And the worst thing was that there had been pleasure in the killing.
Though the books were in ashes, their voices remained in Mikhail’s mind. He heard one of those voices now, from Shakespeare’s Richard II:
With Cain go wander through the shade of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,
That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.
He went on into the forest, with Wiktor following, as the wind continued to whirl and the trees burned at their backs.
6
When the snow came, Mikhail and Wiktor had been living for more than ten days in one of the caves where Wiktor had hunted the berserker. There was room for two wolves, but not two humans. The wind grew bitter, raging from the north, and returning to human form would be suicide. Wiktor was lethargic, and slept day and night. Mikhail hunted for them both, grasping whatever he could from the forest’s plate.
True winter sank its icy roots. Mikhail traveled to the soldiers’ camp and found it empty. There was no trace of Petyr. The snow had filled in the wagon ruts and stolen all scent of men. Mikhail bypassed the large area of burned trees and the scorched ruin of stones where the white palace had been, and returned to the cave.
On clear nights, when the blue-rimmed moon shone down and the sky was ablaze with stars, Mikhail sang. His song was all pain and longing now; the joy had been seared out of him. Wiktor remained in the cave, a ball of white fur, and his ears twitched occasionally at the black wolf’s song, but Mikhail sang alone. His voice echoed over the forest, carried by the roaming wind. There was no answer.
Over the weeks and months that followed, Mikhail felt himself drifting further and further away from humanity. He had no need of that frail white body; four legs, claws, and fangs suited him now. Shakespeare, Socrates, higher mathematics, the languages of German, English, and Latin, history, and the theories of religion: they belonged to another world. In the realm to which Mikhail now belonged, the subject was survival. To fail those lessons meant death.
The winter broke. Blizzards turned to rainstorms, and fresh green appeared across the forest. Mikhail returned from hunting one morning to find a naked old man with a white beard, sitting on his haunches on a pile of rocks at the highest point above the chasm. Wiktor squinted in the hard sunshine, his face wrinkled and pale, but he took his portion of the dead muskrat and ate it raw. He watched the sun climbing into the sky, his amber eyes devoid of light. His head tilted to one side, as if he’d heard a familiar sound. “Renati?” he called, his voice fragile. “Renati?”
Mikhail lay down on his belly nearby, the chasm below them, chewing his food and trying to shut out the quavering voice. After a while, Wiktor put his hands to his face and wept, and Mikhail felt his heart shatter.
Wiktor looked up, and seemed to see the black wolf for the first time. “Who are you?” he asked. “What are you?”
Mikhail kept eating. He knew what he was.
“Renati?” Wiktor called again. “Ah, there you are.” Mikhail saw Wiktor smile faintly, addressing thin air. “Renati, he thinks he’s a wolf. He thinks he’s going to stay here forever, and run on four legs. He’s forgotten what the miracle really is, Renati: that he’s human, inside that skin. And after I’m dust and gone where you are he thinks he’ll still be here, catching muskrats for his dinner.” He laughed a little bit, sharing a joke with a ghost. “To think what I put in his head, hour after hour!” His feeble fingers picked at the dark scar on his shoulder and pressed against the hard outline of the bullet that was still lodged there. Then he turned his attention to the black wolf. “Change back,” he said.
Mikhail licked muskrat bones and paid him no mind.
“Change back,” Wiktor repeated. “You’re not a wolf. Change back.”
Mikhail grasped the small skull, burst it open between his jaws, and ate the brains.
“Renati wants you to change back, too,” Wiktor told him. “Hear her? She’s speaking to you.”
Mikhail heard the wind, and the voice of an insane man. He finished his meal and licked his paws.
“My God,” Wiktor said softly. “I’m going crazy as hell.” He stood up, peering down into the chasm. “But I’m not crazy enough to think I’m really a wolf. I’m a man. You are, too, Mikhail. Change back. Please.”
Mikhail didn’t. He lay on his belly, watching crows circle overhead, and he wished he could have a bite of one. He didn’t care for Wiktor’s odor; it reminded him too much of shadowy shapes with rifles.
Wiktor sighed, his head bowed. He slowly and carefully began to climb down the rocks, his body creaking at the joints. Mikhail got up, and followed him to keep him from falling. “I don’t need your help!” Wiktor shouted. “I’m a man, I don’t need your help!” He continued down the rocks to the cave, crawled into it, and lay curled up, staring at nothing. Mikhail crouched on the ledge in front of the cave, the breeze ruffling his fur. He watched the crows circling around like black kites, and his mouth watered.
The springtime sun made the forest bloom. Wiktor did not return to his wolf form, and Mikhail did not return to human flesh. Wiktor grew more feeble. On chilly nights, Mikhail entered the cave and lay next to him, warming the old man with his body heat, but Wiktor’s sleep was fragile. He was constantly tormented by nightmares, and he sat up shouting for Renati, or Nikita, or another of the lost ones. On warm days he perched up on the rocks above the chasm and stared toward the hazy western horizon.
“You should go to England,” Wiktor told the black wolf. “That’s right. England.” He nodded. “They’re civilized in England. They don’t kill their children.” He shivered; even on the warmest day, his flesh was as cold as parchment. “Do you hear me, Mikhail?” he asked, and the wolf lifted his head and stared at him but did not answer.
“Renati?” Wiktor spoke to the air. “I was wrong. We lived as wolves, but we’re not wolves. We were human beings, and we belonged to that world. I was wrong to keep us here. Wrong. And every time I look at him”-he motioned toward the black wolf-“I know I was wrong. It’s too late for me. But it isn’t for him. He could go, if he wanted to. He should go.” He worked his skinny fingers together, as if tying and then untangling a problem. “I was afraid of the human world. I was afraid of pain. You were, too, weren’t you, Renati? I think we all were. We could have gone, if we’d chosen. We could have learned to survive in that wilderness.” He lifted his hand toward the west, toward the unseen villages and towns and cities beyond the horizon. “Oh, that’s a terrible place,” he said softly. “But it’s where Mikhail belongs. Not here. Not anymore.” He looked at the black wolf. “Renati says you have to go.”
Mikhail didn’t budge; he dozed in the heat, but he could hear what Wiktor was saying. His tall twitched a fly away, an involuntary reaction.
“I don’t need you,” Wiktor said, irritation in his voice. “Do you think you’re keeping me alive? Ha! I can catch with my bare hands what your jaws would miss a hundred times over! You think this is loyalty? It’s stupidity! Change back. Son, do you hear me?”
The black wolf’s green eyes opened, then drifted shut again.
“You’re an idiot,” Wiktor decided. “I wasted my time on an idiot. Oh, Renati, why did you bring him into the fold? He has a life before him, and he wants to throw away the miracle. I was wrong… so very wrong.” He stood up, still muttering, and began to climb down to the cave again. At once Mikhail was up and following him, watching the old man’s footing. Wiktor railed at him, as he always did, but Mikhail went with him anyway.
The days passed. Summer was on the rise. Almost every day Wiktor went up to the rocks and talked to Renati, and Mikhail lay nearby, half listening, half dozing. On one of those days the sound of a distant train whistle drifted to them. Mikhail lifted his head and listened. The train’s engineer was trying to scare an animal off the tracks. It might be worth a trip there tonight, to see if the train had hit anything. He laid his head back down, the sun warm on his spine.
“I have another lesson for you, Mikhail,” Wiktor said softly, after the train’s whistle had faded. “Maybe the most important lesson. Live free. That’s all. Live free, even if your body is chained. Live free, here.” He touched his skull, with a palsied hand. “This is the place where no man can chain you. This is the place where there are no walls. And maybe that’s the hardest lesson to learn, Mikhail. All freedom has its price, but freedom of the mind is priceless.” He squinted up at the sun, and Mikhail lifted his head and watched him. There was something different in
