An Apprentice to Elves by Sarah Monette
His name was Lampblack.
His harness-bells jingled, madcap, as he rocked forward, tidy feet tucked up to jump when a branch or trunk lay across their path. All around, the wood was pleasant and bright with flickering rays of sun and the songs of wood pigeon, warbler, oriole, curlew. Lampblack’s amber-colored hooves thumped in cushioning pine; two magpies darted overhead.
Wolves, Alfgyfa realized an instant too late, reaching to take up the reins just as she and her pony burst into the edge of the fields near Franangford and Lampblack spotted Brokkolfr and Amma standing by the roadside, a hundred yards distant.
Amma was no Viradechtis, but she was two thirds the size of even a big svartalf pony. She was chiefly tawny in color, a honey-amber, her guard hairs tipped in sooty gray so she seemed to wear a silver mask and cape in the sunlight. Brokkolfr stood beside her—a man still young, with fine black hair that would never stay in a braid and eyes so bright a blue they showed even over this distance.
To Alfgyfa, Brokkolfr and Amma looked like home and safety and a platter of jam tarts all rolled into one.
Lampblack had a slightly different impression.
He didn’t spook—bless a sturdy pony. But he did drop his haunches and set his forelegs and stop so short that Alfgyfa thumped against his neck, taking the pommel of her saddle right below the navel. She gagged, but somehow kept her wits about her and drew in the reins while Lampblack’s head was still tucked against his chest, so that when he had finished his snorting assessment of the situation and was finally prepared to bolt, she had him far enough under wraps that he just danced around in a circle, back feet replacing his front feet in a series of discomfited hops.
The reins twisted her fingers together, bringing tears to her eyes, but the gelding pulled so hard she couldn’t have unwound them anyway. She held on, locked her elbows, set her feet in the stirrups and waited it out. Lampblack being an essentially sensible beast, it was over quickly. If she wouldn’t let him run from the giant predator, he wasn’t going to waste his strength fighting. He eased on the reins and settled, staring directly at the wolf with his tail whisking about like an irritated cat’s. His flat ears and the tension thrilling through him told Alfgyfa exactly what he thought of both her and Amma.
Amma, for her part, looked at them—laughing—and dropped down on her belly in the long grass, tail thumping and ears pricked. Brokkolfr gave her a warning look—stay put, you—and started forward. His slow approach seemed to reassure Lampblack—and so too, probably, did the jingle of other harnesses approaching behind. He might have outrun his herd, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want them around to watch his back for him.
Brokkolfr offered the pony the open palm of his hand. The pony didn’t so much nose the palm as shove it with his black velvet muzzle, huffing hard. You smell like wolves.
“Fair enough,” Brokkolfr said. He held out his hand for the reins, and Alfgyfa gave them to him. Then she swung down from the saddle and hugged him—quickly, fiercely, one-armed—before bolting across the meadow to hurl herself at Amma.
Wolf fur on her rein-burned hands. The warm, bony body of a trellwolf leaning into her, all elbows and big, butting head and dusty warm scent. They rolled over in the wildflowers, crushing wax-yellow bloodroot and fragile blue anemones, sprawling on the warm earth together.
“I’ll be picking ticks out of both of you for a week if you don’t get out of that grass,” Brokkolfr said good-naturedly. He had come up behind them, Lampblack following him and peering over his shoulder—curious now, instead of spooky, since it seemed obvious that Amma was not planning on dining off Alfgyfa immediately, if at all. Still, the pony wasn’t ready to step out of the shelter of Brokkolfr’s shadow, so the effect was rather as if the wolfcarl had a second, horsy head growing out of his neck.
Behind him, Tin led the ranks of svartalfar, who had spread out into a ragged double line as they exited the wood. Alfgyfa had both hands buried in Amma’s chest fur, the big wolf sprawled on her back with her legs in the air and her neck twisted to the side, and she knew she should probably feel self-conscious, but she just couldn’t.
She grinned.
She must have stopped belly-rubbing, because Amma heaved herself up and stuck her wet nose in Alfgyfa’s ear. Alfgyfa managed not to shriek, remembering the ponies, but she could not quite suppress a muffled gurgle.
Then she got up, dusted herself off, picked several bits of hay from her braid—certain she hadn’t gotten it all—and commenced making the svartalfar known to Brokkolfr. Lampblack, apparently having decided that wolves were something to be jealous of, shoved his head against her chest for his own share of attention, so most of the introductions between the svartalfar and the Franangford wolfsprechend’s second were performed with her fingers hidden under his luxurious forelock. Never mind the potential ticks—she’d be all night getting the horse dirt off her fingertips and out from under her nails.
Oh, right. Bathhouse. She couldn’t help the relieved smile.
Tin and Brokkolfr and Amma were already acquainted, but all the rest were new to one another. Svartalfar held trellwolves in very great respect; Girasol’s amazed face grew even more amazed when she told him that Amma was not merely a wolf, she was a wolf-mother, and she could see the questions building up in Idocrase’s bright eyes. Alfgyfa was surprised and pleased that Tin seemed willing to let her, Alfgyfa, take the lead and play emissary between … between her two peoples? Could she say that and have it be true?
She’d have to think on that later. Now she was determined to reward Tin’s trust with excellence.
“Where’s Father?” she asked Brokkolfr, when she had remounted and they were finally walking again. He paced along beside her knee, one hand companionably on her pony’s shoulder. Amma ranged out in front: equal parts restlessness and pity for the horses.
“There’s something of a surprise waiting for you, actually,” Brokkolfr said. “Isolfr is at the heall—but so are your grandfather and your aunt Kathlin. And three of your cousins. I know how much he regrets not being here to meet you.” And Alfgyfa could feel it herself, though not clearly, in the pack-sense. “But…”
She waited.
“… Isolfr and Gunnarr are in council, along with the other wolfheofodmenn. Randulfr is here. That is why I came to greet you, rather than Isolfr doing so.” He made a little bobbing west-coast bow to Tin and the other svartalfar. “I will see you comfortable until they can be disturbed, at least.”
Alfgyfa bit her lip. Her earlier vague worry crystallized into sharp fear. This was bad news. Lampblack sidled under her, feeling her new tension, and she mastered and stilled herself as she had learned, as a child, with the wolves.
She said, “The Rheans, then.”
“Yes.”
“Will you take us to Thorlot?”
“Of course,” Brokkolfr said.
As it happened, the council was not over with by the time Alfgyfa had taken care of her pony, met the werthreat (and those who had known her as a little girl were as delighted when she remembered them as if she had brought them a gift); eaten a meal; spent an hour steaming herself in the bathhouse; met Tryggvi and the other new wolves of the wolfthreat; terrified a gangling lot of teenage boys who were apparently at the heall for the tithe, although why they were terrified, she was not quite sure; and fallen asleep over her ale and had to be lugged off to bed.
It happened every summer, Thorlot told her when she tried, thick-tongued and clumsy, to apologize. People tended to forget to sleep when the sky was light all evening.
Of course, Alfgyfa thought, as her body embraced bed and sleep and dragged her down, willed she or no. And I had almost forgotten the sky.
SIX
Alfgyfa woke up and didn’t know what had woken her.
She lay still, counting her heartbeat while she listened, and was up to seven when someone said politely—in her head, in what was not words exactly—Do two-legs not hunt?
She could feel that the wolf knew better, could just
So close to midsummer, she could see only the brightest stars and a crooked, translucent-seeming bend of moon. Even the great gauzy blaze of green and violet and copper light that men called the Night-Sailor or the northrljos was washed pale. Svartalfar, who had odd bits of the world above them caught in their lore like cockleburs in the folds of a cloak, named it the Forge-Veil, after their kenning for the haze of sparks and light thrown up when crucible steel was hammered to drive the impurities forth.
Alfgyfa paused for a moment to watch it. She knew there was dissent as to what caused the phenomenon. Some men said it was a forge-veil in truth—either that thrown up by Voluntr’s hammer as he forged for the gods in the fire-mountain that lay at pure north, the heart of the Iskryne, or the sparks of the ceaseless bellows of svartalf smithies. At least Alfgyfa felt qualified to diagnose that it was not, in fact, the latter. She thought more credible the svartalf theories that perhaps it was the light of the sun as it traveled below earth and sea to reach dawn once more, refracted up through the waters and the jewel-clear ice at the edge of the world.
Whatever it was, it was beautiful, and rare to see so brightly in the summer, when there lay always a thin gold stripe at the edge of the world. A good omen for smiths, Alfgyfa could remember Thorlot saying years ago, and she held the thought to her, something warm and safe, as she crossed the yard and went out along the road into the forest, where the wild wolves were waiting.
She had been dreaming of them for so many nights, she’d come to know them: green-wood-burning and mice-under-snow, remembered from the night seven years gone, the trellpit and the rescue that had worked more from sheer stupid undeserved luck than anything else. Green-wood-burning’s chosen mate was new-apple-blossoms, and the others of her pack—not many, for a wild wolf pack was not a threat and couldn’t support the numbers that a heall could, with wolfcarls to preserve meat and build shelters against the snow—were clear-water-running, storm-far-away, ice-after-thaw, and cracked-wyvern-egg. Mice-under-snow still called Alfgyfa meat, but he was teasing now, because her true wolf name was there every time. It was both a surprise and utterly expected, as she came under the canopy of the wide-spreading branches, to see the wolves emerge from the shadows to greet her.
Greensmoke was not as massive as Viradechtis—rangy and lean, like a coursing hound at twice the size. She was black as Mar, black as night, her yellow eyes like signal fires. Apple, beside her, was smoke-gray, bigger, broader, a jarlwolf to defend the pack. Clearwater and Storm (for Alfgyfa was human and could not keep from putting words to wordless things) were Greensmoke’s get from Apple. They were young wolves, still not full-grown, but strong and fast, tawny gray brothers. Mouse was also Greensmoke’s get, but by a different wolf, a wolf who was gone now. Alfgyfa had never seen Mouse clearly in the trellwarren, but he was sooty-masked and dusky gray. He was looking for a bitch of his own (that was all over the pack-sense), but bitches were few and wild trellwolves did not wander alone. There were too many dangers. Ice was Greensmoke’s brother (it was there in the scent of his name, even though Alfgyfa couldn’t have explained how); he had come with her when she left her mother’s pack. He was like Kothran—he would never be strong enough to win a bitch, but he was the quickest and the smartest of them, and had the sharpest nose. He was the color of his name, almost white, but with enough gray to mimic the color of ice that had seen a thaw. Wyvern, whose scent was as much about slinking into a wyvern’s den to steal an egg as it was about the rich yolk to be found when the egg was cracked, was not related to any of the other wolves. He had come from somewhere far away, although he ducked away from the memory in the pack-sense: something bad had happened to his pack. The clearest thing she felt from him was his gratitude to be part of a pack again. He was the tallest of the wolves—taller than Apple, though not as broad-built—and almost as red as a fox.
They waited until Alfgyfa was among them, and there was a great sniffing and slinking and the occasional baring of teeth as priorities were sorted. Alfgyfa stood very still in the gloaming that passed for midnight while the wolves assessed her, and she was very careful not to touch. These were wild wolves, not her childhood’s friends. Then Greensmoke settled down nearby, sitting primly with her tail furled over her furry toes.
Her pack took their places around her, and when they were comfortable, Greensmoke pointed her nose at the sky and sang an ululating thrill. There was a pause—a moment or two only—and one by one the other wolves joined her, each on its own pitch. The sounds twined one another, carrying—a howl of notification, Alfgyfa knew. Not one of claiming. Just the politeness, floating on the wind to let the local konigenwolf know others passed through her territory and meant no harm.
Wolves didn’t lie. And they had their own pacts of passage, just like men. Allewolvesratten, as it were.
From a distance, diluted by the wind, Alfgyfa heard Viradechtis answer, and all her threat join her. No one in the heall would sleep for a little while.
But Alfgyfa. Alfgyfa would run.
The pine mold was soft underfoot, dense and thick, and the cool evening air filled with scents. Alfgyfa could pick out only the coarsest of those, by comparison to the noses of the pack. She smelled spruce and cedar, leaf mold, the brief sweetness of honeysuckle. But Greensmoke and her pack smelled so much more, and Alfgyfa traced through the pack-sense what she could not scent herself.
She could smell each individual wolf, and her own scent, too. The pack-sense and their smells told her that all the wolves were healthy—wolves could smell illness clearly, whether it was the wet-lung fever or scirrhous growths—and they smelled Alfgyfa’s health and strength as well. Which was reassuring.
There was the tang of a toad—not for eating, those—and the furry savor of squirrels, leading Alfgyfa to think of Ratatoskr, the squirrel in the world tree who ran up and down its trunk and branches, inventing gossip to make the gnawing serpent Nithogg at the tree’s root and the nameless eagle who sat atop its boughs angry with one another. There was a hawk on the eagle’s head, and the hawk had a name: it was hight Vethrfolnir, which meant Wind-Bleached.
It had always seemed odd and sad to Alfgyfa that the eagle didn’t rate a name. But now, running with the wild pack, she thought that maybe it kept its name secret for some reason. So many creatures slid in and out of shapes—and in and out of names—wasn’t it a kind of magic to have only one name? Or no name? Not even a kenning? She thought of her father, who had been Njall Gunnarrson, but who had come to manhood Isolfr Alf-Friend, Isolfr Ice-Mad, Isolfr Trellbane, Isolfr Viradechtisbrother—and half a dozen other names, too.
Her mind circled back to her conversations with Idocrase about naming things and bindrunes and magic, which distracted her until she nearly fell over a log. She pulled herself up short then, and concentrated on the task of twilight running, which was difficult enough without trying to do it with her eyes unfocused and her mind leagues hence, back at the heall with Idocrase.
She could hammer all day, work the bellows for hours. But though her breath still came easy and her heart didn’t pound, it wasn’t long before her legs ached heavily and her calves tightened in protest. It had been years since she had run wild through the woods, and she flagged, struggling to regain the agility she remembered from childhood with each new obstacle encountered: logs, wet rocks, a slope too few degrees off vertical.
She felt Viradechtis laughing at her, too—subtly, distantly, not wanting to interfere. As so often with the konigenwolf—and she remembered this vividly from her childhood—there was a sense of premeditation in Viradechtis’ presence, of something brewing in that magnificent shaggy head of hers. Viradechtis was a wolf, of course, and Alfgyfa understood that wolves did not think in human patterns, even trellwolves who were bonded to men and took a little bit of men into themselves. But everyone who had met Viradechtis knew she was a plotter.
Alfgyfa wondered what the big konigenwolf was plotting now. And if Greensmoke knew anything about it.
When the sun never exactly set, dawn became mostly meaningless, but Alfgyfa had learned consciously in Nidavellir what she had learned unconsciously from the town under Nithogsfjoll she did not remember and the heall she had been homesick for: it was important to keep to the structure of the day whether there was any visible difference between day and night or not. So when the sun had rolled back around to the east again, she said to the pack, Home, and they agreed, Home, with what Alfgyfa could not keep herself from thinking of as an underharmonic of konigenmother, even though she didn’t know how they could know about Signy, unless somehow whelping a konigenwolf remained ingrained in Viradechtis’ scent. On the other hand, although the trellwolves’ language was scents and images and not language at all, the idea of underharmonics and overharmonics fit as cleanly as an inlay into its proper depression.
The wild wolves left her at the edge of the cleared fields, their pack-sense full of satisfaction and sleepiness. There was a moment of jarring discomfort as Alfgyfa came out from beneath the trees, and then she was surrounded by the Franangfordthreat’s pack-sense, which was full of morning and breakfast and exciting new possibilities (those mostly from the latest litter of cubs) and the avid curiosity that meant Tryggvi and his littermate Jotun had joined those cubs in following the svartalfar around again.