CHAPTER FOUR
The Wolf Past, Part 1
He was not doing things according to any plan.
In fact, when his guest had quitted his study earlier, the Count had followed her quietly down the hallway. He had simply wanted to ensure she had left before returning to the solitude of his study and carefully reflecting over the situation.
However, as she stopped to look at both the doorframe and the lion, he felt uneasy. Once she and Hastings had disappeared safely out of sight, he ventured outside wondering what had caught her eye.
His eyes scanned the entire doorframe, trying to understand exactly what might have caught her notice. It took him a few seconds to realize that a subtle changed had occurred. The primary carvings were identical to how they had been since the door was first brought here. Yet the trees, once bare, were now populated with fruit. And of all things with apples.
"I'm going out," he suddenly snapped at one of the nearby servants, taking care to retrieve both cloak and staff before he ran towards the stables. He found his fastest horse -- a temperamental stallion -- and moved quickly, intent on looking at everything again with a fresh perspective.
He was certain that the girl was not ordinary. What she was or what she possessed he did not yet know, but it became important to find out.
He pushed his horse aggressively, making a frantic pace up the path to the road and back to the bridge. Mindful of the previous evening's events, he gave the area surrounding the bridge a careful sweep with his eyes before dismounting his horse. With a staff in hand he began a quick survey of the bridge and its guardian.
The staff in his hand was a rather curious (and according to Hastings horribly distasteful) piece of work. It resembled a cane but its body was made of wood of an ancient tree. It was inlaid with silver, the most predominant use of it for an ornament at its top molded into the shape of a wolf. As gaudy as it was, the Count carried this staff as did generations before him. It was the same as it was many hundreds of years previously; the only modifications were the inset of rubies as eyes into the figurehead - made by his Grandfather before his passing.
He used the silver end of the cane to pick through some of the layered snow on the bridge. As he dug further, he managed to unearth only the smallest traces of fur and frozen blood. Grimly, he determined that nothing else was left, suggesting that the shadow thing had done an otherwise thorough job of dealing with a group of wolves.
Maximilian spent a few additional minutes inspecting the stone lion. In contrast to the landscape around it, the statue stood naked of snow thanks to the attentions of the Unthing. It was, however, still intact - a fact that relieved him immensely. Still, he was concerned. The Lion, unlike its younger 'siblings' on his property was starting to show signs of age and wear. At this, he frowned.
Not finding anything to support or debunk a particular theory he was entertaining regarding the girl, he quickly departed from the bridge and took his horse to the unmarked paths in the hills in order to catch up with the coach unnoticed.
Wolfram did not have long to ride, as his horse was quick footed and familiar with the terrain. His coachman also had made the expected morning stop at the craftswoman's home, which had certainly helped him move ahead of the party to scout the road. The Count had withdrawn into the tree line and been ready to dismount when he had noticed a rider on the road heading towards the coach. His eyes narrowed into slits as he watched the coach draw to a stop, but patiently he waited to see how his coachman handled the situation.
Hastings was not a useful man against robbers or troublemakers, but Giles was a different matter altogether. Underneath Giles' cheerful demeanor was a man who was deadly and highly perceptive. His feelings and intuitions about people were to be trusted. While the coachman's familiar behavior towards the townspeople was not to his taste, he patiently allowed it as Giles' social connections enabled him to have some idea of what transpired in Winchester without him having to muddy himself in the mundane affairs of the town.
The Count put his keen ears to the test but could not hear all the words going back and forth. Still, the interchange looked friendly enough that he kept to his position, hidden among the trees. He studied the man and discerned that he was wearing the colors of the Hunter's guild. Considering that their numbers had grown in previous years, he supposed it was inevitable that Giles had connections in there as well.
What did surprise him, though, was the observation that the girl and the hunter knew one another. From what he recalled, after the guild leadership had shifted the Winchester family and the new guild leader had often been in conflict. The patriarch and subsequent matriarch (the grandmother of the girl) had opposed many of the policies of the new leader. Under the new leader, the hunter attitudes shifted. These new hunters largely saw gaming as a means to make money more quickly. New people were often coming into this region to hunt for sport. And with them came their problems.
Count Wolfram brooded while watching this apparent reunion between Miss Redley and the man. There was much to dislike about the connection, and it could complicate his investigations. Their affection for one another was obvious and also problematic.
As he observed the girl and the hunter wave at his servants and ride away, he debated whether to follow his coach to its next errand or to follow the strangers.
In the end, he decided to gamble on the path of strangers. He veered away from the main highway and began to ride quickly through hidden paths ahead to the grandmother's house.
* * *
There had been a time when the Count had not been like this - cool, reclusive, or suspicious. But how he had come to be this way is a complicated story much longer in telling than the events that were currently transpiring in Winchester.
Maximilian Wolfram the Third had been born long ago to two young people in love - two people who turned out to be as fiercely devoted to him as they were to one another. In spite of his father's exceptional fear of strangers and a tendency to keep his mother close at his side, he believed their family normal. When he asked his mother about the reason why his father was so protective of her, she had smiled kindly and told him that there had been something peculiar about the way his two parents had met. Her eyes took on a distant gaze as she, for a moment, went to another time and place in her memory and told him of a terrible old witch who always tried to harm her.
He did not ask for more. It was easy to accept her words at face value and to blame the witch for making them move so far away from other family. It explained why they were alone in this place far to the south and how he came to be born there.
He was a lucky child, they told him. He came to the world under the fortunate auspices of a double full moon in Year 1193. Maximilian's birth was a happy moment in his parents' lives. To them, he was a victory against the repeated terror inflicted by a Black-hooded witch. Unwilling to burden their small child with fear, they did not speak of her crimes against them to him. And so he grew up normally: playing freely with the other village children, skipping about without any purpose, learning his lessons when he could be encouraged to sit down, and then continuing to play some more. And when he finished for the day, he would go home for dinner and sleep until he could wake up and restart that happy cycle again.
It was the long, extended double lunar eclipse in Year 1200 that unraveled the normal life the Wolframs had built for themselves. The double eclipse was a strange phenomenon in the world, a rare one that repeated approximately every one hundred and five years. The eclipse would span a month in itself, with complete darkness (or totality) lasting up to several days in the more northern regions.
For those who were in the South, it was a strange summer month -- full of dusky days and intensely dark nights in which the glowing insects molted, mated, and then danced in the sky.
Somewhere in this interlude came word from his grandfather that the witch had finally perished. He knew this because his father read the letter aloud to the both of them. Maximilian was not able to understand the details as to how this great feat had come to pass. However, he observed the lightness growing in his father's look as the days passed. And he could hear them -- when he pretended to sleep -- quietly discussing returning north to where his grandfather and uncles had built a much finer home.
The young child's attention, however, remained fixed upon the eclipse itself. As the eclipse began to wane, the villagers relented and once again allowed the children to play outside after supper. Maximilian, tired of these discussions between his parents, slipped outside to play with them.
The children loved the dusk. They ran to the creek near their village, full of pretty fish and smooth white rocks. They would follow it down a ways, chasing whatever animals caught their fancy. And on this evening, they ran along the creek while dancing with the fireflies and chasing singing crickets.
Maximilian, too, had tired of being kept indoors and was lost in thoughts of small things. His grey eyes spotted a big bug shining brightly in a tree above. His feet slowed and he lingered behind the others in order to watch the creature gently fanning its wings in the darkness.
He was enraptured by its light, thinking about a song his mother sang about the bright bugs of the moonlit sky.
He hummed the melody of the tune as he reached up to try to capture this pretty beetle. He was unaware of the growing silence and the light of the fireflies around him blinking out, one by one. There was only the warning of a cold rush of air behind him before he was enveloped in a sudden and bone chilling darkness.
* * *
There are not enough words to describe this darkness adequately. One might say it was darker than any starless night you can imagine. Others might say it was like death. To the boy, it was like finding oneself dreaming in the blind.
In this darkness, he felt he must do something and so he tried to swim. He did not know where to go, but the darkness took shape and tried to guide him. Small cold tendrils came to touch his back and then pierced his skin -- pulling him back liked a clawed hand.
The cold touch drowned him, poisoning his mind. He forgot who or what he was.
A sudden mournful howl cut through his thoughts, and a faint recollection of a warning came to him -- one that his parents said regarding the evil things in the dark.
The memory of them pushed him to continue to struggle against the cold hands while the sound of wolves drew closer.
For how long he fought the blackness in this dream, he did not know. But the howls gradually grew louder before they crescendoed to a maddening volume. And in that moment when he could not bear the sound anymore, he felt the wind of a thousand stampeding animals swirl about him, cutting through the blackness and severing the claws that held him fast.
"Too soon," the wind whispered to him as it ran softly through the darkness, carrying him along on its warm and soft back towards a light he had not seen before.
"Too soon for what?" he asked the wind.
"To know," it howled as the light exploded and washed over them both.
Maximilian suddenly opened his eyes to a strong light over his face. In that moment, he wondered if the wind had been just a dream.
The sudden feeling of a thousand pins piercing his skin stopped his wondering. His small body began to spasm violently with pain that was quite real. The young child began to wail.
"Hush, human." A crowd of faces that were foreign and beautiful came to stand over him. Their voices were soothing and warm in contrast to the searing pain that riddled his body. "Let us help you."
With tears in his eyes, the young boy relented. He was not sure who they were - but he liked them, for they were kind to him as they washed his body and soothed the strange raised marks on his body with a pleasant salve.
When his pain eased, he looked at them with clearer eyes. They were tall, elegant and marked by strange ears. "Am I dead?" he wondered aloud. "And are you angels?"
A tinkle of laugher greeted him. "We're elves," one said. "We are Minstrel elves, if you must know."
The distinction of type of elf meant nothing to him at that time. He had never seen them or heard of them. They, in turn, did not have much of an idea of what to do with a young human child. However, once he was able to remember who he was they focused their wandering with the intent to reunite him with his family.
He passed a wonderful time with them as they undertook the journey back to the village he was from. They subjected him to teaching tunes, bardic tales, and all sorts of nonsense that had no apparent meaning. Their overall merriness helped soothe the memories of the darkness.
However, seeing his parents and their disconsolate faces, he was compelled to remember what he would rather not. Still, he would never be able to forget the sight of his mother's face when she first spotted him - a face that reflected expressions of terrible sorrow, disbelief and then finally -- joy.
His return to the village brought resolution to the chaos his disappearance had caused. There had been those who did not believe he would return. After all, the children he had been with had spoken of a large dark monster that had stalked them. The elderly then remembered the stories of ghosts in the woods that would come out and frolic when there was no moonlight from either moon. His parents had worried that he had been lost or run away. No matter the cause, the village had simply prohibited all from wandering out during the weeks that the eclipse had lasted.
The elves were greeted with awe and wonder. The villagers, too, were initially puzzled as to what these tall creatures were but embraced their kind presence readily. The elves pitied the villagers in their fear of the darkness and agreed to stay a few more nights camped at the edge of the woods to watch for the return of the mysterious thing that snatched children. They agreed to stay until the moonlight grew stronger.
In that time they stayed, Maximilian wanted very much to see the elves again but did not venture near their encampment. He repeatedly asked to join the throngs of villagers who sat around them listening to their stories, but his parents kept him inside still afraid of the darkness.
On the night of the first new moon when light first began to return to the sky, the elves came to them. Two young elves appeared at their door, announcing the arrival of an elder. They waited outside as she entered through their doorway. The elder was an old and beautiful being that stood in the front room of their cottage, her presence filling the entire room with a powerful and bright light that both hurt and soothed him.
She lowered the white hood that covered her head and spoke. "I come to you with good news and bad. Which will you hear first?" The experience of singing gave her an enormous power behind her voice and lent a lyrical and unusual sound to her words. Her voice reached everywhere including inside the heads of those who would listen.
His parents looked at one another, quietly agreeing before his father spoke. "The bad news."
"You three must leave this village. Your son is not safe here for he has been marked by something. It is also clear to the other humans that he is not normal." As the woman turned her intense green eyes upon him, his mother and father instinctively laid a protective hand on each of his shoulders.
Maximilian heard all she had to say, but it was the woman's last words about him that pricked at his feelings. He looked up at his mother, suddenly ashamed and anxious.
"My son is normal," his mother's arm tightened around him. As he looked up at her profile, he saw her face grow fierce and strong, daring the woman to contradict her again.
"If he were," the woman held up her hand, silencing his mother. "We would not have found him where we did. Do not be so quick to see it as a curse, for you have been given the gift of your son's life."
"The price of this gift?" His father was uneasy.
"I do not know," the woman answered.
"Is there nothing that can be done?" they asked.
The woman paused. "The mark on his back ties him to whatever it is that came after this boy. It has been weakened by the healers, but cannot be removed by them or even me for I am not powerful enough."
"And it is your belief that the thing may return?" His father tensed, making a face that Maximilian had not seen before.
"Perhaps," the woman thought aloud. "It is unknowable. But you must leave as these humans cannot protect you as they are now. Nor can we linger here. The eclipse has passed and we must continue north to seek out new songs. Leave with us in the morning. Let us bring you safely away from this place."
Silently his parents conferred again before they relented.
The woman turned to leave, but stopped when his mother called out, her voice still full of hope. "And what of the good news?"
The woman turned her head to look back at the mother and then at Maximilian. With a faint smile, she said, "The blood of our kind flow in this child of two moons. Seeing his parents assures me of this. We are kinsmen, if distant."
Maximilian looked up at his parents, thinking that very odd. They certainly didn't look like elves!
The woman continued. "And with that, know this. For every enemy gained, there will be an ally. Do not fear the future for when the need arises, your son will never truly be alone."
With that last cryptic statement, the white lady disappeared back into the night.
And in the morning, the three of them began their journey north - back to the land his grandfather's family had settled.
And from that point forward, they put the human world behind them.
* * *
Maximilian did not realize until much later the importance of the timing of the elven healer's intervention. Had his family stayed, there would have been considerable trouble for his family and likely attention from other persons with power to cause trouble for them.
The wandering elves were a kindly guard for their journey north. It took more than a month; such was the way when traveling with minstrels who did not proceed anywhere using a direct path.
The Wolframs traveled under cover, keeping their heads covered such as to blend in well with the rest of the elves. They ate with them and listened to them as they conversed around the fire each evening. The young boy was happy as he listened to their stories and songs and learned their ways.
They parted ways near a creek that they said marked the beginning of the terrain of the Wood Elves. There, several of them, along with a few human men were waiting.
As the family approached a bridge marked with a stone guard, Maximilian could more clearly see the faces of the men in this new party. He watched his father as the man's face lit up. He saw the men greet one another as if they knew each other well. As the men bowed respectfully to his mother, shyly the child hung back, clutching his mother's hand tightly.
"Hello there." The eldest of the men leaned down to greet him. "You must be Maximilian," the man smiled.
The boy stared back, wondering exactly who this man with the beard was. He looked up at his mother for a moment wondering how to respond. When she nodded, he looked back at the man and politely greeted the old man. "I'm Maximilian Wolfram. I'm named after my grandfather."
At this introduction, the men about them began laughing uproariously, only to be stilled when the man gave them a rather terrifying glare.
"I know that," the man answered gently. "It was I who insisted on your name, lad. I named you so because one day you will earn the name I have given you."
"You're my grandfather, aren't you." The boy blinked astutely at the older man, who nodded mutely, perhaps a bit overcome by some emotion that the young child could not quite determine.
"Come," his grandfather said gravely, holding out his hand. "Walk with me, and let me show you this place where the Wolves of the Northernlands dwell."
Maximilian dropped his mother's hand for his grandfather's.
Together, they walked across the bridge.