A Mild Caution From The Author: The following story, unlike every other story I have written for the past year, is not a fairy tale. I do not consider its content graphic or otherwise disturbing, but for those who have read my work prior to these fairy tales, be aware it is closer to that prior work than to a fairy tale and proceed or do not accordingly. That said, I hope you enjoy this departure…

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“Bones of the Hand”

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When my right hand feels cool, I know it is time to wind it. The key hangs from a silver chain about my wrist and sounds a gentle chime when I walk. I place two drops of pure oil inside my hand once a week, without fail. The steel is tarnished. There are worn spots, on my fingertips and on my palm, which always shine more brightly than the rest. I tell all the children I meet that they’re shiny because that’s where the magic is. I still polish my hand with each oiling, but many years have passed since I severed my own flesh and blood from my wrist.

The dried remains of my right hand show me where I should go. I carry the bones in a leather bag around my neck. I am a fortune teller by trade, a teller of stories as I have always been. I have my cards, and my pen and ink all packed away, crystals and coins with which I unmake the future, but my hands have always been my truest guides.

Above, outside, the stars read out time and direction like clockwork. Neither machine nor man dictates their movements. Their distance is enormous, and we are insignificant beside them, yet all their gravity cannot lift us to them. We are too heavy. The stars are my guide and my guardian, my watch, as it were. The stars were our first machine, and whenever I want to know where I am, I always look to the sky. But whenever I want to know where I will be I look to the earth.

Lights flicker in the shrouded mirror, neon, abstracted by the surfaces of bottles and refracted by the substances therein. I recall campfires on cold desert nights in the mountains, where the trackways haven’t reached. I’ve told my stories here, exchanged for sanctuary and sustenance. My case is propped beneath my seat at the bar, and I find myself toying with the bag around my neck again. The chain carelessly snags long strands of my brown hair as I tug it free. I hold my right hand in my left until the bones are warm, before casting them onto the stained countertop.

The bones clatter, a chair slides out next to me, and my fingers point at the man who sits down to order. He smells like gasoline and tobacco, and when he slides out his stool, he knocks my boot off the guitar case. I gather my bones with my right hand, and tell the bartender I’ll pick up the gentleman’s tab. I don’t actually use the word gentleman. The first thing he notices is my guitar case. The first thing I see is a badge clipped onto his leather jacket. It’s at least five years old and fifty miles out of his jurisdiction.

“Sorry about that.” He nods at my legs, and scans me sequentially, gathering in details with a practiced gesture He is no more aware of this act than I am of my heartbeat, and he could claim no more control over it than I could hold over my pulse.

I re-cross my legs and tell him he can pay me back. He says his name is Jeremiah, and I say my name is Erica, and that’s a lot like the truth.

* * *

Jeremiah’s car is old, positively ancient. I tell him it must be older than he is, and he says, “I’m pretty sure it’s older than my pop.” I tell him it doesn’t look very much like a police agent’s car, and he doesn’t look at me, but he says, “I don’t suppose it does, no.” The same does not apply to him. Five or more years have not erased the razor clean lines that seem to frame all police agents’ faces. They are not engineered, but they all somehow end up looking the same. Two lightpoles wash out the color from his skin and from my clothes, my dyed shirt and patchwork jeans. I enjoy the affectations of the fortune teller as much as I enjoy singing my stories. I enjoy weaving a gaudy thread into the future, and tearing out the stitching where it’s been laid. The future has been written out for most of the world already, and it has been searching for me since I learned to sing.

I can’t tell what color the car is in this light. It looks deeply magenta, and the paint is chipped to the sheet metal in places. He opens the trunk with a separate key. I haven’t seen a trunk with letters on it in a long time. It says “GTX”, the G and the X are smaller than the T, and I can’t remember what that stood for. Nothing, maybe. Perhaps I never knew. I say thanks when I dump my guitar in the back. “You do this a lot?” I admit that I have done it rather a lot. I tell him ever since I ran away from home. That’s a lot like a truth.

The car smells like an old car on the inside, a smell the precise opposite of a new car. It smells of life, not chemicals. Jeremiah smiles at me again. “I guess I’m a sucker for a pretty face.” Well, maybe I am too. He’s driving towards the central southeast node, long ago called the Columbus District, if my memories are reliable. The bones said to follow him.

His GTX starts with an animal noise. I flinch involuntarily; it sounds very much like the wolves of the Second Machine. Jeremiah mistakes my expression and grins. “Engines don’t sound like this any more.” The few beat up cars remaining in the bar’s parking lot seem to shrink back. Plastic things, they are barely young and already dying. It reassures me to see them pale and frightened. Perhaps this is where my hand was guiding me. The past, like the stars, is beyond the reach of the Second Machine’s inexorable, inflexible future. I relax and lean into the deeply cushioned seat, as the GTX leaves the bar behind.

“Have you got a gig?” he asks. “You know, out there?” He nods in an easterly direction. I raise a querulous eyebrow at him. “I mean, the guitar case,” he says. He’s nervous. “It’s a guitar, right?” I give him a smile and assure him it is a guitar, but that no, I have nothing waiting in the District. Except I say node, not District. I play my fortunes, I explain, where I find them. “Oh, a gypsy then, are you?” I smile. “Can you tell my fortune?” I ask him how much further he can drive tonight. It’s almost midnight. He shifts in his seat, and the GTX shakes. I sink further into my own seat for a moment.

“I’ll make good time,” Jeremiah assures me. The trackway is straight and speckled along either edge by distant lights. His hand is loose on the wheel, as the road’s siderails gently steer the car. There hasn’t been a moon for as long as there have been trackways, if not longer. Light circles float thirty feet above the highway. Their luminescence dims all but the most intractable stars. Our world glows in space, now, webbed with light. I rest my left hand on the bag at my neck and wonder where the road will lead. The Second Machine has lit all the paths already.

* * *

Sterile gray walls, and a sterile white bed. I crossed the automated desk clerk’s hand with silver, paid for the night. It had no face and only the cheapest optic recorders. I know trackside flops like this. They won’t dump their files until midnight rolls around. I haven’t seen the wolves in a week, so perhaps the Machine has lost my trail. Of course, if all I wanted to do was hide, I could stop telling fortunes.

The GTX waits outside the locked room, guarding the gate. My empty boots guard the door. We have only a single bed, with disposable sheets that will dissolve in eleven hours, and no windows. I begin spreading out my bedroll and Jeremiah says, again, “Well, how about that fortune now?” I tap the key hanging from my wrist against my palm, and look at his guarded yet guileless face. I inform him my fortunes are not free, and to his inquiring look I explain the price isn’t always immediately apparent. He says, “I’ll have to take my chances. Isn’t that how fortunes normally work?” I allow that he has seen to the heart of the matter as I delve into my pack for the cards.

“What,” he says, pointing into my pack, “is that for?” I tell him it is my pen, and I write stories with it. “You write with that?” He seems unnerved. I also tell fortunes with it, I explain, but only rarely. I show him the cards and close my pack. My pen and paper are not meant for him.

I sit with my legs crossed under me, and lay the deck on my bedroll. I invite Jeremiah to sit, which he does, in a certain way I’ve seen in men who are not accustomed to sitting without chairs. This room has only one chair (also made of plastic), and he has draped his leather jacket over it. He moves as if he should creak the same as his jacket. I run steel fingers along the side of the deck before drawing the first card. I have never shuffled my cards. Why would I?

I turn over the card, a woman with gray eyes. I tell him he knows the girl, as if that were not immediately apparent.

“I suppose,” he says, “there is some kind of resemblance. To the girl, I mean. I was looking for a woman. Or I am looking for.”

I wonder aloud at the fact that he seems not to have found this gray-eyed girl, and I draw a second card. It is the crossroads, a pairing of streets I have seen many times over in the cities and hubs and nodes of the Second Machine. Signs mark the streets, and the towers of a bridge mark an unseen river. I tell him the crossroads are empty.

“She was supposed to be there. But she wasn’t. It was a mistake.”

I remind him that the Machine never makes mistakes.

“That’s said. I agree that’s said.”

I draw another card, this one an empty window, with just one crack. The window, I tell him, is also empty.

“She wasn’t home. I went back there, but it was all wrong. She was gone, days gone, information long post-dated.”

I ask if, perhaps, he had found some way into the past, days or decades, into uncertainty. I draw another card and turn it over, the midnight road, lit by circles. The car could be Jeremiah’s GTX. I tell him he is searching, or running.

“It’s been awhile. Backtracking. I went looking for her, like I was supposed to do. Went out to pick up the trackway where she took off. I think I ran off course somewhere. I’m never going to see that girl.”

Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, I remind him. And I make more than others.

“That’s said too. I’ve made mistakes… Everyone?”

Some people’s mistakes, I explain, have to be made by someone else.

Jeremiah has leaned far forward. His elbows rest on his knees and his shoulders are over my cards. He looks at me, close now, neck arched painfully. His eyes are tired, and only distantly curious. “But what do your cards have in store? More mistakes, maybe.” He says this with a smile.

I correct him. My cards only describe mistakes. Mistakes of the past. Mistakes of the future. I draw and turn another card. This one bears the image of a handgun. His handgun.

“What’s that?”

I ask him if he means his card or the night sounds.

“The sounds. Well, I know this.” Two fingers tap the card. “Are you calling this a mistake?”

I tell him it is his fortune, and I can stop telling it if he does not want more. But he doesn’t stop me from turning over another card. A man looks up at a wall of machines. The man could be Jeremiah, seen from behind.

“I think it’s just a trick of the mind. The sounds I mean. I’ve heard sounds far away come in very close.” He’s leaned back again. “Right?”

No, I reply, and move the card in line with the others. It’s close. He finally looks at the card, and doesn’t say anything. He hooks a hand into his jacket pocket and it comes out with a gun.

It sounds like metal on metal outside. Clicks. Low decibel, high pitched whining.

“Well.” His elbows are back on his knees, and he’s not looking at the cards. “It could be maintenance.”

I offer to stop. He’s looking away, but shakes his head. I turn over another card. It is our hotel room door, with no room for doubt.

He’s not really watching the cards. He’s watching the door. Something slides across the pressed plastic. I hear another click, a slow whir, and a heavy weight falls into the plastic. The sounds deepen into noises of resonant, mechanical effort.

“I don’t guess it is.” His chin rests on one hand. He has the gun in the crook of his elbow, pointed at the door. I open my pack with one hand, and draw another card with my right hand. The door rattles and splinters around the hinges. The cheapest prefabricated plastic.

I lay my quill on the bedroll, next to its card. The door is cracked along the middle. Whirs and revolutions per minute and that odd sound metal makes grinding against itself. “What’s the next card.” Jeremiah stands up.

I turn over the last card, and the plastic around the screws gives out.

Jeremiah’s gun reports, and shakes the walls. One of the wolves is catapulted, backwards, out of the room, its head caved. I pick up my pen and rise to my feet. The wolves of the Second Machine come.

Before I learned to write, I learned to dance. I was taught that to dance was to tell my own story, and to hold my own future. This was how I learned to tell stories, and this was how I learned to tell fortunes. After I learned to dance, I took up a pen for the first time. In this way I learned that I might write the future for someone other than myself. But the strokes are so final, and the ink is so precious, that I taught myself the cards and the crystals. The bones of the hand were my final lesson.

My ears are already ringing painfully from Jeremiah’s first shot when he fires again. His gun was made by the Machine, and to describe its sound as a thunderclap is not so much a cliche as it is a technical term. There are noises so loud they take more than one sense to hear. When he fires his second shot, I taste aluminum for a second time. One of the two wolves in the door caves into the doorframe and shatters the drywall.

The wolves are black, and resemble wolves in the way of children’s drawings. A third wolf growls and makes the short leap across the room. The grip slides against my right palm, and I guide my pen with my fingers. I invite the wolf into my dance, but it is just a machine. It has plotted the course of my future. Too late for that, I write an ending for the wolf. Black ink stains the bedsheets and my quill. Worthless.

Sounds are coming to me through ten feet of water. Jeremiah takes the head completely off another wolf. Through some miracle of the laws of motion, the head jumps straight up into the air and the wolf’s body drops dead. The wolves crawl over their dead, even though they were never alive. They are large machines, and like all large machines they move with an unexpected speed. Wolves move under Jeremiah’s gun while he’s still holding down the trigger.

I step between and around the cards on my bedspread. The room shakes from the gunfire and the wolves (they must weigh a solid ton each). I dance, and I tell my story, and I write. The wolves, guided by the immaculately plotted parabolas of the Machine, continue to fall outside their own margin of error.

* * *

Bodies are on the floor and something like blood is on the walls, but none of it is mine and Jeremiah is still standing. Just that much is right with the world. The air glitters around the vents of his gun, and the room smells powerfully of formaldehyde.

The door to the room is gone. What was left of it has been crushed beneath the wolves. The doorway itself has been shattered, along with some significant portion of the wall in which it once resided. Jeremiah says something I cannot hear, and I kneel to pick up my cards. They have not moved. Black wolves’ blood has stained my bedroll, but the cards remain untouched. I look at the last card. It is a black wolf with yellow eyes.

I return my cards meticulously to their proper place. I have always taken care with my instruments of storytelling. My quill I wipe on the disposable sheets before I rise again. The fine crystal tone circling my ears has begun to fade in the time I have taken to collect myself. I have not yet put my quill away. Its wicked drop point hangs even with my ankle.

Jeremiah has the gun, holding it in the seeming-casual grip which keeps his hands from being burned with every shot. I thank him for the ride and tell him I probably ought to go. He is almost, but not quite, facing the front of the room. His gun is almost, but not quite, pointed at me. Something about the mechanical wreckage absorbs his attention. “I never saw them before. I mean, I knew, but I never… Well.” He shrugs.

I give him the only explanation I have. They are wolves. “Wolves,” he says. “For the mistakes. When there are mistakes, it sends the wolves.” His gesture in my direction brings his gun to focus on me. The gun barrel’s mechanics are not audible, but I am close enough to feel the high pitched whine of its adjustments. He notices the gun first, and me second, but the gun doesn’t move. “So you’re a mistake.”

My right hand feels cold. I hold up my hand, without looking away from the gun or setting down my pen. I slot the key into my palm, and it locks in place where my carpal bones used to be. I turn the key, and wind my hand, and I tell Jeremiah that I am not (as he puts it) a mistake. I am every mistake. I’m every error, every miscalculation in the Second Machine. The Machine plots out the future, and I tell fortunes. I write the stories that aren’t in the Machine.

I put my arms back down at my sides. I have written more than I would like for one night. His gun swings down, and he looks through what little is left of the hotel doorway. “And the girl?” I tell him I read her fortune, and she’s found her own story. “Well.” He runs a hand through his hair, and I turn away. I pack up my pen, and clean off my bedroll as best as I am able before stowing it.

I thank him again for the ride as I shoulder my bag. “You know… Where’ll you sleep?” I shrug. Maybe I’ll just sleep later. “I’ll give you a lift. You can sleep on the way.” He cracks half a smile. “For the fortune.” I give him a smile back and tap my key against my wrist. Only if that’s what he wants, I tell him.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can’t go back anyway. You know.” He inclines his head towards the wolves before lifting his jacket from the chair. I admit that this is probably true, and pick up my boots. I walk to the GTX in stocking feet. My guitar is still safe in the back, and the car’s color is burgundy under the glow of ancient, fluorescent lines.

Jeremiah coaxes his car to life and it growls territorially at the broken machines inside the hotel. He says he hopes I know where we can go from here. And he says thank you. He says, as the GTX pulls out of the hotel parking lot, that he still does not quite see how I write with my quill.

“I write but rarely,” I say. “I wrote for you tonight, wrote your ending into a beginning. I wrote a whole story just for you.” I point out to the trackway. “Go east. There are still some roads as yet unlit. I’ll help you find them.”

The GTX growls, and I sink into the seats. “If we need them, I have maps.”

I sleep.

If anybody has been wondering what I’ve been up to the past week or two, you can find it here. Or, if you look to the side, you’ll find a link to the new bookstore. It’s a book full of short little fortunes, which have never appeared on this site before, and if you’d like to read something new and support your author the Crow, please buy a copy.

If there was ever a time for reading through the archives, now is it, since I have just spent the past week or so editing everything older than February.

In the lands of the East, where the fingers of the Ocean combed through the earth in many rivers, and the sun pulled the water from the very soil itself so that it stood in the air during the hottest months of the year, there was a great forest where the trees grew tall and lush. The verdant life of the Eastern woods overflowed from the ground and the treetops, spilling across the land in vines and ivy, creeping flowers and tangled thorns heavy with berries. All the branches of the trees hung over the ground below, making tunnels with their leaves. Deep within the forest stood a lake, surrounded by tall grass and willow trees, and not such a far journey from the lake stood an ancient elm tree. The elm had seen more years than any family, and its trunk was wider across than any man could spread his arms. It had lived through many winters and many storms, and was scarred by the wind and the snow and the rain. Near the base of the old elm there was a hollow, where lightning had split the tree in twain many years ago. The tree had been young, and the time had long since passed since the two halves had mended together, but the hollow remained, wide and dark. Scores of times since then, lightning had struck the tree, and it had branches wider than many other trees trunks. It seemed that its height could not be measured, and that somewhere above the forest floor it had grown so wide it touched every treetop in the forest.

But time came, as he always comes from place to place, where men and women made their homes in the Eastern woods. The roads and cities of man were built beneath the canopies of green, and their paths ran below the tunnels made by the low-hanging branches. And so even then they came to live by the marshy lake and the great old elm tree.

Now the woods were heavy and dense at this lake, and the families of men who lived not so many hours’ journey from the elm and the lake were few and so far between that most could not even see the lights of their neighbors’ homes late at night. Yet still, it came to pass that all these men and women learned of Baba Janous, and they told all their children. The stories of Baba Janous were whispered late at night, when children pretended to be asleep and their parents pretended not to hear their whispers. The stories were passed from older children to younger and back again in school yards and classrooms. And the stories told to the children by their parents were then told to their children’s children, and the children who came thereafter.

Baba Janous, it was said, lived in the dark hollow of the old elm which was taller than anyone could measure. It had one leg which was a goat’s hoof and another which was an eagle’s talon. It had the body of a dire wolf, but its tail was made of three snakes. The first snake was a cobra and would answer any riddle or puzzle. The second snake was a viper and knew the manner in which all things would die. The third snake was a great python and knew the names of all men and beasts. Baba Janous had tiny wings on its back but could not fly. It had a head with two faces. One face was an old crone, and the other face was a beautiful maiden. The crone had no teeth, but it was said her voice was more beautiful than any mortal woman’s, and she knew always if someone lied to her. The beautiful maiden never spoke, but it was said inside her mouth she had countless teeth more fearsome than any lion’s, and if anyone told a lie to Baba Janous, she would gobble them up whole.

There were many stories of men and women putting riddles to Baba Janous, or trying to trick her. It was said she granted wishes, and had a great treasure, and would come and eat up wicked children who did not listen to their parents, and would tell a virtuous man how to win his true love’s heart, and all other manner of perils and rewards which have always been the province of monsters. No one had ever seen Baba Janous, though many children camped by the old elm and tried to scare one another into fleeing for the warmth and safety of their homes, and swore the truthfulness of all manner of horrific claims to their schoolmates the next day. No one had seen her, yet many a times had men and women left some trinket or gift of fruit and meats before the dark hollow in hopes of her favor. And who is to say if she granted such importuning or not? They had only the certain knowledge that whatsoever was left before the hollow would vanish in the night, and was nowhere to be found thereafter.

Thus grew the stories of Baba Janous, and so grew the families who lived so many hours apart from one another, and it was all but inevitable that a house was one day built near the shore of the lake, not so very far at all from the hollow of the elm where Baba Janous dwelled. The husband Dumaz was a chef, and would rise early to see the bread was baking and prepare the very first soups of the day. The wife Mari was a fisher, spending many patient hours at the nearby lake to catch the finest and the fattest fish for miles around. It did not take long before their neighbors came to know and love them (for who does not like a man who cooks and a woman who is patient?), and so soon the chef and the fisher woman learned all the most re-told tales of Baba Janous. They had each of them already seen the great elm tree, and wondered at what might be in the hollow. Having heard the stories, Mari would take any leavings from their table out to the hollow, and Dumaz would sometimes laughingly say of some good fortune that Baba Janous must have liked her meal especially well. Dumaz and Mari would tell their own stories to the curious children who came to see the great elm, and always indulged with a smile those brave budding adolescents honoring dares of courage to spend a night under the elm’s branches.

On these nights the husband and wife would share their amusement, but long after the sun had set, when the woods were dark, with no moonlight falling between the leaves, Dumaz or Mari would wake and wonder more than they otherwise would in the warmth and the light. On these nights one or the other of them would always walk out into the woods, just to be sure, they told one another, that the children were not scared. In the dark, with the children asleep in their tents, the base of the elm was quiet and the hollow yawned with total darkness. The sounds of crickets and frogs and night avians filled the woods and the lake’s shore, but the silence beneath the elm tree was absolute.

As is the way of husband and wife, Dumaz and Mari had a son and a daughter. They named their son Lee and their daughter Ami, and the children brought much joy to their household. They raised the young children with love, as all children are loved and cared for by their parents. As many families had before them, Dumaz and Mari passed down to their children their favorite stories of Baba Janous. They warned their children they must be good and honest or Baba Janous would gobble them up. They promised their children if they were clever and wise, Baba Janous would reward them. But always they cautioned their children to be wary of the woods late at night, for the woods had many real dangers, even if young Lee and Ami knew Baba Janous was just a story. The children grew older, as was their nature, and Lee and Ami learned many more of the stories of Baba Janous in the schoolyard and in whispered tales told late at night. They knew, just as well, that their parents left food at the ancient elm where Baba Janous was said to live, and so they grew curious as young children must be to discover and live in the world around them.

It came as no surprise to Dumaz and Mari when young Lee and Ami came to them and asked to spend a night by the great elm, though their children had not yet seen ten years. They let Lee and Ami join the older children in the tent that night, with assurances from neighbors all around that many other young children had been watched over for an occasional evening by these older youths. Dumaz and Mari worried, as is the province of parents, but they knew at any time they could hike out into the woods and assure themselves that all was well.

Thus young Lee and Ami, by far the youngest children ever to sit watch at the base of the great old elm, sat with the older children around a small campfire and told all the most frightening tales they knew of how Baba Janous stole babies from their cribs and kidnapped unwary children walking in the woods at night and (most of all) gobbled up anyone who fell asleep before the hollow of the elm. At last there were no more stories to be told, and the night became heavy with silence. The leaves of the elm blocked out the moon and the only light came from the embers. But now all the children were sleepy from telling stories and frightening one another and, though they had all promised not to fall asleep, their eyes shut one by one.

In all their dreams, the children heard a voice, “What have you brought for me, dreamers at my doorstep? What have you brought for Baba Janous? Little dreamers, little dreamers, slumbering at my home, lay still and sleep, and out I will creep, and step by careful step between you and see what I may keep.” And each child who heard the voice, more beautiful than any they had heard, was called by name. Each boy and girl woke as their name was spoken, and Lee and Ami woke last of all. When all the children were awake, they found the blackened stones of the campfire were gone, as were the ashes and all the food they had brought but had yet to eat. All the older children fled, for they were certain Baba Janous meant to take them next, but young Lee and Ami were brave. “We will stay here and wait for Baba Janous,” said Lee. “We will stay up the night,” said Ami, “and see her.”

And so the two children waited and waited, and soon they heard a rustling in the forest, and heard a soft woman’s voice call out their names. But it was only Mari who, seeing her children all alone in the woods, made them come back and sleep the night in their own warm beds.

The story soon spread from child to child, embellished with each telling of the tale until it was as if they had fled from the jaws of Baba Janous herself snapping at their heals. Yet Lee and Ami swore they had not seen her, for they knew well the importance of truth. As they walked from school to their home, the two young siblings became determined to see Baba Janous once and for all. They did not tell their parents, for their parents now said the woods were too dangerous at night, and told them that they must be more careful around the old elm. It was rotting, they said, and a heavy branch might fall on them. Lee and Ami heeded their parents’ warnings of the woods at night, but though Dumaz and Mari worried about their children, they did not keep them from the forest in the day, for they knew that all children must learn to live in the world.

Thus it came to pass that Lee and Ami would take the leavings of their dinners out to the great elm as often as their parents permitted, and on the longest winter evenings they would stand very near the hollow, which was so dark that even standing before it they saw nothing within, and say into the empty space, “Baba Janous, Baba Janous, we have food for you to eat. Come out and let us see you and we will give you other things to keep.” Every evening, they heard no reply.

As the nights began to grow shorter, young Lee and Ami’s parents began to remind them that they had a bedtime and they must be in bed by it. It was yet still winter, though nearing the end of those cold months where Jack the Frost let free the cold inside his body so that he might hold it back another year, and so the days were still short, but Dumaz and Mari did not want the children to grow too accustomed to waiting away the sunset in the woods.

Then, one evening as the children set a tiny dish of sweet cream and berries before the elm, they heard a voice come from within. “What have you brought for me, little dreamers, what do you lay at my doorstep? What will you give me to keep and what will you get?”

Lee and Ami were frightened to hear again the beautiful voice which came from the great elm, but they did not run or hide. With joined hands they walked to the hollow, and together they held up the dish of cream and berries. “We have brought you this to eat, but we do not know what we may find you to keep.”

For a moment there was only silence within the hollow, until the children heard a clicking and sliding and rustling sound, as if a goat’s hoof and an eagle’s claw were being dragged over rocks and ancient bark. They waited, trying to see in the dark, but not a single glimmer of light penetrated, and so they saw not a thing until the shadows cleared and they stood face to face with Baba Janous.

One head was an ancient crone, just as the stories had described, and the other was a beautiful woman. Her body was hidden in the darkness, but they could see it was the body of a dire wolf, and her left front leg was an eagle’s claw. Baba Janous inclined her heads, and the children set the plate before her. The woman’s head smiled, and they saw how she had a mouth filled with bright, sharp teeth, and how her smile seemed wider than it ought to be, and then her head lowered to the plate to eat the berries and drink the cream, and they saw no more of her teeth that night.

“You are kind, little children, to bring me such delights every night,” said the crone, in her beautiful voice. Lee and Ami saw, as she spoke, that she had not a single tooth in her mouth. “But all the sweats and treats are nothing like the finest sunlight tea. It has been more years than I have teeth since I had a pot of sunlight tea. If you would only fetch for me the makings of my sunlight tea, we could brew a pot together and drink it beneath the newborn leaves.”

Though Lee and Ami both trembled, being now confronted with the same Baba Janous of all the children’s tales and all the campfire stories, they looked first to one another and then to Baba Janous as they agreed as one to fetch the ingredients for her tea. The old crone’s head looked pleased, and the woman’s head (now finished her repast) favored them with a close-mouthed smile. “First go to the lake,” said the crone, “where the reeds sway and the fish grow fat. Find therein the most ancient turtle, with terrible jaws that go snicker snap. He lives in the mud, under the depths, and grows moss on his back since the gods’ first breaths. Scrape a bit off, and bring it to me, and soon we shall brew a pot of sunlight tea.”

Their bargain was struck, and the children dashed back home so that they would not be late to bed and their parents would have no cause to keep them in the next evening. Their time at school could not pass quickly enough, on the following day, and they rushed through all the tasks set for them in the afternoon so that they could go to the lake while the sun was still high overhead.

They were not sure how to call the most ancient turtle from the depths of the lake. Lee said, “If it is true that Baba Janous knows always of lies, we must not lie to the turtle.” And Ami agreed that this was true. “But if the turtle sleeps so deep in the mud, perhaps he has not seen the great, fat bass who swim by the shore. Perhaps he will come up out of the mud if we make a fine meal for him, such as he would never see so far below the depths.” Lee saw this was a fine idea, and so the children fetched their fishing poles which had never seen a winter’s sun and baited the hooks with worms gone lazy from the cold, and cast their lines out into the lake.

The first fish they caught was a wide, round perch, but though it was fat and healthy it was too short (they knew) to tempt out such an ancient turtle. The second fish they caught was twice over and half again as long as the perch, but it was a pikefish, and too skinny to tempt out such an ancient turtle, and bad luck to keep besides. At last the third fish they caught was a bass as long as the pikefish and even fatter than the perch. They lay the flopping fish in the grass by the lake’s shore and called out over the water: “Come up, come out, great ancient turtle. We have made a fine dinner for you and wish you might spare a word or two.”

Lee and Ami waited, their hands linked, and the sun moved across the sky. They worried their parents might call them in to eat before the turtle found its way from the mud to the shore, but soon enough they saw the waters of the lake swell, and waves moved from the middle to the reeds and back out again. A boulder, torn and cracked by wind and rain, grew in the middle of the lake, and moved to shore as the waves had, as some force of nature and no living thing. The most ancient turtle rose from the depths, and they saw how its eyes were as large as a strong man’s fist, and it had jaws which might cut in twain the pines which grew a ways from the shore. Yet they did not shy back from the turtle, though his eyes were a fierce yellow and his legs were nearly as tall as either of the children.

“Who calls?” asked the turtle, “And what have you to offer?” Its eyes and head swung to the children of Dumaz and Mari as it spoke, and they knelt together and held up the bass. “We have caught you a meal, most ancient turtle,” said Ami. “We ask only a word and a favor if you are amenable,” said Lee.

The great yellow eyes seemed to sparkle with something in a turtle that may pass for glee, and it held open its mouth. They tossed the fish, and its jaws went snicker snap, and the bass was no more. “Ah,” said the turtle, “I have not eaten so well since these saplings took root. Please, would you be so good as to catch me another?” Lee and Ami agreed, and in no short order they had caught a second bass. They threw it to the turtle, and its jaws went snicker snap, and the bass was no more. “Please,” said the turtle, “I have such small morsels below, in the mud, would you be so good as to catch me another?” And thus, once more, Lee and Ami cast their lines, and in no short order another bass was gone, like that, snicker snap.

The turtle then let forth a great gust from its nostrils, and looked as content as a turtle might look. “You have my thanks,” it said, “and so now speak what words you will. I will do what you ask if it is in my power.”

Ami bowed to the turtle and gave him thanks. Lee said, “We ask only a bit of moss from your back, great turtle, and then we will see you on your way.” The turtle said, “That is easily enough done. Come, swim out to my sides and climb upon me and cut all you desire.” Thus Lee stepped through the marshes and swam to the turtle’s shell. They had seen how its jaws moved, and the children knew it could swallow them up in a gulp, but its great head did not move or dart, and if its eyes sought out any mischief, Ami could not see it. Lee soon had their moss and returned to the shore.

“If that is all you desire,” the turtle then spoke, “I shall return to the depths. But I will always think well after you, and see that no harm comes to you in all the waters where my brethren dwell.” And so saying, the great and ancient turtle went below the lake once more.

Lee and Ami went home directly for dinner, and afterwards took their table scraps to the great elm along with the moss from the ancient turtle’s back. But though they called out to Baba Janous, she did not come, and so they left the scraps and moss at the hollow and returned home in time for bed. Each evening that week they came to the elm and called to Baba Janous, and each evening she did not appear, until the seventh evening, when they heard the curious clicking and scratching she made. Her heads parted the darkness of the hollow not long thereafter, and the beautiful woman once more gave them a smile all of wicked teeth before taking her meal. Now the children saw that she had a pair of small wings folded on her back, just as they had been told. The old crone’s head said in her beautiful voice, “You have brought me the moss, but we are not yet done. It takes more than moss to make tea out of sun. You will find a blue rose at the top of this tree. Fetch it down while it blooms and soon we will make sunlight tea.”

Another night and another day rushed by for Lee and Ami, time walking at his steady pace, no matter how they tried to pull him along. At last the afternoon sun found them below the leaves of the enormous elm. Lee and Ami had no questions for one another, as there was no doubt between them as to what must be done. They began to scale the tree, finding purchase with hands and shoes easily upon its bark. The sun moved across the sky, and they wondered if they would even see the top of it before their parents became most anxious in calling them to dinner, but they had determination and youth, and so they came to the highest branches of the tree before Dumaz or Mari had even called them to dinner once.

They each saw the blue rose, with a tiny bloom at the end of a great vine with many thorns. Lee said, “We must be careful when we pluck the rose.” Ami agreed, and then said, “Let us not take without giving, for in all the stories Baba Janous punishes the greedy. Have we anything we may leave for the rose?” Lee thought on this, and then said, “I will pluck a strand of my hair, and you of yours, and we will leave a knot of it about the treetops, and perhaps a new rose will grow in its place.” Ami saw this was a fine idea, and so they plucked hairs, and tied them together about the blue rose’s vines.

No sooner had they tied the last knot, then all but a few of the rose’s thorns fell from the vine. The children plucked it with ease, but with no less care than they otherwise would have, so as not to harm what vine remained. When they held the rose, Lee asked, “How will we climb down with it? Surely we shall need both hands.” Ami said, “I will carry the rose for both of us, brother.” And so speaking, she placed the rose in her long hair, and wove it into a braid. The children were pleased, and wasted no time in climbing down the tree, for they knew their parents would soon call them in.

Once again, Lee and Ami took their table scraps and the blue rose to the old elm as soon as they had finished dinner. But though they called to Baba Janous that night, and every night that week, it was not until fourteen days had passed that the clicking and scraping of Baba Janous came from within the hollow, and her heads appeared from the darkness. As ever, they saw the teeth of the beautiful woman, and the eagle’s claw, and the dire wolf’s body, but now they saw the right rear leg of Baba Janous was a goat’s hoof as surely as they had always been told. Spoke the crone’s beautiful voice, “You have brought me the rose, but we are not yet done. It takes more than moss and flowers to make tea out of sun. Go deep into the forest, where the sun has never been, and seek out the tallest onion stalks you have ever seen. Bring me the largest onion you see, for it is the last ingredient of sunlight tea.”

The night and day passed, but neither Lee nor Ami remembered a bit of it, so eagerly did they wish for the afternoon sunlight. They fetched a pair of flashlights from a dusty cupboard and walked out to the forest when they were free from obligations again. “Where shall we find the place where the sun has never seen?” asked Ami. Lee did not know, but he said, “Perhaps the owl knows such a place, as she sees so well in the dark.” Ami saw how this might be true, and so they walked into the forest, searching all the trees, until they found a sleeping owl.

“How shall we wake her?” asked Lee. “If she must hunt at night,” said Ami, “let us bargain for her daylight hours. We will skip our dinner tonight, and give it to the owl, so that she may lead us to the place the sun as never seen, and sleep the night through.” Lee saw this was a fine idea, and so together they called up to the owl, saying, “Please owl wake, we know you sleep to hunt at night, but we beg a guide where there has never been light. If you wake from your slumber, we will bring meat, and for the day you give us, you will have night to sleep.” Soon enough the owl stirred from her slumber, and opened her great blue eyes to look down upon Lee and Ami. She heard their bargain again, and thought long upon it, turning her head this way and that. But at last, without a sound, she left her perch in the tree and flew deeper into the forest. As she flew, she dropped pale feathers, and so the children followed her trail.

Some time passed, and perhaps the sun moved overhead, but the branches of the forest were so thick, that not a solitary sunbeam passed through them. Lee and Ami cast about with their flashlights, and the owl’s feathers glowed in the beams until they came to a place in the forest where all the trees were nearly the size of the great elm, and where mushrooms grew in abundance, and they saw no more owl feathers. They knew it was the place where no sun had ever been, and thus they began to look for onion stalks. It was Lee who found them, for he looked to the last feather the owl had dropped, and discovered it pointed directly at the onions.

“We must take them from this place,” he said to his sister, “but what can we give them in exchange?” Ami thought on this for some few moments before she turned to the onions and said, “Onions and earth, let us take you from this place, and let us have your largest onion. If you grant us this favor, we will plant your children in the sun where they will grow even larger still.” Lee thought his sister’s exchange for the onions was just, and whether or not it was, who was to say, save that the onions all came readily from the earth, and not one of their stalks broke. The children carried the onions out of the darkest forest and planted them near the lake, in the fertile soil where they would always see the sun, and where they would grow healthy and strong. They kept the largest onion for Baba Janous.

Their parents called them to dinner then, and they went, but Lee remembered their promise to the owl, and so they only pretended to eat. They hid their food in napkins, and ate only the smallest of morsels, and not any of the meat. When supper was done, they rushed out once more, but stopped at the edge of the woods and called the owl: “We have promised you food so that you may sleep. Come out from the woods so that you might eat.” They were rewarded by the flapping of wings as the owl landed and began to eat the food they had brought her. There was a great deal of it, so much that even the owl could not eat it all. Still, she looked pleased and though she landed and departed without a sound, she left the children two feathers.

The hour had grown late, but there was time enough for Lee and Ami to rush to the ancient elm and call for Baba Janous. As so many times before, she did not appear, and so they left their offerings for her. Still and again they came to the hollow every day of the week and called the Baba Janous, but it was fully twenty one days before she appeared again.

On the twenty first evening, as the days had begun to grow long indeed, they found Baba Janous sitting before the hollow of the old elm tree. They saw her entire now, a great dire wolf with the head of a woman and a crone, vulture’s wings on her back dwarfed by her body, one goat’s hoof next to her eagle’s claw as she sat, and three snakes curling about her body. “Welcome, welcome, dear little ones,” she said. “I am glad you have come, for today is the day we make tea out of sun.” Both of her heads smiled upon Lee and Ami, and the beautiful woman graciously accepted their offerings.

Baba Janous had the moss, the rose, and the onion all set before her, and a large glass jar of water was propped in the elm’s roots, though neither Lee nor Ami could imagine where she found such a thing. Because the day was long, the sun was still bright overhead, and the very first green leaves of spring were appearing on the trees’ branches. “The onion must be peeled,” said the old crone, “and all of it in the jar without a tear spilled.” Lee picked up the onion and placed it in the jar of water. He held it there, as he peeled off the layers, but as he came to the middle he felt a hard shape. At the center of the onion was a pearl, and he offered this to Baba Janous. “The onion is yours,” he said, “peels and pearls.”

The beautiful woman smiled, and opened her mouth as wide as she could. Lee saw endless rows of teeth, each one seemingly more wickedly sharp than the next. Yet he placed the pearl in Baba Janous’ terrible, beautiful mouth, and the jaws did not close about his wrist. When he took his hand from them, there was a terrible crunching and she swallowed up the pearl. “Such a meal is rare indeed, young and generous Lee,” said the old crone’s head. “But now the petals of the rose must be plucked, and not a petal by a mortal flesh touched.”

Ami then picked up the blue rose by its stem and, one by one, plucked off the petals with her teeth. She did not tear a single one, and placed them all in the jar. As she plucked the last few petals, she felt her teeth click against something like a stone. She did not even look to see what might lie at the rose’s center until all the petals were in the jar, but when she looked, she found a sapphire growing from the rose’s stem. She plucked this last, with her fingers (for it was no petal) and said, “The blue rose is yours, petals and sapphires.”

The mouth of the beautiful woman yawned open once again, white and wide and sharp, and Ami felt how easily Baba Janous could gobble hear up. Yet she placed the sapphire in her terrible, beautiful mouth, and the jaws did not close about her wrist. Only after she withdrew her hand did the terrible crunching of her mouth sound as she swallowed up the sapphire. “Such a meal is rare indeed, young and generous Ami,” said the old crone’s head. “And now let each of you take the moss in hand, and add the lake to the sky and the land. When this is done, you will see how we make our sunlight tea.”

Lee and Ami each took a handful of moss and crumbled it into the glass jar. No sooner had they done so, then a beam of sunlight shone down between all the new and green leaves of the ancient elm. As the sunbeam struck the water in the jar, the onion peels caught it at the bottom, so it did not seep into the earth. The blue rose petals floated at the top of the water, and so the sunlight did not spill back out into the sky. And the moss floated in the water and kept the sunlight from shining through the glass. The water in the jar turned golden, and in this way Baba Janous made them all sunlight tea.

Baba Janous bowed her heads to the children, and Lee and Ami drank the sunlight tea, feeling its warmth filling them. They held the jar up to Baba Janous, and she too drank off a draught. Then the old crone spoke again: “Children of Dumaz and Mari, you have shown courage and cleverness and honesty. You have not taken without giving and given always more without any need of asking. We have brewed the tea of the sun and thus you and the light are one. You will never be chilled on a winter’s night, and never be in darkness without a light. But more you have given me tea and jewels to eat, and none of these did you try to keep. Know this, little dreamers, I will be true, and wherever you may sleep I will watch over you.”

Together Lee and Ami and Baba Janous, the monster of campfire tales, drank the sunlight tea, and the warmth stayed forever within the children of Dumaz and Mari. Baba Janous was ever their guardian, and their children’s children’s guardian, and watched over all the families who came and went from that home thereafter. So long as the great elm with its dark hollow lives, Baba Janous watches over them, and so long as her stories are told about campfires and in darkened bedrooms, so she will remain, waiting, in the dark, to be found ever anew.

A princess lived in the highest tower of the northernmost island of the great Island Nations. This island was the smallest and the coldest of the isles, where the Lady Night would come to rest her weary legs for many weeks in the winter, and where all the towers glittered like icicles. Every winter, before the Lady Night spread her cloak to sleep, the most beautiful woman on the island would vanish, never to be seen again. It was said the Winter King carried them away and turned them to ice, so that their beauty would remain with him eternally in his palace. When the King and Queen of the northernmost island bore a girlchild, they prayed for her to be homely. But the child grew more beautiful with every passing day, until the royal family could see there was no hope for her. She would be such a beauty as to outshine all others as the sun outshone the stars.

The King and the Queen brought all the greatest stonemasons and metalworkers from the whole of their small island and set them to work building the highest tower in the land. They brought the greatest silversmiths in the kingdom and all the silver of the island to the tower, and thus the tower was filled from top to bottom with silver bells, and the princess’ room had silver bells on every wall. The Winter King would not be able to pass the silver bells, for if he tried they would all be set to chiming, a harmony which the howling Winter King could not abide. The princess was taken to the top of the tower before she saw her tenth birthday, and she lived there for many years. At the slightest tinkling of a silver bell all the guards of the palace would come running, and there were no other silver bells in the kingdom. Every man and woman of the small island knew the tinkling of silver bells meant the Winter King was about his mischief, but that very same sound meant they were safe, as he made his mischief in the princess’ tower.

The rumors of the princess’ great beauty leapt from lips to ears and from markets to farms, so that her beauty was known across the land. One young boy, simple by his nature, and apprenticed to a silversmith for his trade, heard one such a tale of the princess’ beauty as they worked. “I tell you, my lad,” said the old silversmith, “no mirror can be polished bright enough to reflect her beauty. When she looks upon them it as if the silver were rusted tin, so much does it pale by comparison. And the bells! What use have we for silver bells anymore. All a man need do is stand below her window a fortnight and he is sure to hear the princess’ laugh. The purest silver bell sounds like naught more than the smith’s hammer against his anvil after hearing such a laugh.”

The boy was simple by his nature and thus he took the old silversmith at his word, and went to stand below the princess’ window, which was so high he could only see it at night where it became the brightest star in the sky. He waited each night before going to work all day, but the only sounds he heard were the tinkling of silver bells. On the third night the boy said to himself, “This wait is interminable. I have had my fill of silver bells, and I must hear her laughter or my heart shall burst.” Having become determined, the boy whistled a jaunty tune such as he had heard the birds sing on the first morning of the spring, far beyond the palace gates. It did not take very long for his tune to reach the princess’ window, and in a moment he heard her laugh, just as melodiously the old silversmith had said.

The boy had heard her laugh, but rather than being satisfied he found he desired nothing else but to look upon her face. Night after night he returned to whistle a tune to the princess’ window, listening for her laughter as a dying merchant will cling to his last penny. Thus it happened that on the third night her voice called down to him, “Who is it that so diligently whistles below my window every night all the birdsongs I cannot hear in the day?”

His heart tried to leap into his throat, but the boy swallowed it down and spoke in a clear voice to the window above: “I am your knight, fair princess, and I have come to protect you from the Winter King!”

“Oh, are you?” she replied, and he heard laughter in her voice, but it was not unkind. “Well, if you are my knight, you may climb the stairs of my tower. But if you serve the Winter King I think you will find the bells drive you quite away, and even if they do not, only the pure of heart pass them without a sound.”

“I shall be up to see you in a trice!” said the simple boy. He ran up the stairs of the tower two steps at a time. There were no guards in the tower, for they all knew the bells would warn of trouble. There were only a few lights in the tower, but the boy did not stumble in the darkness. The door to the princess’ room was open, and she sat by the window. She looked out over the city, for she was still waiting to hear the chimes of her silver bells.

“My lady,” said the boy.

The princess turned with a start, and the boy saw she was more beautiful than any rumors. He saw truth in her eyes, and found the beauty therein greater than any other beauty he could conceive. She saw honesty and courage in his eyes, as she had seen in the eyes of no other living man. The young princess and the simple boy fell in love immediately. He came to see her every day, and they spent many long afternoons watching the lives they could see from her window. The princess asked the boy to tell her of life beyond the palace, and he told her of all the marshes and forests and lakes he had seen. “If you wish, I will take you into the forest and we shall watch the sun set over the ocean,” he would say. But every time the princess had to refuse. “I cannot leave the tower,” she would tell the boy. “For if I leave the Winter King shall snatch me away.”

As it happened, the Winter King had heard rumors of how beautiful the princess of the Northern Island had grown. Many times he had sent his servants to carry off the beautiful princess, but each time the chimes drove them back. In those days the four Winds were all very young, else the South Wind should have merely drowned the tower, the East Wind should have torn it asunder, or the North Wind should have cut it to pieces. The West Wind was as gentle as he ever would be, and thus the Winter King had no use for him. Yet one day as he looked into the icy mirror in the heart of his castle, he saw the princess’ knight was not unlike the West Wind in his aspect. The Winter King immediately hatched a plan from his cold heart, and he sent the West Wind to the princess’ tower.

The West Wind hid himself away in the shadows below the princess’ tower until he saw the simple boy leaving, as rosy dusk painted the sky. With only a gentle sigh, the West Wind crept out of the shadows and whispered up to the princess’ window in his soft voice: “Please, my princess, I have slipped and fallen on the ice below your tower. Come and help me up or I shall freeze to death in the night.” Now, because the West Wind always carries the words of lovers, even his faintest whisper reached the princess’ ears, and it was as if the voice of the boy spoke to her. She did not hesitate, but flew from her room, down the dark steps, and out of the tower to see what had befallen the boy to whom her heart belonged.

The instant her foot, still shod in slippers, touched the cobblestones outside the tower, the East Wind rushed through the streets and swept the princess into his arms. He lifted her high into the air and carried her off, followed by his brother the West Wind. The two Winds rushed through the forest as quickly as they were able, but the branches soon made them tired, and they were young Winds besides. They stopped to rest, and the East Wind immediately fell into a deep and dreamless slumber. But the West Wind was not so tired as his brother, for he did not rush furiously into every crevice, or try to push aside every tree in his path. The princess could see the West Wind was gentle, for the truth in her eyes sought out the truth of all she beheld, and so seeing she spoke with him.

“Please, gentle wind of the west, aid my escape. You know not what evil designs the Winter King has for me. He will turn me to ice, and I will be cold and unmoving the rest of my days. I beg of you, gentle wind, spare me from this fate.”

Well, the West Wind was shocked to hear such a thing. He could see the truth in the princess’ eyes (as all could), and so he knew he must aid her escape, for he could no more force any evil on another living soul than the Lady Night could force the sun not to rise. He freed the princess from her bindings, but said to her, “My brother will pursue you to the ends of the earth. I will change you into a swan so that you may find the arms of your true love. Only then may he be bested in single combat.” Speaking thus, the West Wind changed the princess into a swan, and she flew away.

When the East Wind awoke, he was furious with his brother. He battered and beat the West Wind until he was barely a gust, but there was no helping it. The princess was gone and they had nothing to do but return to the Winter King with only empty hands and failure.

When dawn found the princess’ tower, the young boy was there to greet the first warm touch of the sun. He rushed up the stairs as he always did, but the princess’ room was empty. He knew the cold in his heart was the Winter King, as surely as he knew there could be no other reason for the princess’ absence. Ice in his blood made him shiver and grow fearful, for he was a mere silversmith’s apprentice, but the boy made his decision in seven breaths. “Silversmith be my trade, but for my princess I am a knight. I will seek her out and take her from whosoever holds her against her will.”

The boy took down all the silver bells from the princess’ chamber, and from these he made himself a suit of armor. He took down the silver bells from the stairwell and hammered these into a shining silver sword and helmet. “I shall find her in the north,” he said, and set off from the tower. Every step set his armor chiming, and each swing of his arms was like the pealing of bells. He made his way through the streets about the palace, bells heralding his passage, and with every house he passed men and women would look at one another and say, “The Winter King is making mischief again.”

The boy walked into the forest, ringing and chiming until a small fox crept onto his path. “Your armor makes a lot of noise,” said the fox. “How shall you ever find your way through such a symphony?” The boy bowed to the fox and said, “My armor sounds the death knell for the servants of the Winter King, and it will find them soon enough.” With these words, he walked on and the fox vanished into the woods.

The boy walked on, chiming and ringing, until a great wolf stepped onto his path. “Your armor makes a lot of noise,” said the wolf. “How am I to hunt during such a frightful symphony?” The boy bowed to the wolf and said, “My armor sounds the death knell for the servants of the Winter King, and I shall hunt them down soon enough.” With these words, he walked on and the wolf returned to the woods, assured of the folly of men.

The boy came to a lake as the sun began to fall towards the horizon, and on the lake he saw a swan. He went to drink by the lakeshore, expecting the swan should chastise his musical armor for scaring the fish, but she did not. The boy saw, in fact, that the swan was quite sad and so he asked, “Are the chimes of my armor so very mournful swan, that you cannot even chastise me as the wolf and fox both did?”

“They are not mournful,” said the swan. “They remind me of the silver bells in the room where I once lived. They remind me that I shall never see my true love again.”

Hearing these words, the boy recognized the princess immediately and cast off his helmet. The princess swan was overjoyed, and flew into her love’s arms. The instant her feathers touched the silver of his armor, the West Wind’s spell was broken and she became a lover again. “I had thought I would never lay eyes on you again,” she said. “But now we must hurry, for the servant of the Winter King will know the spell is broken. Listen! He comes!”

And it was so. A great howling rose from the east and the branches of all the trees rattled like bones. The East Wind roared from the forest, tearing branches from trees and hurling leaves about the boy and the princess. “I have found you out at last, fair princess! Now you shall belong to the Winter King!”

The East Wind reached out to pluck the princess from the ground, but the boy stepped between them and struck the East wind with his silver sword. It made a sound like a churchbell and the East Wind howled in agony at the perfect note and pitch. The boy struck again, and a second chime joined the first. The East Wind struck at the boy’s armor, but this lead only to a third chime. Over and over the boy struck the East Wind until the Wind was exhausted and nothing was left of it.

“I promised you I would show you the sun setting over this lake,” the boy said to the princess, and so I have. He took her hands in his and, as the sun set and the bells chimed, they swore love eternal to one another, and the Winter King’s power over the princess was broken forever.

They returned to the palace together, where they were married, and the princess could travel anywhere she wished on the island. The city was strung with silver bells, and the servants of the Winter King never troubled another girl of the Northern Island, for the bells still chime through all the city’s streets to this day.

Before the dark things were driven into the ocean, when they still hid from the light and hated all the land and all life, they would take men and women from their homes and families. The dark things took all that was living and all creatures which walked in the light, and made of them creatures to live in the shadows and walk among men, creatures borne of those same black spaces which had never seen the light where the dark things lived.

The skin thieves lived in the great mountains to the East, far above the valley of the midlands. They hid in the caverns, behind the shadows cast by the setting sun, and in the silver light of the lady Night’s eye the moon they came down from the high, cold places. The skin thieves were undying, as the dark things, and they stole the shapes of all living things they touched, as they consumed the living flesh. Undying, they were also childless, for the thieves of skin could not be born save by the wombs of living women.

The Swan tribe lived in the valley of the midlands, and their home was a lake of crystal clarity and perfect smoothness. Barely a ripple touched its surface, and the winds raging in the mountains became calming breezes on its shores. The lake was small and shallow, fecund with marshes and deep, dark soil at its shores, and when the sunlight was at a certain angle, it was possible to see the fish and turtles swimming under the surface. The men and women of the Swans were the children of the god Creation. Creation made them beautiful, and their lives were longer than any ten ordinary men or women. They did not know pain or hardship, or cold or hunger.

On the coldest winter nights, the Swan tribe would close their homes against the darkness and build great bonfires within them. They would listen to the howling from the mountain tops, and lie close together, listening to the sound of branches scraping together and marshgrass whipping against itself. Many of the youngest of the Swans were born on these nights, and some of the eldest knew something like fear, hearing the wind in the darkness.

But one winter came which was colder than any other. The skin thieves shivered in their caves, and many of their number died. There came a night when the moon stood full and silver in the sky, and frost covered the ground, and the perfect lake was stilled by ice. The skin thieves came down from the mountains, moaning and keening. They moved through the trees, with dead leaves falling around their feet and hands, where some walked on all fours. The marsh grass swayed as they moved between the blades, and the Swan tribe huddled in their homes as the claws of the skin thieves drew across their doorways.

The skin thieves took the form of animals and tore their way into the homes of the Swans. All the men and women of the Swan tribe took the form of swans and beat the skin thieves about their heads and necks with their wings. They broke the skin thieves’ limbs and split their stolen skin against their bones, but the skin thieves became swans as well as the Swan tribe, and every other frightful beast, and they laid about the Swan tribe until all the swans lay upon the floors of their homes and could resist the skin thieves no longer. The skin thieves slew all the men of the swan tribe and, by the women of the swan tribe, they sired the skin thieves of a future generation.

Long after the night had passed, after the skin thieves had gone and the Swans had buried their dead, the tribe of the Swan still knew fear and pain and the cold. The eldest women of the Swans gathered together. They decreed that all males born to the Swan tribe in the next year would be drowned, for the skin thieves were always and only male. The children of the Swans, lost thereafter, would be sacrificed so that the skin thieves would see no profit by their terrible deeds.

Months passed, escorted by the gentleman time, and new children were born to the Swan tribe, each male child taken after the other, carried into the still waters of the lake by his mother, and there held beneath the surface until the child was as still as the crystal lake. The midwives of the eldest Swans stood bedside at each birth, and so no male child was born without their knowledge. But the young woman Keprie would not heed the ruling of the eldest Swans. When she knew she was with child, she hid the swelling inside her. When the time came for her child to be born, she went deep into the woods, where no midwives would hear the cries. Young Keprie had her child alone, with no one at her side, and no hot towels upon her brow. She cut the umbilical cord with her own teeth, and cleaned the child with her own clothes. She held the child in her arms, and saw that he was a boy. His cries were quieted as he suckled, and she named her child Mut.

Keprie swaddled Mut in rags torn from her dress, and disguised her son as a girl. The Swan tribe was large, and a single child was easily overlooked by the eldest and the midwives. Mut was accepted by the Swan as one of their own, and taken with the other girls to be taught the secrets known only to the women of the Swan. The eldest taught him and taught the daughters of their tribe how the Swan came to be, how they took the form of swans, and all the vows made by the Swan to do no harm and to live in peace with the river and the forest.

Mut would return home late in the evening, as the sun was setting over the forest. The perfect lake would turn as red as blood and the reeds at the shore would sway, whispering words softly, so softly that he could not hear what they said. He would sit at night with his young mother Keprie, and she would tell him stories of the time before the skin thieves came down from the mountains, and stories of the men of the Swan. She would teach him the vows of honor and truth taken by all men of the Swan tribe, and show him all that the eldest could not.

But there came a time when all the children of the Swan had come of age, the girls grown to women. Young Keprie could teach her son Mut no more, though he was still a boy not yet a man. “There is no more I can teach you here, my child,” said Keprie. “And if you stay your whole life in the valley of the midlands you will never learn any more of the world. The eldest of the tribe will know you are a boy of the generation lost, and you will not be at peace in our valley. You must go into the mountains, higher than even the skin thieves live, in order to become a man.”

The boy saw the wisdom of his mother’s words. He removed the clothes in which his mother disguised him, and dressed himself in the simplest cloak of a young boy. He made a simple meal and lit a warm fire for Keprie. When the sun was set and the night was cold and silver under the gaze of the lady Night’s eye the moon, he left their home and set off into the mountains.

Many hours passed before Mut reached the base of the mountains. He saw the cloak of the Lady Night draw across the sky, and Twilight ushering rosy dawn over the horizon. He ate what fruits there were from the forest as it pleased him, though he felt no hunger or thirst. He climbed over and between stones as the gods’ barge drew their furnace across the sky, looking always above himself and far away, at the most distant peaks. For this reason he did not know he was long into the maze of caverns and shadows of the skin thieves until he came upon them.

Some had the forms of men, and others the forms of beast, while some skin thieves had all aspects of men and beast, as no creature in nature had ever known. The skin thieves looked upon Mut with unliving eyes, evincing no distress. They did not know one another by face or form, having countless of either. The skin thieves knew Mut as one of their own by scent and, having nothing to take from their own kind, showed him no regard. Thus Mut came to sleep in the caves with the skin thieves. He listened to their strange and sibilant language, and learned to speak as they did.

When he was rested once more, Mut pointed to the highest and farthest peak and asked one of the skin thieves, “What lies at the peak of this mountain?”

The skin thief answered him, “That is where the mountain goats climb from stone to stone as you or I might walk the straightest and most level of paths. Many skin thieves have fallen from those heights for the skin of the precious mountain goats, but none have climbed back up twice.”

Mut thanked the skin thief and set off on his journey again, looking far above himself to the highest peak. Yet he now also looked at the stones and dirt beneath his feet, and path before him. For this reason he soon learned to move from stone to stone as easily as the flattest of pathways, and to balance upon a single toe as if he were lying fast asleep. Mut walked for days, feeling no hunger or thirst, until he was upon the very same mountain peak he sought. It was as the skin thief had said, upon this peak, and mountain goats leapt from stone to stone as if no great abyss yawned below them.

The mountain goats knew the scent of a skin thief, and so they fled from Mut. Yet Mut had learned well enough to follow the mountain goats, as the skin thieves had not. He followed the mountain goats until they were too tired to flee any longer. He sat with them as they rested, and gave them what little food he had about his person. He learned to understand the bleating of the mountain goats as he huddled against them for warmth in the cold mountain peaks.

Once Mut was rested again, he pointed to the highest and farthest peak he could see and asked one of the mountain goats, “What lies at the peak of this mountain?”

The mountain goat answered him, “That is where the eagles fly high above the stones which you or I must walk upon. No mountain goat dares to climb so high, for we have not wings to carry us from our falls as the eagles do.”

Mut thanked the mountain goat and set off on his journey once more. He looked both to the highest peak, and at the path, and all the stones upon it. He looked far below, and learned how to set his path by the sun and the stars, and by the lay of the rocks and how the trees grew. He looked from stones to the barest trees eking out life from the hard soil, and learned to see who and what had passed by. Mut walked for many days more, feeling no hunger or thirst, until he was upon the very same mountain peak he sought. It was as the mountain goat had said, upon this peak, and eagles flew high above the stones without fear or risk of falling.

The eagles did not fear the scent of the skin thieves, but nor did they fly near to Mut. His voice could not reach them and, if they saw him, it was no concern of theirs. Thus Mut, who had learned well enough to follow the traces left by nature, followed the signs of the mountain until he found where the eagles nested. He had no food for the eagles, and there was no place for him to rest, but he lay on the cold stones and watched the eagles circle until he learned to understand their cries.

When he could speak as the eagles, though he was cold and tired, Mut pointed to the highest and farthest peak he could see and asked one of the eagles, “What lies at the peak of this mountain?”

The eagle answered him, “I do not know. No eagle has flown so high as that before, and none of us has ever seen its heights.”

Mut gave thanks to the eagle and set off for the highest peak. He felt no hunger or thirst, but the chill of the mountain’s heights seemed to fill his body; his bones were as ice, his skin parchment, and his blood as water. Mut was cold, but he walked on. He had not slept for many days, but he walked on. For days yet more, Mut walked onward, moving from one stone to another along a path no wider than the tip of a child’s finger. Though winds tore at his clothes, and though his fingers and toes lost all feeling, he climbed until he could climb no further.

As he felt he might fall to his death, the very first rays of the first winter’s sun came over the horizon and Mut beheld a slender crevice in the mountainside. Thus, with the first light of winter, Mut entered the highest peak of the Eastern mountains.

Mut stepped into the crevice on the mountain’s peak, and the winter sun followed him, falling upon what lay therein - two horses, one tall and fine as might carry a man across the desert, and the other broad and powerful as might pull a mountain from its moorings. The fine horse was pale, but with dark brown hooves, almost black as the fertile soil of the marshlands. The broad horse was that same dark brown of the marshy lakeside soil, save for his hooves, which were as pale as the tall horse. The pale horse spoke as his eyes beheld Mut: “We are the steeds of the god Naomi. He appears with the first sun of winter to ride with us into the world. We are the bearers of his will.”

Now, Mut had learned all the stories taught to him by his mother and by the eldest, and he recognized the name of Naomi, and knew him for a god long dead. “Forgive my trespass, oh steeds of the god Naomi. I sought only shelter from the chill of the winter and the winds. I have climbed for many days without sleep, and though I feel no hunger or thirst, the cold chills me and I grow weary in my travels. But you must know by now that the god Naomi is long dead, and will not return with the winter sun.”

The dark horse said, “This is no matter.”

And the pale horse said, “It is he who appears with the first winter’s sun who we serve, for gods and mortals die alike. I am called Blood, and this is my brother, Earth. We will be your steeds, and we will carry you from the mountains across this world, and bear your will.”

Mut tried three times over to tell the steeds of Naomi that he was not their master. He tried thrice again to tell them of Naomi’s death, but the dark horse only said, “It is no matter,” and the pale horse only said, “It is he who appears with the first winter’s sun who we serve.” At last, Mut grew too tired to argue, but said, “I am tired and cold, then. Let me rest here in the cave until tomorrow.”

Thus the two steeds led Mut into the cave. The dark horse was so dark that Mut could not see it, but his hooves were so pale that he knew always where Earth walked. Mut could see the pale horse clearly in the darkness, but his hooves we so dark that he never knew where Blood walked. Mut slept deep within the cave, where the winter’s chill did not reach, for a day and a night until the sun was rising again. He woke, laying against the dark horse, seeing the pale horse like the moon in the darkness. The dark horse said, “You are awake.” And the pale horse said, “What is your will, he who is called Mut?”

Mut looked into the darkness where Earth had spoken and back to Blood, and said, “What are the duties of a god? I will undertake them as best I am able.”

Earth said, “A god will bear witness to the seasons.”

Blood said, “A god will reward what pleases him, and punish what displeases him. A god will see to it that all mortal things have their place. A god will see the world as it is, and make it as it must be.”

Thus Mut saddled the two steeds of the god Naomi. At Blood’s flanks, his saddle held a sword, a bow, a quiver of arrows, and flint and steel. At Earth’s flanks, his saddle held a sickle, a whetstone, a bag of seeds, and a reed flute. Mut climbed upon the saddle of the pale horse, and lead the dark horse out of the cavern in the side of the mountain. Blood and Earth walked upon the ledge, no wider than the tip of a child’s finger, without fear and without looking down. The horses walked with time taking careful measure of each footfall, and were not long in passing the peak beyond which even the eagles would not fly. As Mut looked to the familiar sight of the eagles, Earth said, “Why do we walk?” And Blood said, “This path is long and winding. Would you not rather take the path of the eagles?”

Mut, not knowing the ways of gods, asked what path the horses meant to take. “Do you, then,” said Blood, “wish to see the path of the eagles?” And Mut allowed as that he did. Thus the steeds of the gods stepped off the mountain path, into the air, and walked along the path of the eagles. “This path is quicker,” said Earth.

Riding on the pale horse whose footfalls he could not see, Mut returned from the mountains in as many hours as it had been days to climb them. But as the horses galloped over the caves of the skin thieves, Mut’s countenance became dark, and his voice grew still. “This displeases you,” said Earth. And Blood said, “Why have your eyes grown hooded and your shoulders bent?”

The steeds of the gods then ceased their descent to the valley of the midlands and listened as Mut told them of the terrible pain the skin thieves had brought to the Swan tribe. “Their season shall pass,” said Earth. “Their crime has been great,” said Blood. “I see by your demeanor that you wish them punished for it. You have but to deem it just.”

Mut weighed the offer of Blood and the words of Earth, but though he had slept in the skin thieves’ caverns, the sadness of his mother’s stories was too great. “Let it be so,” he said to the steeds.

And the horse Blood strode up into the clouds, and the clouds grew dark about his hooves. And the horse Earth followed Blood into the clouds, and lightning flew from his hooves. The steeds circled the mountains above the caverns of the skin thieves, and the storm became greater until it spread across the whole of the mountain range. At last Blood reared back, and the clouds split apart, and rain drenched the mountains below.

“Their season has passed,” said Earth. “So it is done,” said Blood. “I have brought death to all who dwell in the mountains. The unliving shall become the living, and the undying will be mortal. All who are touched by our storm shall be remade thus.”

Mut looked down at the mountains and the great wash of rain, and he saw even the valley of the midlands ran with the terrible waters of life and death. “And what of the Swans?” he asked. “They will drink the water in the lake and eat the fruits of the trees growing from it.”

“Then you will bear witness,” said Earth. “The sin is not for the skin thieves alone,” said Blood, “for it was the Swans who drowned their children in the crystal lake. Life and death will be restored to both, and their terrible deeds may yet be redeemed together.”

Now Mut understood better the ways of the gods, and he felt the heavy burden not meant for mortal shoulders. He raked his face with his hands, and struck at his body with his fists and told his steeds to take him to a place without seasons, where he would bring no gifts or curses upon any living thing he cared for.

Blood and Earth carried Mut far from the valley of the midlands and the Eastern mountains, across the great East Ocean, to the burning lands far to the south. Mut went out into the middle of the great desert, and Blood walked on his left while Earth walked on his right. He lived in the desert and felt no hunger or no thirst. When the sun was high overhead, he slept in the cool shadow of Earth, whose hooves he could not see against the white desert sand. When the desert grew cold at night, he lay against Blood for warmth, though he could not see the pale horse in the silver moonlit sand.

The days and nights passed slowly in the desert, for Mut had no company but his own thoughts and the dead god’s steeds. At last he came to them and said, “I am wroth with myself, steeds. I have brought mortality to the Swan tribe, and death where there was only life. What must I do to make the world right again, to make it as it must be?”

“The seasons must change,” said Earth. “If you have brought death to one place, you must bring life to another. That is the way of the gods,” said Blood.

“How can I do this thing?” asked Mut.

“Take my sickle,” said Earth, “and spill my blood. The sand thirsts; let it drink my blood. The wind howls; let it have my bones. All the plants and animals hunger; let them have my flesh.” And Blood said, “My brother Earth will give life to the desert.”

“I cannot take one life to give life to another,” said Mut. “I will be no better than before.”

“You cannot kill me,” said Earth. “You may tear him apart,” said Blood, “But he will always return with the first rain.”

Mut had no more to say, and the steeds had no more to offer. Thus he took the sickle of the dark horse, and cut his throat. Earth’s blood was fed to the thirsty desert sands, and his bones were given to the howling wind, and his flesh was given to the hungry plants and animals of the desert. Great thunderclouds gathered in the sky, as dark as Earth’s body and Blood’s hooves, and it was not long before rain washed across the desert. Yet this rain was not the rain of life and death which poisoned the mountains and the midlands. Life blossomed where the rain fell, until the desert no longer burned under the sun, but was fertile with living creatures and a gentle wind.

As the last of the rain drops fell, the wet sand of the desert heaved like the ocean’s waves, and the steed Earth rose from beneath them. The sand fell from his body, leaving him as dark as the rich soil below, pooling about his hooves, which remained pale. He stepped from the sand and said to Mut, “These are the changing seasons.”

Mut looked at the desert in bloom and he saw it was good. Yet he knew that the life he brought to the desert could not atone for the death he brought to the Swan tribe, and even to the skin thieves. “I see how the gods must witness the changing seasons now,” said Mut. “But I will never fathom the will of any mortal or god to punish another. Let us go forth from the desert, and I will bring life where there is none, and make repairs for the injuries done by death and mortality.”

“If that is your wish,” said Earth. “We will carry you to all those places which have known no life, and we will balance the pain of death. But the desert thrives now only by the blood of Earth. It will burn again should we depart.”

“Then we will return again,” said Mut, as he climbed upon the steed Earth. “We will visit all those places without life, and I will take the burden of the seasons into the lifeless places of the world.”

Thus it was that Mut rode to all the deserts of the world and brought with him the rains. When he had circled all the world he began again, and in this way Mut and his steeds Blood and Earth brought the rains to the deserts of the world every year. Mut returned every year to watch over the Swans and the skin thieves, and saw how together they healed the wounds of the lost children and the pain of death. Some Swans yet lived lives a hundredfold score of years, but these soon vanished into the world and into legend. And even some skin thieves were yet undying, and these too went into the darkness of hushed stories.

It was said long after that when death fell upon a house Mut was always near, but that he would soon bring life. And if men and women are still mortal, then Mut still rides the steeds Blood and Earth to this day.

In the second golden age of mankind, in the great Western Desert, men built a city out of sun beams and the stars of the lady Night’s cloak. This desert city was new each day and never the same city in the day as in the night. Some years after the second golden age of mankind, a fabulist named Elijah came to be born in the East. When he was a boy he lived in the rain, and the ice, and the weeping green trees. He met a beast made of fire and steel, who walked the path of the Traveler. He made the beast his friend, and so it stood watch over his soul. When young Elijah became a man, he moved to the city of lights. He came from the East, and so he brought with him the rains and the thunder. He walked the paths of the oldest god and rode a beast of fire and steel which shared the Traveler’s heart.

At the edge of the city, as his eyes first beheld its buildings made of crossed sunlight and glass, Elijah met a crow making a nest in the great gates of the desert city, which stood always open. He took off his hat and bowed with all the courtesy which was the crow’s due. The crow asked him, “Why do you remove your hat, good sir?” And Elijah replied, “It was Crow who brought men the same fire as the gods’ own furnace, the fire of which this city is built. So I pay you her same respects.”

The crow was pleased that Elijah remembered the sacrifice made by her namesake so long ago, and so she offered to help the fabulist in any way she could. “You have only newly arrived in the desert, after all,” she said. “I can give you shade, and shelter, and I will carry your name if you ask.”

But Elijah thanked the crow and said, “I cannot take a favor from you. My respects are paid with no expectation of reward, nor may I take any favors from them. What I give is yours, crow, and your namesake’s, and it is not my place to take any part of it for my own, even in thanks.”

The crow said, “Your ways are strange, shaman, but you are not without honor. Leave at least with one of my feathers, so that my kind and my kin may know you.”

Elijah could see no harm or gain in this gesture, and he agreed to take the crow’s feather, thereafter wearing it over his heart.

Thus the fabulist went out in the desert at night with the crow’s feather over his heart. He listened to the stories of the whispering sands and rode under the stars in the roaring beast of fire and steel hearing the Traveler call out across his soul. He lived in the city of lights with all the stories of the desert in his heart, and the voice of the oldest god in his mind.

One evening, as Elijah sat beneath the stars, the beast warm against his back, and watched the city of lights, a spider descended from the cloak of lady Night and alighted upon his shoulder. Of course, the fabulist immediately removed his hat out of respect. The spider asked him why he removed his hat, and Elijah replied, “It is the spiders who know all the stories to be written, and have strung the world together with their webs, so I must pay you my respects.”

The spider was pleased by this, and accepted it as her proper due. “But though we weave all that may be into our webs, it is not our way to tell the tales. It is men who must pluck the strands and it is you, shaman, who know so many of our stories, who must write them.”

Elijah thanked the spider and said, “But the stories are not mine. I have not learned them for my own sake, for my benefit or gain. I could not write them for myself.”

The spider said, “Write the stories or do not, it is no concern of mine. The stories must be told, and you have a fine quill already near your heart. I think you should, but do as you will.”

Elijah mused on the spider’s words and, as he considered them, he found himself thinking of the stories the desert sands had told him. He took the crow’s feather from over his heart, dipped it in a well of black India ink he kept always by his side, and began to write the first of the stories on clean, white paper. It seemed to Elijah as if each grain of sand and each star had a story, and all he had to do was see them for a moment before their words came unbidden to his crow’s quill.

The fabulist always looked to the East while he wrote his stories, and thus at times he wrote them for the rising sun, and at other times he wrote them for the rising moon. There were times he wrote stories for his shadow, and sometimes he wrote them for no reason at all that he could see. But because he looked always to the East, he did not see the wolf which came from the West.

The wolf watched him write, and she read his stories. She saw his quill, and recognized her kin. After some time had passed, she said, “I know this quill, but not the hand which holds it. I know this heart, but not stories told by it. Who are you with the crow’s quill at his breast?”

Elijah did not still his writing or turn to the wolf. No one had yet asked about the stories he wrote and the pen he carried. As he wrote, he spoke, and learned the answer for himself as the words came to his lips. “I write the stories as I hear them, and I took up the crow’s quill for no gain or harm of my own. This quill and these stories are not my own, and might belong to anybody who so desired them. I do only what any man with ears to hear and lips to speak might do.”

The wolf said, “I do not think they could. I have seen many stories, and many men who have told the tales. Some speak to the moon, but few listen. You listen, whether you know it or not. I will speak of you to the moon, when it grows full and looks down upon us, and if you listen, she will speak to you in turn.”

Elijah was disturbed by the wolf’s words, and by her certainty of speaking to the moon. She had left silently, and so it was as if no one had been behind him at all. It was as if the words had come into his mind from somewhere beyond him, where he could never hope see, and placed a great burden on his shoulders. He stood up and put his quill aside, and hoped the strange voice had not made a terrible mistake.

The fabulist left the desert and journeyed back to the East, riding the thunder and fire. He journeyed until he reached his old friend the Ocean, and he sat upon her shores with his crow’s feather and wrote stories about her waters, and the depths beneath their surface. The ocean marked time with her tides, curtseying for the gentleman, while the fabulist patiently wrote and marked time with his pen, paying his own regards. At last the Ocean noticed her friend writing on her shores, and rose through her waves to greet him. Elijah told her what the wolf had said to him, and how it had unsettled his thoughts.

The Ocean said, “I know the Lady Night as well as the wolves know the moon. I know the stories they tell her. The wolf means you no harm, and her words are only the truth, for the wolf speaks always with honor.”

Elijah thanked the Ocean for her kind reassurance and, though he still feared the wolf, returned to the city of lights in the desert, prepared to listen to her words. He dipped his crow’s quill in ink again and told stories for the rain and the wind, so that they would not be forgotten in the desert. A dove saw these stories and landed near the fabulist, though she was too shy to speak to him. But the fabulist saw the dove and asked after her.

Thus the dove came to sit upon the fabulist’s shoulder, and cooed in his ear. At last the fabulist declared, “Let me write a story on your wings, little dove, and you may carry my words to the stars and the moon.” The shy dove was flattered, and spread her wings so that Elijah could write upon them. He wrote a story, and he lent his voice to the dove’s wings, and when it was done he said, “Now fly, far above the clouds, little dove, let my words carry you until you are before the Lady Night’s eye.”

The dove flew from the fabulist, higher and higher, until she reached the clouds. However, before she could reach the stars, she hesitated and looked at the ground below. She became afraid and would not fly beyond the clouds. She never returned to the fabulist, too afraid of what he might think of her after she could not carry his story to the lady Night. Yet still the fabulist waited, every night, to see if the lady Night’s eye the moon would look upon his words. On the seventh night, he understood she would not, and he sat without writing thereafter, having given up his stories for a frightened dove.

Time passed, bowing to the lady Night and her glittering cloak, and the wolf came from the East to see Elijah once more, and read what new stories he had written. He watched her approach for hours until she sat before him, eyes yellow to his maddening hazel. “Your crow’s feather is not at your breast, shaman, nor at your page. What ails you?” she said.

“I gave up my stories for a dream. I listened to words that were sweet and ignored a frightful truth, and my voice was stolen away.” He held the quill in his hand, and showed it to her, empty of ink, lifeless.

“The weight is not so easily lifted from your shoulders, shaman,” said the wolf. “For a child of light and shadows is born in the Northern lands. I go tomorrow to carry her name to her, but tonight you will tell her story.” And the wolf brought Elijah paper, and ink. She brought him food and drink, and sat before him, but would not move his quill or place the pages in his hand.

The fabulist began to form words, meaning to tell the wolf she should not do him so much kindness, but as he opened his mouth he found other words. A story began to flow from a grain of sand, to his lips, to his heart, and to his pen. He reached out and took up the paper, he ate the food the wolf had brought him and drank the water set before him, and as the lady Night drew her cloak across the sky he wrote a story for the wolf.

“We will sing your song to the moon,” said the wolf, “and if it pleases you, we will tell the moon your name.”

The fabulist said, “You have my thanks, but this story is for the child of light and shadows, and none other. It is not my place to take any part of it from her.” And so saying, he folded the pages of the story and handed them to the wolf.

“Your ways are strange, shaman,” said the wolf, “but you are not without honor. I will convey your regards to the light and the shadows.” And so saying, the wolf thanked the fabulist, and left for the Northern lands that very morning, as Twilight’s birds began to sing.

Thus the fabulist took up his quill again, understanding now that what stories he would tell to the moon or the stars, what he might hear if he listened, that these things could not be taken or given. In this way, when he saw the moon grow enormous on the horizon, while the lady Night still slumbered, he wrote a story for her. He did not know if she saw the story, or if it pleased her, but on some nights he heard the howling of wolves, and their song was kind to his heart.

Elijah measured time in pages, and journeyed many times between the desert and the Ocean, between the city of lights and the East. When he wrote in the East, he sat beneath an apple tree which grew beside a creek which ran behind the house where he was raised. In the spring, he was surrounded by appleblossoms, and in the fall he ate apples from the tree’s branches. When the sun was high overhead, the tree shaded the fabulist, and when the wind blew, the tree surrounded the fabulist with a gentle perfume. The apple tree never asked anything of the fabulist, but gave all its gifts freely.

With time, the fabulist came to enjoy writing beneath his apple tree more than anything else. He picked blossoms from it and carried them in the thunder and the rain out to the desert, letting them free in the sands. He found crow and peacock feathers along the roads he traveled, and left them at the foot of the apple tree. And it was not long before crows made their nests in the tree’s branches, and raised their young amongst the apples.

Sometimes it seemed the branches were whispering to him, as they swayed in the wind. “I miss you,” spoke the appleblossoms, softly in his ear. Sometimes, when Elijah sat beneath the stars in the desert, with his back warm against the beast of fire and steel, feeling the wind in his hair, he said, “I miss you, too.” He imagined the wind carried his words to the apple tree, so that it would not be so lonely in his absence.

One morning Elijah came to stand before the tree, and he said, “Your blossoms do not last in the desert. Let me make you mine, and write your story, and take you into the desert with me.” Though the tree could not speak, he thought he heard a whispered assent.

Thus Elijah took branches laden with flowers from the tree and laid them on the ground. He took the peacock feathers he had left at the base of the tree and set them about the petals. He ran his fingers over the feathers, and made arms and legs out of them. The peacock feather legs became rosy with life, like pale white flower petals. The grass growing at the base of the tree grew through the apple tree’s blossoms, and breathed life into the body Elijah had made. He took two dark stones for her eyes, and he held a tiny pink appleblossom to his lips, and breathed life into her.

The fabulist put pen to paper again, and he wrote paradise wings onto her back. He named her Appleblossom, his peacock feather fairy, and wrote her name on a secret place in her heart, where no one could take it away. He placed three drops of ink in her mouth, and asked her, “Will you come to the desert with me, with the rain and the thunder, with fire and steel, and sit beneath the stars, and tell stories to the moon?”

“I will come to the desert with you,” said Appleblossom, “if you will rest in my arms when you are weary, and let me sleep in your dreams when I must rest.”

Elijah took Appleblossom in his arms, and put crow feathers in her hair. Together they walked to the beast of fire and steel which guarded his soul, and rode into the desert with the rain and the thunder. She lived in his dreams, and when the fabulist asked his peacock feather fairy if he might write stories about her eyes, or tell tales about her lips, she would tell him that all she gave him was for him, and that it was not her place to profit by it.

The fabulist asked her, “What do you want, most of all?” And Appleblossom answered him by taking a crow’s feather from her hair and holding it out in her hand. She said, “What do you want? I am as you made me.”

“If you know what you are asking, Appleblossom,” said the fabulist, “then keep the crow’s feather, and keep it close to your heart.”

Elijah’s fairy took the feather she gave him and held it close to her heart, where he had written her name. She sat beside him as he took out a fresh sheet of paper, blank and clean, and dipped his crow’s quill in black India ink, which was always at his side. She leaned her head on his shoulder as he began to write, and they sat together, under the stars in the desert, for a very long time.

And if the moon is still rising, they are still there today.

There’s going to be a bit of a break from my doing regular updates for awhile.

Meanwhile, if anyone wants to make it easier for me to do regular updates, they could do so by mentioning or linking to this site, posting comments, or dropping some money in the tip jar.

The Sorceress

They descended from the tower arm in arm, brother and sister. As he passed the other rooms on the way down, the Jackfish saw only cold forged iron, coal, and steel, but he thought perhaps he was looking at different rooms. The door at the bottom of the stairs was unlocked for the Sphinx when she turned the handle. Upon taking their leave of the tower and entering the hallway, they found all the servants of the Sorceress lined up along the walls, and the Sorceress herself standing at the far end.

The Jackfish bowed to the Sorceress and gave her the courtesies she was due. He said, “I am very grateful that you have shown such kindness to my sister for so many years, and taught her so much. I have traveled far and learned much on my own, but now it is merely my hope that you will grant her your leave to journey with me, and so we will not be sundered again.”

The Sorceress had grown quite fond of the Sphinx, and almost thought of her as a daughter, and so she was troubled. She did not want the Sphinx to leave her forest and go to the far