The Wolves of Midwinter

22

REUBEN PUSHED HIS WAY through the Morphenkinder blocking him, with Laura right behind him.

There stood Phil facing the fire, his eyes wide with shock, his body swaying and stumbling as he sought to stand upright. He wore the old gray sweatpants and sweatshirt he always wore for sleep, and his feet were bare in the dirt. He seemed on the verge of passing out, and suddenly one of the female Morphenkinder grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, jerking him upright.

“He should die for this,” she roared. “Coming unbidden to our revels. I tell you, he should die! Who dares to say otherwise?”

“Stop, Fiona,” cried Felix. He rushed forward just as Reuben did, and gripped Fiona’s arm, quickly overpowering her with his masculine advantage and forcing her back as she moaned in rage, struggling against him.

Reuben reached out and grabbed Phil under the arms to steady him, but what in God’s name could he say to Phil? How could he make himself known to Phil without further shattering his sanity, and it was clear that Phil was losing all semblance of reasoning as he stared around him.

Suddenly as Reuben let him go, so as not to frighten him more, there came a gleam of recognition into Phil’s pale eyes, and he cried out: “Elthram, Elthram, help me. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what this is! What’s happening to me?”

Out of the shadows Elthram came towards him saying loudly, “I’m here, my friend. And no harm, I swear it, will come to you!”

At once three of the female Morphenkinder began to roar, advancing on Phil and Felix and Reuben. “Back, out of here,” screamed Fiona. “The dead don’t talk at our revels. The dead don’t say who lives or dies amongst us!” The others were closing in as well, roaring at Elthram and menacing him with barks and growls.

“Get back!” Felix roared. Sergei, Thibault, and Frank moved in. The taller figure of Stuart charged up to Felix’s shoulder.

Elthram did not move. There was a faint smile on his lips.

“This is a matter of flesh and blood!” cried Fiona, one paw raised. “Who didn’t know the utter folly of these Morphenkinder to bring this human being right to their own hearth? Who did not see this coming?”

Margon took up a spot directly behind Fiona, unseen by her, but not unseen by those with her. Slowly, one female was moving away. Surely this was Berenice. She moved silently away from the females and towards Frank, taking up her stand behind him.

“No one is harming this man!” said Felix. “And no one will say one more word about death on this hallowed night and on this hallowed ground! You want a human sacrifice! That’s what you want. And you won’t have it here.”

All of a chorus the women roared.

“Death has always been a part of Modranicht!” said one of the women, surely the Russian, but Reuben could not clearly picture her now or recall her name. “Sacrifice has always been a part of Modranicht.” The other females gave their loud assent, stepping forward and then back and then dangerously forward again.

“Modranicht!” Phil whispered.

“Not in our time!” declared Sergei. “And not here on our land, and not this man who is blood kin to one of us. Not this man who is an innocent man!” Growls of assent came from the males.

It seemed every figure present was in some kind of motion, yet some dynamic tension held back the inevitable brawl.

“You came to our secret revels,” Fiona cried out as she faced Phil, the stubbed fingers of her hairy hand visible as she spread them out, claws fully extended. “You dared come when you were told not to come. Why should you not be the sacrifice? Aren’t you a gift from fortune, you blundering fool?”

“No!” Phil cried. “I didn’t come! I don’t know how I got here.”

Right through the band of females came Lisa suddenly, throwing back her hood, the glare of the fire full on her face. Margon motioned for her to stay back and so did Sergei but she would not.

“Look at Philip,” she shouted, her voice sharp but unequal to the others. “Look at his bare feet. He didn’t come here of his own accord. Someone brought him here.”

Fiona lunged at her, but Felix and Sergei caught Fiona and held her as Hockan drew close, threatening them. It was only with great effort that the two males could hold Fiona.

Lisa stood her ground, her face as cold and calm as it had ever been.

She went on, “These are lies. Philip didn’t walk through the woods like this. How could he? I gave him the drink to make him sleep. I saw that he drank every drop. He was sleeping like the dead when I left him. This is treachery beneath the Morphenkinder. Where is your conscience? Where is your code?”

The females were outraged.

“And now we listen on Modranicht to the voices of servants?” cried Fiona. “What right have you to speak here? Maybe your usefulness is at an end.” Two of the other females made snorting noises of contempt and outrage. The protective males moved in closer.

“Hockan, speak for us!” Fiona roared. The other took up the same cry. But the white wolf stood apart staring without a sound.

Reuben could smell the fear and the innocence of his father. But he could catch no scent of evil from these female Morphenkinder. It was maddening to him. If this was not evil, then what was evil? But all his senses told him this would end in a violent frenzy in which Phil could be instantly killed.

Lisa would not be moved.

Phil stumbled again as if his knees were giving out, and once more Reuben’s arm encircled his back and steadied him. Phil was staring at Lisa and then he looked again to Elthram. “Lisa’s telling the truth. I don’t know how I got here. Elthram, is this a nightmare? Elthram, where is my son? My son will help me. This is his land. Where is my son?”

Elthram started to come towards Phil with his arms out, and at once the females menaced him as they’d menaced Lisa, with Fiona jerking herself free of Felix and dealing Felix one fine blow that sent him stumbling backwards. Thibault quickly came to his rescue. Margon rushed at Fiona but Fiona would not back off. Elthram pressed in as before.

Fiona made a great swiping gesture at Elthram, which appeared to go right through his solid body without so much as causing it to flicker. A gasp came from Phil as he saw this, and Lisa remained close.

“No harm will come to you, master,” Lisa said to Phil. “We won’t let this happen.”

Other shadowy figures moved on either side of Elthram, unsubstantial but visible, and seeming to multiply before Reuben’s very eyes.

“You brought him here, Fiona!” said Elthram. “How do you hope to deceive us? How do you hope to deceive anyone?”

“Silence, I warn you, unclean spirit!” she said in a low seething voice. “You go back to the woods until you’re called. You have no voice here. As for the man, his fate is sealed. He’s seen us here. His death is inevitable. You and your unclean brethren should leave here now.”

“You brought him here,” Elthram continued. “You planned this. You and your cohorts, Catrin and Helena, you went for him and brought him here to force this bloody travesty. The man will not die in our forest, I warn you.”

“You warn me? You?” Fiona was howling. But for every advancing step taken by any of the females, the males countered while others moved this way and that behind them ready to spring.

There were outraged roars on all side. Only Hockan remained motionless on the periphery, not uttering a sound.

Stuart now stood directly behind Phil. Laura had taken up her place on the other side of him from Reuben. Indeed things were happening so fast, words were spoken so swiftly that Reuben could scarcely follow the thread.

“What are you now, Margon and Felix?” asked Fiona. “Sorcerers, that you call the spirits to defend your unholy actions? You think these insubstantial spirits have power over us! Hockan, speak for us!”

The white wolf did not respond.

“You, Felix, this is on your head, this death,” cried the other female. “And it can’t be extirpated, what you’ve done, you with your dreams and your schemes and your risks and your madness.”

“Back off, Fiona,” cried Frank. “Leave here now. Get out of here, all of you. Fiona, lead your pack out of here. You take on every single one of us if you persist with this.” Berenice remained silent at his side.

There came snarls from the other females.

“And what?” Fiona spat back. “Stand idly by while you drag us into yet another chain of fiascoes? You with your glorious Nideck dominion—your festivals, your village of sheepish serfs, your splendid displays of hubris? Is no one’s safety and secrecy sacred to you, you arrogant greedy Morphenkinder? Show your loyalty now to us by punishing this human! Stand with us and our customs or it will be war. Modranicht demands a sacrifice—a sacrifice from you, Felix!”

Margon stepped to the front. “The world’s big enough for all of us,” he said in a low commanding voice. “Leave now and there’s no harm done—.”

“No harm done?” came that Slavic accent from the female wolf beside Fiona. Surely it was Helena. “This man has seen us as we are. He’s seen too much to live. No, you can be certain on one thing now; this man will not live!”

Reuben was in a rage. Weren’t they all in a rage? What held them all back? It was driving Reuben mad. Beside him, Stuart uttered a long low menacing growl as he looked at the women. When the explosion finally happened, Reuben would throw himself over Phil to protect him. What else could he do?

Margon raised his arms for calm.

“Go!” declared Margon. His lupine voice rose with a power he never exerted in human form. “Stay and this is to the death,” he said, the words rolling out slowly and forcefully. “And it won’t be this innocent man’s death unless you slay every single one of us.”

Phil was staring wildly at Margon. Plainly he must have been recognizing the cadences of these many voices, Reuben thought, and Reuben didn’t dare to speak, dare to confide that he was the monster standing beside his father.

“We will not go!” said Helena, the sharp accent once more defining her. “You’ve done more to harm us in these times than any others the world over, what with your passion for human display and human kin. You tantalize the most dangerous enemies we’ve ever known, and you carry on, and on, and on as if this is nothing! Well, I say an end to it. Enough of you and your Nideck world. It’s time that house was burnt to the ground.”

“You can’t do such a thing!” Laura screamed. A roar went up from the males. “You wouldn’t dare to do such a thing!” There were low contemptuous protests from all sides. The tension was unbearable. But Felix called for silence.

“What harm have I done, and to whom and when?” demanded Felix. “You’ve never suffered on account of me, not a single one of you.” It was his old reasonable approach, but what good was it going to do here? “It’s you who bring the treachery here—seeking to divide us—and you know it. It’s you who violate our code!”

As if on cue, the males sprang at the females.

Fiona and Helena ducked and rushed Phil, their powerful arms snatching him out of Reuben’s grasp and away from Laura in a split second, their mouths closing on Phil’s shoulder and chest as swiftly as any animal of the wild moves to slay. Reuben was thrown down forcefully, and Laura was fighting as if for her life.

At once, all the male Morphenkinder were on top of Fiona and Helena, dragging them backwards, as the other females—except for Berenice—assaulted the males. Reuben, freed from his attacker, managed to smash a fist into Fiona’s bloody fangs. He felt hot breath on his face and the maddening stab of fangs into his throat. But Margon hurled his assailant away from the frenzy.

Phil had fallen to the ground, white faced and gasping, the blood streaming from his torn shoulder and side. Lisa had thrown herself on top of him.

From everywhere came the Forest Gentry surrounding Elthram and sliding between the male Morphenkinder and the two rebellious females and surrounding the females with countless bodies and countless embraces, as the two prisoners fought in vain with furious protests.

“Modranicht!” chanted the Forest Gentry in a deafening chorus. “Modranicht!” shouted Elthram.

Hockan was suddenly roaring in protest, Hockan who had been silent all this while. “Stop them, Margon. Felix, stop them!”

Louder and louder came the chant. “Modranicht.”

Margon appeared dazed and Felix too stood motionless.

The great compact and irresistible mass of the Forest Gentry absorbed the futile blows of the frantic female Morphenkinder and the desperate white wolf, Hockan, as they sped their helpless prisoners towards the bonfire. Even Berenice, Frank’s wife, ran at them, trying to claw her way into them; but they absorbed her blows and remained intact. The crush of Forest Gentry was suddenly beyond any count, and the chant of “Modranicht” drowned out all other sounds.

And into the fire the Forest Gentry threw the two wailing, roaring females, Fiona and Helena.

A great howl went up from Hockan.

The females roared.

The chanting stopped.

Reuben had never heard such anguish from beast or human as the wails of Hockan and Berenice and the other females.

He stood stock-still watching all in horror. A low gasp broke from Sergei. This had all happened in seconds.

Out of the inferno came horrific screams, but the Forest Gentry held fast. The flames ate the figures of the Forest Gentry but could not burn and could not devour them as the Forest Gentry shimmered and shivered and resubstantiated themselves. The great dark timber scaffolding of the fire shifted and crackled, and the fire belched and leapt against the sky.

The other females were down on their knees wailing. Hockan had gone quiet. Frank and Sergei stood silent staring as did Margon. Felix stood transfixed, his great hairy arms and paws crossed over the top of his head.

A soft despairing sound came from Margon.

The ghastly cries from the bonfires ceased.

Reuben looked down at Phil. Phil lay on his back. Sergei and Thibault were beside him, licking at his wounds as fiercely as they could. Lisa knelt at a distance, her hands clasped in prayer in front of her face.

Elthram suddenly appeared on his knees beside Phil, between Sergei and Thibault. “Hands, hands,” said Elthram, and other Forest Gentry crowded around Phil, all laying their hands on him. Elthram appeared to be pressing with great strength on the gushing wound in Phil’s side and the deep vicious wound in Phil’s shoulder.

Reuben struggled to get close to Phil, but Sergei said, “Be patient. Let them do their work.”

Thibault and Margon crouched on the other side of Phil from his injuries; and carefully turning Phil’s head, Margon lowered his fangs to bite gingerly into Phil’s neck, then drew back, his long pink tongue lapping at the tiny wound he’d made.

Felix, on his knees, had Phil’s right hand in his great hairy paws, and he sank his teeth gently into that hand. Phil convulsed as he felt the pain.

But Phil’s eyes appeared blind. He was staring up into the night sky as though he were seeing something, something very particular, that no one else could see, and then softly he said, “Reuben? You’re here, aren’t you, son?”

“Yes, Dad, I’m here,” said Reuben. He knelt behind Phil’s head, the only place he could find room, and spoke softly in Phil’s ear. “I’m with you here, Dad. They’re giving you the Chrism to heal you. Each one is giving you the Chrism.”

Elthram rose to his feet and the other Gentry backed away like melting shadows. “The bleeding is stopped,” said Elthram.

Berenice and Frank now licked Phil’s wounds, and Felix and Margon withdrew, as if this new infusion of the Chrism would have some added potency.

The remaining females of the other pack were sobbing in deep, hoarse wolfish sobs. Hockan stood staring into the fire which burned on and on, inevitably dissolving the remains of those it had devoured.

“Modranicht,” said Phil softly, eyes still wide and seemingly blind, his eyebrows knit, his mouth quivering slightly. He looked so pale, so moist. It was almost as if he were gleaming.

“The spirit remains well rooted to the body,” said Elthram to Reuben. “The Chrism will have its chance now.”

Reuben saw Lisa come around and stand over his dad crying softly into her hands. Henrietta and Peter had brought two of the discarded velvet cloaks to cover Phil and bundle him warmly. Lisa was murmuring in an old-fashioned and mournful way, “Oh, Philip, my Philip.”

Hockan’s low measured voice suddenly rose above Lisa’s crying.

“I call all to hear me,” he said. “I won’t be silent about what’s happened here.”

No one challenged him. The female wolves remained on their knees, weeping quietly.

“Beware what you’ve done here,” Hockan said, pointing to Margon and to Felix. His rough wolfish voice had given way to a deep yet more human timbre. “Never in all my time have I seen such a thing as this. Spirits roused to shed the blood of the living? This is evil! This is undeniable evil.” He turned to look at Reuben, and at Stuart. “Beware, young ones, your citadel is made of glass, your leaders are as blind as you are!”

“Go before you meet the same fate,” said Elthram, his face and form brightening. How perfectly terrifying he looked, his green eyes large and menacing as he stared at Hockan. The fire glinted on his dark skin, his black hair. “You and your companions brought malice and foul dealings to the forest. Your companions have paid the price.”

“Destroy me you very well might,” said Hockan steadily. His voice was still the voice of the beast, but also very much the voice of the man, with its distinct melodic power. “But you cannot destroy the truth.” He looked around, taking in each figure individually before he went on. “What I see here is evil, terrible evil.”

“Enough,” said Margon under his breath.

“Is it enough? It is not enough!” said Hockan. “Your ways, Felix, have always been evil. Your houses, your estates, your greedy attachment to your mortal blood kin, your preening before the eyes of the living. Your seduction of the living. It is evil.”

“Stop,” said Margon in the same low voice. “You brought the treachery here tonight, and you know this.”

“Ah, but it was your sinfulness that provoked it,” said Hockan calmly, and with obvious conviction. “Felix, you destroyed your mortal family with your filthy secrets. Your children turned against you and your Morphenkind brothers—selling you for profit—and you shed their blood to punish them. But who had roused the greed of the men of science who bought and paid for you and put you in cages? Who drew them to our secrets? Yet you shed the blood of stupid blundering mortals.”

A deep angry sound of protest came from Sergei. He took a small step closer to Hockan. Margon gestured for patience. Hockan ignored them.

“Oh, what a withering shadow you threw over the life of your last descendants, Felix,” he said, his voice fast attaining an eerie beauty. “And how they shriveled from the poison of your legacy. The ghost of your murdered niece walks this forest even now, in agony, paying for your sins! Yet you hold a revel in the very house where she was cut down by her own brothers!”

Margon sighed but said nothing. Felix was staring at Hockan, and it was impossible to read into his wolfen face or posture any response. It was the same with all of them. Only a voice or a gesture could reveal a response. And now only Hockan was speaking. Even the mourning females had gone silent. For Reuben to hear these harsh and frightening words spoken with such a beautiful voice was crushing.

“What arrogance, what pride,” said Hockan, “what greed for undeserved admiration. And do you think you’ve seen the last of greedy doctors and government men who would put a price on our heads and hunt us for their laboratories like vermin?”

“Stop,” said Margon. “You misjudge everything.”

“Do I?” asked Hockan. “I misjudge nothing. You put us all at risk with your revels and your games. Fiona was right, you learned nothing from your own blunders.”

“Oh, go away from here, you pompous fool,” said Sergei.

Hockan turned and looked at Reuben and Stuart.

“Young ones, I caution you,” he said. “Move away from the living; move away from those of flesh and blood who were your kin, for your sake, and for theirs. Mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, unborn child—forswear them. You have no right to them or their affections. The lie you live can only contaminate and destroy them. See what Felix’s evil has done already to this one’s father.”

Margon made a low disgusted and derisive sound. Felix remained still and quiet.

“Oh, yes,” said Hockan. His voice now had become tremulous. “Fiona and Helena were unwise, and meddlesome and reckless. I don’t deny it. Young Morphenkinder, untried and unchastened and now gone forever. Forever, when they might have lived till the end of time. Into the need fire, the bone fire of Modranicht! What is it now, this fire? What have your Forest Gentry made of it? An unclean funeral pyre. But who provoked those two, our sisters? Who gave them scandal? Where did it all start, that is what you must ask yourselves.”

No one answered him.

“It was Felix who drew this innocent man into his web,” said Hockan. “Nideck Point is his snare. Nideck Point is his public shame. Nideck Point is his abomination.” His voice rose. “And it was Felix who roused the spirits of the forest to an unholy and bloody violence never witnessed before! It is Felix who has strengthened them, emboldened them, enlisted them like dark angels in his unholy designs.”

He was visibly trembling, but he drew himself up, and caught his breath and then went on in the same exquisitely modulated voice as before.

“And so now you have these murderous spirits on your side,” he said. “Ah, such a wonder. Are you proud, Felix? Are you proud, Margon?”

From Elthram there came a low hiss, and suddenly the same rose from all the Forest Gentry everywhere in the clearing, a storm of hissing in derision.

Hockan stood still regarding them all.

“Young ones,” he said. “Burn Nideck Point.” He pointed to Reuben, then to Stuart. “Burn it to the very foundations!” His voice rose again until it was just below a roar. “Burn the village of Nideck. Erase it from the earth. That should be your penance at the very least for this, all of you! What right have you to human love, or human adulation! What right have you to darken innocent lives with your duplicity and evil power!”

“Enough from you!” cried Elthram. He was plainly in a rage. All around him, the Forest Gentry collected in vivid color in the glare of the fire.

“I have no stomach for war with you,” said Hockan, “any of you. But you all know the truth. Of all the misbegotten immortals roaming this earth, we pride ourselves on rectitude and conscience!” He beat his chest silently with his paws. “We, the protectors of the innocent, are known for the singular gift of knowing good from evil. Well, you have made a mockery of this, all of you. You have made a mockery of us. And what are we now but another horror?”

He walked right up to Elthram and stood before him, peering into his eyes. It was a frightful image, Elthram surrounded by his kindred, glaring at the powerfully built white Man Wolf, and the Man Wolf poised as if to spring, but doing nothing.

Slowly, Hockan turned and drew closer to Reuben. His posture shifted from one of confrontation to weariness, his body shuddering.

“What will you say to the mournful and broken soul of Marchent Nideck who seeks your comfort, Reuben?” he asked. His words came on, smooth, seductive. “It’s to you that she reveals her sorrow, not to Felix, her guardian and her kin who destroyed her. How will you explain to the murdered Marchent that you share her great-uncle’s cursed and pestilential power, feasting now so happily and greedily in this beautiful realm which she gave to you?”

Reuben didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. He wanted to protest, with all his soul he wanted to protest, but Hockan’s words overwhelmed him. Hockan’s passion and conviction had overwhelmed him. Hockan’s voice had woven some crippling spell around him. Yet he knew, positively knew, that Hockan was wrong.

Helplessly, he looked down at Phil, who lay half conscious on the ground, his head turned to the side, his body tightly covered by the green velvet cloaks, yet plainly shuddering beneath them.

“Oh, yes, your father,” said Hockan, his voice lower, words coming more slowly. “Your poor father. The man who gave you life. And he’s ripped out of life now as you were ripped. Are you happy for him?”

No one stirred. No one spoke.

Hockan turned away, and with a series of small eloquent grunts and noises beckoned his remaining female cohorts to go with him, and off they ran except for one, vanishing into the darkness.

That one was Berenice. She remained kneeling close to Phil, and now Frank went to her, and helped her to her feet in the most tender and human manner.

Elthram backed away from the center, out of the direct glare of the bonfire. All around the great arena, against the pale boulders, stood the Forest Gentry watching, waiting.

“Come on, let’s take him back home,” said Sergei. “Let me carry him.”

Gently he scooped up the body of Phil and laid Phil gently against his shoulder. Lisa secured the warm wrappings around Phil, walking beside Sergei as he moved towards the passage out of the clearing.

The other Morphenkinder were all in motion, moving ahead and behind, Laura moving right with them.

The Forest Gentry began to melt away as if they’d never been there. Elthram had vanished.

Reuben wanted to go along with the others, but something held him back. He watched them as they made their way into that narrow passage just beyond where the discarded drums and pipes lay in the dust. The gold-trimmed drinking horns lay about everywhere. And the cauldron still gave off steam on its bed of coals.

Reuben groaned. With his whole soul he groaned. He felt a pain in his belly. It grew bigger and bigger, constricting his heart, throbbing in his temples. The cold air lacerated him, bruised him, and he realized the wolf hair had fallen away from him, leaving him naked.

He saw his naked white fingers trembling before him and felt the wind tear at his eyes.

“No,” he whispered. And he willed it to return. “You come back to me,” he said in a half whisper. “I won’t let you go. Be mine now.” And at once the old tingling surged in his hands and in his face. The hair once more grew thick and smooth over him spreading with the inexorable force of water. His muscles sang with the old lupine strength and the warmth enclosed him.

But the tears had risen in his eyes. The bonfire hissed and spat and rustled in his ears.

From his right, Laura approached, this comely gray she-wolf whose face and form resembled his own, this savage pale-eyed monster who was so unutterably beautiful in his eyes. She had come back for him. He fell into her arms.

“You heard him, you heard all the terrible things that he said,” Reuben whispered.

“Yes,” she said. “I did. But you are bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. Come. We will make our truth together.”