Matabar

All Ardi could think about was running. As uprooted trees flew past him, crashing into boulders and showering his surroundings with splinters, Ardi ran. When the troll’s wild roar, which was similar to the rumbling of a mudslide eroding rocks, made the ground shake beneath his small paws, Ardi ran. When the birds screamed above him, calling for help from the Sidhe and the spirits, when the wind roared in the young hunter’s ears, urging him on and making his legs move faster, and when all the noise merged into a wail, Ardi ran.

He ran to the only place where he could find shelter. Here, in the middle of the forest, he could use nothing to stand against the giant troll. Perhaps due to his colossal size, the troll moved slowly, but with each step, he covered a distance that took Ardi almost a full second to match. The young hunter could almost feel the troll’s fiery eyes burning the skin on his back.

As another cold wind licked his ears and sent a shiver down his spine, the young hunter leaped along the ground and slid easily across the wet grass into a ditch. His paws sank into the rain-soaked earth with a wet squeak, and disturbed worms crawled over his bare skin.

But he forgot about all of that when a boulder the size of Guta’s head flew over his own head. It smashed through several trees, sending another flock of birds into the sky, and the tree trunks came crashing down with a loud crack, breaking the branches of their neighbors and falling onto the moss and grass. The various impacts were so strong that they lifted Ardi slightly off the ground, and after flying on for a few more meters, the boulder plowed a deep furrow in the ground, stopping only at the roots of an ancient oak.

Clutching the fang around his neck tightly, Ardi peered out from his hiding place.

The troll, who’d halted in the middle of this newly made path of fallen trees, shattered stumps, and clogged up streams, sniffed the air and looked around. His stone skin twitched slightly, spilling fine sandstone onto the ground.

"Matabar..." The creature rumbled. "I can smell you..."

And then the nightmare born of tales, slowly, leisurely, turned its fanged mouth directly toward the trench where Ardi was hiding.

"Found you!" Maybe it was Ardi’s imagination, but the troll had sounded smug right then.

"Think, Ardi, think," the young hunter muttered, shaking off the worms, and then he once again took off running.

He moved as fast as he could. His paws flashed through the leaves and grass. And every time his heart threatened to jump out of his chest and his lungs burned from the unfamiliar air of the forest, the roar of the troll at his heels spurred him on.

The young hunter jumped aside as a birch, uprooted by a massive hand, shot past him like an arrow. It pierced the trunk of a mighty poplar and lodged there like a broken claw. For a second, Ardi wondered how he knew what an arrow was, but less than a heartbeat later, he resumed his run.

Had it not been for Shali’s lessons, he would have stumbled over a root, gotten tangled in the bushes, or slipped on the wet ground. But the lynx’s teachings had become part of his mind and body. Relying not only on his keen eyesight, but on all his other hunter’s senses as well — touch, smell, balance and hearing — Ardi chose paths where the forest could help him a little.

He deftly slipped between two large rock formations, while the troll, despite his strength and size, had to go around them with an angry growl, losing sight of his prey for a moment. Ardi, knowing he couldn’t hide his scent even in the water, quickly dove into some dense wolfberry bushes. The bright red drops contrasting against the dense greenery would probably be able to distract even an experienced tracker’s eye, and the young hunter was small enough to press himself to the ground and crawl under the bushes at their very roots.

But the troll that had finally gone around the rock formations... was no tracker. He didn’t need to look, sniff, or listen to every whisper of the silent forest.

"Matabar!" Roared the stone creature.

He tore another tree out of the ground and began to beat the bushes with it, tearing the branches off the trunk. With each blow, flocks of birds took to the sky, and Ardi was lifted into the air, but thankfully, he didn’t go too far. The ground groaned and trembled under the troll’s fury, and the young hunter grit his fangs so hard that his gums bled. But it was better to bleed than to scream in fear and give himself away.

"You tiny bug!" The troll raged. "I’ll smash your head and drink your brains!"

Ardi, who’d found a small hollow ahead, thanked the spirits for their help and darted inside. The bushes and the raging nightmare remained above him. He pressed his body into the dirt and crawled along the dry creek bed. A few seconds later, he appeared at the edge of a field and, after getting back up, hid behind the trunk of a weeping willow that was mourning the loss of its shimmering friend, the stream.

Then again, such trees were always weeping, and-

"Those are thoughts for another day," the young hunter hissed at himself, then cupped his paws around his mouth to make his voice echo so it would be harder to pinpoint. "How will you drink my brains if you smash my skull? They’ll spill out!"

The club’s pounding against the berry bushes stopped. The ground grew quiet and still. Only the noisy inhalations and exhalations of those stone nostrils filled the air. How long it would take for the scent of the berries to fade and for the troll to smell his prey again, Ardi didn’t know.

"Where are you... little Matabar?" The giant rumbled. "Show yourself and we’ll fight!"

He roared, shaking his tree club and literally tearing up the ground beneath the bushes.

"Perhaps we should go our separate ways?" The young hunter suggested, still speaking into his cupped paws.

"NO!" The troll roared. "You interfered... with my hunt, little... Matabar! Now I will... eat you!"

Ardi exhaled and pressed himself harder against the trunk. If the troll was really made of stone, it would be impossible to reach his mind. After all, the young hunter didn’t know how to talk to stones, and he doubted that stones could even think.

Following Guta’s instructions, Ardi took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then exhaled. The first rocky slope was only a few quick, nimble jumps through the bushes away. He’d have to rely on what Skusty had taught him: if he ever found himself to be too small to defeat an opponent in a fair fight, he would need to become so smart, cunning, and devious that they wouldn’t even think to look his way.

Ergar had always said that — as wrong and strange as it might’ve seemed — hunting was something best done in the territory of the prey. After all, when your target was somewhere unfamiliar, it would be more alert to its surroundings, more aware of threats. But in its own element, where everything was quiet and familiar, if a hunter was skilled and cautious and didn’t give themselves away, their chances of success would be much higher.

"SHOW YOURSELF!" The troll roared, nearly destroying the berry patch.

The mountains were the troll’s home. Everything was familiar to him, but... how could he possibly know that the high peaks of the Alcade had long since become Ardi’s home, too? He knew every ascent, every descent, every ravine and... every crevice.

"Hey!" The young hunter jumped out from behind the willow, picked up a stone, and threw it at the giant’s back. "Over here! Come get me, you stupid boulder!"

Without waiting for a reaction, Ardi darted through the bushes. Gritting his fangs and enduring the sharp thorns that sliced at his bare skin, the young hunter stumbled upon a small clearing. Here, the roots had churned the earth, trying to push through stones and rocks, but had ultimately failed, and now the roots were stuck on the surface, resembling giant snakes.

The young hunter leaped from them in that same easy, effortless way that Shali had when she ran between the branches and grass. Yes, his jumps weren’t as high or as fast, but they were enough to dodge the blows of the troll’s club.

"Tiny bug!"

With each blow, another root shattered into sharp splinters. Sometimes, they scratched Ardi’s back and sides, but he endured. Once, after another leap, he flew through a particularly high tangle of roots and grabbed a thin ledge. Ergar always complained about the way Ardi walked the mountain hunter’s paths.

But the apprentice of the Storm of the Mountain Peaks had neither his tail for balance, nor his strong paws capable of finding even the smallest of bumps, nor his huge muscles that could carry him closer to the clouds.

All Ardi had were the strange appendages on his paws. For some reason, he knew they were called "fingers." And thanks to them, he sometimes climbed slopes that even Ergar couldn’t reach without jumping off a neighboring cliff.

"Keep up, rockhead!" Ardi shouted mockingly, even though his heart was ready to jump out of his chest and run into the forest.

The troll roared, grumbled, dropped his club, which plowed a deep furrow in the clearing, and followed Ardi. As soon as his stone paws touched the rock, something happened that the young hunter hadn’t expected.

The troll’s paws began to merge with the rock. They flowed into it as if they were made of soft, wet clay, not stone. Ardi could swear he even saw the troll grin and start gliding up the rock like a water strider.

His heart raced again, and the young hunter climbed higher and higher.

"Filthy bug!" The troll rumbled as he got closer and closer.

Ardi used the fact that he was so much smaller and lighter to his advantage. Every time the troll almost caught up, the young hunter jumped to another ledge or climbed up a new outcropping. The troll roared, hurling boulders that shattered against the cliffs, but he couldn’t catch the nimble insect. However, Ardi was struggling as well. He’d collided with many rocks, cutting his flesh so often that his forepaws, shoulders, and chest were soon covered in a red crust that crunched unpleasantly with every movement. And once, when the troll threw a particularly large projectile, it didn’t just shatter against the cliff, but actually broke apart into multiple smaller ones. Ardi was lucky that it shattered into even smaller fragments when it hit a high ledge, but even so, a shard still grazed the young hunter’s forehead and blurred his vision in his left eye.

With another leap, Ardi crossed a deep crevice — falling to the ground would be at least a kilometer-long drop right then — clung tightly to the rock face, and, spreading his limbs wide, barely held on to the thin ledge. The wind blew straight into his face, ruffling the fine fur on his head. On the other side of the crevice, the giant slowly detached himself from the rock.

The troll turned toward Ardi, the red gem between his eyebrows flashing. The bright crimson light pulsed outward, ending up absorbed into the gray surface of the stone wherever it touched the rocks.

These rocks then seemed to come alive, resembling a gentle wave moving across a lake, and then something Ardi could barely comprehend happened: a stone bridge shot out from the other side of the chasm, crashing into the stone a few feet below the young hunter’s paws and nearly knocking him off the edge. The troll, laughing and shouting various threats, slid across the bridge toward Ardi.

"I’m going to eat you up slowly... bug!"

Ardi shouted over the roar of the wind, reminding him, "But you can’t eat a Matabar!"

The troll narrowed his eyes at him and growled. As far as he could tell, this prey had nowhere left to run. The beetle was trapped. A wide ledge hung over it like a tongue. And not even most goats or snow leopards could’ve climbed it, let alone Ardi. To the left and right of him were smooth cliffs sculpted by wind and rain, and below them was the hungry mouth of the abyss.

"Calm," Ardi whispered to himself and closed his eyes. "Stay calm..."

As Ergar had taught him before a jump, the young hunter breathed slower and deeper. He calmed his racing heart, cleared his mind, and when he opened his eyes again, time seemed to slow its invisible, light steps. The troll, who was almost across the bridge now, reached out a paw to try and grab his prey, but seemed to be moving as if he were trudging through a swamp.

Birds in the sky flapped their wings slowly, watching the scene with mild interest. For a moment, Ardi thought he saw the white feathers of the wind flying over the Alcade. But none of that mattered. He wasn’t even looking at the troll, but past it. Across the chasm, back to where they had come from.

Shadows crept slowly along the slope, elegantly highlighting every little ledge, parapet and...

Ardi exhaled and, pushing away from the wall, spread his arms out and jumped straight at the troll. The giant’s eyes widened in surprise. He tried to grab the beetle, but failed. His right paw clung to the bridge, and his left paw couldn’t change its trajectory in time and only came close to Ardi’s own paws. The young hunter landed between the troll’s horns, ripped the red stone from his forehead, and then pushed off again, jumping along with the rays of the setting sun into the narrow crevice where Kaishas had hidden him the night before.

Sharp stones burned his shoulders and chest. Drops of bright, sticky blood splattered everywhere, and before the young hunter hit his head again and lost consciousness for the second time that day, he saw the troll, robbed of his gem, crumble into fine dust and stone rain, then fall into the abyss.

***

Already knowing what awaited him, Ardi exhaled sharply, opened his eyes, and immediately blinked. His stomach churned, the world spun around him, and his breakfast clawed at his throat. Wait, hold on. He hadn’t even eaten breakfast!

His stomach growled, which didn’t make things any better.

Lying on the rocks, covered in cuts, scratches, and even a few wounds, and still clutching the troll’s red gem in his left paw, the young hunter looked to where the bright rays of the Spirit of the Day should have been shining through the crack. Instead of golden light, a stone wall stared back at Ardi indifferently.

As the trembling of his body subsided and the ringing in his head eased, the young hunter slowly began to rise on his hind legs, using his free forepaw to steady himself against the wall. Every movement brought a sticky, unpleasant sensation to his mouth, like that time he had eaten the flesh of a sick goat.

Ergar had made him eat some strange snow from a crevice that day. His Master had called it "salt." The snow had made him thirsty, and everything he’d eaten had wanted to come out again.

Standing upright, Ardi paused for a moment to let his body adjust, then approached the crevice. A tiny, nimble ray of sunlight had managed to break through the debris. Apparently, when the troll had lost his gem and turned back into ordinary stones, he had caused a small landslide that had blocked this passage.

The young hunter sighed and was about to use Ergar’s fang when he heard a familiar voice:

"Ardi-worm, are you alive in there?"

Overjoyed, the young hunter leaned against the hole and shouted, "Kaishas?"

"Yes," came his muffled reply. "Are your paws whole, and is your tail unbroken?"

Ardi frowned. "I have no tail, and you know it."

"Growling back at me? That means you’re all right... Stay there! I’ll call Ergar! He’ll clear this rubble in no time! Just don’t go anywhere!"

And somewhere beyond the stone barrier, powerful wings flapped and a breeze blew across Ardi’s face.

Exhaling, the young hunter leaned against the wall and looked at the gem in his paw. Maybe if he showed him his prize, his teacher wouldn’t punish him too harshly or lock him up in the cave for the entirety of the next season... Then again, who was he kidding? Ergar would probably not let him venture out into the forest for at least a full cycle. Not to mention the fact that his teacher wouldn’t hesitate to use his tail for "lesson reinforcement." He would even lick the resulting wounds himself... His teacher wasn’t cruel, but he was strict in his training.

But...

Ardi threw the gem into the air and caught it skillfully.

He had defeated a mountain troll, had he not? And he had helped those little bear cubs. It was hard to even imagine the mother bear’s grief if Ardi hadn’t managed to outwit his enemy. That was another enemy he had fought since the wolves tainted with the Ley had nearly eaten him. And now...

The young hunter listened to himself.

No, that strange creature with cold claws and sticky fur was still lurking somewhere behind him, ready to leap onto his back and bite into his neck, but now the young hunter knew he could fight it. The key was to not let it get close and to show no weakness. Then everything would be-

"Ardan..."

The young hunter quickly drew his Master’s fang, which had miraculously stayed on its cord during the chase, and pointed it in the direction of the voice. No one in all of the Alcade, except Ergar and his forest friends, knew the young hunter’s full name.

"Who’s there?" Ardi shouted. "A hunter? I do not seek your path!"

There was only silence in response.

"Prey? I am not hungry and do not seek your blood!"

Nothing changed.

Frowning, Ardi was about to take a step forward, but then he remembered Kaishas’ warning. First, he had broken his promise to Shali by not staying near the exit of the chasm, and now he was about to do the same to Kaishas? Ergar would not only lock him up for one cycle, but might not let him out until Ardi became a fully-fledged hunter. And that was another five cycles away!

On the other hand, staying put when someone had clearly called him by his full name meant going from hunter to prey. His Master had always insisted that such situations should not be taken lightly.

Ardi trusted his senses. He wasn’t hearing things. Someone had definitely called his name. That meant that he wasn’t alone in here.

Breathing more evenly and keeping his fangs ready, Ardi took a few steps forward. He wished his eyes could see in the dark as well as Shali’s or Ergar’s could, but the spirits had decided otherwise. No, the young hunter could still navigate the darkness well, but it wasn’t enough. Right now, he could only make out the outlines of rocks and cliffs that were at arm’s length from him, and beyond that, the abyss was shrouded in impenetrable darkness.

Every few steps, Ardi paused, forcing his heart to slow down, and listened to his surroundings. He didn’t hear so much as a breath, nor a claw, not even the hum and the vibration of the rocks. Just silence. It was thick and sticky, like tar. It clogged his ears, filled his eyes, and left a bad taste on his tongue.

Silence wasn’t natural. Ardi knew that well enough. Something was definitely wrong here.

Carefully stepping over stones and marveling at the chasm’s width, the young hunter almost didn’t notice when he reached a wall. Stretching out his paw, he felt the cold, slightly damp stones. He hadn’t come across any forks, turns or even niches on his way here. So, he couldn’t have made a wrong turn.

And yet — here it was. A dead end. The end of the path.

"Ardan..."

The young hunter bared his fangs and growled. Those cold claws and sticky fur were already licking his neck, but he brushed off the fear like an annoying insect.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

Only his own echo answered him, bouncing off the rocks and... to his surprise, Ardi noticed that the troll’s gem he was holding in his left paw was glowing. It was not as bright as when it had crowned the troll’s square head, but the closer he brought it to the wall, the more intense and radiant the waves of light became.

Ardi moved the gem away from the wall and its glow faded, turning it into an ordinary colored stone. The young hunter frowned and moved the gem closer. First to within an arm’s length, then to half that, then to a quarter of that, and finally, when the gem was blazing as brightly as a wild flame, he tried to touch the wall with it.

He almost fell forward. Barely maintaining his balance and staying on his feet, Ardi watched in disbelief as his paw holding the troll’s gem went through the rock.

Jerking back, the young hunter looked from the gem to the dead end. Were it not for the fact that he had recently fought a creature from fairy tales — well, all right, he’d run from it and outwitted it! — he would have thought that he had hit his head too hard.

Once, when he’d been on a hunt with Ergar, the snow leopard had hit his head, and for an entire Spirit of the Day, his teacher had kept referring to his apprentice’s paws as "hands" and "feet," and had then cursed and tried to correct himself, but failed. Ardi had laughed so hard his stomach had nearly split open.

"Magic?" The young hunter wondered aloud.

"Ardan..."

"I hear you!" Ardi growled, then looked at the strange wall and gritted his teeth. "But remember, I have the fang of the Storm of the Mountain Peaks! If I need to, I can summon him!"

He remembered his teacher’s warning not to reveal their relationship as apprentice and Master, but in this case, he hadn’t broken the rule... Skusty would’ve been so proud!

Holding the gem out in front of him, Ardi stepped forward without closing his eyes, sniffing and listening intently. And only then did he realize that there might be an abyss behind this wall! Or even another abyss beyond that one! Or...

There were so many "ors" to be had, but none of them could compare to reality. Beyond the strange wall of the dead end lay a spacious, round cave, bathed in white light streaming down from high above.

It was so high and wide that it could have held at least twenty Gutas.

"Wow..." Ardi exhaled, craning his neck back until it cracked. As far as he could tell, the walls just rose higher and higher, disappearing somewhere into a lake of white light.

And there was a familiar wind playing around here. It was cold, slightly mocking, carrying with it rare, sharp ice crystals. The wind of the high peaks of the Alcade.

"That’s..." The young hunter stuck out his tongue to taste the wind, then listened to its howls and smiled broadly. "Of course! This is the Ice Fang!"

This was the strange peak he used to orient himself in Ergar’s territory. Unlike other Alcade peaks, it never shed its icy cap, not even during the hottest of summers, when other mountains sometimes lost parts of their white coats, revealing gray and black patterns beneath.

But not the Ice Fang. Moreover, if you looked at it during sunrise or sunset, it turned blue instead of white. Ardi had always wanted to visit the Ice Fang, and his teacher didn’t mind him doing so, but he’d refused to take his apprentice there and had forbidden him from asking Kaishas for help.

He’d said that if Ardi was destined to go there, he would make it on his own. And if not, he had no business being there.

"But..." The young hunter mused. "The distance from where the troll fell to the Ice Fang is at least half a moon’s dance..."

And that was if he never stopped to rest for long and the hunting was easy and plentiful. However, he had seemingly traversed that great distance in just a few hours by going through that chasm in the forest.

But that should’ve still taken so long, and here he’d just stepped...

"I better go back," Ardi said.

The young hunter turned to go back through the wall, but it wasn’t there anymore. His heart skipped a beat. He approached the next cave wall, brought the troll’s gem up to it, but it remained unlit. The young hunter walked along the edge of the wide stone cave, bringing the gem up to it again and again, but it didn’t react, and the walls didn’t disappear.

"And Kaishas won’t know to bring my teacher here..." Ardi sighed.

No, maybe when Ergar cleared the rubble and found his apprentice missing, then he would... But why even consider that? Ardi remembered the incident with Lenos. Both his teacher and the Guardian of the Southern Gates had done things that still didn’t make sense to the young hunter. One had made giant icicles fly, and the other had jumped into a flower meadow that had bloomed in the middle of the ice.

But Ardi had been a mere cub back then, and neither his Master nor Lenos had been poisoned by the Ley, so maybe it had just seemed that way to him. In any case, simply hoping that his teacher would find him here, with all these oddities to get in the way, was irresponsible, and according to his Master, that was one of the worst qualities for a hunter to have.

Ardi looked up into the white light. When he had first entered the cave, he had noticed the strange ledges climbing up the walls. They seemed to go on higher and higher, disappearing into the white haze. They had obviously not been made by the wind and rain. They were too long, too even, too uniform. And he knew they were called "stairs." Just like one of the paths leading down from Ergar’s cave.

He had absolutely no desire to climb these stairs into the unknown. Ardi didn’t like adventures... Too bad the feeling wasn’t mutual, and these adventures seemed to adore the young hunter.

"Alright," Ardi exhaled and climbed the first step. "Let’s hope the fang doesn’t fail me if I need it."

Using Ergar’s help wasn’t something he would rush to do. Being locked up for five cycles was certainly not appealing to him.

Holding the fang and the gem out in front of him, the young hunter climbed carefully, step by step. Occasionally, he looked down to check his position, but eventually, he stopped — the cave floor was no longer visible. Only a descending spiral of steps could be seen.

Strangely, the bright white light that crowned the odd opening didn’t seem to be getting any closer, either. How much longer would he have to climb...

At least hunger wasn’t a big problem yet. Only its nagging sister, thirst, was bothering him. Sometimes, he had to stop and lap at the cool, rocky moisture from the walls. It wasn’t enough to quench his thirst, but it still soothed his parched throat.

He had no idea how long he had been climbing the stairs when he noticed something unusual. At first, he thought he was mistaken, but after a few quick sweeps of his paw over the stones, the small bits of vegetation and dust fell away, revealing... something.

Ardi tilted his head and stared at the wall in surprise. What he saw reminded him of the game called "Shapes" that he’d played with Skusty. The squirrel had taught Ardi how to see what others couldn’t.

For example, if you looked up in the middle of a grove, you could see the outlines of the animals or birds that lived there between the branches. Or, if you climbed high enough, you could see words in the patterns of the rivers and lakes, words they used to communicate with each other.

But here, to understand these stones, Ardi didn’t need to listen, or look closely, or open his mind, whatever that meant. He saw shapes. Deer and lynxes, bears, snow leopards, wolves, rabbits, badgers, otters, and birds of all types and sizes.

Mountains and hills. Rivers and forests. Lakes and clouds. These were also etched into the stone in shades of red and blue.

Ardi reached out and touched the figures, but felt only the stone.

"How did this..."

He climbed the stairs, and with each step he took, he saw more and more of these strange scenes. And occasionally, along with the animals and nature, he saw amazing creatures. They walked on two legs, held strange sticks in their front limbs, and once, he even saw a scene where a mysterious figure was sitting astride a huge deer.

But the most intriguing thing was that they had no...

"Tails," Ardi whispered, running his hand over the stones. "They have no tails either."

Could these strange creatures be like him? Ones created by the spirits from the mountain rocks and called Matabar?

The higher Ardi climbed, the more scenes he saw. Some were easy to recognize: here was a hunt, here were some cubs playing together, and there was even a depiction of some figures taking a rest by the streams and lakes. But most remained a mystery to him. On some stones, strange figures had raised staves into the air, and the stars that accompanied the Spirit of the Night had descended to dance around them.

And sometimes, they gathered around something very red made of short sticks. They would sit close together, and one figure would stand up and clearly proceed to tell a story.

Animals walked among these beings, and the beings walked among the animals. The paths of prey and hunter alike seemed to almost mix... And sometimes, if you looked closely, you could see familiar silhouettes among the ordinary animals. There was a great bear wearing the dawn stars, demonstrating how to lift stones and build something with them.

He saw a multi-tailed snow leopard leading a group of the largest creatures into the mountains, and when they returned, their forest hunting was much more plentiful from then on.

There was also a four-winged eagle soaring high in the sky, pointing out bird paths so that the beings on the ground could navigate everywhere like that was their home as well. And there was the mighty lynx, running ahead of the pursuing figures. And a horned goat showing the figures which plants were edible and which were poison for the stomach.

But the strangest and most striking scenes were not about them, but about two other creatures.

A little squirrel was whispering to a lone figure with a big stick.

The figure saw ancient animals in the trees, fragments of past generations in the stones, and whispers of something distant and mysterious in the canopies and rivers.

The rarest scenes depicted a giant wolf visiting packs of these beings. The wolf was bigger than Guta... no, even bigger than two Gutas. And unlike all the others, it wasn’t red or blue, but something else. More... white, probably... and similar to those strange stones Ergar had called moonstone.

The wolf seemed to be able to transform into a figure that resembled both the beasts and the beings it visited. The wolf would walk among them, then choose one of them. Sometimes a cub, sometimes a hunter, or even an elder a few times. Then they left together, never to return.

Fascinated by these strange stones, Ardi didn’t notice at first that he’d finally reached the top. To his surprise, the light that was illuminating the cave wasn’t coming from the Spirit of the Day or the Spirit of the Night. Well, it was coming from them as well, to be exact. There, high above, past the icy crystals and white stones, was an opening through which the light of an early evening was entering the cave.

But the light he had seen from the base of the cave was coming from an icy structure that stood in the center of a replica of the cave he had just ascended. It was a strange dwelling resembling a nest.

But it wasn’t made of twigs and sticks, but icy trees instead. Yes, these were trees with bark of ice and crowns of snow and stone. Their roots had intertwined, creating a stone platform upon which the nest stood. And between the trunks, there was frozen water that seemed fully solid. And beyond the transparent openings flowed a steady, yellow light.

Something pricked Ardi’s heart, and he remembered a strange word — "windows..." Yes, this solid water was called glass and served as windows. He also remembered what a hut was. In front of him stood an icy hut, in which a light burned, and through the windows, he could see... They seemed like... Yes, shelves! Shelves full of... scrolls and... something else. They were like scrolls, but with hard covers and lots of... not scrolls, but thin, straight leaves and...

He didn’t manage to recall the word before he heard a familiar voice:

"Ardan."

The young hunter felt a hot breath on his neck and heard a soft, low growl. Turning, he saw a figure straight out of the stone drawings. Yes, those colorful stones were called drawings.

But a drawing couldn’t fully convey how immense the white wolf was.