Storm Wolf (36 page)

He returned Alexei’s look, then glanced to the package on the floor. “No, destruction of the pelt is not necessary. You need only renounce it for yourself. Give it to me, with a declaration that all its power, privileges, and responsibilities pass from you to me and its power over you will be broken.” He returned his gaze to Alexei’s face, looking deep into the other man’s dark gray eyes to inspire confidence and trust.

Alexei thought and then slowly nodded his head in agreement. “Yes, I can see that the destruction of the pelt would be dangerous. That is why I have hesitated to burn it.” He thought a moment more. “But can it really be so simple as to give the pelt to you in order to break its hold on me?” A smile lit Alexei’s face. “I will give it to you gladly,
kouzelnik.
” A sudden cloud passed over Alexei’s face, however. “But what is it that I owe you?”

Timotej stood, shaking his head and grinning broadly. “Nothing, nothing at all, my good man. I am happy to do this simple thing for you. I am only sorry that you had to travel so far to find someone to give it to.” He reached over and took Alexei’s hand, pulling him up and clasping him like a friend or a brother. Alexei felt himself collapse in gratitude against Timotej’s body.

“Thank you,” the Estonian whispered to Timotej, laying his head on the Bohemian’s shoulder.

After a moment, Timotej stepped back from Alexei’s embrace. “So now… you take the pelt…” Timotej indicated the package.

Alexei bent over and then lifted the bundle. “Should I unwrap it?” he asked.

Timotej was anxious to see the pelt for himself. “Yes,” he replied, as calmly and unhurriedly as he could. “Hand the pelt to me as you say the words.”

Alexei knelt down and undid the string that held the package together. Paper rustled and crinkled as he unfolded it and then he stood, lifting the great pelt in his outstretched arms.

Timotej caught himself reaching for it. He stopped, his arms outstretched and empty. He nodded to Alexei.

Alexei took a deep breath. He coughed. Then he said, in his most formal German, “I renounce my claim to this wolf skin and deliver it to you, Timotej the
kouzelnik,
giving you all its powers, responsibilities, and … and…” He looked imploringly at the magician.

“…and privileges,” Timotej reminded him.

“…giving you all its powers, responsibilities, and privileges,” Alexei declared. He placed the skin gently into Timotej’s open arms.

Timotej nodded towards Alexei. He felt some acknowledgment was demanded by the momentousness of the occasion. “I accept,” he uttered, hugging the skin to his shirt and rubbing his cheek along the fur. The edge of the leather was rough and scratched him. After a moment, he realized that Alexei was still standing there, looking at him expectantly, his arms dangling and empty.

Timotej set the folded pelt on the chair where he had sat, listening to Alexei, and then ushered Alexei to the door of the study.

“Thank you, sir,” Alexei stammered again. He seemed surprised it had been so simple. He bent to kiss Timotej’s hand.

“My pleasure, my good man.” Timotej allowed him to kiss his knuckles and then took Alexei by the shoulder and guided him out the door, afraid that the farmer would stand there, endlessly expressing his thanks.

Chapter 7:
Kouzelnik

Timotej

(September 1890)

The maid was waiting outside the study and she escorted Alexei through the house and back onto the street. He felt like dancing, he was so relieved to be rid of the skin and its unpredictable magic. He skipped along the streets of Prague, singing in Estonian, oblivious to the stares he received. He was free.

In his study, Timotej stood before the wolf skin. It seemed so ordinary. Ordinary, except for its size. It was so large. Huge, even. Old. Almost ratty. It hardly seemed the talisman of such potent power that Alexei had described. Timotej’s fingers itched to touch it, to handle it, to wrap himself in it. But Alexei’s tale had frightened as well as exhilarated him. Timotej knew this was a thing beyond his control and he could only hope that the declaration he had instructed Alexei to make would prove effective. As difficult as it was for him, Timotej set the skin—at last—back on the paper that Alexei had brought it in. Timotej wrapped it again, tying it with the same string. He picked it up carefully and set it on a shelf in the back of his study. Just to be careful, he decided to take a frond of the dill that he grew in one of several large pots near the windows. Dill, like the holly or mistletoe in those pots, was said by the occult books Timotej had read to be protective against magic.

“Perhaps this might even help poor Alexei,” he thought as he tucked the delicate greenery under the rough string around the mysterious package. It was better to leave the package alone until he was more sure of how to manipulate the power it held and avoid the fate that had brought Alexei to him.

A few days later, very early in the morning, there was a frantic pounding on the door of Timotej’s house. The maid wrapped a cloak around herself as she opened the door to see who had so rashly disturbed her rest. The sun, barely risen, cast delightful, delicate shadows that played among the cobblestones of the street.

Before her stood the man who had come with the large package, asking to see “the great
kouzelnik
”; but this time he looked very different. Before, he was well dressed and calm, a supplicant looking for a favor. Now he was bedraggled, unkempt. His hair was uncombed and he wore a simple but foreign peasant style of shirt and trousers. His eyes were wild and he clutched her arm in desperation.

“Timotej! The
kouzelnik
! I must see him at once!” the man demanded, breathless.

“Has he run all the way from wherever he is staying?” she wondered. “Will the master agree to see this man again at all, let alone at this hour of the day?”

“Please,” the man almost whimpered. “It is urgent. I must see him.” The man began to weep, pressing his eyes to her hand as if she were a great lady and he the lowest of her many servants.

“Come in, come in.” She pulled Alexei into the house and closed the door. The master had been happy enough to see this poor man before. More than happy, he had been all too eager to talk with the man who asked for help with a man-wolf. She had noticed, with her keen eyes that seldom missed a detail of what went on in the house, that the package that had come with the man had not left with him. She had seen it in the study as she dusted. She was sure it was the same. The same paper, the same string. The knot was tied more clumsily now and there was dill wedged, for some reason, under the string. Whatever frightened this foreign peasant, she was sure it had to do with that package.

The man struggled to compose himself. When his tears had subsided to sniffles, she led him into the study and pulled aside the heavy drapes to allow the sunshine into the deep recesses of the room. Shadows melted.

“Sit down,” she instructed him. “I will see if the master will speak with you.” She turned and walked out, wondering if it was safe to leave him there among the papers and books that Timotej spent so much time poring over. The man seemed too frantic to be a danger. Theft seemed the last thing on his mind. But still…

She rapped on Timotej’s bedroom door. “Master Timotej,” she called softly. “The man who spoke of the
vlkodlak
is here to see you again.” She rapped again and heard stirring within the chamber. But the stirring faded and snoring replaced it through the keyhole.

She shook her head. It was hopeless to rouse the master so early without rudely grasping him by the shoulders and shaking him awake. There had been occasions, when Timotej had a great distance to travel, that he had given instructions to be awakened in precisely that way at an hour such as this. But he had left no such instructions this time. Would he appreciate this man’s dilemma or would he be furious, throwing both of them out of the house? All her years of faithful service would mean nothing to Timotej, she was sure. She bit her lower lip and rapped again softly.

The snoring paused and then resumed, louder, gruffer than before.

She turned away from the door. Clearly the man in the study needed help, and Timotej was in no position to provide it. She could not let the man simply sit there, perhaps for several hours, until Timotej was ready to speak with him. She had to help the man herself.

She slowly retraced her steps to the study, formulating her plan. She knew some little of what Timotej’s interests were and had her suspicions about what he did not know. As a little girl growing up on Timotej’s rural estate near the amazing ossuary chapel of Sedlec, she had also been taught by her aunt that certain herbs and flowers were to be used for healing; sometimes, her aunt had told her, that healing was more important for the soul than the body. As she reentered the study, she knew what she must do.

Alexei leapt up as she entered, apparently expecting to greet the great magician. His disappointment was clear.

“Sit down,” she instructed him again. He did as he was told, too crestfallen to argue. She sat opposite him. If Timotej ever discovered that she had sat in her nightshift in his chair—she dismissed the probable consequences from her mind.

“My master cannot be disturbed at this hour,” she told Alexei, “but he has given me a message for you. A message and instructions.”

Alexei’s head, which had been hanging down disconsolately, sprang up. His eyes snapped into focus and he learned forward intently.

“My master, Timotej the
kouzelnik
, tells me that you have come about the package that you left here. He tells me that you are not to take it but leave it here with him. He is still dealing with its contents but says that, in the meantime, I am to give you certain herbs and plants for protection against the man-wolf,” she lied. “Do you understand all this?”

The man took a deep breath and nodded slowly, his eyes closed. Given the effect her words had, soothing and calming the man, she saw that her guesses were correct. She stood and moved to the window, pausing to pick up the black-handled knife on the nearby table. She cut a handful of dill and gave it to the man.

“Take this and tie it in a bundle,” she instructed him. “Wear it around your neck. Always. Or in your shirt pocket. But keep it near you always.” He stood and reached out, accepting it with obvious relief.

“Thank you,” he whispered, placing the delicate fronds carefully in his breast pocket.

The maid reached over to the rue growing in the corner of the window, out of sight from where the man had been sitting. Now that he was standing and facing her, he could see what she was reaching for. As she prepared to cut it, the man pulled back in fright.

“No, not that.” His eyes were wide with fear and his lip curled in disgust. He averted his face from the pot. “No, not that one.”

The maid paused. She had never seen a reaction like this.

“Very well,” she uttered at last. “Then you must take this one.” She touched the sprigs of holly in another pot.

The man looked cautiously at her hand. “Very well.” He agreed to take the holly. She cut several lengths of the sharp, prickly branches.

“Hang these over your windows and doors,” she instructed him. He nodded. “Maybe even place one under your pillow at night.” The man seemed unsure of how to carry the holly, so she found a length of string on the table, near where the knife had been, and tied the holly together in a bundle.

“These should keep you safe,” she dismissed him. “My master, the great Timotej, promises that you should have no further problems with the man-wolf.”

Alexei nodded and muttered his thanks repeatedly. Before turning out onto the street, he kissed her hand.

“Please tell the
kouzelnik
that I appreciate all that he has done for me.”

The maid closed the door and exhaled a long, deep breath. “If those cuttings don’t help him, maybe he’ll come back next time at a more reasonable hour!”

Alexei heard the door latch shut behind him. He made his way, exhaustedly, back towards the inn where he was still staying.

After the first time he had left Timotej as the new guardian of the wolf skin, he had made his way back to the inn, giddy and light-hearted. As he had no easy means of travel and no reason to hurry back to Estonia, he had decided to remain in magical Prague for a few days before deciding what course of action to take next. He had wandered the streets, gawking at the Old Town and its amazing Astronomical Clock. He stumbled along the streets of the Jewish Quarter, amazed to see people he had heard tales of but never met, as they had only been allowed to settle in Estonia since 1865 by order of Tsar Alexander II. He made his way up the steep hills of the Little Town, and heard stories in the taverns there about the ghost of a builder who wandered the streets in search of someone to remove a great nail from his forehead so that he might find rest in his grave.

But one night, after drinking with some of his new friends in the New Town, he made his way back to the inn with a group of men walking in that same direction and collapsed in his bed. He experienced terrible nightmares. In the morning, only hazy memories of the details remained, but his sense of the terror involved was overwhelming. He seemed to be looking down over the city, perhaps from one of the high bluffs along the river, and it was raining. A terrible storm was drenching everything he could see. Even the river below was churning with the torrential rainfall and sweeping away anything along the riverbank, buffeting the massive supports of the stone bridge, recently renamed—he had learned in the taverns—the Charles Bridge, which linked the Old and Little Towns. He felt something give way beneath his feet, he stumbled, and he began to fall…

But then he soared into the deep crevices of the clouds overhead. He had assumed the shape and power of the werewolf again. Against his will and better judgment, he plunged into the darkest of the clouds above the river, driven by instinct to hunt down and destroy the devils that were causing such havoc on the earth below. None of the spirits he saw there were capable of wreaking such havoc. There had to be several more powerful devils somewhere in the air around him, several more powerful adversaries that seemed intent on washing away the city below.

He couldn’t remember much more about the details, except that he had thought his days of werewolf storm hunting were over. Something seemed very wrong, both with the intensity of the storm and with his being a werewolf in the midst of it. He had vague memories of intense battles with spirits that he found hiding in the clouds above the castle. He felt something bite his leg, something that felt like a great wolf trap, such as the iron trap that had caught the wolf (whose skin he now wore again in his dream) in the Estonian forest so many long years before. He fell, hurtling through the sky, catching himself just before plummeting into the angry river. He managed to limp back to the inn, howling in pain as he made his way.

When he reached the inn, the doors were locked and he had no way to enter but to crawl up the side of the building to what he suspected was the window to his room. With no clear recollection of discovering which window was his or how he had opened it, he collapsed in pain and exhaustion on his bed.

Alexei woke in terror, exhausted and unsure of where he was. Gradually, he realized that he was in his bed at the inn on the outskirts of Prague. His leg—was it right or left? he was too groggy to distinguish which—was in excruciating pain, though there seemed to be no blood anywhere. No open wound to explain the sharp agony. His eyes still closed, he reached down and felt along his calf. The sheets were wet, but not sticky. He dared to open his eyes.

The sheets were drenched—with sweat, not blood. The room was washed with early morning light, more than on other days. He pulled himself to sit up and saw the window was broken from within, shards of glass glinting and sparkling down the red tile roof below. Glancing around the bed, he saw what struck him with terrible familiarity…

Around him tufts of silver fur were scattered across the sheets, tucked into the folds of the blankets, floating lazily along the floor. It seemed undeniable now. He leapt to the window and leaned out, careful to avoid cutting himself on the remains of glass still wedged into the windowsill. His nightmare had been no dream fantasy but a waking reality. The sky was clear and the ground outside dry, as if there had been no terrible storm, but the broken window, the pain in his leg, and the tufts of fur all pointed to what he feared most: the transformation had swept over him once again, even after he had followed Timotej’s instructions and officially given over the wolf skin and its magic to the Bohemian magician. He was not safe from the
suteksäija
transformations at all. His heart raced, his breathing grew shallow. Panic swept over him. He needed help, he needed to see Timotej immediately. He hastily threw on the clothes he had brought from Estonia and ran down the staircase and toward the grand house of the great
kouzelnik.