The Queen of Penesthelia and Firman The Brave 8
That which will bind the wolf.
The air ship flew west, as long as seven whales, and all the Kieselex lay beneath them, an endless sea of glass knives that spilled from the mountains that stood against the Upper Plateau all the way to the Great Thalassa and her endless waves. It flew, and it flew, and from its carriage in the winds watched the dark eye of Firman the Brave.
The child held to the edge, and she looked down and marvelled. “What a terrible land this is!” she said, “That no man can walk across it without being cut with a thousand swords of glass! Who lives beyond this land?”
“Few,” said Firman the Brave, “for only the men that make the world have been there, few settlers have followed, and no polises exist.”
The Kieselex was a terrible land of no water and eternal winds, and every meter of it was a blade. But in time, the air ship came to the far side, and there were empty lands of no men, but they had seen the like going east, and did not fear them. The air ship took them to the edge of the Long Wood and settled down in a plain of grass like to Ortrera, and the man who piloted it said he would wait seven days for them.
“No fear,” said Firman the Brave. “This will be an easy task.”
“That only tells what you know,” said the pilot.
Firman and his horse and the child and the dog and the squirrel left the ship as long as seven whales, and walked into the Long Wood. Now the Long Wood is called so because howsoever far you travel into it, it never ends, and it runs forever and ever and is dark under the pine branches, and when the snows fall in winter, they lay a long time under them. In the Long Wood live elk and deer and leopard and tiger and wolves, and of them, the gray, gray Wolf was the largest and most dangerous, for it was said to speak with the voice of a man and to have a mind like a man and yet not.
So on Asil Firman mounted with his sword and his lance, and behind him got the child. On her shoulder was the squirrel and the dog ran alongside, and into the deeps of the Long Wood they rode. They saw elk, and they saw deer. They saw sign of leopard and of tiger, and they saw sign of wolf, and the wolves saw them, and watched with pale eyes and laughing mouths, but none of them spoke like a man and all of them ran when they saw Firman’s blue watered calypscine steel.
They came to a stream, and in the stream leaped a trout, and Firman the Brave looked at the trout that was jeweled like a dragon, and it leaped and looked at him, and he said to it, “Jeweled Trout, I am Firman the Brave who seeks the Gray Wolf of the Long Wood, and I hear a thing that can bind him is the breath of a fish.”
“That is one of the things,” the trout said.
“Jeweled Trout, can we have some of your breath?” Firman asked.
“Assuredly you may,” the trout said, and it gave the child some of its breath, and she tied back her hair with it.
And on they rode.
They came to a meadow where a fire had been in the Long Wood, and in the meadow was a young tree and in the tree was a scarlet bird like a raven, and it beat its wings and it looked with its bright eye at Firman the Brave, and Firman the Brave looked at it, and he said to it, “Scarlet Bird, I am Firman the Brave who seeks the Gray Wolf of the Long Wood, and I hear a thing that can bind him is the spit of a bird.”
“That is one of the things,” the bird said.
“Scarlet Bird, can we have some of your spit?” Firman asked.
“Assuredly you may,” the bird said, and it gave the child some of its spit, and she tied her girdle with it.
And on they rode.
They came to a dark, dark place in the wood and found a cabin made of logs and its roof of split shingles, and in the cabin an old woman sat spinning shadows, and she looked from her spinning to Firman the Brave, and Firman the Brave looked at her, and he said to her, “Old woman, I am Firman the Brave who seeks the Gray Wolf of the Long Wood, and I hear a thing that can bind him is the beard of a woman.”
“That is one of the things,” she said.
“Old woman, can we have some of your beard?” Firman asked.
“Assuredly you may,” the old woman said. “Give me that which you already have, and I will spin a rope for you.”
So the child gave her the tie from her hair that was the breath of a fish and the tie from her girdle that was the spit of a bird, and the old woman took her beard and spun all three with shadow and gave a rope of them all to Firman the Brave.
“Then now this task will be easy,” he said.
“That only shows what you know,” said the old woman.
(Begins here … )