Twilight of the Wolves (2 page)

For one hundred days, they sang and the wolves howled and the war began.

He watched it coming from far away while he watered the flowers. A speck in the spotless sky getting larger as the day wore on until it turned red and black.

After rice, he climbed the wall to see it clearer. Larger, the flag visible and he gasped when he watched it rain fire into the land below, scorching the forest and whomever stood underneath.

A Deathwalker saw him staring off into the world beyond and snapped him in the knee with his stick and pointed down to the work to be done below. Without waiting for another blow, he descended and scrubbed the marble of the square with the others.

The monastery grew more and more empty with each day passing. The constant Death beyond the walls called them away to tend to all of the dying and newly dead. More work, his hands grew coarser and his skin sloughed away even more, taking on the pale hue and bony features of the Deathwalkers.

The stories taken from the dead, transcribed from the memories housed inside, carried to the monastery by the thousand hands and mouths of the Deathwalkers, of Mother’s daughters. Stories of children grown to men and women who became bent by age and left the world as they came, quiet, in peace. The old stories of men and how they rose against the wolves, how they beat back the forest and built towns and cities and created the histories of civilisations. All humanity caught within the pages of the endless rows of books growing larger every day and accelerating with the beginning of the war. Deathwalkers returned to pour the lives of the newdead into the stacks of books.

The image bent and distorted by the meniscus of that which
contained the monastery, two Angels flew overhead, swirling in figure-eights, uniting and separating, then disappearing into the blushing sky. He drew their movements in the dirt and compared them to the notes he took of dragonflies and bees and the way they flew in springtime, in autumn, in summer. The flight paths of birds beyond the barrier that housed all his life, the way the Ravens took to the air, and now Angels all carried in the notebook he kept pressed against his heart.

Who are you?

His spine fissured, cracking through the pink of his lungs, This one is no one, his voice hoarse and high-pitched.

She smiled and his skin paled and burned in her supernova presence, Where do you come from?

Nowhere and nothing.

The Ravens tell Me you enjoy watching the living.

He fidgeted then bowed low, touching his face to the marble, eyes clenched.

Rise, no one. There is no shame in loving the living. It is for this reason that you lead them away and bring them to eternity where they may share in the Light and the unity of Life.

He raised his head slow, Yes, Mother.

Do you love them?

He nodded, blinded by her radiance, the heat filling him, transforming his solitude into a bond eternal between Her and him.

She touched his cheek and the world sloshed round him, thrown into disequilibrium, the balance of his center lost, tumbling full of Her ecstatic Light.

What day is it, no one?

This one died this day.

And what is tomorrow?

This one is born tomorrow, he raised his eyes to her solar gaze.

Happy birthday, no one. You are My hands and mouth. You have died so that you may live and die forever.

This one is Your daughter and will die forever.

The Ravens increased in number and The One Who Lives appeared more often outside Her cloister. Her Light blinded them and ceased work until the Ravens demanded them to continue with gentle words echoing in their skulls.

She stood over the gate and watched the war with a dimensionless gaze. He watched Her watching the world whenever no one watched him, whenever he was alone, and he sketched the glare of her Light. An itch grew inside him from deep in his bowels and rising through to his chest turning it heavy and light, at once, alternating, or empty, incomplete.

He sat on the shrine’s peak staring at the fragmented moon change color from white to orange and on into red. The colors refracted and blurred from the gloss encapsulating them. Raising a finger, he traced a profile in the hollow of the moon over and over, smiling.

Who are you, Her voice flushed through him.

This one is no one.

What do you desire?

His voice caught in his throat, Nothing. This one desires nothing. His pulse quickened, the blood rushing through him, the hollow inside filling with Her echo, the echo of eternity.

You must never lie to Me, no one.

He lowered his face and clenched his eyes shut, keeping the tears within, swallowing them.

She touched his face and his knees gave but She caught him, It’s okay, no one. Nothing lasts forever. Not even Me. Soon I will be another and then another after that and a thousand thousand others. I am only Her doll. I live but I am not real. She is the
reality. She is the Dream. I am but a shadow.

Mother, his voice a whimper, his body light, floating, the atoms separating, drifting apart.

Do you know what today is?

Today was the day this one died.

She smiled and let go of him and he fell into the Raven’s hands who set him standing again. She said, And tomorrow you are born again. Tomorrow you embrace Death and will enter the world once more.

He swallowed, his limbs tingling with swollen electricity.

Happy birthday, no one. Now you must give away the notebook you’ve kept here.

Blinking, sweat upon his brow and lower back, he reached inside his blackrobe and squeezed the beaten notebook in his pallid and frail hands. Shaking hands, his eyes shot back and forth between The One Who Lives and the notebook until a Raven’s blackness took it from him.

Tomorrow you are Death and there is much dying now. The world is at war. Thousands die every day. Children, the aged, the sick, but mostly young men. Older than you but if not for the war they would live for many more years. There are the countless who do not fight but who will die. Humanity is murdering itself but it is murdering the planet, too. Burning and laying everything to waste, to ash and cinder and smoke. Even the wolves die and hide. But you cannot help them. Tomorrow you are Death but the world is not the same world. The forest was the world but now humanity destroys to build monuments of their hubris. You must keep the balance. To engage and intervene, these are abominations for Death. You must look but never touch. You will be the shadows of the world. Follow the shadows and they will lead you to Light, for shadows only exist because of Light. All is connected and you will maintain the balance of existence. This is who you are. This is what you are. When you return here, you will write it all down, record the memories of the world. When
you see their lives that you shepherd away, you must remember it, carry them inside, all the lives you guide to Mother, to Me, must exist forever here. We hold the Memories of the World. Not only of this world, but of the previous and future worlds. Every word must be recounted, every moment relived forever or they will never live. I am the Light and you are the shadows. There is only one of Me for the multitude that is you. You are My hands and mouth and you will die forever.

Happy birthday, no one. Return to Me when you are finished.

The Twilight Day and they sang and the wolves howled and the world caught fire and the forest screamed and the moons shown and the suns circled and he walked out of the gate without looking back and exited the thick meniscus greying the world of the monastery and he watched the dirigible flying far away struck by fire and explode and burn its way to the ground erupting anew over and over until it disappeared from the sky like a supernova extinguishing into nebulae.

The moons were down and the suns not yet up. He touched her cold lips, left tears on her eyelids, took the screaming child, and walked until the sky pinked and then purpled.

The child screamed day after day. The fragmented moon, pale and large, bathed the world in reflected light.

I wish I was the moon tonight, he said, Quiet and alone, bathed in starlight.

The dying fire glowed. He placed wood on it and wrapped his coat tighter. The child cried, screamed, kicked. Watching him for a moment, the man picked him up and rocked.

Go to sleep, he said, Tomorrow you’ll be home.

The screams woke them before the pounding of the door. She told him to be careful and he sat very still staring at the door two meters away. The fire still burned and the moonlight came strong, the room softlit giving definition to the shadow’s edges. She took his hand and squeezed, and he told her it would be all right. She squeezed harder.

They waited through the screams but no other sounds reached them.

A child, she said. He nodded. She let go of his hand and rose, skins wrapped round her, the cold wood against her feet creaking with each step.

He stood when she reached the door, his hand raising, grasping after her, silently. She opened the door, the volume increased, thickening the air, he stepped towards her but she bent down and took the screaming child in her arms: cooed, cradled, bounced.

He stepped around her and entered the night. Autumn cold, the moons large and arcing across the sky casting pale light in the village. He clenched his fists and shivered and threw his head in all directions. The music of trees and the breeze, the fall of a leaf, and the howl of wolves but nothing more. Back inside,
the child’s screams weakening, the woman humming, he said, Chenoa?

Lit from below by fire, from the right by moonlight, her hands trembled and her voice was thick, Just a boy. Just born. Couldn’t more than a moon turn.

Latching the door, he kneaded the bridge of his nose and sneezed.

Come to bed, she said, Help keep the boy warm. She lay down, the child in her arms.

Out the window, the village slept and the moons did not speak.

Chenoa watched the curious boy with fair skin and black hair whose eyes were ringed with gold. Smiling and laughing, smaller than the other children, his face flat rather than rounded, he ran with the others. When they stopped from exhaustion, the other children poked at his skin, pulled on his hair, asking why he was not like them. Chenoa’s boy was They and the village children were We. The adults smiled nervously, glancing at Chenoa.

Sao is us, she said.

The children all laughed, Sao included, and they ran hands over his face and awed at his colored eyes. The children called him stareyes and Sao clapped, and they ran off towards the forest.

The women watched them go, then turned to Chenoa, all eyes upon her. Mai, short with wide hips and burgundy hair, spoke, Chenoa, we must talk.

Chenoa stared hard at the women and men forming a half circle round her, separating her from Sao.

Sao does not belong.

Sao is us.

We are not Sao, Mai’s voice was soft, her eyebrows bent in sorrow.

Sao is us, Chenoa beat her chest. Our heart is Sao’s heart. Our
heart is Sao.

Mai bit her lip and shook her head, Sao is not.

Chenoa cast her eyes from face to face, all painted with sorrow but unyielding. She whimpered, the tears rising in her throat, Sao, Sao, Sao.

Elsu stepped forward and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. Pointing after the children, Watch them. Sao is not us. His voice contrite, compassionate.

She watched Sao, a pale naked star running after his brown brothers with redhair. Smaller, weaker, different. The sound of running and Elsu dropped his hand from her.

Wicasa appeared at her side, his hands hard but tender, holding her up as her chest sank deeper. Away, he said flailing his arm in Mai’s direction, then bent to Chenoa, Heart, what?

Eyelids closed tight, tears slipped through and she turned her face to Wicasa with submerged eyes, Sao, Sao, Sao!

Wicasa’s nostrils flared, eyes widened, turning to the others, his cavernous voice bellowed, Sao is us! Away!

Elsu, tall and muscular, looked from Mai and the others to Wicasa. His chest out, jaw set, Wicasa cannot make children so steals one. Not us, he said undoing his topknot.

Wicasa stared at Elsu. The laughter of the children danced round them, the bluesun casting their shadows longer, no one spoke.

Wicasa stepped to Elsu, We—he gestured to Chenoa then flattened his palm against his chest—are Sao.

The suns rose together in the east, the scent of summer strong, the world green and thick, tinted by the bright purple light. Chenoa found Sao naked at the river lying flat with his arms and legs stretched out.

What doing?

Sao opened his eyes, Chenoa, skin gets dark from the suns.

Biting back tears, she lifted him into her arms. He wrapped
his legs around her, hands light on her shoulders, looking into her eyes with his blue eyes ringed with gold. Chenoa, he touched her eyelid, an inquisitive smile on his face.

She kissed him and told him that she needed him to move so she could see where she walked.

At the river smearing mud over his skin and leaving it to dry, Sao stared at the suns and then the moons until Roatag and Laska stood beside him. In the moonlight they took his hands and threw themselves into the river, splashing and squealing until parents came to separate the brown from the white.

The Twilight Day, Chenoa sat with Sao in her lap and Wicasa beside at the edge of the circle, behind their neighbors. The village sat in a circle around the Ancestral Tree and breathed. An enclosed circle, the forest held them in as the barrier with the next layer being homes, then more homes, then the villagers sitting, breathing, and then the Ancestral Tree. Sitting—the only sound their breath, in and out, and the howl of wolves—they remained so through the day, breathing. When the suns switched places, the dance began and they danced and sang until the suns’ revolution completed with the howls tearing through the sky and echoing off the moons.

Hands dirty, Chenoa dug a small hole in the soil and Sao placed a seed within, then covered it, smiling, laughing, the mud on his cheeks, his arms, beneath his finger and toenails. His eyes barely open, the sun casting his face a brilliant white, like a flame amongst the green and grey of the village.

Wicasa led him through the trees and fashioned a simple trap made of a noosed vine. Repeating the process, he gave the length of vine to Sao who fumbled with the knots, his fingers thin, his hands smaller than most.

He led him further and Sao smiled and began to sing. Wicasa silenced him with a look and they crept through the brush, stepping over thick roots, weeds and shrubs. Wicasa lifted him to a low branch and Sao watched from the tree as Wicasa strung an arrow, crouched behind a tree, and released it past Sao’s sight. The rustle of leaves, of heavy feet, Wicasa howled, turning to Sao with a broad yellowtoothed grin. Sao hopped down and followed him to a young boar, an arrow through its neck, its breathing labored. Wicasa handed Sao the knife, smiling, and motioned for Sao to finish it.

Slow, Sao approached. He put a hand to the boar, the wrecked gasps vibrating through his fingers. Turning to Wicasa who beamed, he returned his eyes to the young boar, closed them, and stuck the knife in to the hilt.

The moons did not glow and Sao stood in the streams washing and washing over and over. Staring at his hands, he plunged them beneath the water, rubbed them with a porous rock, and repeated the process until Laska appeared beside him and put a hand to his back. He stopped and faced her, his face fuming, then collapsing. She took him in her arms and he cried, their small bodies united in the darkness, holding one another.

Sao stood at the edge of the forest, eyes closed. Purple light, redsun to his right and bluesun to his left, riding the horizons. The music of the trees gave texture to the twilight, shape, a concentric expansion of force beating through his skin, pulling him inward.

Hands grabbed his shoulders and shook him, laughter followed. Opening his eyes, he smiled at her standing between him and the trees. Round-faced and brown-skinned, she panted, laughing still, What doing?

Not, Laska.

Laska looked behind her then back to him, Not safe. Wolf
Season.

Ever seen one?

Think too much, Sao. Wolves aren’t meant for eyes.

He shrugged, Just wolves.

She shook her head, her red braid swung over her shoulder, eyes wide, Brothers die there. Not safe now, these days. Days of the Wolves, many brothers and sisters get lost and taken away. We don’t see them again. She pulled on her braid and looked behind again.

The music of the trees, just to hear, he said.

She smiled, Together. Us.

Hand in hand, they watched the trees bend, the shadows expand, the wooden symphony swallowing, drowning out all other sounds. And then the howl.

Sao sat in a tree watching the other boys wrestle. Their wrestling turning from violence to caresses over their nakedness, their bodies colliding and sliding over one another’s. Hands moving and all of them writhing against one another, laughing. Brown bodies and redhair, Sao hid but did not look away, the grace of their long limbs and the lines of their muscles visible in the dim sunslight caught and held him. Thicklipped smiles, their nakedness expanding and contracting, swollen to beauty and pleasure.

Taima beat them all, a violent match of bodies against one another, though he was not the largest. Wiry and tall with narrow hips and broad shoulder, his red hair aflame in the redsun’s light, he clapped his chest and howled. Pointing at Sao, Baby Star, come down. Fight!

The others laughed but Sao did not move.

Roatag watched, frowning, his eyebrows bent low.

Baby Star, we’ll climb, make fight.

Sao stood and the smiles on their faces expanded. Red fingers
against dark clouds, Sao inhaled and ran along the branch he sat on and jumped to the next, swinging and running through the trees, from branch to branch. The boys followed, laughing, shouting, howling.

Roatag remained and touched his swollen eyes and broken nose. Sao’s breath hissed inward, recoiling from Roatag’s fingers. Roatag opened his mouth then closed it and cupped Sao’s chin in his hand to make their eyes meet.

Sorry, Sao, he said and pressed his face against Sao’s neck. Sao leaned into his nuzzling and put a hand into his redhair and pulled him away.

Sao must fight back or Taima will kill Sao.

Sao lowered his head, shaking, We should not fight. Won’t fight.

Roatag lifted his chin again.

Face to face, Sao sitting, Roatag kneeling, their foreheads met and they closed their eyes, Sao’s hand through his hair and his on Sao’s thigh. Sao undid Roatag’s topknot and Roatag pressed his chest to the ground and straddled him, his fingers caressing Sao’s skin.

The Deathwalkers arrived and all the village waited. An elder, Enola, her withered body resting beneath the Ancestral Tree. When the Deathwalkers appeared, the beat began and the villagers sang as one, their voices wavering as the wind, cycling in and out, louder then softer, the words explaining the journey of humans through life, from birth to Death and into the Ancestral Tree where they will forever be a part of the Life and Death cycle of autumns and springs.

Laska came to him at the edge of the trees and whispered that she was alone. He dropped from his perch and took her hand in his, touched it to his face. She reached for his topknot, but he
grabbed her wrist, kissed it. No, he said and pulled on her braid, the moons lighting their bodies. Touching his face, her fingertips against his lips, she whispered, Laska is Sao and Sao will be Laska.

Kissing, he lowered her to the grass and traced her face in the shadow of his, Sao and Laska, we see. Heart and heart, forever beat. One.

They explored one another in the darkness, in the light of the many moons, the tickle of grass and the symphonic trees painting their music across the night.

We are on fire.

We are one breath.

We are forever, always together.

Don’t go, he said and she said she must but didn’t go. He told her of his dreams, of all the nights he recreated her but always failed to capture her right, and she told him how she liked that he was smaller than her with thin fingers and wrists. She loved his galactic eyes, the tiny star that he was, the impenetrable blackness of his hair. She undid it then and it fell over them.

When the sky began to blue, they rose, spent, tired, and walked home, watching one another disappear.

The bonfire roared far enough from the Ancestral Tree to not pose a threat and everyone danced and sang. Oya, the stranger, stood tall as a mountain before them all and told how he caught the wolf. The great beast hung upside down from hooks, its black pelt covered in blood. Three meters long and a meter and a half at the withers.

Come from the west and north, he said, a peculiar accent fighting the words, the syntax confused, disjointed to their ears, but they understood. In the northwest, we hunt the wolves, we clear the forests, we build and create. The world is a forest but we are remaking it into a world made for us, for men and women, for children. The beasts, we kill, the forests, we tame, and we make
new forests of stone and brick and metal.

The eyes mesmerised, this large stranger with short hair and wolfhide covering his nakedness. The fire blazed behind him but before the Ancestral Tree, the backdrop to his tale.

The wolves, the old gods. Fear them, yes, but in the west they fear us! The days of the gods, of demons and Angels, of Arcanes is over! We make a new world. A safe world. No more shall we fear or struggle.

Sao stood away from the others, his face masked in disgust and fear. Watching the wolf, his heart quickened but felt fragile, made of glass.

This wolf here, he slapped the great beast and it snapped its jaws at him. Gasps from the villagers and laughter from Oya, the stranger. Be warned, a wolf never knows when to stop fighting. Some say wolves can even speak but don’t believe such talk. They are nothing but beasts, tired, withered, old gods who have forgotten who and what they are. Soon we shall be rid of them.