– 5 –
Sometimes people do bad things. For instance, rendering puppies down into gold.
It is bad to render puppies down into gold.
. . .
Even you should have known this one, Hans. Even you should have understood that to render down the raw stone into gold is good; to refine the impure metals into gold, to refine yourself until you have found the philosopher’s stone within your heart — that that is good, that that can be good, but not to engolden a puppy!
Hans. Hans.
Hans.
. . .
Regardless, though, this thing Hans does.
The puppy grows. It cracks the stone that keeps it. It becomes large, it becomes one to three beasts invincible, and Hans catches it. He secrets it away. He places it in his vastly melting pot and renders it down to gold — to poisoned white wolf-gold, to be exact — and he keeps it in the vault beneath his pantry.
This leads to a misfortune.
. . .
Rumors of the wolf-gold spread. They run like trickling water across the caverns beneath the earth and climb its chimneys like trellised vines. They speak themselves from the wells and rise from holes and crannies across the earth. One articulates itself, from the mouth of a snake, right into Vaenwode’s ear!
“Why;” says Vaenwode, spearing the serpent with his dagger, “how perfect! For I was just thinking that I could use a vast hoard of stolen gold.”
. . .
Vaenwode goes to his father. His father looks at him with a face like stone.
“I’m leaving,” Vaenwode says. “But I have left the fire burning, and the soup-pot on. If you have ever loved me, you will tend it; you will keep it burning, and the kettle on. And each day, for thirteen moons, you will stir it; and say to it, ‘gold, gold, come out,’ and we shall see what happens then.”
His father’s mouth twists. He does not answer.
He looks away.
. . .
Vaenwode goes to his lady-love Gunfrid. He tells her to make a rope for him; to gather the hair that she pulls from her, and weave it to the water of the waterfall and the songs of the birds; to the blood and the thunder of the stories that warriors tell; to the light of each morning’s first sun.
“If it is long enough,” he says, “in thirteen moons, to reach the svart-elves’ caves, then I shall return to you and we shall be rich forever, and all the miseries of our life like fading dreams.”
She looks at him and her eyes are unreadable. She does not say what she will do.
He kisses her, anyway, and he sets out to Hans’ farm.
. . .
Vaenwode descends through secret passages. He goes deep into the earth. He passes the centipede. He stares at it in awe as it swirls and scurries on the stone above. He is Vaenwode and he is strong but he is too small and fleshy to even attract its attention; he would be less than a morsel to it, he is in more danger from it accidentally sweeping past him than he is from its poison or its bite.
He reaches the Great Gate. He stares at it. He sees himself reflected in the soap-film there.
He turns his face aside.
. . .
With closed eyes Vaenwode pushes himself through that Gate. He stumbles forward and there is sticky film in his hair and it is gleaming on his nails.
The Great Gate has gooped him; but he is through.
. . .
He moves on.
Vaenwode watches from an outcropping as the army of the dead marches past. They are numberless. It appalls him. He thinks for a moment of reforming himself; of redeeming himself; of becoming a different Vaenwode, a Vaenwode who does other things and does not do this. Then one of the dead captains looks up at him. It grins at him. It is proprietary. It is certain.
Vaenwode swallows.
The captain goes back to giving marching orders. His soldiers continue forward. Vaenwode plans his way.
. . .
Vaenwode departs the ordinary paths. He travels a little ways into the Weave-wid, where the trees are as much stone as vegetable and wasps will lay their eggs in mammal flesh. He hears the drone of the wasps; he hides from them, pressing himself into the cracks of a great tree’s roots. When the air is silent he digs a nest for himself, a deep hiding place, easily covered by a stone.
He finishes his work. He mops his brow. He hears the drone of the wasps again.
He looks up.
He sights one, overhead. It is large as a horse, with wings like two great skiffs. He climbs the tree, a little ways. It is aware of him, he thinks. He gets close. He totters out on a limb, he balances awkwardly, he watches it fly past.
He hurls his spear.
. . .
It is a good throw. It is worthy of a champion. It spears into the beast, cuts it, brings it down; the great wasp flutters, twists, falls, reorients itself amidst the branches.
Vaenwode is already scrambling down the tree. He is cold with fear.
The wasp reaches him, wounded, seconds after Vaenwode’s feet touch ground; Vaenwode almost twists his ankle in his hurry to retreat. The beast is dragging itself towards him in a rage. It is frothing, its jaws are snapping at him, and its eyes are sentient and burning red.
Its blood is calling to its kindred. The air is growing loud.
He takes his short sword. He lifts it high. “You are a wonder,” Vaenwode says.
“You are a wonder”
The wasp lunges forward.
Its right jaw scrapes along his side. It does not hear the words of the man, or it does not understand them, or it does not care for them: he does not know. He brings the sword down hard through the creature’s brain and it flutters three times and falls.
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