Twilight of the Wolves (17 page)

Little heart, no. You must never leave him or he will fall apart. Without you he will lose Life and the Light. He needs you so that he may live and one day be happy. He does not know what he searches for or where he will find it, but he knows that none of it matters without you.

All I want is for him to be happy, Faoi.

There is a fierce power burning within him. He fears it more than anything and so it consumes him more and more with each passing moment. He lives with a constant limit upon himself, binding his wolfheart in chains to keep himself human. He will not eat meat or give into his passions because he believes he will lose himself if he gives in. He is correct in a way. He stands at the precipice of transformation. The slightest push will take him away, make him something new. If he continues to fear that which is within him, it will eat him alive and he will become a monster. He must take the next step willingly and consciously. He must choose but he does not understand and does not want to understand and so it burns him. He is afraid of this power and he runs from it because he has seen what it can do. It will take him. It should have taken him. You are all that keeps him human. He has killed for you. Killed to save you and keep you alive. It is hard for him to kill another human just as it would be impossible for me to kill a wolf. It is anathema, abominable, but he has done it for the love he has for you. You and the love he holds for you.
It is all he has. All he wants. To remain human and for you to live. I can hear it in his heartbeat and smell it on his breath. His love for you is all he has.

Aya’s tears dried upon Faoi’s snout and her breath calmed in slow whimpers stuttering through her, Will he always be with me?

Dear sweet child, your Sao will never leave you, Faoi nuzzled her. Your Sao belongs only to you. Now and forever.

The Twilight Day came and Sao woke with the dawns to breathe. Faoi and Hreao sat erect watching him. Aya sat beside him, imitating. Opening her eyes to see him silent and still, she closed her eyes again. She yawned and watched him, then closed her eyes and breathed when Sao breathed, her legs crossed like his, her hands in the same position as his.

Hreao smiled and howled. Faoi joined him and far away another howl and then another, and the forest filled with the howls of wolves stretched across the forest that was the world.

The rivers met at the steps of a stone temple housed and preserved by the forest. Fifty meters wide and eight meters high, a vast square structure covered in grime and colored by weather and growth. Aya stopped, blinked again and again, What? she broke off.

Sao put a hand on her shoulder, Let’s go see.

They walked to the edge of the steps where Hreao yawned and lay down. The pillars carved as streams of water holding up the roof and a great expansive entrance gaped before them with the statue of a demon, half fish and half woman, watching over the temple from the back of a great and monstrous tortoise. Many more such creatures were carved into the walls along with men and women in long flowing clothes that turned into waves of water. Whales and sharks and dolphins and squids claimed spaces on the walls or stood atop the entrance beside the demon
and tortoise.

Sao stepped onto the stone and turned to Aya smiling, Want to see inside, little one?

She smiled taking Sao’s hand as he helped her up and Faoi lay beside Hreao and licked his eyes causing him to snort and paw her away.

Within the temple, all was dark and the shadows turned the statues of gods and demons and augers grotesque and Aya squeezed Sao’s hand, their steps echoing against the thick walls, the scent of mildew and decay filling their nostrils. Walking slow and halfblind by the darkness they approached the central pool. Sao took a step and found no ground, plunging into the water and pulling Aya with him, her echoing scream piercing the wolves who jolted to the entrance only to hear Sao’s laughter multiplying to thousands of voices bouncing off one another. Aya screamed at him and splashed and they wrestled in the shallow water, Sao lifting her into the air to fall once more with a splash.

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 devotion 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.