The wizard lives in a cabin on a thunderstorm, and the wolf comes to him on a slantwise stroke of lightning. She smells of ozone and burnt fur and the faint gut-stench of impending death. The wizard, understanding that his thunderstorm will only last so long, gives the wolf a measured, weary look. He decides, as he always does, that this one is worth it. All of them are. Even the ones who aren’t.
The wizard calls up a gentle roll of thunder to lift the ragged wolf to his table. He binds her wounds with cumulus and soothes her burns with the soft rain that heralds storms. A gust of wind lends new breath to her lungs. Her ribs heave beneath the scorched grey fur.
For the rest, he only waits. The wizard has found, even in the short time he has aboard the storm, that patience is its own kind of magic.
The wolf wakes at the third stroke of lightning since her arrival. This pleases the wizard. He’s made her bone broth, and has just now ladled it into a bowl of glazed clay.
The wolf stirs at his footsteps, each like rain gusted against the wall. She’s not yet strong enough to rise.
Spoons are not made for the mouths of wolves, but they are what the wizard knows to make, so he offers a spoonful of broth to the wolf. Her teeth, quick as the lightning that bore her here, find his skin.
The spoon clatters to the floor. Blood patters after it. The wizard looks steady at the wolf, searches out the fear in her eyes–like bright pennies in the firelight–and holds it with the faded cornflower of his own.
The wizard conjures up a zephyr to rest the bowl by her nose. She scents it, narrows her eyes, and drinks. He smiles and tends to his hand without magic. That, he believes, is best used for others.
At the fifth stroke of lightning since the wolf arrived–time is strange on a thunderstorm, stretched thin and hung heavy with cloud fog–she gains enough strength to rise. The wizard, understanding she cannot do so herself, opens his door to allow her return to the forest his lightning took her from.
The wolf swings her heavy, grey head to sight the door. Swings it back to the wizard. She snorts and plants herself by the fire.
The wizard chuckles and lets the door blow shut, loosing a clap of thunder below.
“So,” he says. “My magic was not wasted on you.”
The wolf blinks at him.
He chuckles again. All of them leave–they’re supposed to, eventually–but this one he’ll be pleased to linger with a while. This one, he thinks, he might gentle.
The wizard can make all sorts of things from his storm. There is, of course, only so much storm to make with, but he makes do.
For the wolf, he weaves meat from stratocumulus and moistens it with heavy storm rain. He delivers each meal with a fresh zephyr, not wishing to frighten her as he once did. With each meal, she grows less wary, and eventually she eats without eyeing him between bites.
Others come to the cabin over time: deer, squirrels, raccoons, a bear. All leave eventually–as they’re supposed to–but the wolf stays.
At first, the wizard has to stop the wolf from growling, from snapping at what she sees as prey. Thankfully, each time, a crack or two of thunder is enough. Only a little magic spared from those the wizard would save. He does not begrudge her this.
It is in the last rage of the storm that the woman arrives. She washes in on a heavy rush of water like a flash flood, her clothes sodden, her hair slicked across her face.
The woman, the wizard thinks, is the real test. For the wolf, the woman is not prey, not an equal. For the wolf, the woman is a predator.
And so the wizard sets to work.
The wolf snarls.
Her teeth bared, her grey fur standing at the base of her neck, she crowds into the furthest corner of the cabin while a gale lifts the woman to the table.
The wizard, having come to trust the wolf, pays her no heed. If she holds gentle through this, he’s succeeded. If she doesn’t…well, this is the last of his storm anyway, and he won’t have to feel disappointment long.
His hands sing lightning into being–the greatest of his magic–and sends a bolt into the woman’s chest. Her body responds only as a mass of flesh struck by electricity: a lifting, then a dead thump against the wood. The wizard breathes calm and deep, sends up a hope that his storm has enough left, and calls more lightning to the woman’s chest.
Her head slews sideways, and she coughs flood water onto the floor. The wolf lets loose a bark that might make men quail in the dark of a forest. The wizard does not flinch.
When the woman lays back, the wolf has subsided to a low, rumbling growl in the corner. Her flashing copper eyes dart from the wizard to the woman and back again.
The woman clears her throat. “Is it dangerous?”
The wizard looks steady at the wolf. “No,” he says. “She is the gentlest creature I know.”
The wolf blinks as though startled. The wizard chuckles.
“And now,” he says, “if she’ll do us the kindness of coming over, you’ll find there’s nothing to fear. You see, she is afraid of you.”
The wolf lifts a lip at this, but the wizard understands this is only instinct. He can see her wanting to please him, wanting to trust, in the way her fur lays slowly flat.
Lightning flickers through the window. The wizard does not break his gaze, even as he feels himself flicker with it.
Haltingly, dubiously, the wolf uncurls herself from the corner. She creeps across the floor. Her nails make soft taps on the planks. The woman holds her breath and extends a cautious hand, provoking another low, short rumble from the wolf.
The wolf extends the graceful slope of her muzzle.
The woman’s fingertips graze the grey fur.
The lightning stutters. The clouds go thin and ragged.
So does the wizard.
The wolf, scenting something wrong, looks sharply up, and as the kindly cornflower blue of his eyes meets the copper of hers for the final time, he smiles.
The wolf and the woman meet in the forest as the storm clears. They do not speak of the wizard while the sun shimmers in the raindrops left behind. The wolf, of course, cannot speak. The woman doesn’t need to.
They sit by the river that might’ve killed the woman while a breeze bears the clouds away. Each finds herself wondering why, with such a wizard, a storm must end so soon, with so little warning. Each finds herself thinking a storm might be more beautiful than the unending glare of the sun.
But there will be evidence of the wizard’s fleeting passage even when the last of the rain has dried: in the green of new shoots, the growth of the flora, the new pools from which the fauna will drink.
The woman finds herself wishing she’d known the wizard longer than a few flickers of lightning.
The wolf finds herself wishing she’d allowed the wizard to rest a hand on her head when first she woke in the cabin.
When the woman’s fingers tangle in the wolf’s thick ruff, the wolf allows it. And when the sky is clear, they realize that only when the clouds are gone can the sky be the cornflower blue of the wizard’s eyes.
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Leah Ning lives in northern Virginia with her husband and their adorable fluffy overlords. Some of the uncomfortable things she writes can be found in Apex Magazine, PodCastle, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and The Dark Magazine. You can find her on Twitter and Bluesky @LeahNing and on her website, leahning.com. |
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