Gene Wolfe - The Knight

There was nobody there but Ossar, and Ossar was too young to talk, starved and worn out and sound asleep. I picked him up and told him we were leaving, night or not. With the moon as bright as it was, I knew I could follow the path, and maybe three or four more hours would get us to Glennidam.

Just as we started out, a little voice right behind me said, “Sir Able?”

I turned as fast as I could. Getting big as suddenly as I had made me clumsy, and I still was not entirely over that. I was pretty fast just the same, and there was nobody.

“There is a lamb.”

This time I did not look.

“There’s a lamb,” repeated the little voice. It sounded as if he were right in back of me.

“Please,” I said. “If you’re afraid of me, I won’t hurt you. If you want to hurt me, just don’t hurt the baby.”

“Upstream? A wolf dropped it, and we thought ... We hope ...”

I was trotting upstream already, with my bow in one hand and Ossar in the other. I found the wolf first, just about tripping over it in spite of the moonlight, If there was an arrow in it, I couldn’t see it. I laid Ossar down and felt around. No arrow, but its throat was torn. Hoping that the person who had told me about it had come with me, I said, “We could eat this, but the lamb would be better. Where is it?”

There was no reply.

I picked up Ossar, stood up, and started looking for it. It was only a dozen steps away, just harder to see than the wolf because it was smaller. I put it behind my neck the way I did when I killed a deer, and carried it back to our fire. That had almost gone out, and by the time I had built it back up and skinned the lamb, the sky was getting light.

“There is something we have to give you.”

Without looking around, I said, “You’ve already given me a lot.”

“He is rather large.” The speaker coughed. “But not valuable. I do not mean valuable. Well, he is, but not like gold. Or jewels. Nothing like that.”

I repeated that he did not have to give me anything.

“Not only me. All of us, our whole clan. I am our spokesman.”

A new voice said, “And I am our spokeswoman.”

“Nobody appointed you,” the first protested.

“I did. We want to make it plain that it is not only the Woodwives, just as it is not only the Woodwives in the wood. We are in this too, along with them, and we are not powerless.”

“Well said!”

“Thank you. Not powerless no matter what anybody says. We do not have to hide, either.”

“Be careful!”

“He has seen me twice, and he did not shoot either time, so what are we frightened of?”

“Suppose he does not like it?”

“He is too polite to give it back.”

“Well, it is of the best breeding. A whelp from the Valfather’s own pack.”

I froze. “What can you tell me about him?”

“Nothing!” (That was the male voice I had first heard.)

“Nothing at all, really.” (This was the female voice.) “You know much more about him than we do. A lot of you think him the Most High God.”

“Thus they know less. We cannot remain after sunrise, you know.”

I said, “Bold Berthold says he’s master of the flying castle, and it’s in Skai.”

“Really?”

“We have never seen it.” The male speaker cleared his throat. “Besides, we wish not to talk about it. Here, Gylf! Here boy!”

“What do you want to do? Hide behind him?”

“If necessary, yes. Sit! Good boy!”

I said, “May I look around? I won’t hurt anyone.”

“Did I not say you could?”

She was tall, so slender she seemed like a collection of flexible sticks about the color of milk chocolate. He was a lot shorter, brown too, with an enormous nose and beady eyes; but at first I did not see him all because of the dog.

It was the biggest dog I ever saw, very dark brown with a white blaze on its big chest, and smiling. You know how dogs smile? It had soft ears that hung down, a head as big as a bull’s, I-can-take-care-of-myself eyes, and a mouth I could have put my whole head in.

“This is Gylf.” For a minute I thought the dog was talking, but it was the male voice coming from behind him.

The brown woman said, “He is a puppy really.”

“But he can—you know.”

“Would you like us to take care of the baby?”

“We will have time on our hands now, you know.” The owner of the male voice peeped cautiously around Gylf as he spoke. He was terribly ugly. “It is not as if we have never raised your children before.”

“I will do the work,” the brown woman said, “and he will take the credit.”

“The sun will be up any moment.”

I said, “You’ll feed him? And—and ... ?”

“Educate him,” the brown woman said firmly. “You shall see.”

“Only not soon. He will be in Aelfrice.”

“Well, so will he!”

I wish I could say why his saying that made me decide, but it did. Partly I was thinking that if I left Ossar in Glennidam Seaxneat might kill him when I was gone. Partly, I was thinking of something I could not remember, something I knew even if I could not remember it. “Take him!” I said.

She did, cradling him in her arms and crooning to him.

Immediately both Aelf began backing away. Instead of sloping up, the riverbank was sloping down, and they went down that slope into a mist. “Have no fear brown woman called, “I will teach him all about you.”

“About Gylf,” the owner of the male voice said, “it happens all the time. After a storm someone finds such whelps.”

“As we did,” the brown woman added.

“But they are his.”

“We are to take care of them until he whistles.”

“Which we have ....”

They were gone and little Ossar with them, and the riverbank sloped up normally again.

I was looking at the dog, I suppose because there was nothing else left to look at. “Those were Bodachan, weren’t they? Earth Aelf?”

He seemed to nod, and I grinned at him. “Well, I’m an earthman. See how brpwn my arms are? It shouldn’t be too much of a change for you.”

He nodded again, this time unmistakably, and I said, “You’re a real smart dog, aren’t you?”

He nodded and smiled.

“Were you really the Valfather’s? I think that’s what they said.” He nodded the same way he had before.

“I see. Somebody’s trained you to nod when you hear a question. Is there any question that wouldn’t make you nod?”

As I expected, he nodded to that too. He also looked inquiringly at the lamb I had skinned, and then back at me, cocking his head.

“You’re right, I ought to cook that. I’ll give you some meat, and all the bones, okay?”

Of course he nodded.

In a few minutes more I had a whole leg-of-lamb roasting on a pointed stick. It was not until I smelled it that I found out how hungry I was. My mouth watered, and it seemed to me I had never smelled anything as good as it was going to be.

The dog came closer, lying down next to me. I said, “Gylf? Is that your name?”

He nodded as if he had understood every word.

“You’re a hunting dog, or that’s what it sounded like. What do you hunt?”

He nuzzled me as if to say you.

“What? Me? Really?”

He nodded.

“You’re putting me on!”

Eyeing the sizzling meat, he licked his lips. His tongue was Day-Glo pink in the firelight, and about as wide as my hand.

“I’ll give you some, but we’ll both have to wait before we eat any. It’ll be very hot.” I took it from the fire while I was talking to him; you can cook meat more if it needs it, but if you cook it too much, you cannot cook it less. When it was clear of the fire, I petted the big dog that had become mine so fast. His flat brown coat was soft, and thicker than it looked. “You’ll be nice to sleep with on cold nights,” I told him.