chambers beyond that wet curtain, finding nothing. If there
was a place with a blue floor where Child lay encircled by
undescribed creatures of a malignant nature, it was no-
where within this valley. Neither was there a doorway into
the conscious mind, no exit from this place where I found
myself trapped. The journey was not to have a swift con-
clusion.
For some reason, I was glad for the extension. There
was a strong reluctance to part with the form I had taken,
to return to the world and be, again, a man.
It was snowing outside as the wolf led me across the
last expanse of open fields before the impenetrable wall of
mist which separated this part of the analogue world from
the next. Big white flakes clung to our coats and frosted us,
kicked up in clouds as we pranced forward toward the
distant veil of fog.
We were sidetracked by the scampering of a covey of
quail-like animals off to our left. My lupine friend broke
into a wild, breathtaking run, teeth bared ferociously, lips
drawn back, slobber falling from his wide mouth.
I followed, feeling the wind and snow and scenting the
flesh of small creatures.
I saw him leap: muscles taut. I saw him land: a spring’s
coils jammed together.
The air reverberated with the dying squeal of his prey.
In that instant, as the agony of death pierced the air
and the pride of a successful hunt shook me, I was more
wolf than man, and the danger began to grow more
imminent.
I stepped next to him and snuffled at his catch, watched
him rend the flesh. Blood fountained up as an artery was
struck, spurted crimson across his dark snout, stained his
teeth, dotted the snow around us. It steamed in the cold
air, this blood, and it had a smell uniquely its own.
I howled.
We tore at the animal together, and he kept his eyes on
me for a long while, cold gray eyes that did not disclose
the thoughts behind them. When we were done, our noses
red and the snow around us sodden, I did not feel disgust-
ed, but rather invigorated.
We turned back to our original pursuit and gained the
shifting walls of mists through which I would have to
pass.
“I want to return,” I growled.
“So?” His breath reeked.
“May I return?”
“For what purpose?”
“To join your pack.”
“That is most unwise. That is foolish, and you know it,
and you must journey. Be gone.”
Then he turned and loped away, head hunched between
his rugged shoulders, eating up yards in a single bounding
leap.
Looking up at the even gray of the sky, I felt a hollow
longing within me, and I pawed the snow away from the
earth, dug the ground into a crosshatch of runnels. I
wiped my bloodied snout in the snow and lapped the
stained whiteness. I wanted to remain here forever, with-
out regard to my true heritage and nature, to bound after
the disappearing wolf and follow him to his pack. In the
night hours, there would be deep dens in hidden caves to
sleep in warmth and to climb upon some sleek and lovely
female with gray eyes and a shiny black snout. During the
daylight hours, there would be prowling in the fields and
in the sparsely treed grounds before the thickness of the
forests themselves. There would be blood and camarad-
erie, running together, killing together, defying the leaden
skies with my fellows….
Yet there was some nagging reason why I should go
beyond the mists to the next segment of this landscape,
though I could not remember what it was. I stepped
through the mists, tensed, but found no danger, only cool
wetness. I growled deep in my throat and broke through
to the other side.
The journey continued.
In the new section of the subconscious universe, there
was a taste of Ireland: stony ground, rolling hills so low
that one could be seen beyond the other, the smell of the
sea, flat areas of land marshy with the backwash of the
tidelands. Waiting for me by a column of limestone that