Twilight of the Wolves by Edward J. Rathke Page A

not turn around. The eyes and laughter stalked, and Sao’s neck reddened, his face hot, and his legs wavered. Words thrown at him then he was pushed from several sides, mostly behind, but he kept his feet, kept them moving, did not turn.
    A pale man in a blue robe and blue paint on his eyelids shouted and the pushes ceased and a way was cleared. The short pale man had a flat face and eyes the color of spring and he spoke to Sao who did not understand but pushed past him. The man gestured conspiratorially towards the crowd, the inflection in his voice meaningful, and he hooked an arm through Sao’s and led him away followed by two silent black men. The man led him to a cart pulled by horses and they entered. The black men did not, but clung to the sides.
    Inside the cart the man spoke with his hands and Sao watched his face: the smiles, the flash of his eyes, the dance of his eyebrows, the pouts. His cadence was whimsical and full of complaint, the pitch higher than Sao’s and drew itself out longer. Sao studied but did not react. The man spoke and spoke and spoke over the clamping of hooves.
    Sao found himself in the home of the pale man. He led him to a room and a young black man dressed him in a blue robe with yellow trimming. The man pointed to Sao’s eyes, flickered his own, then smiled ecstatically, throwing his hands into the air, his voice getting higher.
    The man fed Sao who ate flesh for the first time since caring for the wolf and sat on a chair for the first time. Pork and potatoes and cabbage but Sao only ate the pork. From the first bite, all else dimmed and he tore at it with his hands, with his teeth, ignoring the shiny cutlery set for him on the table. The man watched him, at first shocked, then in awe. No longer eating, only watching Sao, he fed him more and more meat, and Sao ate until there was none left. Only then did Sao return, see the grease on his hands, soiling his gifted robe. His face flushed and he kept his eyes down while the man stood, his voice growing higher, singing now, dancing over to Sao, raising him from his chair, kicking it over, and pulling Sao along by the hand, dancing round him. Ashamed, confused, Sao’s expression shifted through many emotions, from bewilderment to joy.
    That night the man led Sao to a bed so soft Sao began to cry when he lay down. The man’s expression fell and he sighed, massaging Sao. Frustrated, the man rolled over and let Sao cry until they slept.
    In the morning Sao was alone. The redsun already high in the sky and the bluesun rising, he stretched and walked through the man’s home. Expansive, full of things. Sao did not touchanything, only walked. The walls and the floor were hard and white and cool, covered in ornamentation and paintings. Statues, colors of all hues, violent brushstrokes and soft dabs, scenes of humans, of gods, of animals depicted in every room. He found many people living within the man’s home, all of them working: cleaning rooms or making food or tending the garden, which was the size of his former village. Sao walked outside and through the trails of the artificial forest of bushes and trees and flowers arranged in a regimented aesthetic, rather than the chaotic beauty of nature’s design. A large fountain at the center, three meters high and three wide, water cascaded from the mouths of ten dragons onto a great stone basin with more scenes of humans—most of them nude—carved on it. Sao closed his eyes and breathed slow through his nose. He itched at his skin and tugged at the soft fabric covering him. Shifting it back and forth, he stopped and let it harass and irritate his skin. He touched the petals of tulips and smelt the chrysanthemums. Walking through a grove of trees, he stopped and touched the white bark, ran his hand over it, then climbed it to the top, and looked over the wall to the city beyond where humanity swelled. The suns above and the land below, he sat and closed his eyes and breathed, in and out.
    The pale