

  Hreao snorted, his heavy gaze on Sao, Tell her.

  The air turned viscous around them and vibrations quaked through connecting their spines and hearts to the same vibration, the same cadence.

  Sit down, Aya.

  Scowling, she turned and ran into the night and Sao leapt to his feet but Hreao barked into him, No, and rooted him to the spot, the firelight dancing across his face of shame, fear, and sorrow.

  She will return, Faoi’s voice broke the binding, and it fell away like sifted sand. Let her run. She is more wolf than we know. She is called by her kind and the great moon above.

  All the moons shine tonight, Hreao said.

  Sao sat, Maybe I should let her go. She needs to be human.

  She is.

  But she is more.

  Yes, she is more than a girl. She speaks with us and knows. She is a wolf, like you.

  She will never be human in the way that you will never be human again.

  I did this.

  You saved her, wolfchild.

  She was a deadgirl and you brought her to life.

  It was my milk. It has been centuries since a human was weaned by a wolf. I am sorry, child. It was me who made her so. To save her life we had to give her a new one. That is the way of Life. We had a choice: Let her die a human or live a wolfchild. She will never be a wolf as she will never be a human. She is the Twilight, the space between night and day, between human and wolf, between mortal and eternal.

  She’s like me.

  No.

  We were both given gifts without our knowledge. The world bent to give us a gift that we didn’t understand. A gift we didn’t want, and now we must exist as nothing and no one.

  I am sorry, Sao. You do not understand who you are. You never will so long as you run.

  I want to find Yi, too, Hreao’s voice broke like thunder. If there still bloom lunar flowers, I want to go.

  It has been centuries since we have smelt them.

  What are the lunar flowers?

  Hreao yawned and stretched his legs and stood, I will find the child and watch over her. I smell violence. He howled and trotted into the night.

  Every time he howls my heart bursts and I burn for him.

  Sao smiled, You’ve been abstaining too long.

  A moment is eternity with him near and not touching me.

  For a long time I dreamt of a girl from my village. I used to think about her all the time but now I can’t remember her name or face. I loved her, though. Of all my years in the human world, she is the only girl I ever loved. She was the only one who touched me knowing how much it meant. I’ve spent my life outside of Life, always an other, always separate from the rest of humans, and now I’m barely even human. But that girl from the village accepted me, all of me, all of my otherness without fetishising it. In Vulpe it was different. Women came because of my otherness. They hounded me because I was a demon, because of this heat within me that burns them all to cinders from within. They see the marks on my face as a revolution or a symbol of power. A freed slave, an escaped slave, some religious sect, some form of aesthetic defiance, they believed my curse to be a thousand different symbols by which to categorise me into the type of man they wanted. Men were worse. It was more than fetishism to them, but a game of power. They wanted to possess me and control me and be me all at the same moment, in the same breath. They promised me love and devoti
on even as they tried to chain and hold me within. Maybe I have never been human. I don’t understand them and I never have. They call bondage and Death freedom and war peace. They call servitude love. They only want to control and possess but are afraid to live. They need one another but destroy each other so that they may have more. When I’m with them I feel alone. Hollow. I look up into the sky, into the fragmented moon, and I feel that absence within me.

  That is the wolf in you growing.

  Maybe but it’s always been there. My hollow. The only time I’ve ever felt whole or human was with that village girl so long ago.

  She was you.

  Sao blinked and then a shudder came from deep within him, shaking his heart, stealing his breath, and a silent cry fell from his lips, the tears in his eyes, blinking them away. In my village, we used to say that. To love was to become the same person. Maybe I’ve always been a wolf, he released a short laugh, the sound of tears.

  You will never be whole without her.

  I cannot return. Not like this. I’ve lost all that makes me human and I’m so far from home.

  Your home is everywhere the forest grows.

  Fingering the bright stone around his neck, What are lunar flowers?

  Faoi inhaled long and exhaled quick, Home.

  Holding it before his eyes, the indigo and violet swirled, taking the light of the fire and swallowing it, growing cooler and cooler, Home.

  When we awoke, the moon we came on was shattered to a billion grains of sand. The Lunar Sea we called it. At first nothing grew there and the ground shifted constantly and the haze was purple and silent and bright full of moonlight. After fifty years a lunar flower rose and bloomed through the sand. All the wolves from all of the world ran to it. The smell. We all smelt it despite the great distances. It was as if the suns were not there and then one morning we woke to discover light. It was the Light, a glimmer of the Dream. The Lunar Sea blossomed and every grain of sand became a lunar flower. White. So white they put the snow to shame. All the moons caught within their petals. I smell it in my dreams, even still. It is all we dream. Hreao would never tell you so but that is why we remain with you. At least it is why he believes we do. He will not believe that he cares for the child so and he likes you in his own way. The way a father loves a defiant and impudent son. The lunar flowers grew and became a paradise. The Lunar Sea became the Lunar Forest and the Lunar Forest became all the world. A few centuries ago, when the humans stopped living in peace with us, they burnt the Lunar Sea and all the lunar flowers. They burnt them all away.

  Faoi’s voice grew weak and she stopped, a whimper underneath her words.

  Sao touched her head, Only humans can be so cruel.

  We can never forget that but we can forgive and we have. We have forgiven but we will never speak to them again. There is no wolf left in them, only that desire to possess and control, to hurt and to have. Even at the expense of their own brothers and sisters and children, they destroy so that they may take. They burn the forest and it kills us. We weaken and unity breaks apart. The pain like a thousand teeth piercing us through, no, we will never be one with the humans again. This is why you are alone and why Aya hurts so. She feels the pain of the forest and the loneliness of the wolf just as you do, but she sees herself and knows she is not a wolf. She believes she is human and so she is displaced, doubly. Twice by humans. Humans murder the half that makes her wolf and do not accept the half that makes her human because of her wolfheart. She will never be free of this just as you will not be until you allow your heart to open and howl.

  He smelt the stone and his body cooled and his face grew placid, still, I will never kill again, Faoi. Never. I will never raise my hand in violence against anything, human or animal.

  Do you really want to see what human life is?

  Aya, sitting on a large rock, whittling a branch into a skewer, stopped but did not look at him, I’m sorry about what I said, her voice soft and her gaze at the shadow cast by the boulder onto the grass, I don’t want to go anywhere without you.

  His shadow merged into the boulder’s, cast from the opposite direction by a different sun, No, it’s time you see what you are. What humans are.

  She smiled and bit her lip to hold it in. Raising her chin, he was a silhouette on a red backdrop, Really?

  Ng.

  She leapt towards him, her arms around his neck, head on his chest. His arms came around her, hands clasped beneath her shoulderblades, and he kissed the top of her head where her long redhair curled wildly.

  You will finally see what you are.

  Hreao brought the bear to Sao who skinned it and cut its hide into patterns, fashioning clothes for Aya and himself.

  Aya wore the heavy bearskin tunic, itching her neck and shoulders, Why do humans wear the skins of others?

  They believe it makes them look nice.

  Hreao snorted laughter, Fools.

  It seems an evil thing to do, Sao.

  It is.

  Aya rode Hreao’s back and Faoi walked beside Sao, a strong southern wind whistled through the trees causing the wolves to grimace. Aya felt the pang and rubbed her palms hard against Hreao’s back, biting her lip.

  What is it? Sao scratched Faoi’s neck at the base of her skull.

  The world is screaming.

  Above them, an airship appeared through the cracks in the canopy, glittering in the suns’ converging light.

  The war’s spreading.

  The war is everywhere, Hreao snorted, The humans have torn down the boundaries between enemy and friend and so everyone and everything is now anathema to everyone and everything else. They have become other to themselves.

  What’s a war? Aya’s forehead furrowed.

  Sao’s eyes dropped, It’s when humans kill each other by the hundreds.

  Thousands.

  More than that now.

  Why do they fight?

  Sao shook his head and his lips moved but no sound came.

  Because they are foolish and young, Hreao’s voice ground against them, abrasive against the skull.

  Where do we go now, Faoi’s voice, the waves that wash against Hreao’s fatal cliffs.

  To find humans. Civilisation.

  Hreao laughed, dark and deep and dangerous.

  It is many moons from Garasu.

  All we must do is follow the scents. Humans live everywhere now. A village or anything and we’ll know where to go.

  But you do not speak the language here.

  We’ll learn. Aya’s still young. It’ll come easy.

  Faoi smiled, You are excited, wolfboy.

  Sao smiled, still watching the ground, It’s been a long time since I’ve seen other humans.

  Have you grown tired of us wolves?

  Hreao’s thunderous laugh and Aya’s trickling notes echoed against the trees.

  They came upon a raised road and Sao looked north then south then north then to Aya and the wolves, Which way?

  Hreao snorted and Faoi inhaled deep and said, South.

  Aya came to the edge of the trees and stopped, her heart, a wildfire pounding in her ears and swallowing the sounds of the world.

  Sao stood in the road and tapped his foot against it, This, he stomped his foot again, his eyebrows falling heavy. He looked around and saw Aya frozen and rushed to her, It’s okay.

  She nodded swallowing hard. Quick breaths in and out, she swayed, clenching and opening her hands, closing her eyes and inhaling deep, exhaling slow, rolling her shoulders with the process.

  I’m here, Aya. Everything will be fine.

  She nodded, vigorously.

  The wolves watched, sitting erect behind her.

  The suns fell from the sky and the clouds stretched over the moons.

  Sao put a hand on her shoulder then wrapped his arms round her and she cried, rooted to the treeline. He shushed her with soft syllables, swaying, It’s okay, Aya. We will stay in the forest.

  No, her voice flat, No. I’m ready.

  An hour
of heavy and shallow breaths, she opened her eyes, the blackness blinding her, and stepped forward into the warm grass. The weight of the world descended and she staggered but Sao’s hand was there, holding her up as she retched into the grass, tears in her eyes, snot strung from her nose, the music of the forest far away, muffled, as if underwater.

  On slurring legs, she reached the road and stepped onto its hot surface and hopped off, Why!?

  Sao and the wolves laughed.

  Turning to them scowling, her face unseen, I was surprised!

  Faoi was beside her pawing the raised blackstone, Dragonstone. This is an ancient land.

  Drache? Sao’s voice hung in the air.

  Hreao snorted, I would not walk this road.

  He is right, children. It is not safe to walk the path of dragons.

  Why? Aya’s voice a whisper.

  Come back to the trees and I will tell you a story—they followed her back but Aya remained beyond the trees, in the land of humans—I have told you both many stories and always about wolves. There is something you must understand, however. We are old. We are as old as the fracture in the moon and it is true that we were born from its descent and though we remember not all our memories remain true. A memory is only a recreation of the past. It is not the past. It is fundamentally and undeniably different from facts. To tell a story is to tell the other about oneself and to tell another about one’s history is to reinvent it in the telling. Every telling is different as every listener is different, subject to time and place and disposition. The memory of wolves stretches for thousands of years but we live thousands upon thousands. I remember when humans first stood and I remember drinking my mother’s milk but the stories I tell are only memories. They are not true. They only resemble truth and in this way they approach a different kind of truth. Humans obsess with accuracy while wolves share only the impressions and sensations of the past. For me to tell you of the ancient world is for me to recreate it, emotionally, sensationally, but not in acute detail. It is true that humans came from wolves but not all. Many humans arose from dragons and many more arose from neither wolf nor dragon. The ancient men, who lived before the dragons and wolves imitated them, were small and proud but lived in futility. They were animals, no more than dogs. It was our descendants and the dragons who built civilisation and law. This land comes from the dragons. Dragons are creatures of the sky and the mountains. Fire and rock, born from the suns, the forest is not theirs as the sky is not ours. The dragons do not dislike wolves but there is no love between us but we depend on one another in different ways. They are our balance in the skies and we are their mirrors in the trees as Ariel and Calibanians reflect each other and so we exist beyond glass. Understood but never touched. Dangerous, the land of dragons, created from fire and rock. They are the first invaders, the first conquerors of this world. Before all else, the dragons reigned here and even before this planet formed, the dragons flew through spacetime. They are not our sisters but our mirrors. We will watch over you, but be careful. The land and the sky no longer are safe.