The Wolves of Gryning: A Vixen's Tale Pt. III
Interlude
A Vixen's Tale - Continued
"That's enough for now," Jula said. The vixen stood and cracked her back loudly, then yawned.
Luna put down her pen. She stretched her hands, feeling the muscles twitch. The sheaf of papers next to her had grown by several inches over the night. Looking at it made her wince, and she felt a twinge in her back. She was grateful for the opportunity to stop and rest.
"Your supplies are running low," Jula noticed. "Maybe we'd better go replenish them. Come."
The vixen went over to the end of the tent and held open the flap.
"You want me to go with you?"
"Never mind what I want. Now's your best chance to see Gryning, if that's what you want."
Jula didn't wait for a response. She let the flap close behind her and walked out into the tunnel. Luna was up on her feet in a flash. She picked up the papers she'd already written, shoved them in her pack, slung it over her shoulder, and chased the older beast out of the tent.
"Hey, wait!" she called. But the vixen didn't stop. Luna pumped her wings once to boost her through the air, then finally caught up with Jula and followed her into Gryning.
They emerged first in the city's busy underground community, the sandstone tunnel illuminated with the first peeking rays of the sun. Where the light fell the rock turned to blood. Soon the tunnel would be flooded with blinding light. The beasts who lived in these tunnels scrambled to hang sheets and colorful blankets over openings in the stone. A sort of semi-darkness bloomed around them, all shot through with the hazy blue and green and yellow of the filtered sunbeams. The community began to come alive, their chorus being taken up one by one as each voice added its own timbre and tone.
Jula produced some silver from a pouch and purchased a breakfast for the two of them. She handed Luna a fluffy piece of flatbread with a savory fish paste filling. The bat took her first bite tenuously, then wolfed down the rest of the piece. She was ravenous. The other foods caught her eye as they walked the length of the main tunnel--grilled eels, enormous dried fishes, bowls of rice; she saw soup full of mushrooms and a kind of brittle seaweed that grew in the Hatskav; she saw the same seaweed sold, on its own, in enormous shredded piles. Luna stopped to ask the peddler about the seaweed while Jula ran off to purchase something else.
"It's already shredded when we harvest it," the peddler said. He was an old wolf, stooped and grey with age, but his shoulders and arms bore the look of one who had been strong in his prime.
"It grows in pieces?" Luna asked.
The wolf laughed at her, a big raucous laugh that turned into a coughing hack.
"No, not quite. It grows in long, wide strips. The sea is precocious, though, and strong, and it tears the plants to pieces. A terrible fate for a beast such as you or I, yes, but not for the seaweed. From the plant's point of view it's really quite ingenious. The sea spreads the particles outward in a wide range; it can reproduce a whole new plant from just one little shred of the original host. Clever little plants."
"I didn't know some beasts considered the plant's point of view."
"It's important to consider every point of view," the peddler said, then gave her a shrug that seemed to say, Take it or leave it. I'm just a tired old wolf. "Anyways, my family sails out just off the coast into the seaweed beds with one end of a net, then we send another ship out the other direction with the other end of the same net. When they meet back on shore we haul in a big old bundle of shredded seaweed. It's a staple in most of our diets down here."
He offered her a piece which she nibbled cautiously. She thought it tasted like a cup of saltwater, and swallowed her little piece with a delicate gulp and managed her best smile.
"Well, I don't think it's meant for bats the way it's meant for wolves," she said, but this just made the old peddler laugh even harder. Jula entered the girl's frame of view again, holding out a sweet pastry.
"I hope this'll be enough to satisfy you," the vixen said. And it was. The pastry was filled with another paste, but this one sweet and fruity. It was dark and red and the color reminded Luna of the sandstone walls surrounding them.
They finally climbed the wide steps up into Gryning proper, the city blossoming around them. The springtime air was fresh and brightened the scenery. Luna could smell the sea, the trees, the flowers. Somewhere close she smelled sweet honey, and the rich, weighty waves of fresh barley. The two girls walked past the arena and then the gardens and approached the main keep. There were guards at the door wearing their armor tied over their ceremonial robes. The swords they wore were just inside their sheaths, only a moment's notice from their reach. But the guards did not draw on them. Instead they bowed in the presence of Jula, and opened the door for her. As a guest of the vixen, Luna was allowed through as well.
The keep's interior was richly decorated. Enormous tapestries hung from the walls, and murals on the ceilings depicted various symbols of the wolves. She saw the oak, and she saw the Flame, and she saw the signs of the gods. But Luna only saw a scattering of depictions of Siljna, whereas she saw Valenthi or some interpretation of him a thousand times over. He was commonly symbolized in the form of a little ball of white fire, and she saw this icon emblazoned on the surfaces of furniture and artwork throughout the building. A popular icon featured the mighty oak with the fireball superimposed on top of it. The keep's architecture was no less impressive in scope or the number of pieces. She saw corners where the stone had been curled into a low curve for sitting, and the outward bulge of the stone would be heaped high with cushions and blankets. Archways marked the portals to and from each room, and the stone met together with the wooden beams in such a way as to accentuate the beauties of each rather than detract from each other. The windows in that place were all filled with paned glass. And when the sun finally breached the sky with the turning of morning, each window looked like its own icon of Flame.
The wolves that they passed in the main keep all maintained a measure of respect for the vixen. Some even bowed and stepped aside, letting her pass first. Luna thought it unusual that the wolves had such intense respect for someone outside of their species--let alone someone like this old vixen, who lived underground, smoking cigarettes and drinking brightroot tea. Luna noticed that the wolves in the keep recognized her more than the beasts they'd passed in the rest of the city.
"In here," Jula said, stopping before a door.
Luna remembered her visits to the Great Library of Sonder. It was very nearly the highest building inside the mountain, in the ring of buildings just below the hollow peak. The library's open skylights had let daylight in from above, while windows and balconies on the library's lower levels opened into the main mountain chamber. It had been an enclosed space, and a tight fit, its halls overflowing with books and bound journals. The shelves were crammed up to the ceiling. She'd seen her fellow bats flapping and clambering up the narrow shafts of shelves, knocking loose the various papers and volumes. It had been no less impressive for its compactness. Until then she had considered it the most impressive building she'd seen.
The library that she entered now took her breath away. It was built on the inside of a vast tower. Much like the Great Library of Sonder, it was lit by natural light. Luna supposed this must be a common practice in libraries, due to the flammable nature of the paper within. The ceiling of this library had been fitted with a wide ring of glass, and etched into its surface was the shape of the sun and several words in the Ancient Tongue. Luna couldn't read the script. Jula pointed to the notches in the glass and told her that at the right time of day the sun would shine through in just such a way that it would ignite a fire pit in the lower level of the library. So much for keeping fire out of the library, she thought. But the fire pit was kept behind a low stone wall, meant to deter beasts from approaching too closely.
"It's beautiful," Luna said, her head craning back to look all the way up. The books were housed on shelves that ringed the entire tower. There were six levels up the library's side. Stairs and branching balcony pathways crossed each other between the tower's levels, but the kaleidoscope of pathways never intersected the path of the sun's beam that would strike from above.
"Try not to fly away," Jula said, half joking, as she began to ascend the first set of stairs. But Luna had already leapt into the air, the gust of her flaps shaking loose dust from some of the less used shelves. The muscles on her back felt good, stretching after the long night of writing, and she launched up past the balconies and colors of a thousand different books. Their cracked spines whirled around her, and she thought, This is paradise. Then she shot up to the top of the highest level, flew in a circle around the glass ceiling, and floated down onto an empty desk. She gave a neat little bow, and giggled to herself. Flying made her giddy, and she did it only rarely. Surrounded by such a wealth of knowledge, she'd felt she couldn't help it.
"A fine display--most excellent!" said a voice behind her, and Luna turned to face its source. She hadn't realized there was someone else up here and she grew very flustered, her wings folding against her back and her hands clasping each other tightly. The voice had come from a she-wolf sitting on the desk behind her, dressed in a pink and yellow robe. Her fur was silver as the moon, and her hair was laced with ribbons. The wolf cocked her head slowly and said:
"What if you had fallen, though?"
Luna remembered herself and hopped off the desk, then bowed again, deeply this time.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt--forgive me!"
But the wolf responded to this with a giggle of her own, and raised her hand to her mouth as though this were an impropriety.
"Already forgotten. What is your name? I don't think I've seen you around here."
"My name is Luna. Luna of Sonder."
"Well met, Luna. My name is Alesh of Gryning."
Alesh? thought Luna. Then she noticed the fine silver ringlet around the wolf's brow. It had been difficult to see, blending in with the color of her fur. But when she saw it she bowed for the third time, this time on hands and knees. The queen!
"My lady," she said.
"Oh, that's all really not necessary," Alesh said, clearly flustered herself. Luna got to her feet and tried to smile, while the wolf went on. "I'm not used to such brash formalities. I wasn't born here, you see. Life in Gryning took me very little getting used to, but I still can't stand all the bowing and groveling. We wolves aren't so strict elsewhere in the world."
"All the same, you'll pardon my intrusion. I'll leave you to yourself now."
"No need, Luna of Sonder. Why don't you sit down? I could use some company."
"You want my company?"
"Unless you're in a hurry to be off," Alesh raised her sleeve to her mouth again, covering it like she'd spoken out of turn. "I'm sorry. I get a little lonely sometimes."
But before she could say anything, she heard the loud and angry huffing of the vixen climbing up the stairs.
"Fire and flame, outlander! Where has your patience gone?"
Jula bent over, taking deep breaths between her words. The stairs had unmasked the vixen's true age, and she hobbled over towards the desk. Alesh rose and rushed over to help her. Luna thought that Jula would refuse, but she accepted the she-wolf's arm and her aid in walking to the desk.
"I raced up those steps to find you," Jula said, then sat down. She gave a half bow to the queen, who smiled warmly in return.
"You're too old to be racing up steps," Alesh said.
"I know," Jula sat up straight and finally began to breathe evenly.
"I don't want to catch you smoking again, either," Alesh wagged a finger. "I shouldn't have to take care of you."
"I'll smoke if I please."
"You didn't used to smoke. Why can't you just stop again?"
"I'm just letting time catch up to me, that's all."
"That's a terrible philosophy."
"It's one we all have to accept sooner or later."
"Later then. But not now."
Alesh remembered Luna and turned back towards her. Her eyes danced between the bat and the vixen, before she asked, "So you two know each other?" Luna thought it sounded more like a statement, like "So you two know each other." But one of them was clearly meant to respond, and the vixen stayed quiet.
"Jula's been teaching me," Luna said.
"Is that right? I didn't know Jula was a teacher."
"You could say that," Jula responded, giving a feeble shrug.
"What do you teach then, teacher?"
"The girl's a historian," Jula said, gesturing across the desk at Luna. "I am helping her fashion a new account."
"Have we need of a new account? I thought we'd written all the histories thus far."
"Not every history," Luna said, and wondered if perhaps this conversation would ever be recorded. She thought, Maybe one day beasts will talk about the girl from Sonder who met the queen of all wolves.
But the queen's eyes widened, and she said:
"I hope you meant to leave me out of this."
"Not you," Jula said, quickly. "Your name has not and will not arise. This account is concerned with one of your predecessors."
"Now you're beating around the bush. Is this about Aska?"
"Not Aska. Our account predates even his reign."
"Besegrare?" Alesh said. Her ears perked up. "Aska was very quiet about the life of his father. I never heard much from the wolf himself, either. He died very shortly after I arrived at the fortress. I must say, I'm rather curious about him as well."
"I'm hoping to settle that curiosity, once and for all," Luna said.
"I haven't seen her results yet," Jula cautioned. "So it hasn't gained my approval. That's why we're here. The girl ran out of supplies, so we came here to replenish."
"Don't let me get in your way," Alesh rose. "There's plenty of paper and ink inside these desks. No, no, don't feel bad, you aren't putting me out. I was just getting ready to leave the library when you arrived--Go ahead, don't worry."
Alesh opened a drawer and showed them the supplies, then she gave a swift half bow to the two of them and made for the stairs. Just before she descended she called back to them.
"I do hope that I'll be able to read your account, Luna of Sonder. Send me a copy when you're done. Make sure it happens, will you Jula? Even if it doesn't gain your approval, whatever that means. I'd really like to hear this girl's perspective."
That left the two of them alone. But they'd found the new supplies they needed to continue, and Luna felt that she could begin writing again after the respite.
"I'm sorry I flew away so quickly," Luna said, but Jula raised a hand to silence her.
"It's in the past. Why dwell on what has already happened? The past cannot be erased, but the future is yet unwritten. And besides, I'm too quick to flare to anger. It's nice and quiet up here, and there's plenty of light. Plus I'm quite tired from all the walking. What say we finish our story up here?"
"Really? We can stay here?"
"Why not? I need to rest, so I won't be leaving for a while now regardless."
Luna retrieved the sheaf of papers from her pack and set them on the desk, then drew out a set of clean sheets from the supply Alesh had directed them to. She produced her pen and dipped it, then made some quick motions across the page to make sure the ink was flowing properly. Then she waited, and looked up at the vixen for confirmation.
"You're ready? All right. Settle in and get ready to write. Let's see...Where was I?"