The Wolf's Garden

Woodveil is named such because the veil of trees cloaks a thousand mysteries—things waiting to be found, and things praying not to be found.

Deep in the south of Woodveil, just a mountain away from the Briar Wilds, beauties beyond earthly compare are tucked between towering hills that teem with life. Brilliant autumn shades course the greenery like fire rounding the mountain, cleaving the valley in two is a powerful river, vast stone formations jut from the land and seem to enclose the valley even further, and mantling it all is a thick fog that dulls the Architect’s watch into a warm haze. A long and wending ways away from even the nearest city, the roads into the Archweald are disused and broken, eagerly reclaimed by the surrounding nature. Still, the signs of travels past outline the way for you.

The Archweald is what holds the Briar Wilds at bay. It is a holy place—even treading just outside it, you feel its overwhelming vitality like a warm breeze passing through your soul. There is never a moment of quiet—the wind sways the trees, chirps and clicks and calls of all sorts form a hymn speaking glory to the Wolf, and the rush of the river is audible anywhere throughout the valley. Leaves come loose in the wind, twisting down from the canopy like snow and forming piles that crunch underfoot just the same.

The journey is long, and not without its strife. The children are often fighting, or complaining. You’ve done your best to entertain them, but it seems that each time you take a moment to bask in the Archweald’s beauty, a shrill voice breaks the calm. You understand, though. They’re children, and they can hardly be expected to enjoy such a long trip when there’s little more than a religious ceremony at its end, and not so much to keep them entertained in the interim.

But as you come over the hill and the canopy splits apart, revealing the sun-drenched, foggy mountainside and the river not far below, some of those shrill voices quell into hushed awe. The bowers that overlook this winding hillside path seem almost like archways beckoning you further in, and unlike the rest of the way here, there’s little rewilding to get in your way.

Their hands in your four, you cautiously guide your students down the hill. Conversation sparks between them, but it’s as if they’re suddenly too worried to speak, lest they interrupt the birds. The valley runs deep, deep down, becoming almost too sheer at points, but you make your way, slowly. If the thick understory and towering trees weren't enough to make this place feel like a world away, then the massive spires of black stone that often block out the Architect’s light and cast immense shadows over the valley surely are.

Down, down, down. As the sun starts to set, the mist adopts a golden shimmer, the clouds in the sky become a deep orange, and the sprites start to dance between the trees. Little wisps of earth and wind, jolting up from the dirt or coalescing out of the breeze, mingling with a blanket of fireflies that has begun to shine in the deepening shadows.

“How did it get like this…?” A gentle voice asks, and you turn, looking down at the young child holding your hand.

“A good question, my child. Legends abound. Some say that it was always like this, and the people who lived in this valley saw nature as so beautiful that it couldn’t be anything but divine. Others believed that the Wolf looked upon this place as the most beautiful in all of the world, and decided that it would be his domain. Others still prefer to believe that the Wolf was born here, and that his power and grace gave this forest strength,” you say.

“What about you?” replies the voice. A simple question, but it stuns you—you’d never thought to choose an answer for yourself, no matter how many times you’d been here.

“Well… I believe that the Wolf and the Queen separated here. I can only imagine that’s why it always seems to be both spring and fall here. Like… two divine forces, fighting each other for dominance they may never achieve.”

He nods, apparently satisfied by that answer. Shortly after, another of the four children throws a berry at him, starting a little squabble that ends only with your intervention.

…

You cross the river over a rickety bridge. As you go, you spy many water sprites cresting its surface, merry as they’re dragged along the current.

You venture deeper still into the valley, where the waning sunlight becomes so lost in the greenery and stone-spires that one could be fooled into thinking that night had already come, the fireflies taking over for the stars as they dart through the canopy. Here, there is not so much a path as only one gap in the understory, still swallowed by tall grasses and snaked by vines. The forest’s ambiance is louder than ever, betraying a thousand unseen lifeforms going about their day in the depths.

If the children weren’t yet awed into something approximating compliance before, they surely are now. Their voices are but a whisper if even that, weighed by the worry that the slightest out-of-place sound might scatter the dazzling fireflies like skittish birds.

And then, all at once… the valley opens up, again.

Its base cloaked among the scenery, surrounded at all sides by almost unnavigable wilderness, a vast tree stretches out for the open sky. Bearing half dying orange leaves and half lively green ones, this immense willow sprawls almost a mile high, its very roots utterly dwarfing the lot of you. Its armored trunk is ancient beyond measure, great portions petrified into dark green and grey stone, and yet more coated with moss, lichen and mushrooms galore. A small footpath leads to the base of the tree, a thin offshoot of the river passing alongside it in a vast spiral.

Stunning wildflowers and shrubbery blanket the entire basin save for the footpath you walk, marked by intermittent stones. Each step is slow, almost hesitant—this is a place of unthinkable divine power, and the vitality that seeps out of every nook and cranny is nigh overwhelming. The road spirals in tandem with the creek, walking you through the Wolf’s Garden and to his Rest.

Nestled against the base of the tree, where the roots bow away, is a shrine. The last few steps that lead up to it are through beds of soft wildflowers that almost reach up to your stomach, feeling their soft fronds and petals drag across your body as you pass. The reds and oranges that crown these flowers, whose kind swathe much of the basin, are a stark contrast to the verdure higher above. Hidden behind them is the shrine itself: a wooden floor and three walls of shoji, the backmost fully flush with the tree, which has grown over it just a bit. Against that far wall is a simple wooden table, heaped overflowing with gifts and offerings from centuries past and far exceeding the modest bowl that is barely visible underneath it all.

No one is speaking, not even the children. Not because you’ve no words, but because the Wolf’s power chokes your voices. You’d warned them of this, though. The Wolf’s Garden must be a place of respite and quiet.

So, your offering. You reach into your pack, and withdraw a wreath of large beads, each one marked with another one of your students’ initials, and lay it across the altar. You kneel before it, and direct the children to as well, who do so with no question. Granted the gift of speech only so that you may speak your prayer, you issue it thus:

“Please, guide each of my students along the path, o Wolf. Show them the power they may hold, and the responsibilities they must take, and let neither become too heavy for them to bear.”

From behind the back wall of the shrine, through the paper of the shoji, you see… a pair of eyes, shining in the darkness beyond.

Your prayer has been heard.

…

You are alone, this time.

There is not so much quiet awe, this time. Instead, trepidation, like that of a child on their way to confess something terrible to their parents. Though the Wolf’s Shade greets you like any other devout, it’s hard not to feel as though the chill that wafts through the valley is trying to sweep you away and out of this divine place. In the pitch darkness of the night, so deep in the valley, the only light comes from clusters of fireflies buzzing around the garden.

You approach the shrine, again, and drop to your knees before it. You lay two small stones among the rest, a well-cut pair of an amethyst and a sapphire. Your voice a whisper, you speak your prayer:

“Please, o Wolf, find my children and guide them along the Black Path. Bring them to your home, and show them an eternal life of warmth and revelry. And when you return… find me, as well, o Wolf, and guide me. I do not know what this world wants from me any longer.”

That same pair of eyes that greeted you those decades ago shine through again, so bright that they cast a glow over the shrine. And then… they turn away, and a barely visible form slinks into the darkness.

You stay there, for a while, hands resting on your lap, looking out over the Wolf’s Garden.