The Wolf, the Elf, and the Other-World

A long time ago, in the wild lands of the North, a wolf walked in the dark undercoat of the evening, tasting the snow in the air and bowing its head low to sniff the ground. Its enormous body, black as the Grim Reaper's robes, was tussled by the wind, and it raised its head to reveal a pair of eyes as green as cauldron magic, as sharp and narrow as aimed arrows. It stood on a hill, a silhouette against a grey pregnancy of the clouds, and as if deciding lordship over the woodlands below, lifted its snout, breathed, and released a clean howl that traveled well past the Western Well and touched the dying ears of Camelot. The wolf's name was Sol.

Though his frame was ancient and his tail was ragged, his face was brutishly beautiful, strong, pointed, with a slightly aquiline nose dividing the eyes and making notice of his ears, which were tattered and studded with several golden rings. He was shrouded in mystery as he entered the woods, and the nymphs and fairies cowered away in silence at first sight of him, for they knew Sol was a terrible one, a veteran of the old wars among the wolves, fairies, and men.

But Sol made no violent lunges, said no vile thing, but bowed his head and let his shoulders droop, though he could have razed the forest to the ground had he wanted to. His tread was slow and humble; so slowly he moved that he almost became one with the darkness of the forest. The green eyes fell in sadness, for the forest was a memory he had once longed to entertain but now begged himself to forget. The farther he entered the forest the darker the air became, until he could see nothing except the glow of a fairy's eyes if it had the boldness to peek out of hiding. He was both searching in the dark and being searched for. An elf perched upon a branch above the path and spotted Sol as he walked, and his eyes gleamed with fire and victory; the elf was old, older even than Sol himself, but still retained the stature of youth and the beauty of childhood. His name was Crispin.

"Fear ye not, monster of the east," Crispin said as Sol passed underneath. The wolf stopped and gave a low growl. "I recognize your voice, Crispin. What business does a royal elf from the Western Well have groping about in a place like this?"

"Believe it or not, foul fiend, but I have searched for you, followed you, though last month I lost sight of you and have just by chance discovered you now. I have a score to settle with you."

"You wish to kill me because I have killed your friends," Sol assumed, continuing to walk. "They were all good warriors, and gave me many scars. But I surpassed them in strength and now they are no more. What have ye to say to this?"

"It is not only my dead brothers on whose behalf I implore you," Crispin said, dropping soundlessly to the ground and coming up besides Sol. The wolf's head stood level with Crispin's shoulder.

"What other cause for revenge do you have against me?"

"You slaughtered the country elves of Milfoo forty years ago under brute command. Your wolves pulsed through the villages and made blood fountains out of my people." Sol made no reply. By then the trees had splayed and permitted inlets of moonlight to shine on their faces. Sol looked into Crispin's eyes and saw clear hatred stored within them, and coldness lining the thin lips and vengeance curdling the color of his cheeks.

"What if I asked for your forgiveness?" Sol asked. "For you have not asked about my disappearance, or why I left the battlefields of the west. My armies had control of the entire coastline, up into Falcormene and dominating half of the land of men, and your own people had fled into the shires. Some killed themselves for want of the end, if the wicked Griffon's tongue does not lie. But I left it all without a word to any of my generals. And for every battle I fought I pierced my ear with a golden ring, to weigh down on my ears and remind me of the crying pain of the world."

"So you are as the mythical Cain of the Otherworld, wandering the world and seeking its pity?" Crispin ventured.

"I seek no pity," Sol replied. "I seek what I asked of you. To be forgiven for the wrongs I have done."

Crispin was silent a moment, but Sol noticed the elf's hand fall subtly to his sword hilt, where the thin knuckles whitened and the blade shimmered silver.

"Forgiven or not, I have divine right to hew your head from your shoulders. Your deeds deserve you death, O Sol the Terrible."

"I am certain of your judgement, O noble elf!" Sol said, bowing low. "Yet before you apply your deadly stroke, I must have your forgiveness, else I die in sorrow. For I was one of war, and the blood of your people came from the war I inflicted. I hated and must die as the hated, but first let me hear the kind word of your merry race."

"No forgiveness shall I give!" Crispin declared. The forest expired into a lengthy expanse of blue flowers, where a series of bubbling springs made dark pools of frigid water. The water was nectar from the airy underworld, the fine craft of the flower fairies. "The time of despair has come upon you, Sol. Weep and be judged! So fitting you should die in the Palace of Pools, as to compare with the pools of blood your own fangs have birthed!" The tall elf drew the sword and raised it high, pausing to reflect Sol’s strange submission. 

“You do not even attempt to escape,” he marveled, as the sad beast hung his head so the aquiline snout brushed the lilies.

“I have spoken for want, you have spoken a brutish truth, that I ask for peace, but you insist on my death instead. So be it,” Sol said in a voice not much louder than a breath. “I bow my head as I bow my soul. The blood of your fellow dead is on my brow!”

Crispin’s hatred overruled his hesitation. He poised the sword for Sol’s heart and plunged it deep into the flesh, watching black blood spurt and wrenching the sword loose so the wolf’s body collapsed into a nearby pool. The body swirled in the nectar for a moment before sinking below the surface, leaving a trail of inky blood for the starlight to inspect. He had died soundlessly. Crispin fell backwards in brief repulsion, the bloody sword still in hand, and then lifted his eyes heavenward to the vast expanse of stars, which stippled the universe like paint pellets turned to light.

“O gods of the elves and every noble thing,” he prayed, “elevate my soul to the league of those who practice justice. Knight me as your own!”

He stood up and cleansed his sword in the nectar, then waited for a sign as the stars shined on and the silence furthered the panic of his recluse.

“Answer me for my just deed!” he cried out. “Sol was of the demons and I have slain him!”

Instead of applause, Crispin was greeted with a wraithlike wind from behind, and as soon as its chill enveloped him, his fingers curved and became clawed at the ends, and his arms grew thick, black fur, similar to Sol’s. He doubled over in pain, retching as his nose lengthened and his teeth turned into devilish fangs. His face narrowed and his arms and legs pillared the shaggy body of what was unmistakably that of a wolf. His shoulder blades were sharp arcs and his eyes gleamed orange as fire. In despair he groveled in the flowers as if trying to rub his wretched body off, but he hadn’t even realized the worst of his curse. Some unknown spirit had pierced Crispin’s jaws together with rings similar to the earrings Sol had worn, so he couldn’t make a sound regardless of how hard he tried.

So this is my recluse!  he thought to himself in misery. I have been made low because I treated Sol as lowly. Had I made him high I would be like the gods!

Crispin turned on his heels and sank deeply into the woods where he hid himself in the shadows. According to the fairies he has not left there since. Meanwhile, Sol’s body fell deep into the underworld. There was no star or moon to expose him. Space was infinite and yet enclosed, and life and death were given in marriage in the darkness, mingling and groaning for the light of the flower fairies.

As he passed into the light of the nectar forest, which is where the underground flowers are planted and take water to the earth’s surface, he was taken in by a family of fairies who pitied him and longed to honor his broken body. They made his bed among the fallen petals of the flowers and exposed him with nectar lamps.

“He is long dead, my friends,” the foremost fairy said. “Murdered by one with foul thought, it is likely.”

“What is to be done?” the others asked him. “We are mere nectar makers. We provide the springs so that life may go up to the world. What do we know of dead things it gives back?”

“This beast cannot end as a dead thing,” the fairy replied, running his pale fingers along Sol’s flank. “We send him on the great journey which we ourselves will go on one day. We put him in the black river.”

The fairies all whispered with one another for a while, flapping their wings in anxiety. The black river was mentioned little among the fairies, and was fearful rumor among the children.

“Haven’t you read the psalm?” the leader said. “’The river runs ever on in darkness, because this world cannot stand the light of her end. She bears the distant yellow light all of us long for.’ This is the right action to take, my friends.”

So they finally agreed. Each fairy took hold of Sol’s arms and legs and let him settle in the black river, which ran through the flower forest and vanished into a cavern whose space could house a thousand echoes for a thousand years.