T Southwell - Children of Another God

"Chanter?"

The forest's stillness answered her, and she turned to poke her head outside. The Mujar had vanished as silently as the wind. Fear chilled her again, but she quelled it, retreating once more into the tent to snuggle under the furs, comforted by his lingering warmth.

Chanter paused to look back at the tent, alone and alien in the wilderness. Bending to scoop up a handful of snow, he waited until it turned to water in his palm, then rubbed it on his wound. A flash of pain accompanied the healing, making him gasp a cloud of vapour as the injury vanished. Raising his head, he breathed the cold, crisp air, nostrils flaring as he savoured its purity. He sensed the wolves nearby, searching for a scent of quarry. Crouching, he placed his palms on the icy ground, drawing on Dolana. The Earthpower flowed into him with its chilling drain, sapped his warmth and snuffed the Crayash within him. Before it became too strong, he wielded it, like cracking a whip, with a flick of his mind.

The air solidified, and he changed within the utter silence that surrounded him for that instant. The change required little power. A mere enhancement of his wish brought it about, and his mind conjured the required shape from his racial memory. The lupine form was one he enjoyed, and used often for land travel, though flying was easier. The change included his clothes as a part of his wish, so he would not be naked when he changed back into a man. His skin prickled as fur covered it in a thick, warm pelt, and he experienced vague shrinking and stretching sensations as his shape shifted. The procedure took only a moment. He adjusted to his new form's strange balance, and his paws sank into the snow, its icy crispness making his pads tingle.

A million scents floated on the still air, tickled his nose with their mysterious temptation and filled his mind with knowledge. Crayash warmed him again as he set off across the snow. Settling into a steady lope, he followed the scent paths that led to the pack. The sinuous grace of his wolf form delighted him, as it always did, with the effortless joy of the four-footed. The scent tracks of snow hares, weasels, mice and ground squirrels flashed past as he loped across patches of snow and ice. The musty scent of tree bark mingled with the faint redolence of soil, wherein he sensed the slow movements of moles, worms and a sleeping vixen curled around her warm cubs.

A fat snow hare leapt from his path and bounded away across the frost-hardened snow, then paused, panting as its fear leaked away. Chanter padded up to it and touched its timid mind with gentle greetings as the hare sniffed noses with him. Like all his brothers, the hare knew he was Mujar and did not fear him, even when he took the form of its greatest enemy. Leaving his small brother, he continued at a fast lope, his tail a rudder as he twisted and turned amongst the trees, claws gripping frozen ground and snow alike.

The wolves ran to meet him, tongues lolling in happy greeting. They fawned, tails down, ears laid back in adoration. The leader crawled on his belly, his mate beside him, to lick Chanter's frosted muzzle. The Mujar gambolled amongst them, put them at their ease and invited them to play. They followed him in a frisky dance of wolf kinship and joy. Lesser animals rolled on their backs in ritual surrender, inviting him to bite their throats. Wolf lore required him to snarl and bristle, which sent the youngsters into frenzies of delight at his attention.

The greetings over, he sprang away through the forest, the pack leader at his shoulder. Over moonlit snow they ran, as free as the wind, as wild as the mountains they called home. They raced down icy valleys in showers of powder snow and along rocky ridges to taste the frigid wind that fingered their thick fur. Under a cold black sky a-glimmer with a million stars, they loped through the pale moonlight that bathed a frozen land. The song of earth, wind and sky mingled with the soft panting of steaming breath to form a rhapsody of joyful freedom. Ice crystals tinkled and shushed beneath running feet, frost rimed whiskers and fur. The pack breasted a ridge and looked down upon a sweeping valley where a herd of deer huddled in a copse.

Chanter sat down, his breath steaming. The lead wolf approached, fawned and licked Chanter's muzzle in a loving farewell before he led the pack down the steep slope towards the sleeping deer. The Mujar turned and padded away. The moonlight's magic held him in its spell. He frolicked in a deep snowdrift and gambolled down a slide of soft powder, leaping and shaking the snow from his coat. Icicles sparkled and virgin snow glittered like a bed of diamonds. A shy fox ran to greet him and played with him for a while, then slipped away to hunt mice and hares. A lone stag huffed and shook his antlers at the black wolf before realising what he was, then stepped closer to snuffle him, a world of gentle innocence in his liquid eyes. Chanter padded on, heading westwards, deeper into the mountains.

Cresting a low hill, he sensed a strange emanation of power in the distance that called to him like a siren's song. The emanation was unvarying and powerful, tugging at his senses. He trotted towards it, opened himself to its strange tingle and sniffed the wind for clues. His footprints meandered through pristine snow, and he paused often, one paw raised, to gauge the possible danger ahead. Moving around a hill, he stopped to gaze in delight at the power's source.

A Lake hung before him, the invisible veil of its portal cutting through a rocky slope. It stretched away in both directions, fading into the distance until it vanished, leaving the reality of this world. As luck would have it, he had found its centre quite by chance, a rare happening. Lakes were hard to find, since they moved slowly around the world. No one knew where they were exactly, although the creatures that used them knew their approximate location. Chanter had never encountered one before, and the prospect of a new experience excited him. Joyfully he bounded down the hill, panting steam as he loped towards the Lake's beckoning presence.

The rippling veil of its juncture blazed with rainbow colours, made up of the four elements whose powers were only visible to the creatures of this world. The swirling curtain of shimmering hues was light split by water, glittering with motes of Dolana that hung in the air. Chanter changed his form in a moment of icy hush, becoming a man again in order to enter the Lake. As he neared it, the god word that was the key to unlock the portal sprang into his mind, and he spoke it. Without the word he would have merely passed through the shining curtain and remained in this world. At his command, the bright veil parted, and he stepped into a warm, balmy day on another world.

The transition from bleak midnight snowy landscape to tropical midday lushness stunned Chanter. As he paused to soak up the Lake's ambience, he noted its strong, pure Powers. The soil glowed with Dolana that was almost too powerful, chilling his feet. The plants shimmered with Shissar, testament to this world's purity. He sensed an imbalance, however, which discomfited him a little after his world's perfectly balanced Powers.

Dolana and Shissar dominated, and the sun's Crayash made his skin tingle pleasantly, but Ashmar was weak. The thin, lifeless air was calm almost to the point of being stagnant, and he missed the cold wind he had left behind. For the creatures of Shamarese it posed no problem, but he wondered if a Lowman would be comfortable in this world. Even as he pondered that, he wondered why he did. Lowmen were no concern of his, and were not allowed in the Lakes. Dismissing his unease, he gazed around at the strange landscape.

From its bright, warm sun and profusion of life, he guessed it was one of the Lakes of regeneration, like the Lake of Birth or Renewal. A vista of burgeoning growth stretched away in all directions, plants and trees so alien they defied description. Bulbous growths supported disk-shaped leaves of brilliant magenta, turquoise and indigo. Tall spindly trees draped the air with long streamers of vermilion, maroon and saffron. A soft haze of pollen filled the sky; countless airborne seeds drifting like gilded dust motes in the sun. A velvet bed of bright aquamarine grass clothed the soil in a rich fur of sweet-scented succulence.