The Sianian Wolf

by Y. K. Willemse

  He got up and flicked the switch of a small lamp on the floor. Pale light suffused the room. Sherwin’s bed was against the left wall. Above him was a cracked window he often escaped out of when his alcoholic uncle returned home at three o’clock in the morning. Lacking a chair or desk, Sherwin always studied in his bed. Uncle Levi never lavished things on his fourteen-year-old nephew. Nevertheless, the room wasn’t empty. The floor was covered with clippings from old newspapers, bits of toilet paper Sherwin had used to wipe leaking pimples with, his own half-finished sketches and poetry, classic books with their pages falling out, a collection of creased dictionaries, and one very old CD that he had never listened to, having no player. Sherwin’s wallpaper was peeling in places, and cobwebs and their owners hung in corners of the ceiling.

  He moved into the middle of his room. Normally, he didn’t sleep here. However, tonight Uncle Levi was sober, and all was well.

  Sherwin wanted to get away from him. He wanted to get away from everything here and gain the life he was meant to have. Closing his eyes, he felt himself running again over the craggy stones. The boy moved swiftly ahead, sweat dripping down his olive face.

  “Please!” Sherwin shouted. He couldn’t tell whether it was aloud or in his head. “Please wait for me!”

  It was like he didn’t exist. The boy didn’t turn. Sherwin was falling behind. He had to catch up… or else he was nothing. He was no one.

  He found himself gasping, even sobbing. Once, he had believed the worlds had been melded together, forming a single shape. Yet that idea was absurd to him now. He had decided the worlds had only ever been one through the miracle of a passage between them. Men had passed back and forth, doing what they liked. That passage was broken now. It would be mended one day. He convinced himself of this.

  Somewhere out there, a person who would take him into the other world existed. That person would fill his life with meaning and help him become himself. He clenched his fists and stared at the junk around him.

  If Sherwin ever found that entity, nothing was going to stop him from getting out of here.

  *

  Rafen screamed – or meant to. Everything was drowned in a resonant growl, and then wild barking. He was suddenly on all fours, snarling in the face of the wolves’ leader. It lunged toward his throat again, jaws agape. Rafen moved like lightning, his own teeth closing on the leader’s neck. He shook his head back and forth, tearing his opponent open. The leader whined – then screamed in a cracked inhuman voice, pulling back against Rafen. Its struggles became what felt like merely playful tugs that dwindled to nothing. The dead leader’s neck hung in Rafen’s mouth, and he scanned the faces of the other wolves around him. Drooling, they stared at the carcass.

  Dropping the body, Rafen stepped back, watching the others surge toward it. They obscured it, becoming a gray pile that yelped madly.

  Then he realized what he had done.

  He stared down at himself – a lean, bristling mass of bloodied gray and black. His front paws rested on the twigs beneath him. He rose from his haunches, running around in circles, not after his tail, but after himself, searching for some vestige of mannishness. After a few minutes, he sank onto his back legs again. He was all animal. He hadn’t even felt the transformation; it had been a seamless transition from man to animal, from prey to hunter, from helplessness to strength.

  Looking at the pack that was now his, Rafen realized he liked being a wolf.

  *

  Exhausted, Rafen slumped against the smooth bole of a beech tree. It was evening. While his eyes were sandy with weariness, his stomach was full, and his thirst assuaged. He had no idea how long he’d spent with the pack – a day, a night, two days? After the shock of transforming had worn off, he had completely lost his powers of reasoning and couldn’t remember a thing. Now he had returned to human form, and was savoring the feel of his own relatively hairless limbs. This time, he had felt the transformation. Though his clothes had melted into his skin before, they had seeped out to cover him again. His treasured phoenix feather was still firmly lodged in his upper shirt hem, above his heart.

  The memories also came back.

  “Rafen, please,” Bambi had begged, struggling against the scarf that bound her hands to the bedpost in her cabin.

  Herbert, the perpetually mischievous cabin boy, had visited her again. Now she was trapped with her wrists tied behind her, forced to stand upright against her bed for Zion knew how long.

  Rafen had spent ten minutes undoing the tight knot. Bambi threw her arms around him and kissed his ear like she always did when she was happy with him.

  “Don’t go near him again,” Rafen said earnestly to her.

  “But he likes me.”

  “He likes you in trouble.”

  Later, Rafen had hit Herbert on the back of the head with a thrown onion stolen from the galley.

  “I will deal severely with Herbert,” King Robert had said, wagging his finger. “But Rafen, must you stoop to his level?”

  Yet his watery blue eyes had belied his amusement.

  Rafen liked Bambi. However, he liked Etana more.

  “You mustn’t get down about your kesmal, Rafen,” she had said to him once. He had had so much trouble trying to do kesmal in his lessons. “Mine was exactly like that, and then it sort of broke free, just when we were in need. I know what you’re capable of.”

  She had smiled, a new energy in her little ivory face; and he had smiled back.

  “You should smile more often, Rafen. I like you like that,” she had said.

  At her sweet, crisp voice in his mind, Rafen closed his burning eyes, wanting to tear someone as he had torn the leader of the wolf pack. He would toss his head back and forth, ripping skin from bone.

  He had never suspected this side of himself. He had thought he was the Fledgling. Yet the Fledgling wouldn’t have failed King Robert. His father’s face appeared in his mind again, beaming at him, once so proud. Rafen leapt to his feet and rushed through the shadowed beech trees and stunted elms, twigs crunching underfoot.

  It was too late now. It might not have been when he had woken in the Woods that first night, but it certainly was now. He was even more lost than before. He was beginning to understand why the Woods were called Cursed. And what could Alexander do now? Rafen’s blood burned with the decision he had come to. He would not think about the Phoenix.

  Water burbled nearby. He would drink, light a fire, and sleep in it, remembering what he had been in the past and forgetting what he had become. Tomorrow, he would wake refreshed enough to try transforming once more. If it worked, he would never be a man again.

  He pushed through the leathery leaves obscuring the riverbank. He had passed this river several times as a wolf and had vague memories of it. It ran all through the Woods. The glowing water snaked between pale gray banks in the misty twilight. Its murmuring was only marginally comforting in the shimmering heat of the summer night. In the last rays of day (and the weird rays of the three scattered moons and the feeble stars), a figure on the opposite bank drank from his hands and then straightened abruptly.

  Rafen ducked behind some beautyberry bushes, his heart thumping. Through the velvet leaves and purple berry clusters, he could make out Roger Ridding’s pale features. His slender figure curved in the moonlight, a puzzled question mark.

  Roger hadn’t changed much from his days as general in Tarhia. His dull brown hair was still swept perfectly over his pinhead, as if he had slicked it down. His icy blue eyes scanned the bank Rafen was on. He pursed his lips, stroking his moustache. One hand moved to the rapier at his belt.

  Rafen remembered Roger’s long white fingers swinging him by the ankle out of a window far above the ground. Roger, along with every other Tarhian, was probably in Siana to help establish the Lashki’s kingdom. A wild desire to attack the previous Tarhian general reared up in Rafen. Yet he still had no weapon, and if he transformed into a wolf to do it, his sanity would depart from him again, leaving him without the abi
lity to do what was necessary.

  Satisfied he hadn’t seen anything, Roger disappeared into the gray beech trees opposite Rafen. Rafen shivered. It was a sign. It was time for him to leave the fight and run with his pack… interminably.

  *

  The water churned as Alakil rushed through it, his arms tightly bound to his sides and his legs glued together. He was a great gray fish, rotting and yet breathing, dead and yet alive, glorying in all the paradoxes of his nature. The ocean bed beneath him was dappled with the pale blue light that emanated from the copper rod wedged between his left arm and his skeletal body. Seaweed and coral formed a strange underwater turf in stained, dingy colors. A trench of rock rose ahead, and he rippled his legs as he directed himself through it.

  A long while ago, Robert had sent a message back to Siana, saying Rafen had died of ongoing health problems after Alakil had wounded him that night. The Lashki remembered every corpse he had made; they were a patchwork of medals in his mind. How could anyone not die after such an attack? No one survived the Lashki’s kesmal. Rafen was certainly dead.

  And yet, Nazt wanted him. Even as Alakil swam, he heard its feverish chant around him.

  Propelling himself through a cloud of jellyfish like feathers, he thought back over the time he had spent searching the waters so far. Nine months ago, he had followed Robert on much of his trip to Zal Ricio ’el Nria, even though the ship had been too well protected to attack, and at times to even see. He knew where they had gone, and where they might have thrown a corpse overboard to stop it smelling. Still, how far could a corpse drift? He had now returned to the Running Ocean east of Zal Ricio ’el Nria to find out.

  Even though he could search the water unnaturally quickly, this had already taken a month. Despite the wealth of determination that was his, he was becoming impatient.

  Never become impatient, he told himself.

  It spoiled an intellectual approach to planning.

  He shot free of the trench and writhed through the water in fluid movements. He used to delight in this talent of his. Now he was disillusioned.

  Why would Nazt want Rafen’s corpse?

  The bucking of the rod under his arm was contradicting him. He would not believe it, and yet, in his own mind he was beginning to doubt the strength of his kesmal.

  It was true. Rafen was still alive.

  *

  Unusually nimble for a fifty-year-old, Erasmus leapt out of his ramshackle, low-slung bed at the scrabbling outside his thin-walled house. His chickens were flapping and screeching, and something was barking savagely. Snatching his crude crossbow from beneath his bed, Erasmus dashed out of his room and into the tiny kitchen leading to the front door.

  Her disheveled yellow hair flying, seventeen-year-old Wynne threw her back against the door, spreading her arms as if to shield him from whatever might break in. Though it was common in Siana for girls to marry before their fifteenth birthdays, Wynne had always been close to her father, and spurned every other man.

  “Father, please don’t!” she cried, her green eyes imploring.

  Erasmus took a deep breath, his stocky body and tensed muscles vibrating with impatience. “Wynne, the wolves are killing the chickens.”

  “Father, if the Tarhians find you’ve got a weapon—”

  “I’ll give them the bleeding death they deserve. Wynne, I don’t want to drag you from this door.”

  Sullenly, Wynne moved sideways. Last time this had happened, it had ended with Erasmus shaking his daughter, and Wynne crying, shouting that she didn’t care about the loss of food, the loss of eggs, she wanted a father. This time, Erasmus flew through the door and raced across the dry, packed ground, fitting an arrow into his crossbow as he went. Gray forms scattered around the front of the house. A cloud of frantic chickens rose into the air and dropped to the ground. Two painted bruntings were put to flight.

  Clutching the rooster by the neck, the biggest wolf scampered into the trees of the Cursed Woods. Erasmus’ blood pulsed with fury that could burn and burn and not run out, because he was fifty and knew what angry was, and he was past changing.

  Of all the game the wolf could have chosen, why the rooster? It was as if the wolf wanted to damage the livelihood of a pauper and his daughter as much as possible. The loss of the rooster meant no more chickens.

  Erasmus rushed into the Woods, shoving through the scratching boxelder branches. The wolf wasn’t even running. It was trotting along at a leisurely pace, too far away to be shot at, dodging rocks and other obstacles, and threatening to disappear forever each time it slipped into greenery.

  “The Phoenix curse a scoundrel!” Erasmus panted, his feet pounding the ground. Though he wanted to quicken his pace, his compact body was heavy.

  He burst into a clearing. In the center of the stout oaks and green-gray boxelders, an unnaturally tall fire of rushing red burned. Through the flames, Erasmus saw a boy.

  He appeared to be about fourteen, and was filthy. His curly black hair was matted, and his deep blue eyes stared at Erasmus with animal hatred. A dead rooster was at his feet.

  Erasmus made no move.

  The boy remained rooted to the spot, disbelieving at his own upright body.

  Erasmus’ heartbeat quickened. Such things happened only in the lives of philosophers or on the pages of prophecies. This was kesmal, and no mistaking it.

  “Why the rooster?”

  It was all he could think of saying.

  The growl came from nowhere and everywhere at once. The transformation was so quick Erasmus scarcely saw it. The boy lithely dropped to the twig-covered ground, his face lengthening and a wave of dark hair passing over the length of his body. Snarling savagely, the huge wolf leapt in a flash of black and gray through the fire for Erasmus’ throat, flames rushing down its abdomen and back. Erasmus had momentarily lowered the crossbow, and now frantically swung it up into a shooting position. The crossbow collided with the wolf’s open jaw mid-flight. The teeth clicked shut with finality. The wolf was thrown off course in the air. It keeled sideways, falling to the ground, the flames on its body sliding away in ashes. Regaining its feet, it pounced again, this time aiming at Erasmus’ upper left leg. Erasmus brought the crossbow down on the wolf’s head forcefully. He was too late. The jaws closed on his upper thigh with an explosion of pain. Shouting savagely, Erasmus brought the crossbow down again, once, twice, three times. While the wolf continued ripping at his flesh with merciless teeth, its grip became slacker. His eyes watering, Erasmus struck it on the head once more, and this time the teeth released his bloody leg. The wolf collapsed on the ground in a dark, hairy heap.

  Groaning with pain, Erasmus slumped into a sprawling seated position. Gingerly, he prodded the wolf with the toe of his right boot. No movement.

  Chapter Four

  The

  Last Selson

  In troubled dreams, Rafen felt the need to return to sanity. He had recollections of attacking a weathered, muscled man who swung something heavy into his head repeatedly. It was something about feathers, birds… He was writhing, shedding or absorbing the wolf that robed him. With a rush, smooth skin crawled over his body, making him feel like an eel within the clothes that unfurled to cover him. His limbs weirdly changed shape, and his face shrunk from a tapered oval to a hairless moon. The transformation was accompanied by a rare burst of tingling pain. His old form was so unfamiliar. His head was pounding, and his mouth was filled with the metallic taste of blood. His eyes opened a crack. He lay on the leafy ground of the forest. It was night.

  His insides were twisted into a knot of screaming pain. Warm vomit rose within his throat. Then it was on his face, sticky with blood. He choked, managed to roll onto his side to breathe.

  A man spoke next to him. Rafen couldn’t understand. He heard himself coughing. Something wiped his face. He was too tired to attack.

  The man’s hand brushed the soiled shirt above Rafen’s heart, his fingers touching the hem where the phoenix feather was. A sequence of bright pi
ctures flashed through Rafen’s mind – a flame-colored phoenix; a feather in his curled hand; a demon with dreadlocks sweeping toward him in a bed chamber; a scarlet-sailed ship; a purple-coated man with a pebble head; two mahogany doors slammed in his face; a red-haired man being thrown to the floor face forward. His hand closed tightly on the man’s. The man gently tried to pull back.

  “I’m helping you, boy,” his rough, low voice said. Rather than the crisp, clear accent of the Sianian nobility that Rafen was accustomed to, it was a strong peasant’s brogue, broad with soft consonants and long vowels.

  “Oh Zion,” Rafen croaked, his voice cracking from disuse.

  He opened his eyes fully. The trees above him swirled, occasionally revealing a pinprick swimming in blackness.

  “Phil,” he said. His own stench brought back visions of sweat and blood and sick in the depths of the mine.

  “Who?” the man said.

  He had left a sticky residue on Rafen’s face after his wiping. Rafen released his hand and tried to rub it away. His head was thundering, and his stomach was regretting something. He moaned again.

  “You’re sick,” the man said, the burrs softening his words. “No small wonder, that. You ate half my leg.”

  Rafen turned to see the man kneeling to his right. With thin lips set in an unrelenting line, his face was wrinkled and tanned. His green eyes were patterned like cracked glass, and his unkempt hair was flint-colored.

  When Rafen tried to swallow, his throat burned from the taste of blood. His eyes blurred with tears.

  “Stop that,” the man said sharply. “You’ve messed with kesmal, but I’ll help you find yourself again. ’S blood, not that I haven’t my own to take care of – still, Wynne’s a smart wean.”

  “Water,” Rafen rasped, forcing his dry lips and awkward tongue to form the almost unrecognizable word.

  “Aye,” the man said, retrieving a full water pouch from the ground. “Water for your throat and face.”