“State your business with me!” exclaimed Father Hawk, breaking the nightly calm.
The wolf at the center of the advancing line squinted his yellow eyes and turned to look at the wolves on the left and the right, who slightly tilted and nodded their heads. The center wolf turned his head back to look at Father Hawk. His mouth, curving around his muzzle,upturned. The corner of his mouth to the left of Father Hawk upturned, as if in a smirk.
“State you business and if it puts me in harm, I will have to fight you!”
The center wolf’s eyes widened, appearing like glowing embers in the dark night. He raised his head back, moving the eyes back until they were small slivers of light to Father Hawk. The wolf let out a raucous later. His voice was hoarse and his laughter was grating.
“I will not submit to you,” said Father Hawk, “but I will submit to my safety.”
Father Hawk and the line of wolves both slowly advanced, inching forward bit by bit. The wolves squinted at him with baleful eyes and Father Hawk returned the stares with a threatening frown of his own.
“I’m afraid,” growled the center wolf in a deep baritone voice, “I can’t guarantee the safety of an intruder on our island.”
“Even if I tried diplomacy?” said Father Hawk, cocking his head up and to the side. He also stopped walking and raised his wings in a questioning manner by bending his wings and pointing the bend down.
“That depends on your business,” said the center wolf. He turned his head to both of his sides and raised his right paw. This seemed to indicate ceasing an advance because all of the wolves turned their heads to the center wolf and stopped in their tracks. “I’ve stated ours. Now you state yours.”
“Fair enough,” said Father Hawk. He lowered his wings. “All I seek is a passage that’s as safe as possible to Coyote’s Rock.”
“Coyote’s Rock?” wheezed the wolf closest to the center wolf on Father Hawk’s left. The wheezy wolf scrunched his eyes and left his mouth agape, wearing an incredulous expression. The center wolf continued to stare at Father Hawk, but he narrowed his eyes.
The other wolves made soft purrs and grunts of agitation and alarm as they all looked at each other, frowning, unbelieving.
“Who do you think you are?” roared the wolf farthest to Father Hawk’s right. “We take orders from Coyote King! We patrol for him! What do you expect us to do when you come to us looking for a passage to the place none must enter? His Rock is his fortress! You ca-”
“Enough!” thundered the center wolf. He turned to both of his sides, keeping a still and calm face. “We answer to Coyote.” As soon as he muttered these words to his comrades, a calm seemed to wash over them, melting their angry expressions back into stoic masks of intimidation.
“And why?” the center wolf asked Father Hawk, shaking his head in mock thoughtfulness, “do you seek passage to the fortress where none must enter?”
“Because Coyote King stole something very important to the Huntsman,” said Father Hawk. “He stole a flower that seeds the universe and that can feed……..my wife who is in great peril and pain.”
“It could save her life.”
“And if you have any shred of kindness or empathy,” said Father Hawk, feeling his heart sink at the word of his wife and the subsequent thought of his child. “-you will let me go forth.”
The center wolf let out a low and evil chuckle that rattled on until it became a raucous laugh.
The wolves at his side chuckled as well, staring at Father Hawk with bared jaws and the same old glinting predatory eyes.
“Compassion!” exclaimed the center wolf. “There is no such thing as compassion on this side of the world. We stand in the shadowlands of the huntsman’s psyche!”
“What?” muttered Father Hawk. Shadowlands? He thought that he had been sent out of the Huntsman’s shadow when he’d received a new body. He was in the grasslands! At least, that’s where he thought he was.
“I’m in the grasslands!” said Father Hawk. “The ethereal grasslands.”
“No, you’re not,” said the wheezy wolf. “At least not anymore.”
“Well then,” said Father Hawk, noticing the uncertainty in his voice as his authoritativeness was weakening, “how much do the shadowlands take up the Huntsman’s psyche?”
About as much as the grasslands, kid,” said the deep-voiced wolf farthest to the head wolf’s right.
“The shadowlands are large!” boomed the center wolf. “The shadowlands cover as much territory as there are wolves like us. And to your detriment and to the expansiveness of the Shadowlands, there…… are…………..millions of us,” he snarled.
The line of wolves savored the last words and seemed to slowly advance again and loom over the earth as if on cue.
Father Hawk didn’t want to let the wolves’ words be final.
“Hold on!” he said, trying for a bolder voice. He frowned as well. “Where exactly is Coyote Rock? Can it be found in the Shadowlands? Or the grasslands? Or is it-”
“-somewhere else,” finished Head Wolf. “Your words are not beyond us………………..Father Hawk!”
Father Hawk’s eyes widened and he froze.
“How– exactly do you know my name?” asked Father Hawk in as cool and as low a voice as he could muster.
Head Wolf hung his head back and roared with more of his raucous laughter.
“We are from the shadowlands!” he roared, letting his head loll back to eye Father Hawk threateningly. “We have lived and breathed in the shadows– the shadow of the Huntsman’s soul. We hear his repressed secrets hissing in the dark like forbidden whispers. You’ve only seen the light side of his souldom. The innocence. The infantilism. The lies.”
Head Wolf raised his front legs and stood on his hind legs, hoisting his body up and flexing his muscles. His fur rippled over them.
He raised his front limbs out across him in triumph.
“WE – are the BADLANDS!” he roared. His wolf cronies shuffled their feet on the ground, kicking up tufts of dirt. They opened their jaws, wagged their tongues and bared their fangs.
“We are the hell- the necessary forest fire and it is inevitable that we burn through souldom!” The Head Wolf’s cronies ran and jumped up and down around the head wolf. Their yellow eyes glowed brighter than ever, fuming with fury.
The center wolf turned his head to Father Hawk and looked at him questioningly.
“You don’t know where you are,” said Head Wolf incredulously. “You don’t even know where we are,” he said, pointing his front paws at Father Hawk and then at himself. His cronies moved around less and went back to looking at Father Hawk. They still shuffled around and wagged their tails and tongues.
“This!” said Head Wolf, raising his front limbs back out across him horizontally. “ -is reality! This is the storm that the Huntsman has repressed- tried to hold back. BUT HE HOLDS US BACK NO LONGER!”
His cronies all leaped up and down. Barking, they circled and sometimes started farther away, but always returned to his immediate vicinity. They growled, snarled and barked loud gruff barks that pierced the calm of the night.
“The shadowlands are the Huntsman’s true reality. The dark side he wants to ignore. You see, Father Hawk, you have been deceived. There is no righteous quest for you. The Huntsman sent you to his Shadowlands to do the dirty work he doesn’t want to do.”
“What he fails to acknowledge…”
The barking of the other wolves prompted fainter barks and howls to rise from the thick woods beyond, joining the chorus of ecstasy. Head Wolf was their leader and he was feeding them belief.
“…is that the canyons he roams, hunting after poor animals like us, are the SHADOWLANDS! The real life projection of an inner world he would rather ignore.”
The barking and howling was its loudest now, echoing, deafening. Yet, it still wasn’t deafening enough to surpass Head Wolf.
“His world is our world,” he snarled. “Whether he likes it or not. So what do you say?” He pointed his front limbs at Father Hawk. “Join us and chaos will reign, taking its rightful place in the world!”
“My wife,” thought Father Hawk, clenching his beak shut and frowning. He had to hold on to something. “My child………LIFE!”
“No!” shouted Father Hawk. “I’ll never join you!”
With that, he screamed in fury and leaped forward, sprinting towards Head Wolf.
Without Head Wolf moving or saying anything at all, his cronies leaped at Father Hawk and like that, they were upon him.
G.R. Nanda 