Garou, Part I

Greg Barber leaned against the smooth bark of a birch tree and put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. His brown corduroy jacket hung from a branch on a nearby tree. Greg liked the cold, and the crisp autumn air that had others tugging on their coats merely put him at ease.

The wind that rustled the leaves of the forest canopy whipped past him, and he ran a hand through his scruffy, thick hair to mash it back into place. Greg looked into the clearing he stood at the edge of; the treeless space was fairly large, and the wind took every opportunity to swoop down into it and run among the many log benches and whistle past the monolithic, irregularly shaped stone set in the center of the clearing. Greg took a step back and settled against a tree further into the forest; he scratched his neatly-trimmed beard thoughtfully. The trees put Greg at ease; in the face of the chaos he dealt with daily, their aura of solidity was a comforting contrast. Their spirits were moved by little short of the changing of the seasons, and Greg admired, with just a touch of envy, their constancy.

A sudden howl split the night and Greg jerked his head up, suddenly alert. The howl was long and low, and Greg’s eyes narrowed in recognition. Greg pushed himself away from the tree and trotted back to the clearing. He wove his way through the many weather-worn benches. They had many carvings scratched into their surfaces, but Greg jogged by these without a second glance. He arrived at the large stone in the center of the clearing. It, too, was covered with carvings, the claw marks forming hundreds of runes, painstakingly etched into the stone’s ancient surface.

Scanning over the runes, Greg circled the monolith, his fingers trailing across the neat lines of slashes in the cold stone. He found the right one, and pushed; there was a soft and barely audible click as the symbol gave way under his finger, and a recessed, shadowy area of the stone swung inwards. Greg slid through the door, quickly found the first step, and started down the stone latter. Once inside the monolith, Greg straightened up. He reached up and swung the stone panel back into place, where it caught with a soft click, cutting off Luna’s light.

The light cast by the thin crescent of the moon did little to illuminate the interior of the caern. Greg concentrated on the darkness and blinked, and when his eyes opened they shone with a ghostly, green glow. Greg looked around; his vision now easily pierced the darkness, and he quickly descended the ladder. At the bottom, a familiar tunnel opened up before him. The passages under the clearing itself were carved directly from the same stone that formed the monolith above, but those extending into the forest were actually lined with tree roots. Greg’s ancestors, who had helped build these tunnels, must have used some long-forgotten Gift to coax the roots into forming a network of large underground passages, ten feet wide and tall. Greg thought it sad that the ability to deal with trees in such a way had been lost so long ago; the root-passages were ancient; the ones carved of stone were older still.

Torches hung in sconces in these passages, and their light hurt Greg’s eyes; he blinked again and let the Cat’s Gift fade from his eyes. Walking down a hall, Greg read the symbols painted onto the wall and turned down a narrower side passage. He stopped in front of a woven, plant-dyed blanket suspended across a doorway. “Lady?” he called through the curtain. “Lady Voice, are you there?”

“One moment,” came a calm voice from behind the curtain. Greg waited in the hall, reading the runes etched into the wall. ‘My Children, my Warriors, do not despair, for you are never alone. Look, my Children, to my Voice and to my Arm, for they will guide you and aid you in you great struggle. Look to them, as the Apocalypse approaches.’ Across the hall was another curtain; there, Greg knew, was the Arm’s room. But Greg was not here to see the Wyrmbane, and he turned his attention back to the inscriptions on the wall.

The most familiar glyph was centrally located, and resembled a large, elongated letter “c” with a curved, horizontal line running through its lower quarter. Below either end of this line there was a pair of short, vertical slashes. Greg could read most of the characters on the curtain, but he was especially familiar with the large “c”-shaped one. It was the sign of his tribe, the Children of Gaia. Below that symbol were several more, naming the surrounding tunnels and forest the Caern of Slàinte.

Greg heard a rustling of cloth and looked up. The curtain was pushed aside by a small, feminine hand that was followed by the rest of Cathryn, the Voice of the Goddess. She was a small woman, almost dwarfed by Greg’s tall, well-muscled form, but she maintained a powerful presence nonetheless. Her smooth, unwrinkled face did not belie the age that was beginning to touch her hair, streaking it with gray. The Voice was dressed in a faded World Wildlife Foundation t-shirt and blue jeans with worn knees. She turned her handsome face upwards and spoke in the quiet tone that was her usual. “Hello, Gregory. What brings you down here tonight?”

“A Call for the Hunt has been sounded,” said Greg, describing the howl he had heard a few minutes ago. “A Black Spiral Dancer was found about seven miles northwest of here. It sounded like one of the Svenson brothers, and there are plenty of sentries out, so they should have it under control. I thought you might like to know, lady Voice.”

“Please, Gregory. My name is Cathryn,” she replied. “You have been here too long to refer to me by that title.” She sighed. “I do suppose the Svensons can handle a Black Spiral, they are capable, if overzealous, warriors. They mentioned only one Black Spiral, you say?” Greg nodded. “Then let us hope that the Svensons are not being overly confident. The Wyrmbane is out as well, though, so it is of no immediate concern.”

“Should I wait outside for news?” asked Greg.

“It would be best, just in case things turn out poorly. Olie and Lars will likely be back soon, though, and then perhaps we can find out what the Spiral meant by his intrustion. Oh,” she paused. “Has Kathy spoken to you this evening? She asked me to tell you to wait for her in the clearing.”

Greg responded with a nod and a quick bow, and moved off down the passages. He retraced his steps, climbed the ladder, and exited through the door in the caern stone.

The light from the moon’s crescent was a sharp change from the tunnels’ bright torchlight. Greg let his eyes adjust to the lower light, and even in Luna’s dim light he could easily make out his surroundings. Greg smiled, reflecting for a moment on the superior senses that he took for granted.

Greg could interpret a wolf’s call perfectly, and could glean as much information from a few howled notes as most people could from a short news article. He could track prey through the thickest woods with a mere scent of the target, and he could navigate quite well with only a sliver of Luna’s light as guidance. For all his superior senses, though, Greg still did not detect the person sitting on one of the benches behind him until she coughed politely.