Storm Wolf (41 page)

The werewolf charged further up and into the heart of the storm. The spirits Timotej hurtled past dodged and scampered away, tearing more shrouds from the cloud to wrap themselves in and exposing more of the sunny September day above the rain. The wolf ignored them now, intent on discovering and attacking the powers that guided the storm clouds. He found himself winded and slowed his ascent as the stormscape around him changed.

Timotej was surrounded by roiling cords and knots of cloud. Peering more closely, he realized that these were not mere folds of cloud caught in some mysterious currents of the air but rather great sky serpents slithering over, around, and under each other. There were two such nests of serpents slowly twisting their way past him, seemingly oblivious to his presence—or so ancient and so impregnable in their power as to be unconcerned about this small, unfamiliar furry creature that had appeared beside them.

As he watched, Timotej saw that the serpentine streams were gathering the folds and wrinkles of cloud between them. “Like shepherds herding sheep or cattle,” he thought. Indeed, the clouds were being compacted into tighter and tighter coils. Moreover, the serpent shepherds seemed to be following some predetermined course and not simply flowing in random patterns. He glanced down from that dizzying height, through the shifting banks of fog and rain and minor devils, and saw it.

“They’re following the river!” He gasped in amazement. The clouds were being gathered into incredible density directly above the Vltava, replicating the river’s own curves and bends in the sky. With each undulation of the vipers, they squeezed a new torrential outburst of rain into the river. “Like when a farmer squeezes the teats of a cow’s udder!” exclaimed the
kouzelnik
. Each additional burst of rain to the Vltava raised the water level. Spillover ran down more streets and into the crypts and cellars of the city. New Town and then Old Town streets along the river were vanishing in the overflow. The river, like a living thing, was creeping up the hills of the Little Town. As the deluge reached the Jewish Quarter, it carried away wagons, carts, chickens, and anything that strayed too far into the current.

The head of one of the cloud serpents brushed against Timotej, flicking out a forked tongue to taste the rainclouds. Timotej saw his chance. Ducking under and then around the serpent’s jaw, he locked his fangs deep in the back of the serpent’s head like a lithe mongoose catching an enormous cobra in a death grip. The great snake, unsuspecting and unused to attack so high above the earth, was taken by surprise.

Timotej could taste the salty blood of the serpent. The creature writhed and thrashed, twisting back on itself and dislodging itself from the nest of serpents it had been traveling with. Timotej held tight and braced his front paws against the immaterial scales as the creature tossed its head high and from side to side, attempting to dislodge the attacker. Even as it swung its massive head, Timotej could feel the skull cracking between his teeth. The snake shivered and threw itself almost upright. It tore great gaping holes in the storm about it as it struggled, allowing some of the rainclouds to drift away. There was a lull in the outbursts that lashed the river below.

The other serpents entwined with it continued on their course downstream, attempting to continue shepherding the rain even as they turned their heads to watch the struggle between werewolf and sky serpent with bemused equanimity. A curious hiss underlay a rumble of thunder, and several forked tongues darted in the direction of Timotej and his victim.

The serpent in Timotej’s jaws stared into the storm with unseeing eyes and then collapsed against the cloudbank beneath it. The thunderous impact knocked Timotej’s jaws loose and then threw him across the serpents nearest him. He landed atop the coiled and compacted cloud river caught between the two streams of snakes. He stood and proudly bayed in triumph, taunting the snakes around him.

The nest of vipers closest to Timotej unraveled, the serpents abandoning their efforts to shepherd the storm and flicking their tongues toward the werewolf. They coiled themselves to attack, a few making preliminary lunges, further dissipating the herd of clouds they had worked so hard and long to assemble. The stream of snakes opposite them slowed in their migration but did not hasten to aid in the attack. Some caught the rainclouds in their own fangs, apparently thinking it more important to maintain their control of the storm than avenging the death of their fellow serpent shepherd.

One spat seeds of fire at Timotej, and as those tumbled through the air, they stretched and sizzled, becoming lightning that streaked past him.

Timotej howled again. “Where is Alexei? Does he not want to share this victory?” A snake snapped at Timotej’s legs, tearing a bit of the cloud river and unleashing a gush of rain.

Timotej paced up and down the cloud river as it continued to disintegrate beneath his feet, glaring and snarling at the serpents aligned before him. Then, heeding an innate sense of timing or an instinct for battle, Timotej seized the throat of the viper and again locked his jaws in a death grip.

The serpent writhed and shimmied, throwing its lower jaw against a volley of lightning tucked into a small grotto hidden amidst the folds of cloud. The lightning exploded, searing fur and causing everyone in the Little Town below to look up suddenly at the bolts, which scintillated and boomed their way across the morning. A tuft of burnt fur settled on the river after a while and floated downstream until caught by the rosebushes the river had engulfed.

The lightning had cut the serpent’s throat as well as burning the wolf fur covering Timotej. The slash, as well as the wolf fangs, which continued to grip its windpipe, rendered the snake unable to breathe. The snake gasped and writhed for some time and then fell slowly atop the scorched haze. Timotej rode the crumbling snake towards the haze below and then jumped aside at the last minute, avoiding being crushed by the viper’s monstrous jaws and head.

Exhausted but thrilled, Timotej looked about him. The other snakes, forked tongues still darting and whose palpable animosity was still knocking against the werewolf like massive waves at the shore, pulled away and concentrate on regathering the cloud herd, which had dispersed.

“This is not so difficult!” crowed Timotej. “How could that silly boy, Alexei, have failed to divert the storm from Prague? It may take time, but I need only attack the serpents one by one. They will not attack en masse,” he theorized, “and when I am finished, the storm will not be able to hold together. Prague will be saved and my fame assured!” He looked out on the serpents gliding past, choosing one to pounce on. He yearned for the taste of the cloud serpents’ blood again.

A new presence was suddenly unmistakable, though still camouflaged by the bluffs and cliffs of the wild, untamed clouds. Timotej sniffed the air, detecting the new arrival’s scent. He looked about for some clue as to its whereabouts. His ears listened intently for any sound that might give away the intruder’s location. He sniffed again and realized he could track the scent to its source. He stepped away from the long nests of serpents.

Timotej now found himself making his way slowly, and with great effort, up a steep incline into the very heart of the storm attacking Prague. Clouds grew darker, denser, more heavily laden with the rain that they would soon be milked for.

Lightning suddenly flashed past him, grazing his haunches. Thunder deafened him. Rain lashed his face, making it difficult to see. He forced himself to go on, ever forward. Ever upward. He gasped for breath.

Then he knew that he had found the creator of the storm that was wreaking havoc on the Vltava river valley. A gigantic horse, brilliant white, with eight legs, moved slowly and majestically through the storm. It neighed, and the thunder was faint in comparison. The metalwork on its bridle flashed, and the lightning seemed dim. The horse shook its head, calm in the midst of the chaotic weather that surrounded it.

On the horse, seemingly less material but all the more powerful for that quality, was a giant manlike figure of cloud and mist. Lightning flickered in the depths of the billows of the figure’s torso. Timotej’s keen wolf eyes could discern no meaningful details in the man’s figure other than it seemed to have one head with four faces: one looking forward, one looking behind it, and two on each side. One massive hand held the horse’s bridle lightly, carelessly, while the other rested on his right thigh.

Timotej thought the figure looked like something he’d seen in one of his occult handbooks, but couldn’t place him. The figure looked with disdain at the small, comparatively tiny werewolf that stood before him. “You think to stop me?” he asked.

“I will stop all who bring the storms against Prague,” answered Timotej with pride and disdain. “I will stop you, whoever you may be!”

The man seemed to chuckle quietly. “I see you do not recognize me—the god Svetovit!—returning to this hilltop where I once reigned.” The horse and rider continued their slow but steady progress toward the city below. “Do as you like.”

Timotej leapt into the midst of the horse’s legs, nipping at the hocks above the hooves. He closed his fangs for an instant on one and then jumped to another. The horse, unused to such an attack, jumped and skittered across the clouds, nearly throwing Svetovit. The god clutched his knees more tightly around his great steed’s barrel chest as Timotej continued to duck and weave between the clattering hooves. Timotej’s balance and agility even amazed himself. “Greater and more powerful than even I anticipated!” he congratulated himself. “It will be an easy task to overthrow the cocky cloud giant,” Timotej assured himself.

The werewolf leapt from between the rear legs of the horse and gasped for breath. The horse continued to dance as its rider attempted to calm it.

Timotej swept up behind the giant, nipping at the horse’s shins and the base of its tail. The backward-looking face of Svetovit saw the werewolf and, with only his knees and the tug of the harness, began to turn the horse around. Timotej jumped across the horse’s hindquarters and bit deep into Svetovit’s knuckle.

The giant roared in pain and fury, shaking the werewolf loose. Another lightning bolt flashed from the god’s open hand and seared the werewolf’s back. Timotej howled in pain as the horse reared back, ready to trample the attacker.

Timotej flew to one side, narrowly missing the sharp hooves aimed at his head. He and the horse wheeled about, each facing the other. The horse pawed the storm, releasing a volley of thunderheads onto Hradčany below. Then…

Did what happened next happen because of the great age of the wolf magic that Timotej had donned in his study that morning? Was the oil from the roots of the sweet flag blossom, which granted wisdom and strategic skill in fighting the powers of the storms, finally wearing thin in the hide of the wolf skin? Or did the cinquefoil tea, which bestowed protection on the werewolf, give way at last in the dried and cracking leather? Or was it because Timotej was using the wolf magic to serve only himself and his own honor and glory with no real concern for his fellow Praguers in the valley below?

For whichever reason, the werewolf leapt towards the old god’s throat, thinking to end the combat in a single bite by ripping out the Adam’s apple below the giant’s forward-facing chin. Snarling, Timotej hurtled upwards, fangs bared.

With a single gesture, Svetovit’s right hand rose from his thigh and across his chest. He swept his open palm back across the horse’s mane. The old god swatted away the werewolf as easily as a grown man swats away a bothersome fly.

Timotej tumbled head over heel, cascading through the storm. Wolf bones crunched and broke, shattered by impact against the outcroppings of cloud. Unable to stop himself, his paws scrabbled at the other clouds he passed and tore holes that exposed the sunlight but quickly closed again behind him. Like a mountain climber who slips on loose pebbles and sends showers of them rippling down a hillside, he scattered fragments of lightning and thunder in his wake.

The werewolf fell past the writhing serpents. He plummeted through the lower reaches of the rain clouds. Picking up speed as he fell, he knew without putting it into words that he was descending to disaster. Unable to think, Timotej let loose one prolonged, agonized howl of desperation that echoed across Hradčany.

People were making their way slowly up the hill towards the Strahov Monastery to take refuge with their wagons of household goods. Hearing the strange howl, they looked back towards the castle above. A sizzling fireball burst through the clouds and cascaded from the heights of heaven, as if the cannons of the
hrad
were firing as well as those at Vyšehrad. The fireball crashed through the trees of what had been palatial parks and courtyards but were now the banks of the ever-rising river. It tumbled into the water, sizzling and steaming as it sank, even as the fiery trail it left behind hovered in the sky for several moments before fading. Another torrent of rain cascaded down the hills and into the river, which crept ever closer to the height of the stone bridge and its saintly, silent stone guardians.

Chapter 8:
Sutekskäija

Alexei

(Prague, August 2002)

Alexei blinked. The seal had come out of nowhere and was now hovering in the water a few inches from his face, peering into the man’s eyes with a friendly curiosity. The animal tilted his head as if to ask, “I’ve never seen one of your kind in the water like this. What are you doing here?”

Alexei smiled back at the animal from the rocky bottom of the river where he was sitting. Timotej, who had never been far from Alexei’s side since his death in the river in September 1890 shortly after Alexei’s suicidal leap from the Charles Bridge, glared suspiciously at the seal from behind the large rocks he was crouching behind.

The cold water along the bottom of this stretch of the river always moved more slowly than the warmer current above, and the seal was able to remain in place with only a gentle effort to paddle with his flippers. Another seal came up from behind and paused to look at Alexei. A third seal darted past, turned a somersault in the water, and came back to join the others in a flurry of bubbles and froth.

“What am I doing here?” thought Alexei in reply to the first seal’s unvoiced question. “I am avoiding Jarnvithja, if I can!”

The seal turned his head again, continuing to eye the man with curiosity. A one-word question seemed to form in its eyes: “Jarnvithja?”

Alexei fall back in shock. The seal’s thoughts had penetrated his mind, as his had evidently penetrated the seal’s. “This has never happened before!” Alexei’s mind exclaimed. “Not with any of the fish that have swum past in the river during these past hundred…no, more than a hundred… these past hundred and ten and more years! Why can I hear your thoughts but not theirs?”

The seals all smiled as they paddled to remain in place, the one behind the others turning another somersault. Alexei thought he could hear them laughing.

Alexei joined in the laughter.

“What are you doing out here?” Timotej demanded, creeping from behind the rocks and boulders. “Who are you talking with?”

Alexei gestured toward the seals. “Who am I talking with? Who am I talking with?” he imitated Timotej’s suspicious demand. “All you do is complain and whine and nag me, Timotej! You never have a kind word for anyone—not while you were living and certainly not since Svetovit cast you into the river. Who am I speaking with? Why, these seals! I’m talking with… Do you have names?” He turned back to the animals, who had all begun to cavort in the water as a way to remain near the man as the current gently tugged and pushed them. “Where did you come from? How did you get here?”

They paused in their playing. A torrent of images cascaded through Alexei’s thoughts, but he was able to single out a name for each of the seals.

“Myska,” one seal answered him.

“Bara,” answered another.

“Gaston,” announced the third. “You?” he seemed to ask, whirling about and darting over to Timotej, who backed away and waved his hands to keep the seal from his face.

“Where did you come from?” Timotej repeated Alexei’s question, but much more curtly.

Gaston looked back at the other seals and then answered. Alexei saw an image of the river breaching an enclosure that had held them at a zoo. Could that taint of new magic he had recently sensed in the river be responsible?

Gaston flipped another headstand and made a figure eight.

“Where are you going?” asked Timotej, eyeing the seals with suspicion.

Alexei saw an image in Myska’s eyes. It was the seal enclosure, but with Alexei and Timotej there, as if Myska was asking about their home.

Alexei, who had been watching Gaston’s antics with a delight he had not experienced since long before his death, felt the much more familiar despair course through him again. “No, this is not our home. There are many, many folk—both men and women—here in the river. But this is home for none of us and none of us are living. We are all the dead, the dead who died in the river or whose bodies were dropped into its waters after dying. We are trapped here, unable to escape Jarnvithja. Trapped against our will and unable to escape.”

Myska turned a slow and languid dance in the water but never took her eyes from his.

A wave of incomprehension from the seal called Bara hit Alexei, and apparently also assaulted Timotej.

“Dead? You seals do not understand what is ‘dead’?” scoffed Timotej. “I thought you were intelligent animals! You must be almost as foolish as fish, not to know what dead is! Dead is what awaits all creatures. To be dead and trapped in darkness, alone and trapped in servitude to a devil woman like the troll Jarnvithja! That is the fate of all who live!”

Bara looked at Timotej uncomprehendingly, and then all three seals turned to Alexei.

Alexei realized it would be impossible to describe death or what it meant to be dead to the seals. “Jarnvithja is the troll who rules those trapped in the river; she commands us to do her bidding. We cannot rest without her permission; we must obey her every order without question.”

A memory of zookeepers throwing fish to the seals and an audience applauding their tricks made its way from Myska to Alexei at last. She seemed to have difficulty understanding how different the existence of the dead in the river was from the life the seals had led in the zoo. Alexei described the seal’s memory to Timotej.

“She is not a zookeeper! She does not feed those who obey!” Timotej growled.

Alexei shook his head. “No one comes to laugh and applaud to see us do her bidding.”

An image of the seals’ escape from the zoo arose in Gaston’s mind as he was performing a pirouette.

“We cannot swim away,” snarled Timotej. “Why must you persist in such foolish questions?”

“We cannot,” Alexei repeated in a more gentle tone. “She has spread nets of power across the river that mark the northern and southernmost reaches of her authority. None of those within her territory can escape.”

Again, incomprehension appeared in Myska’s eyes, but this anxiety was also creeping into her thoughts. Alexei saw the fear and glimpsed a memory of zookeepers sweeping the water of the seals’ home with nets.

“No, the nets do not trap fish,” Alexei reassured her. “The cords of these nets are very tight and very strong, but they are drawn only against the dead. Living creatures may pass freely along the entire extent of the river. Only the dead are constrained by Jarnvithja to remain in this portion of the river.”

Myska brushed her nose against Alexei’s. He felt sympathy radiating from the seal.

Sympathy also arose in Bara’s thoughts, even as she was rolling over backwards and aiming to swim back into the main current of the river.

Alexei felt a question from Myska probe his mind. He saw her imagining the men swimming alongside the seals further down the river and seemed to be inviting the men to join them. She also turned as if to swim away.

Gaston shot around them in a circle so quickly that he was a blur in the water.

“Wait! Do not go! Not yet!” Alexei reached out toward Myska. “I thought of an idea! Perhaps there is a way…” Myska turned back to him.

“Help me… by looking into my eyes.” Alexei reached out and placed each of his palms along the seal’s face. He gazed into the seal’s eyes, calming himself as if taking deep, slow breaths and reaching for the seal’s mind with wordless, inarticulate thoughts.

She gazed back into Alexei’s eyes, curious as to what the man wanted.

Myska jerked back, startled, when she seemed to realize what was happening.

“No!” shrieked Timotej, watching Alexei vanish into Myska, who then flipped head over tail and rapidly swam away into the depths of the river. “You cannot do that! Come back, Alexei! Do not leave me alone here in this wretched river!” He leapt at Gaston, roughly grabbing the male seal’s flippers and pressing his face into the seal’s.

Alexei heard a demand from Timotej. “Let me in! Let me in, Gaston!” Then Timotej’s thoughts gave way to weeping. “Let me… in! Take me… away from here!”

The pleas were replaced by relief as Gaston followed Myska.

The seals darted quickly through the water, bearing the presence of the dead men within them. Alexei, looking out through Myska’s eyes, could see the river bed streaking past, and when the seal came to the surface to breathe, he saw areas along the riverbank he did not recognize. They passed others of the dead, he was certain, lurking beneath the waves, but the seals were quick enough to swim past them without any of them realizing that Alexei and Timotej were hidden within.

Myska dove beneath the water, nearly touching the river bottom with her snout. The other two seals were nearby and Alexei could hear Timotej sniveling within Gaston.

“We are coming near the place,” Alexei said, sensing that the seal recognized it from Alexei’s memory. The seal’s eyes could see nothing in the water ahead of them, but Alexei could see the invisible ropes of power barbed with razor-sharp thorns stretched across the river to catch any of the dead who dared try to escape the troll Jarnvithja.

Bara, already beyond the net, turned and peered back at Myska and Gaston.

Alexei shuddered within Myska. He guessed she must be sharing his memories of encountering this magical, invisible net in his several attempts to escape Jarnvithja, how the cords had clutched at him and held him and tightened around his spectral body, holding him beneath the water’s surface and mimicking his experience of drowning in the river. In each case, the net had constricted his throat and his lungs had burned as if aflame and his mind had felt the encroaching miasma of unconsciousness until—fighting the terror that rose in him that he would be forever trapped by this new horror beneath the water—he turned his struggle to untangle himself into an attempt to retreat back into the cold depths that were Jarnvithja’s undisputed dominion. The seal seemed to sense Alexei struggling against his terror. Alexei held his breath, hoping to slip through the net unnoticed within the animal, but he was afraid that the magical alarms would be set off by his presence and the seal would be caught in the net or his ghostly presence would be painfully torn from the seal.

Myska paused, paddling against the current and treading water, somehow sensing the danger to her as long as Alexei traveled within her. Then she plunged deep into the river, turned a figure eight, and let the current carry her forward. 

Alexei-within-the-seal glanced ahead through the murky water and attempted to pull up sharply. Timotej-within-Gaston nearly collided with Myska’s tail. Bara came circling back to see what was going on.

“Why stop now?” snarled Timotej in his thoughts to Alexei. “We are nearly there! This is no time to hesitate; what if Jarnvithja discovers us here, so close to the border of her region of the river? If we have any chance to escape, it is now!”

“Be quiet!” Alexei hissed at Timotej. “Look!” He gestured with his snout at the water ahead of them. Directly in front of Alexei loomed a large hooded figure, its long cloak gently undulating about it in the current. Alexei and Timotej both recognized Jarnvithja, the troll-goddess who ruled the souls of the dead whose bodies were in this portion of the river.

“Do you think to hope to escape me, man-wolf?” her thoughts chided. “Did you think that I would not recognize you because you have hidden yourself in the husks of these creatures?” She reached one hand towards him. “You have attempted to flee from my dominion before and have always failed. What makes you think this time will be any different?” She laughed gently. “Do you not recall the exquisite pleasures that I can inflict on the dead who attempt to flee from me? You should turn around now, while you can still freely choose to do so.”

Alexei-and-Myska shook their head from side to side. “Not this time, Jarnvithja,” he answered her. “I will not go further back into the river simply because you say so. I am done taking orders from you, serving you.”

“Alexei!” growled Timotej. “Just do as she says! We have failed—can’t you see that? This was our one hope and we have failed! We should just go back, go back as she says.”

“You may go, Timotej,” Alexei barked, looking over his shoulder to the other seal. “I will go forward,” he insisted, turning back to face Jarnvithja. “I will go forward or die—again!—in the attempt.”

“Alexei!” shrieked Timotej, swimming in anxious circles behind him. “Don’t you remember what she did the last time she caught us here?” He slapped a flipper at Alexei’s tail. “I won’t go through that again, Alexei! I can’t!”

“Listen to the wisdom of your friend,” urged the troll, her garments dipping and swirling around her. “You should turn back, my suicidal friend. You jumped to your death once already; that is what brought you to my domain. Are you so anxious to die again through your own choice? Whose domain do you think that will bring you to this time?”

“I do not care whose domain it brings me to, so long as it is not yours,” Alexei spat back at the troll. “I jumped to my death once because I had lost all hope, all hope that I would ever be free of the wolf magic that had consumed my soul. But I have realized that I was wrong to put all my hopes in such men as Timotej.”

Timotej paused in his anxious circling behind Alexei.

“I was wrong to put all my hopes in Timotej and wrong to lose all my hope when he failed me,” Alexei went on. “I must do what I can for myself, to aid myself. I fought the Master of Wolves for Spīdala, I fought the wolf monster for the twelve children he had kidnapped, I fought Frau Berhta to release Ferdynand, Zygmunt, Sybilla, and the rest. But all those fights were more than a hundred years ago, I reckon. Why should I not fight you—now—for my freedom? Fight on my own behalf, for once?”