by Darryl Fabia
The wolf waited faithfully where he’d devoured the eagle and salivated as the fat pheasant came strutting from behind the gremian. “You’ve brought me a sweet treat, little friend,” said Old Wolf. “You are indeed useful for putting things in my belly.”
No tricks came this time when Old Wolf lunged for his food, as the gremian was not inside to try assaulting the gray-furred predator. Old Wolf gobbled up the pheasant in a single bite, and then rested on the forest floor.
“A delicious meal from a good friend,” said Old Wolf. “I have not felt so full in quite some time.” Then he rolled over on his back and began rubbing his middle. “In fact, I may feel too full. Perhaps some of your magic wore off on these animals and I have a bellyache after all.”
“It is possible,” the gremian said, and watched eagerly as the wolf’s belly swelled and deflated, again and again.
Old Wolf rolled on the ground, clenching his teeth at times, howling at others, and finally he began to tremble. “Yes, I believe the magic is doing something. I should have heeded your warnings, friend. I thank you for the kindness you’ve shown, nonetheless. Little enough of that is done for an old, lonely wolf. I’m glad to have met you and not eaten you.”
At the wolf’s words, the path of revenge that had called so alluringly earlier seemed a narrow, solitary road to the gremian, and he felt ashamed of the trick he’d played. The old wolf was the last of his kind in these woods, whereas the gremian could have spent his time finding a hundred humans to vex, with a hundred more waiting to be vexed in the future.
“Let me inside and I’ll see what the damage is,” the gremian said, and at once he hopped into the wolf’s jaws that he’d avoided so well earlier in the day.
Inside the wolf’s belly, he found the ogre twisting and turning amidst the bull and the eagle. “So I see he has eaten you as well,” the ogre called. “How old is this wolf? I fear he is older than the forests and hills, for his belly won’t break as a normal one’s would. Help me snatch these bull horns and eagle claws, and we will carve our way out.”
Instead, the gremian stuffed the ogre deeper into the wolf’s guts until he fell into blackness, and then scurried out of Old Wolf’s mouth as his belly went rumbling even harder. “I feel my body taking hold of whatever is in there, like it should with proper food,” he said to the gremian.
“Something inside did not agree with you,” the gremian said. “I’ve changed its mind.”
The wolf’s body trembled again, and then it ceased to entirely be a wolf. Great white bull horns stretched from Old Wolf’s head, and gray, feathery wings sprouted from his back, each as long as his body. His trembling ceased and he stood up, healthy and strong once more. “I seem to have grown and changed,” he said, looking down on the gremian. “Is this the magic you warned me of?”
“Indeed!” the gremian cried. “And I daresay, I have a feeling in my own gut that you’re likely to run into more troubling foods without someone to guide you. You may have your instincts, but I’ve been in men’s kitchens for a hundred years and know all about what should find its way inside your belly, and what should keep out. I believe you’ll need such a food expert to accompany you.”
“And where will I be going?”
“Anywhere, it seems, with your new wings. You could sample the strange six-legged deer that supposedly live in the swamps of the eastern kingdoms, or devour shining eagles of the grand desert that lies between the cold lands and the sunset lands. We could find the cloudy kingdoms of the stroms, giants with great horns like your own, and perhaps learn even more in their kitchens. There are many villages and many peoples, and this one day in the forest has shown me that some creatures are much more fun to toy with in variety. I’ve sampled malice against only humans for far too long.”
Old Wolf laughed at all this and welcomed the gremian onto his back. “A break from being alone will be refreshing, my friend.” The horned wolf then spread his wings, charged through the forest, and flew off into the sky, in search of distant lands with his expert in food, for all corners of the world.
A Night Without Souls
In the days before the old man Gendel and the old woman Washa became so old, they made dolls for the little town. Gendel gathered wool and tanned the leather, and his wife Washa sewed the pieces into torsos, limbs, and heads.
Most important, however, was the stitching of a name with her magic needle, for these were no ordinary dolls. Once the name was stitched onto a doll’s back, it came to life, and whatever name was given dictated the doll’s task. One was named Egg-gatherer and was given to a farmer. Fox-chaser was another, and had a shorter existence.
The lives of the townsfolk grew a little easier with every doll, and they had hours for reverie and revelry. At one time, Gendel and Washa enjoyed the parties, the dancing, the singing, the sweets and the laughter. Yet as they grew older, their own dolls, such as Wool-gatherer and Cook, had to do more work for them, and one task the dolls could not achieve was to give their makers a peaceful night.
The old couple knew patience. They patiently waited for the dolls to complete their tasks every day. They patiently endured old bones, and chills and pains. They patiently hoped the noise would cease, even for an evening, but it went on over lively spring and long summers, battering their ears and jabbing their nerves.
Eventually, one summer night, their patience snapped.
Gendel and Washa agreed, enough was enough. They understood now why spirits moaned when the living moved into their haunting grounds, and monsters ruined noisy towns dwelling too close to their lairs. The two were too old to move, and felt they had every right to live out their remaining days in peace. They had given the town so much already—now came the time to take.
They needed many dolls for their task, and so Washa set to work sewing hundreds of stuffed limbs, torsos, and heads, while Gendel went to market with dolls named Servant, Carrier, and Lifter to retrieve more leather and wool. They worked for many days and nights, Gendel cutting leather, Washa sewing pieces, and both counting out the townsfolk, even the babies, taking note of those so old that they died first, matching person to doll, until the numbers were the same.
All the dolls had to come alive in a single night, for no one could be allowed to know what was happening and warn anyone else. Washa stitched the names in the dolls’ backs up to the last letter. She taught her husband to stitch the final letter, so they could take turns stitching and keep their work running smoothly and secretly once they were ready. When Soul-take had been sewn into every doll’s back, and the old couple’s hands were good and rested, the night of stitching R’s began.
The first Soul-taker stumbled away swiftly out the door, followed by a swift second and third. A dozen dolls soon poured from the old couple’s doorway, eyes vacant, mouths hanging open and expectant, and they traveled to every house, with a number of dolls clustering at each door to match the number of people inside.
Three gathered together at the house next door to Gendel and Washa’s home, and they all knocked together. The man of the house invited them in as gifts from the old couple, and his wife and daughter were giddy to see what these new wonders would bring to their lives. Then the dolls inhaled like no other dolls had, their gaping mouths sucking in the family’s direction. The glow of the father’s soul flickered away from his body in a sphere of light and dove into one Soul-taker’s mouth, followed quickly by his wife’s and daughter’s souls, drawn into the hollow pits of the accompanying dolls. Man, wife, and daughter all dropped where they’d stood, as if life itself had left them. The dolls’ bellies swelled with light and they left the house of the soulless family, their task completed.
This went on across the town, in families of twos and fours, threes and fives, in the house of a bachelor and at the door a couple who had ten living children. As their dolls marched and souls were stolen, the old couple nodded agreeably to each other, their cracked lips pursed and their minds at ease that this was right, this was what had to be done. If fin
ding peace for their own souls meant taking everyone else’s, they saw no wrong in forcing this peacefulness upon them. Some might say they were as hollow inside as their dolls, marching in legion through the town, and marching back with bellies full of light.
Gendel and Washa listened as the laughter quieted, the music ceased, and the only sound outside their home was the mild patter of leather feet in the dirt. They opened the door, welcoming their creations back inside. The dolls filled the floor and workshop, the countertops and shelves, where all had once laid lifeless before this night.
The old couple sat in their chairs, contented with the soft quiet and the gentle glow of souls surrounding them. These dolls had been their finest, they agreed, and a fitting gift to themselves after so many years of benefitting the town.
The peace was broken in Washa after a few minutes of sitting in her chair when a pounding sensation seemed to hammer through her worn fingers. She tried moving them and found them spry like she could barely remember from her younger days. A tension sprang through Gendel’s legs, not the usual kind that wore coldly into his bones, but a heat that forced him out of his chair. His arms tensed too, strong like he hadn’t known in years. He swept Washa up from her seat, swinging her around, and the two laughed with a sudden light and joy they hadn’t felt in years.
When Gendel set his wife down again, the heat had come over Washa’s legs as well. They sent dolls like Fetcher and Jester to get instruments from houses in the town, and when they returned, the dolls played music and the old couple began to dance like they had at their wedding long ago. Their feet bounced, their heels hammered the floor, and their hands clapped excitedly. They held each other’s hips and shoulders, their hands and faces, filled with peaceful light. They kissed and danced, and Gendel swept Washa up again, off to the bedroom where they made love for the first time in years, and as passionately as on their wedding night. Then they got up and danced again, and danced through the night until the sun cracked over the horizon.
The will of their masters slipped from the dolls in the daylight. Their mouths dropped open and the light of souls fluttered loose like a cloud of fleeing fireflies. Each soul flew out through the old couple’s open doorway, off to other doorways and open windows. They found their owners slumped over tables, lying in beds and on floors, some even draped across each other as if they’d fallen asleep while dancing. Nearly all the townsfolk awoke that morning as if they’d had their first night of peace and rest in a long while—all but those whose souls had left the world already.
Those two lay still on their floor, no souls returning and no will remaining, with blisters on their feet and smiles on their faces.
Wedding the White Death
In the land of a thousand demons, some would say Anzi should have been grateful that in her village of Oye, she only had to fear one. Often they lived under stones near houses, or roamed forests, rumbled down from mountains, or hid in household objects, while this one lived in a hundred foot high, black pagoda atop a hill apart from the village. Often they wore frightening masks, bore tusks and horns, and came lurking with wide eyes and slavering mouths, yet this one appeared as a man.
But one was all she needed to fear when her coming of age birthday had come and gone, for this demon of western lands, far away, had set his eyes on her, and came for her when the sun, too, had come and gone. Red lanterns flared through the black pagoda, lit by dead men who still walked under the demon’s control. The pagoda’s sliding doors remained closed, but the black iron doors embedded in the hillside swung open like a beetle’s mandibles, spitting out a foreign carriage pulled by fire-breathing horses as white as burned-out coal. They roared out from the hill, through the street, until they halted outside Anzi’s parents’ little home.
He dressed in white, and so the elders called him the White Death, but far back as Anzi could remember, villagers called him Beautiful to his face, and he much preferred it, for his face fit the name. Beautiful’s black hair swayed long and pretty around his neck and his bright, honey-colored eyes demanded politeness, honesty, and obedience. “I have come for Anzi,” he said. “I will honor this house by wedding its only daughter. She will join me at tomorrow’s sunset and from then on, she will be mine. Do not worry—she will want for nothing.”
Her parents agreed, as they had no choice. Once in every season she could remember, Anzi had watched the same carriage spill from the hill and fetch a maiden from a home, be the family rich or poor, be the father fisherman or scribe. Every family opened their door, inviting Beautiful inside, and everyone let him take the women, though they knew they would never see the girls again, though they knew his name was not his true name, and though they knew he was gifted in his deceit.
The village elders said that once a wise man, Ennsu, had ruled the village, until his death at Beautiful’s hands. Now and then you might see him wander to and from the forest, with messages written by the village’s master. The elders also said the White Death had tricked the gods and demons into believing he had been to the land long before they had, that he had sprinkled the place where Oye stood with blood of his family, and so all others who appeared there were cursed. The old folks even whispered that he would not use his own dead men and wolves, but made deals with three wild foxes to carry his messages and further his lies, though foxes tended to prefer mischief to rewards.
Beautiful did not leave the area of Oye and the hill, and by day did not leave the black pagoda. While other villages housed warriors, and fended off or begged help to escape the raids of mercenaries and demons, Oye remained quiet. All Beautiful asked in return for his protection was a bride at the beginning of every season.
“I should have run away,” Anzi said to herself as her parents and brothers prepared her colorful ceremonial garb. “But his spies would find me or his dead men, and they would drag me back here. No, I should have wed before my time.”
Mere hours before the next dusk, Anzi fled to the house of Kyne, a young merchant’s son who had once been fond of her. For a while, young men had been avoiding her when they should have become more interested as her birthday drew closer, as if the mark of the White Death was burned into her head already. She did not know what would become of her in the black pagoda. Beautiful drank the blood of some brides and turned others’ skin as white as snow. Some said he did both, drinking and changing his wives, and then he sent them with Ennsu to be traded to the foxes. None knew for certain but the brides themselves.
Anzi had a better fate in mind for herself. “Wed me, Kyne,” Anzi said when she found him. “Save me from this foreign demon, who drinks and wets the earth with blood, and who seems to have been young when my grandparents were, yet doesn’t age with time. I would rather grow old with you.”
Anzi was quite eye-catching herself, and perhaps that was the true mark that told men to steer clear of her, unless they wished to invite Beautiful’s wrath. But Kyne was taken by surprise and agreed to wed the beautiful Anzi, ignoring whatever betrothal wishes his parents might have had for him. The two ran outside of town, to the sun shrine, where a disciple of the sun gods blessed their brows and said their lives were one.
When Beautiful returned to Oye at sunset and knocked on the door of Anzi’s home, he found her prepared for a wedding. He took her arm in his slender, soft hands and an inviting smile passed over his bare, pretty face, but there was a murkier smile on Anzi’s lips.
“I am already wed,” she said, indicating Kyne behind her. “But I would be happy to welcome you as a second husband, should my first find it acceptable. Men have two wives sometimes, so why not a wife with two husbands? Or three? We may see.”
The smile and softness wavered. “We may see.”
Beautiful left the home and rode his carriage back through the iron doors beneath the black pagoda. Anzi thought herself free and clear, moving her belongings to Kyne’s home that very evening, and she would come to like her husband better as he learned his father’s trade. Yet when she awoke in the morning, she found hi
m gone from their bed, without a ruffle in the fabric or a change of clothing taken from his room.
The day wore on and Anzi searched high and low through Oye, steering clear only of the black pagoda, still lit with red lanterns. Finally she traveled to the sun shrine, hoping Kyne had gone to pray, yet she found no trace of her husband and the disciple hadn’t seen him either.
On her way back to the village, Anzi met a red-furred fox in the road with blood on his lips and tongue. “I have seen your husband,” he said. “You had best run, before the White Death finds you.”
Anzi did not believe him, but when the sun set after she returned home, the carriage abandoned the underground chambers beneath the hill, riding through the iron doors once more, and Beautiful appeared at Anzi’s home yet again. “I have my answer,” he said. “I will be second to no one. That is not how we wed where I come from, and so Kyne is no more. You will wed me now.”
“Give me a day to grieve,” Anzi said. “Tomorrow evening, I will appear in your home.”
Taking this for obedience, Beautiful left, vowing to return once more and retrieve Anzi as his betrothed.
Anzi vowed to leave first though—she put on her brother’s clothes so as to travel more easily and waited with the black pagoda in sight for the undead wise man, Ennsu. At dawn, the withered man emerged just as the elders said and Anzi followed him to the forest. He carried a scroll in his hands and nothing more. Anzi made sure to hide behind hills on the way and behind trees within the forest, and kept silent until Ennsu stopped in a clearing where a narrow brook flowed between stones and three foxes of different colors surrounded a tiny stone shrine, no bigger than a man’s head. The brook ran from a waterfall nearby, covering the mouth of a cave, and caught the sun’s light in its sparkling, clear surface.