Dirt wasted no time. He grabbed the rake in both hands and used mana to jump atop Father’s head, right up between his ears. It was a close thing—the rake caught the wind and slowed him down and he almost missed his target, landing on the slope of the skull and only barely keeping his balance.
But he still made it up there and immediately got to work, doing it like Socks preferred. Rough and deep and scratchy first, really digging in, then smoothing it out to leave it flat and handsome. Dirt had enough practice by now to know where the skin was thin and tender and not to scratch as hard there, but that wasn’t as important atop Father as atop Socks. Father was so big it didn’t feel like he was standing on a living creature, more like a strangely-shaped hill covered in rough black fur.
Father gave no reaction beyond a deep, cavernous huff, which sounded to Dirt like a satisfied sigh. The pups, Socks included, watched for a moment with eager curiosity, expecting their turns to come next.
And they were right, but it wouldn’t be soon. Father was enormous. Just his head had more fur than Socks’ whole body.
After Socks and his siblings got tired of waiting, which wasn’t long, they began to play, hopping around and exploring, chasing and play-biting at each other, rubbing up against trees to scratch themselves, and generally having a good time. Their games were all physical, all causing frequent contact with each other, and none of them were serious. Half-hearted races ten paces away, or wrestling someone to the ground, then panting proudly for a moment before he or she twisted away.
When a gust of wind filled the air with red and yellow leaves, they chased them, snapping their jaws in the air. If they managed to catch a leaf, they regretted it and had to wipe it off their wet tongue with a paw, but that didn’t stop them doing it again.
Dirt couldn’t pay too much attention to them, having a much more important task to complete. But he did notice that when it came down to it, Socks wasn’t visibly stronger or faster than the two his age, and certainly not than the older two. Those two bowled him over just running past. It looked a lot different when they weren’t using mana, he decided. Probably much like humans in that regard.
Still, it was nice to see Socks finally get to play with creatures his own size. Dirt hummed happily to himself, content for it to take as long as it took, and let Socks play.
Once Dirt got down to the neck and beyond, Father’s fur was full of tangles—nested twigs or vines with thorns, or hardened grime that Dirt suspected was old gore from something Father killed. Tufts of fur matted around briars, other such things. He didn’t dare just yank, lest he cause the great wolf the slightest discomfort, so when he couldn’t gently rake something out, he got down with his knife and carefully trimmed it away.
Truthfully, what Father needed most was a good soak, but where was a lake big enough? The deepest water Dirt had seen anywhere was that stone basin with the tentacle monster, but Father could probably stand in that without getting his belly wet. Maybe he could lay in it for a while with just his nose out to breathe.
But if not a soak, then Father needed his own team of humans to tend him, well-dressed servants like the Duke had, who were nimble and could use mana. And had some longer rakes.
I HAVE HAD HUMANS TO TEND ME AT VARIOUS TIMES, WHEN THE FANCY STRUCK ME. THEY DO NOT LAST.
Dirt hesitated, dread gathering in his heart, wondering if he should reply. But Father seemed to be making conversation, reading Dirt’s thoughts and commenting on them. So Dirt replied, just thinking to himself and not speaking to Father directly, “Because we’re short-lived? If you let them have children, then they could tend you for a long time."
NO. EITHER THEY GROW RESENTFUL AFTER THREE OR FOUR GENERATIONS, OR THE GODS GROW JEALOUS. THEY NEVER DID LIKE TO SHARE.
“Oh. Well, I’m glad I can do it this time,” thought Dirt. Did he dare ask about the gods, and what happened to them? He had a growing belief that he’d directly caused whatever it was, and Father didn’t seem too keen on having them return. Father had said once he was freer than he ever had been, now that they were gone.
On second thought, what could it hurt? Dirt was utterly insignificant to a being like Father, and it was obvious Dirt had no intention of giving any offense or disrespect. Most likely, Father would simply ignore anything he didn’t care to answer.
So Dirt asked, “What happened to the gods? What are they?”
Father raised his enormous black head to look at Dirt with one yellow eye, and Dirt ducked his head down and got to raking twice as hard, his heart beating heavily against his ribs.
YOU MAY SPEAK TO ME DIRECTLY. WATCHING YOU TRY TO AVOID IT IS TIRING. SPEAK TO ME AS YOU SPEAK TO THE OTHERS. AS FOR THE GODS, YOU WILL FIGURE IT OUT EVENTUALLY. FIND ME ONCE YOU HAVE THE ANSWER TO YOUR FIRST QUESTION AND WE WILL DISCUSS THIS FURTHER.
“Yes, Father,” said Dirt, sending the thought as directed, instead of just thinking it. Then, for no reason beyond reckless daring, he turned his mind-sight onto the blinding sun of the great wolf’s thoughts. Father had most of his mind hidden so tightly and perfectly that Dirt realized just how sloppy he and Socks were, but there was one thing he recognized—Father wanted scratched over by the shoulder.
Dirt raced over to the spot and raked it well, finding and then cutting out a stick the size of his forearm. His lips drifted into a smile that spread while he worked, his excitement too great to contain. Not only was Father showing him an unbelievable level of tolerance and condescension, but the answers really were out there, and Dirt would find them.
“Can I ask you a few other things?” asked Dirt, raking just a bit faster to show he was still fully engaged in his task.
ASK.
“What was that big purple smoke thing in Ocriculum? We heard it tapping on the door, so it was still alive, but it must have been there for a really long time,” said Dirt.
IT WAS PART OF A PARASITE. EVEN DIVIDED IT CAN PROVE AN UNFAIR THREAT TO MY PUPS.
“A parasite? So it would have attached to something, maybe? Like a leech?”
Father sent him a vision of a vast, skeletal being, the size of a mountain, bigger even than the trees. Parts of it looked human, but it wasn’t. Not even close. A skull and shoulders, like Dirt remembered, and a skin of dark-purple fog inside which swirled countless bones and other remains of death, but indefinite and worm-like below that, with too many arms, each having too many joints. Its finger bones were tendrils that sank into the earth as it leaned down, jawbone open in a wretched scream that twisted Dirt’s soul, even in so distant and abstracted a vision. He’d heard that scream, once, and it sickened him even now.
Every living thing its bony tentacle-fingers touched was drained of all color and became a husk, still moving but empty. Skeletal. Drained and dead. Dead but still moving, until whatever motive force kept it going ran out, at which point it collapsed. Deer, wild cattle, a gryphon, and even some humans fell prey to it, wandering like walking corpses, which is what they were.
The abomination itself remained floating in the air, fading in and out of visibility, drifting patiently as it looked for more prey whose life could feed it. The walking dead, if they found anything moving, clutched it tightly with whatever arms or claws they had until the abomination’s snaking fingers found it and drained it of life and color.
The sun crested over the distant horizon and rays of light found the hateful thing. It squirmed as its dark purple skein of fog absorbed the light, bulging in odd places and making it bloat like a corpse that’d been out too long. After several minutes of slow suffering, all while it kept feeding wherever it found life, it exploded, sending flecks of itself great distances in every direction. Most flecks fell on barren ground or on plants too small to provide any nourishment, and all those soon vanished like sticky bits of fog, wisping away into nothing. But some fell onto humans or other animals and sank into the skin, causing large purple lumps to appear, diseased and painful. The unfortunates grew crazed and confused, lurching away from dens and homes to wander in search of dark, quiet places to lurk.
Places like the tombs beneath Ocriculum, where one cowered behind the statue of the Shepherd of the Dead before that god was damaged and fell from his place. Hiding in burial nooks alongside the dead when the living brought in life, waiting mindlessly until they left. The diseased woman cowered long in the dark, feeding on corpse flesh, waiting. Until disaster drove hundreds to hide in the tombs. The door closed, leaving so many hapless souls trapped in there with her. With it. The vision faded when the first of them screamed.
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Dirt realized he’d stopped combing Father’s fur, deeply unsettled by the vision, the worst parts of which lingered. He shook his head, took a deep, calming breath, and resumed.
“Can Socks and I fight it if we find another piece of it someday? What should we do?” he asked.
IF IT IS NIGHT, HIDE. IF IT IS DAY, RUN OR CONCEAL YOURSELF AND LET THE SUN BURN IT AWAY. IT WILL TAKE A GOOD PORTION OF THE DAY. THEN DESTROY ALL THE PIECES.
“How do we destroy the pieces?”
BURN THEM WITH FIRE, AND ANY INFECTED HOST. IF IT ATTEMPTS TO INFECT YOU, YOUR ONLY CHANCE OF SURVIVAL IS TO THRUST IT AWAY WITH THE RADIANCE OF YOUR OWN LIFE. MY PUP WAS YET SMALL. A DAY WILL COME WHEN IT FLEES HIM, AS IT DOES ME.
By now, Dirt had gotten most of Father’s fur scratched and combed on this side, and Father gave him no warning before rolling over. Dirt had to sprint to keep up, moving from Father’s left to his right by running straight across his stomach. Dirt giggled, thinking Socks would probably have done the exact same thing and found it funny. And it was.
Between Father rolling over and the pups’ wild play, the meadow was twice as big now as when they first arrived. Countless trees had been knocked over or broken. There were only three kinds here: tall dark-green pines that grew so close together only their top third had any needles; short, white-barked birches whose circular leaves had mostly turned yellow and fallen everywhere, and smaller, scrubby trees that were too tangled and messy for even Dirt to want to climb through. Those had handsome red or orange leaves, and most of them were still attached. Until a pup crashed into one, at which point the leaves were flung up into a cloud and drifted quickly down to get caught in any fur they found.
As such, the pups were making quite a mess. Their fur stood up with static, which made the leaves stick even more, and Dirt found it too comical not to laugh once he got a good look.
“Can I ask another question?” said Dirt. “I’ll try not to get distracted by the answer this time. Sorry.”
ASK.
“What was the eyeball monster thing that came out of the sky at Ogena?”
THAT WAS THE GREAT ENEMY OF MANKIND. IT SEEKS TO MAKE YOUR KIND EXTINCT. HUMANS ARE TOO SHORT-LIVED AND LIMITED IN PERSPECTIVE AND EXPERIENCE TO COUNTER IT, AND ITS VICTORY DRAWS EVER CLOSER.
Dirt shuddered, or perhaps trembled. His arms felt like empty cloth, but he made himself keep raking anyway. He knew what question he wanted to ask next, but lacked the courage. Except that was silly. Father already knew what he wanted to ask, and what the answer was. So he asked, “Why did it have my face?”
YOU WERE THE FIRST THING IT SAW WHEN IT PEEPED UPON OUR WORLD. I WILL TELL YOU NO MORE ABOUT IT UNTIL YOU FIND THE ANSWER TO THE FIRST QUESTION YOU ASKED ME.
“Okay. Well, thank you for answering so much. You know I’m grateful. You can see it. And I am. And thank you for letting me be with Socks,” said Dirt. He got back to raking, and all it took was to think about how happy Socks was, over there at the bottom of the puppy pile, to fill his heart with warmth, so much it choked him up a little if he let it. This time, he did. He truly loved the pup, and his siblings, and even terrible, magnificent Father, the mere thought of whom filled him with immeasurable, wordless awe. How could anyone be happier than Dirt was?
THAT IS ENOUGH FOR NOW. GO PLAY BEFORE THEY GET TIRED.
Dirt nodded and slid down, landing hard and rolling since it was so far up. He even had to reinforce his legs with mana to keep his ankles from breaking. But he tossed the rake aside and looked at the pups, considering how to approach this. He quickly stripped his clothes off, since there was no chance they’d survive what he had in mind, and ran into the tangle of pups, right into the middle, making them all freeze for fear of crushing him.
“Whoever catches me first gets raked next! And no using your mind! You can use your claws or teeth, since I’m sturdy. But not too hard. Okay, go!” Then with a wild laugh, he raced with mana-infused legs under Big Sister, swatting her tail with his hand as he passed. She nearly flipped over trying to chase him.
It turned out to be easier to avoid them all at once than one at a time, since he was so small and they kept crashing into each other. It took no time at all for them to watch Socks and see how much force was safe to use, which was more than they were expecting. Dirt was no mouse, and they could step on him if they had to. If they could catch him.
Dirt hooted and squealed as he darted between them, jumping over their heads when they lunged in for a bite or rolling to one side when they tried to pin him with a paw. Big Brother tried rolling on top of him, and that almost worked until Little Sister got in the way and gave Dirt a space to squeeze out.
The game got more serious the longer it went on, which made it outrageously fun. The pups snarled and growled at him and each other, with Dirt screaming gleefully each time he saw an attack coming. Finally, Little Brother got him by smacking him out of the air with his tail when he tried to jump out of Big Sister’s way in the same direction as the previous time. The pup spun and snatched him right out of the air, getting his teeth around one of Dirt’s legs, leaving him dangling awkwardly.
“Okay, you got me. Put me down!” said Dirt, laughing. Little Brother was biting him just a little hard and Dirt could feel the mana tingle as it burned away to protect his skin.
Then it turned out Little Brother would rather keep playing than get raked. He could get raked later and this was too good to pass up. Hunting a prey like Dirt, who you could bite semi-gently without killing, and who was just as quick and wily as a wolf, was not an opportunity to miss.
Dirt had to use every trick he had, then think of several more. The pups were quick learners and after Dirt had been caught twice more, the real trick was catching him without moving him into a position to be caught by someone else. For his part, Dirt ran on all fours, or clung to their fur on a spot they couldn’t reach, or anything else he could think of. Socks caught him once, then Big Sister, then Little Brother again, then Little Sister. Finally Big Brother managed to catch him by snatching him off Big Sister’s neck when he thought he was safe.
Dirt’s mind wore out before his body did. Staying that wary, watching in that many directions at once, was incredibly tiring. He called a stop to the melee and lay down, arms and legs outstretched while he caught his breath. The pups all licked him at once, all five of them, covering him from head to toe with their huge tongues and leaving him almost sopping wet when they were done. Then they curled up around him protectively, surrounding him in a circular fortification of wolf flesh, with their noses in so they could keep sniffing him while they all relaxed.
Big Sister licked him again, just slightly with the tip of her tongue. She said, -Where can I get pockets?-
Socks answered for Dirt, since he could tell her the way. He shared his sense of direction and location, showing her the feeling that would guide her to the exact center of Ogena. Then he said, -Tell them you are my sister and Dirt’s friend, and hunt some goblins for them, and they will make you pockets. Humans are not dangerous, but be careful around them because the father of their den is our friend. He is called the Duke.-
Dirt added, “We have other friends there, too. The Duke’s children and his mate, who are called Èlia and Màxim and the Duchess, and a man named Ignasi is still there. And Hèctor. Marina is our other friend, but I don’t know if she went to the forest yet or not. She was looking for a mate.”
I AM NOT PLEASED AT THE THOUGHT OF ALL MY PUPS RUNNING AROUND WITH HARNESSES ON SO THEY CAN CARRY GARBAGE, said Father. He only sounded half-serious.
-We will grow out of it. We are still just pups,- said Socks.
GROW OUT OF IT NOW, THEN.
-Soon. I promise. Very soon,- said Socks. His siblings all gave him amused looks. Dirt was sure that if Socks thought Father meant it for real, that’d be the end of it. Socks was being sincere when he submitted and begged for affection from his sire. And while it seemed like they had all been selected to grow up, who knew? Getting eaten might still be a possibility. Either way, the pups didn’t seem too worried about it.
Father rose and a few steps placed him above their heads. He leaned down and the pups all whimpered and leaned back up at him, licking his maw and pressing their noses together in a bid for his attention.
IT IS TIME TO DISCUSS WHAT YOU WISH TO DO OVER THE WINTER. I WILL GIVE YOU TWO OPTIONS, said Father.
The great wolf gave his pups their options in two complex bundles of thought that arrived all at once. It took a moment to contemplate and consider them, and for a moment, no one said much.
The first option was to stay with him over the winter. They would trace through the mountains in the bitterest cold to hunt the choicest prey. Great beasts with long tusks, humanoid creatures that bellowed like warhorns, rocks and wind and storms and violence, but always a safe refuge at the end. Gentle caves to hide from wind or warm dens Father himself had dug would mark their journey across the great expanses of mountain and plain. They would learn the ways of sky and earth, about rocks and weather and the rotations of the skies. Father would protect them from the Devourer as well as could be expected, as he had been doing thus far. Dirt, however, would almost certainly freeze to death. If Socks went with Father, Dirt would have to spend the season somewhere else.
The second option was to wander south, all on their own. It would be the first time for the other four pups, but Socks had managed to avoid the Devourer during his adventures, so perhaps it was possible as long as they all kept moving. They should wander south far enough to avoid most of the snow, into the warm, desolate lands of sand and cactus and gray brush, with black hills and red mountains and hardly any prey at all. They would teach themselves to hunt and find water in scarcity. Dirt would be forbidden from giving Socks any sap or water if Socks chose this option.
-Are there any humans in the south?- asked Socks. -Dirt wants to find more scrolls, so we were going to the Kingdom to find the King.-
THERE ARE SOME BUT I DOUBT THEY HAVE ANY SCROLLS.
“Socks, you shouldn’t make the decision based on me. Father, what do you think would be best for Socks? I don’t want to be left anywhere for a whole season, but I think if I was a reason Socks didn’t become the best he could be, I’d be even sadder.”
THE CHOICE IS NOT A TEST. I WOULD NOT GIVE TWO OPTIONS IF ONE WAS CLEARLY INFERIOR.
-I will go north into the snow,- said Big Brother. His thoughts shared his enjoyment of the cold, preferring it to the heat. In that regard, he was just like his Sire.
-As will I,- said Big Sister, thinking of the grand exploration promised by the mountains.
-I will go south. I might find my own human,- said Little Sister, not without a hint of envy for Socks.
-And me. I want to explore on my own for a season, if brother did it and survived,- said Little Brother.
AND YOU, CHILD? asked Father.
-I’m still thinking.- said Socks. -If I go south, can I still spend another season with you someday, before I’m all grown?-
YOU CAN. AND PERHAPS I WILL TOLERATE YOUR PET.
-Then I will miss you. I miss you and Mother and my siblings a lot. But I will go south this time.-