LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘I will say as I wish to say,’ she told me. ‘You need not listen if it does not please you; and if you think me simple, that is your concern.’

      Who can argue with a wolf? – and a she-wolf at that?

      And now were we confounded. The broad sea stood between us and the Angaraks, and Torak stood upon one shore and we upon the other.

      ‘And what now, Master?’ I asked Aldur.

      ‘It is finished,’ he said. ‘The war is done.’

      ‘Never!’ said the young God Belar. ‘My people are Alorns. The ways of the sea are not strange to them. If it be not possible to come upon the traitor Torak by land, then my Alorns shall build a great fleet, and we shall come upon him by sea. The war is not done. He hath smote thee, my dear brother, and he hath stolen that which was thine, and now hath he drowned this fair land in the death-cold sea also. Our homes and our fields and forests are no more. This I say, and my words are true, between Alorn and Angarak shall there be endless war until the traitor Torak be punished for his iniquities – yea, even if it prevail so until the end of days.’

      ‘Torak is punished,’ my Master said quietly. ‘He hath raised the Orb against the earth, and the Orb hath requited him for that. The pain of that requiting shall endure in our brother Torak all the days of his life. Moreover, now is the Orb awakened. It hath been used to commit a great evil, and it will not be used so again. Torak hath the Orb, but small pleasure will he find in the having. He may not touch it, neither may he look upon it, lest it slay him.’

      ‘Nonetheless,’ said Belar, ‘I will make war upon him until the Orb be returned to thee. To this I pledge all of Aloria.’

      ‘As you would have it, my brother,’ said Aldur. ‘Now, however, must we raise some barrier against this encroaching sea lest it swallow up all the dry land that is left to us. Join, therefore, thy will with mine and let us do that which must be done.’

      Until that day I had not fully realized to what degree the Gods differed from men. As I watched, Aldur and Belar joined their hands and looked out over the broad plain and the approaching sea.

      ‘Stay,’ Belar said to the sea. His voice was not loud, but the sea heard him and stopped. It built up, angry and tossing, behind the barrier of that single word.

      ‘Rise up,’ Aldur said as softly to the earth. My mind reeled as I perceived the immensity of that command. The earth, so newly wounded by the evil which Torak had done, groaned and heaved and swelled; and, before my eyes, it rose up. Higher and higher it rose as the rocks beneath cracked and shattered. Out of the plain there shouldered up mountains which had not been there before, and they shuddered away the loose earth as a dog shakes off water and stood as a stern and eternal barrier against the sea which Torak had let in.

      Sullenly, the sea retreated.

      ‘How remarkable,’ the wolf said.

      ‘Truly,’ I could not but agree.

      And the other Gods and their people came and beheld that which my Master and his brother Belar had done, and they marveled at it.

      ‘Now is the time of sundering,’ my Master said. ‘The land which was once so fair is no more. That which remains here is harsh and will not support us. Take thou therefore, my brothers, each his own people and journey even unto the west. Beyond the western mountains lies a fair plain – not so broad perhaps nor so beautiful as that which Torak hath drowned this day – but it will sustain thee and thy people.’

      ‘And what of thou, my brother?’ asked Mara.

      ‘I shall return to my labors,’ said Aldur. ‘This day hath evil been unleashed in the world, and its power is great. Care for thy people, my brothers, and sustain them. The evil hath come into the world as a result of that which I have forged. Upon me, therefore, falls the task of preparation for the day when good and evil shall meet in that final battle wherein shall be decided the fate of the world.’

      ‘So be it, then,’ said Mara. ‘Hail and farewell, my brother,’ and he turned and the other Gods with him, and they went away toward the west.

      But the young God Belar lingered. ‘My oath and my pledge bind me still,’ he told my Master. ‘I will take my Alorns to the north, and there we will seek a way by which we may come again upon the traitor Torak and his foul Angarak peoples. Thine Orb shall be returned unto thee. I shall not rest until it be so.’ And then he turned and put his face to the north, and his tall warriors followed after him.

      That day marked a great change in our lives in the Vale. Until then our days had been spent in learning and in labors of our own choosing. Now, however, our Master set tasks for us. Most of them were beyond our understanding, and no work is so tedious as to labor at something without knowing the reason for it. Our Master shut himself away in his tower, and often years passed without our seeing him.

      It was a time of great trial to us, and our spirits often sank.

      One day, as I labored, the she-wolf, who always watched, moved slightly or made some sound, and I stopped and looked at her. I could not remember how long it had been since I had noticed her.

      ‘It must be tedious for you to simply sit and watch this way,’ I said.

      ‘It’s not unpleasant,’ she said. ‘Now and then you do something curious or remarkable. There is entertainment enough for me here. I will go along with you yet for a while longer.’

      I smiled, and then a strange thing occurred to me. ‘How long has it been since you and I first met?’ I asked her.

      ‘What is time to a wolf?’ she asked indifferently.

      I consulted several documents and made a few calculations. ‘As closely as I can determine, you have been with me somewhat in excess of a thousand years,’ I told her.

      ‘And?’ she said in that infuriating manner of hers.

      ‘Don’t you find that a trifle remarkable?’

      ‘Not particularly,’ she said placidly.

      ‘Do wolves normally live so long?’

      ‘Wolves live as long as they choose to live,’ she said, somewhat smugly, I thought.

      One day soon after that I found it necessary to change my form in order to complete a task my Master had set me to.

      ‘So that’s how you do it,’ the wolf marveled. ‘What a simple thing.’ And she promptly turned herself into a snowy owl.

      ‘Stop that,’ I told her.

      ‘Why?’ she said, carefully preening her feathers with her beak.

      ‘It’s not seemly.’

      ‘What is “seemly” to a wolf – or an owl, I should say?’ And with that she spread her soft, silent wings and soared out the window.

      After that I knew little peace. I never knew when I turned around what might be staring at me – wolf or owl, bear or butterfly. She seemed to take great delight in startling me, but as time wore on, more and more she retained the shape of the owl.

      ‘What is this thing about owls?’ I growled one day.

      ‘I like owls,’ she explained as if it were the simplest thing in the world. ‘During my first winter when I was a young and foolish thing, I was chasing a rabbit, floundering around in the snow like a puppy, and a great white owl swooped down and snatched my rabbit almost out of my jaws. She carried it to a nearby tree and ate it, dropping the scraps to me. I thought at the time that it would be a fine thing to be an owl.’

      ‘Foolishness,’ I snorted.

      ‘Perhaps,’ she replied blandly, preening her tail feathers, ‘but it amuses me. It may be that one day a different shape will amuse me even more.’

      I grunted and returned to my work.

      Some

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