26
Savannah
“It is fitting that there is no moon to watch over us, for she would be jealous of us speaking of her old lover,” the loremaster said as she spread her hands wide and began to walk around the circle of gathered wolves.
As her words thrummed in the air, the bonfire grew larger, and the wolves around me shrank, until all that was left in the darkness was the loremaster, the fire, and her voice.
“Once,” she continued, “Moon and the Dark God were lovers.”
The fire rose, and the image of two people appeared in the curling flames: a woman in a long silver dress and a man shrouded in black.
“Their nights and days knew no boundaries, and they lost themselves to each other beneath the sky.”
My pulse quickened as the loremaster’s story unfolded before my eyes—Moon and the Dark God weren’t just lovers, but passionate and wild. They came together with feral heat, their skin soaked with sweat and their bodies tense and quivering with need. They growled and fought and rutted like animals until their lust was spent and they could no longer move.
I could feel their hunger and taste their passion—a heady mix of earth, salt, and raw musk—and I suddenly found myself completely drunk. The vision was so real and visceral in my mind that my own need awoke, summoning the moisture of my body and leaving me hungry with desire.
The loremaster bent low and came close, as if telling us a secret. “But love can be fickle, and being strong and beautiful, Moon and the Dark God had many suitors. In the end, their jealousy tore them apart—but not before Moon gave birth to the wolf people.”
She stood upright. “In those days, people had both animal and human forms. But as the world grew older, they forgot a part of themselves. The wolves forgot they were human and began walking on four legs, while the humans forgot they were wolves and chose to walk on two. But all were beloved by her.”
For a moment, I saw humans and wolves and shifters peopling the earth, but then the loremaster swiped her hand, and the image dissolved into shadow.
“And yet, despite the Moon Mother’s love, the two-legged people did not love the land she had given them. They burned the forests to make fields and cities, and they poisoned the rivers and land with their waste. At first, in his bitterness, the Dark God ignored the children of Moon—but soon, the two-legged people spread, pushing the wolves and other animals off their land. Their greed was insatiable, and when there were no more forests to claim or land to despoil, the people began to fight each other for the scraps that remained.”
My heart clenched as I saw it all in the flames of the fire. The destitute human cities, sick with crime and greed and cruelty. Parched lands that had once been lush, despoiled with salt and ash and blowing away in the wind.
Wherever humankind went, death followed in its wake.
The loremaster flung her hands wide, and a dark shadow rose above the flames.
“A black rage seized the Dark God, and he took the form of a wolf to speak to the packs. He told them, We must make war on the two-legs. They will kill us all if we do nothing. We must make the world pristine, as it once was. With venomous words, he spread fear and hatred among the wolves until they agreed to slay all of mankind.”
Haunting visions consumed me. I saw the Dark God take a hypnotic form that was both a wolf and not a wolf. He slipped from shadow to shadow, whispering vindictive words in the ears of our pack. His rage and warnings wound around my heart until my own pulse was pounding with fear and hatred and I, too, was ready to see all two-legs slain and their cities torn to the ground.
But just as quickly as she had summoned the black vision, the loremaster swept it away, leaving us with an image of Moon weeping on her bed.
“While the Dark God only saw evil in men, Moon loved her offspring. She saw that they were only children who had not yet grown wise—that they had the capacity for great good as well as evil and would create both magic and beauty in the world.”
For a moment, I saw a child playing on the ground—her red hair short and oddly cut. She looked up at me and smiled with such joy that my heart strained with sorrow, weeping for the person I had become.
“Moon was a ferocious mother and would fight to protect her offspring, but she knew she could not hope to stand against the Dark God and all the wolves of the earth. Thus, clever Moon went to her friend Night Sky and asked her to weave a cloak of darkness to conceal her movements. She wrapped the cloak around herself and slipped quietly into the Dreamlands, and with her bright glow hidden, the Dark God did not know where she was.”
With a flourish, I saw the beautiful moon wrap herself in darkness like an eclipse until only a sliver of her light remained.
“When she returned from the world of dreams, she called the Dark God to join her at a feast. She told him, You are right—because that is what all foolish men wish to hear. She told him, I’ve seen the truth—the people are cruel and corrupt. Tonight, let us make the world anew together.Then she loosened her silver dress so he could see the graceful curves he had never forgotten.”
In my mind, I saw her rise and let the slit of her dress part. My chest ached at her beauty, and I knew no man could resist her alluring skin or smile. She summoned the Dark God to her with the crook of a finger, even as the loremaster’s words began again.
“They danced and drank, and all the while, Moon topped his wine with water that she’d stolen from the river of dreams that carries us all through the land of the night. At last, she took him to her bed. They rutted into the dawn like wild animals, and when they were spent, the Dark God fell into deep dreams, from which he did not wake.”
The vision faded, but for some reason, the fire didn’t return to its former brightness, and strange shadows flickered in the flames. The loremaster raised her hands, and the light grew. “That is how Moon saved us from the Dark God—and yet, the legends say his slumber grows restless, and if we do not care for creation or nature, he will wake to bring destruction upon us all.”
I blinked at the simple moral. It was no more than a child’s story to teach young wolves. Yet the loremaster’s hands were still raised, and I shivered as a chill wind rose. It began as a breeze, but it soon whipped savagely around us. My fur was buffeted in the wind, which howled like wolves in my mind. I pressed myself to the ground as a dark shape rose above us, blotting out the lights and stars.
The wind was madness, screeching in my mind and choking my throat with violence and hate. It whipped the bonfire into a frenzy, and soon, all the trees were alight. Black and grey smoke billowed from the distant skyline and skyscrapers that lined the shore.