by Gene Wolfe
He pointed. “There’s the hydra.”
“I think you’re right,” I said. “Do you know any others?”
He showed me the cross and the great bull, and I pointed out my amphisbaena, and several others.
“And there’s the wolf, over by the unicorn. There’s a little wolf too, but I can’t find him.”
We discovered it together, near the horizon.
“They’re like us, aren’t they? The big wolf and the little wolf. We’re big Severian and little Severian.”
I agreed that was so, and he stared up at the stars for a long time, chewing the piece of dried meat I had given him. Then he said, “Where is the book with stories in it?”
I showed it to him.
“We had a book too, and sometimes Mama would read to Severa and me.”
“She was your sister, wasn’t she?”
He nodded. “We were twins. Big Severian, did you ever have a sister?”
“I don’t know. My family is all dead. They’ve been dead since I was a baby. What kind of story would you like?”
He asked to see the book, and I gave it to him. After he had turned a few pages he returned it to me. “It’s not like ours.”
“I didn’t think it was.”
“See if you can find a story with a boy in it who has a big friend, and a twin. There should be wolfs in it.”
I did the best I could, reading rapidly to outrace the fading light.
XIX
The Tale of the Boy Called Frog
Part I
Early Summer and Her Son
ON A MOUNTAINTOP beyond the shores of Urth there once lived a lovely woman named Early Summer. She was the queen of that land, but her king was a strong, unforgiving man, and because she was jealous of him he was jealous of her in turn, and killed any man he believed to be her lover.
One day Early Summer was walking in her garden when she saw a most beautiful blossom of a kind wholly new to her. It was redder than any rose and more sweetly perfumed, but its strong stalk was thornless and smooth as ivory. She plucked it and carried it to a secluded spot, and as she reclined there contemplating it, it grew to seem to her no blossom at all but such a lover as she had longed for, powerful and yet as tender as a kiss. Certain of the juices of the plant entered her and she conceived. She told the king, however, that the child was his, and since she was well guarded, he believed her.
It was a boy, and by his mother’s wish he was called Spring Wind. At his birth all those who study the stars were gathered to cast his horoscope, not only those who lived upon the mountaintop, but many of the greatest of Urth’s magi. Long they labored over their charts, and nine times met in solemn conclave; and at last they announced that in battle Spring Wind would be irresistible, and that no child of his would die before it had reached full growth. These prophecies pleased the king much.
As Spring Wind grew, his mother saw with secret pleasure that he delighted most in field and flower and fruit. Every green thing thrived under his hand, and it was the pruning knife he desired to hold, and not the sword. But when he was grown a young man, war came, and he took up his spear and his shield. Because he was quiet in demeanor and obedient to the king (whom he believed to be his father, and who believed himself to be the father), many supposed the prophecy would prove false. It was not so. In the heat of battle he fought coolly, his daring well judged and his caution sober; no general was more fertile of stratagems and sleights than he was, and no officer more attentive to every duty. The soldiers he led against the king’s enemies were drilled until they seemed men of bronze quickened with fire, and their loyalty to him was such that they would have followed him to the World of Shadows, the realm farthest from the sun. Then men said it was the spring wind that threw down towers, and the spring wind that capsized ships, though that was not what Early Summer had intended.
Now it happened that the chances of war often brought Spring Wind to Urth, and there he came to know of two brothers who were kings. Of these, the elder had several sons, but the younger only a single daughter, a girl named Bird of the Wood. When this girl became a woman, her father was slain; and her uncle, in order that she might never breed sons who would claim their grandfather’s kingdom, entered her name on the roll of the virgin priestesses. This displeased Spring Wind, because the princess was beautiful and her father had been his friend. One day it happened that he had gone alone into the world of Urth, and there he saw Bird of the Wood sleeping beside a stream, and woke her with his kisses.
Of their coupling were engendered twin sons, but though the priestesses of her order had aided Bird of the Wood in concealing their growth in her womb from the king, her uncle, they could not hide the babes. Before Bird of the Wood ever saw them, the priestesses placed them in a winnowing basket lined with blankets of featherwork and carried them to the bank of that same stream where Spring Wind had surprised her, and launching the basket in the water went away.
Part II
How Frog Found a New Mother
FAR THAT BASKET sailed, over fresh waters and salt. Other children would have died, but the sons of Spring Wind could not die, because they were not yet grown. The armored monsters of the water splashed about their basket and the apes threw sticks and nuts into it, but it drifted ever onward until at last it came to a bank whereon two poor sisters were washing clothes. These good women saw it and shouted, and when shouting availed nothing, tucked their skirts into their belts and waded into the river and brought it to shore.
Because they had been found in the water, the boys were named Fish and Frog, and when the sisters had showed them to their husbands, and it was seen that they were children of remarkable strength and handsomeness, each sister chose one. Now the sister who chose Fish was the wife of a herdsman, and the husband of the sister who chose Frog was a woodcutter.
This sister cared well for Frog and suckled him at her own breast, for it so happened that she had recently lost a child of her own. She carried him slung behind her in a shawl when her husband went into the wild lands to cut firewood, and thus it is said by the weavers of lore that she was the strongest of all women, for she carried an empire on her back.
A year passed, and at the end of it, Frog had learned to stand upright and take a few steps. One night the woodcutter and his wife were sitting beside their own little fire in a clearing in the wild lands; and while the woodcutter’s wife prepared their supper, Frog walked naked to the fire and stood warming himself before the flames. Then the woodcutter, who was a gruff, kindly man, asked him, “Do you like that?” and though he had never spoken before, Frog nodded and answered, “Red flower.” At that, it is said, Early Summer stirred upon her bed on the mountaintop beyond the shores of Urth. The woodcutter and his wife were astonished, but they had no time to tell each other what had happened, or to try to persuade Frog to speak again, or even to rehearse what they would say to the herdsman and his wife when next they met them. For there came then into the clearing a dreadful sound — those who have listened say it is the most frightening on the world of Urth. So few who have heard it have lived that it has no name, but it is something like the hum of bees, and something like the sound a cat might make if a cat were larger than a cow, and something like the noise the voice-throwers learn first to make, a droning in the throat that seems to come from everywhere at once. It was the song a smilodon sings when he has crept close to his prey, the song that frightens even mastodons so much they often charge in the wrong direction and are stabbed from behind.
Surely the Pancreator knows all mysteries. He spoke the long word that is our universe, and few things happen that are not a part of that word. By his will, then, there rose a knoll not far from the fire, where there had been a great tomb in the most ancient days; and though the poor woodcutter and his wife knew nothing of it, two wolves had built their home there, a house low of roof and thick of wall, with galleries lit by green lamps descending among the ruined memorials and broken urns, a house, that is, such as wolves love. There the he-
wolf sat sucking at the thighbone of a coryphodon, and the she-wolf, his wife, held her cubs to her breasts.
From near they heard the smilodon’s song and cursed it in the Gray Language as wolves can curse, for no lawful beast hunts near the home of another of the hunting kind, and wolves are on good terms with the moon.
When the curse was finished, the she-wolf said, “What prey can that be, that the Butcher, that stupid killer of river-horses, has found, when you, O my husband, who wind the lizards that frisk on the rocks of the mountains that lie beyond Urth, have been content to worry a parched stick?”
“I do not devour carrion,” the he-wolf answered shortly. “Nor do I pull worms from the morning grass, nor angle for frogs in the shallows.”
“No more does the Butcher sing for them,” said his wife.
Then the he-wolf raised his head and sniffed the air. “He hunts the son of Meschia and the daughter of Meschiane, and you know no good can come of such meat.” At this the she-wolf nodded, for she knew that alone among the living creatures, the sons of Meschia kill all when one of their own is slain. That is because the Pancreator gave Urth to them, and they have rejected the gift.
His song ended, the Butcher roared so as to shake the leaves from the trees; then he screamed, for the curses of wolves are strong curses so long as the moon shines.
“How has he come to grief?” asked the she-wolf, who was licking the face of one of her daughters.
The he-wolf sniffed again. “Burnt flesh! He has leaped into their fire.” He and his wife laughed as wolves do, silently, showing all their teeth; their ears stood up as tents stand in the desert, for they were listening to the Butcher as he blundered through the thickets looking for his prey.
Now the door of the wolves’ house stood open, because when either of the grown wolves were at home they did not care who entered, and fewer departed than came in. It had been full of moonlight (for the moon is always a welcome guest in the houses of wolves) but it grew dark. A child stood there, somewhat fearful, it may be, of the darkness, but smelling the strong smell of milk. The he-wolf snarled, but the she-wolf called in her most motherly voice, “Come in, little son of Meschia. Here you may drink, and be warm and clean. Here are the bright-eyed, quick-footed playmates, the best in all the world.”
Hearing this, the boy entered, and the she-wolf put down her milk-gorged cubs and took him to her breast.
“What good is such a creature?” said the he-wolf.
The she-wolf laughed. “You can suck at a bone of the last moon’s kill and ask that? Do you not remember when war raged hereabouts, and the armies of Prince Spring Wind scoured the land? Then no son of Meschia hunted us, for they hunted one another. After their battles we came out, you and I and all the Senate of Wolves, and even the Butcher, and He Who Laughs, and the Black Killer, and we moved among the dead and dying, choosing what we wished.”
“That is true,” said the he-wolf. “Prince Spring Wind did great things for us. But that cub of Meschia’s is not he.”
The she-wolf only smiled and said, “I smell the battle smoke in the fur of his head, and upon his skin.” (It was the smoke of the Red Flower.) “You and I shall be dust when the first column marches from the gate of his wall, but that first shall breed a thousand more to feed our children and their children, and their children’s children.”
The he-wolf nodded to this, for he knew that the she-wolf was wiser than he, and even as he could sniff out things that lay beyond the shores of Urth, so could she see the days beyond the next year’s rains.
“I shall call him Frog,” said the she-wolf. “For indeed the Butcher angled for frogs, as you said, O my husband.” She believed that she said this in compliment to the he-wolf, because he had so readily acquiesced to her wishes; but the truth was that the blood of the people of the mountaintop beyond Urth ran in Frog, and the names of those who bear the blood cannot be concealed for long.
Outside wild laughter pealed. It was the voice of He Who Laughs, calling, “It is there, Lord! There, there, there! Here, here, here is the spoor! It went in at the door!”
“You see,” the he-wolf remarked, “what comes of mentioning evil. To name is to call. That is the law.” And he got down his sword and fingered the edge.
The doorway was darkened again. It was a narrow doorway, for none but fools and temples have wide doors, and wolves are no fools; Frog had filled most of it. Now the Butcher filled it all, turning his shoulders to get in, and stooping his great head. Because the wall was so thick, the doorway was like a passage.
“What seek you?” asked the he-wolf, and he licked the flat of his blade.
“What is my own, and only that,” said the Butcher. Smilodons fight with a curved knife in either hand, and he was much larger than the he-wolf, but he did not wish to have to engage him in that close place.
“It was never yours,” said the she-wolf. Setting Frog on the floor, she came so near the Butcher that he might have struck at her if he dared. Her eyes flashed fire. “The hunt was unlawful, for an unlawful prey. Now he has drunk of me and is a wolf forever, sacred to the moon.”
“I have seen dead wolves,” said the Butcher.
“Yes, and eaten their flesh, though it were too foul for the flies, I dare say. It may be you shall eat mine, if a falling tree kill me.”
“You say he is a wolf. He must be brought before the Senate.” The Butcher licked his lips, but with a dry tongue. He would have faced the he-wolf in the open, perhaps; but he had no heart to face the pair together, and he knew that if he gained the doorway they would snatch up Frog and retreat to the passages below ground among the tumbled ashlars of the tomb, where the she-wolf would soon be behind him.
“And what have you to do with the Senate of Wolves?” the she-wolf asked.
“Perhaps as much as he,” said the Butcher, and went to look for easier meat.
Part III
The Black Killer’s Gold
THE SENATE OF WOLVES meets under each full moon. All come who can, for it is assumed that any who do not come plot treachery, offering, perhaps, to guard the cattle of the sons of Meschia in return for scraps. The wolf who is absent for two Senates must stand trial when he returns, and he is killed by the she-wolves if the Senate finds him guilty.
Cubs too must come before the Senate, so that any grown wolf who wishes may inspect them to assure himself that their father was a true wolf. (Sometimes a she-wolf lies with a dog for spite, but though the sons of dogs often look much like wolf cubs, they have always a spot of white on them somewhere, for white was the color of Meschia, who remembered the pure light of the Pancreator; and his sons leave it still for a brand on all they touch.)
Thus the she-wolf stood before the Senate of Wolves at the full moon, and her cubs played before her feet, and Frog — who looked a frog indeed when the moonlight through the windows stained his skin green — stood beside her and clung to the fur of her skirt. The President of the Pack sat in the highest seat, and if he was surprised to see a son of Meschia brought before the Senate, his ears did not show it. He sang:
“Here are the five! The sons and daughters born alive! If they be false, say how-ow-ow! If ye would speak, speak now-ow-ow!”
When the cubs are brought before the Senate, their parents may not defend them if they are challenged; but at any other time it is murder if any other seek to harm them.
“Speak NOW-OW-OW!” The walls echoed it back, so that in the huts in the valley the sons of Meschia barricaded their doors, and the daughters of Meschiane clutched their own children.
Then the Butcher, who had been waiting behind the last wolf, came forward. “Why do you delay?” he said. “I am not clever — I am too strong for cleverness, as you well understand. But there are four wolf cubs here, and a fifth that is not a wolf but my prey.”
At this the he-wolf asked, “What right has he to speak here? Surely he is no wolf.”
A dozen voices answered, “Anyone may speak, if a wolf asks his testimony. Speak, Butcher!”<
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Then the she-wolf loosened her sword in the scabbard and prepared for her last fight if it came to fighting. A demon she looked with her gaunt face and blazing eyes, for an angel is often only a demon who stands between us and our enemy.
“You say I am no wolf,” continued the Butcher. “And you say rightly. We know how a wolf smells, and the sound and look of a wolf. That wolf has taken this son of Meschia for her cub, but we all know that having a wolf for a mother does not make a cub a wolf.”
The he-wolf shouted, “Wolves are those whose mothers and fathers are wolves! I take this cub as my son!”
There was laughter at that, and when it died, one strange voice laughed on. It was He Who Laughs, come to advise the Butcher before the Senate of Wolves. He called, “Many have talked so, ho, ho! But their cubs have fed the pack.”
The Butcher said, “They were killed for their white fur. The skin is under the fur. How can this live? Give it to me!”
“Two must speak,” the President announced. “That is the law. Who speaks for the cub here? It is a son of Meschia, but is it also a wolf? Two who are not its parents must speak for it.”
Then the Naked One, who is counted a member of the Senate for teaching the young wolves, rose. “I have never had a son of Meschia to teach,” he said. “I may learn something from it. I speak for him.”
“Another,” said the President. “Another must also speak.”
There was only silence. Then the Black Killer strode from the back of the hall. Everyone fears the Black Killer, for though his cloak is as soft as the fur of the youngest cub, his eyes burn in the night. “Two who are no wolves have spoken here already,” he said. “May I not speak also? I have gold.” He held up a purse.