Before the land was made, all the world was an ocean. The ocean caused to be brought forth from her depths the very first of the gods, and they lived in that time before light and form with the dark things, in the ocean’s depths. Among them was the creator who, with the ocean, would call forth the land and all life. Another of these very first gods of the world was known as the Traveler.

When there was little else but the ocean, no part of it could be told from another and all the creatures of the ocean were always becoming lost in its waters. Only the Traveler could move unerringly from one place to another, and the paths he made in the first ocean of the world were traced with silver. All the gods and the creatures of the ocean could follow them, and in this way one place could be told from another. Even the dark things used the Traveler’s paths, for the lady Night did not yet exist (much less the moon) and silver was not so inimical to them as it would one day become.

Of all the terrible things which lived in the ocean, there were none which troubled the Traveler. While it was true not even the dark things would be so rash as to cause him vexation, when it was only by his direction that any place could become known, even were this not the case, there were none in the ocean so fearsome as the Traveler himself. When his great, dark shape moved through the waters, all creatures would part before him. There were none who did not fear the Traveler, and none quite knew what consequences there might be for standing in his path, nor did they wish to learn.

But the Traveler was not pleased to be so feared. In all the world there he had no equals. Even the creator, who would one day set the sun in the sky, would not stand before the Traveler, and would have no place to work but for the Traveler’s silver lines. Thus the Traveler made the first of his familiars and called it Shark. He bestowed upon his creation something of his own fearsome likeness, so that Shark was as large and terrible as almost any of the dark things. And he bestowed upon it something of his knowledge of the ways of things, so that Shark would never become lost and would always be able to find the Traveler, wherever he was. As his last gift to his creation, the Traveler imparted some of his own manner, so that Shark had a mind of his own, a mind as dark and as unfathomable as the ocean’s depths, and one equally as silent.

The Traveler was well-pleased with Shark and all those sharks which were his descendants. They did not fear the Traveler, and though he knew they were not his equal, they never regarded him as their superior. They swam through all the ocean and brought stories from all places in the world to the Traveler.

The time would come when the creator raised the land and life from the ocean, and when this was done all the dark things left the ocean to prey upon the life and the land which they hated so much. Near all of the gods left the depths and many more new gods and new creatures sprang up from the land, so that in this new land was all manner of novelty and variety. Only the Traveler and a few others remained in the ocean. The Traveler stayed with his sharks, for the ocean was still vast and left much to be explored, and some few dark things stayed in the greatest depths, mush as some few living creatures preferred the ocean’s waters.

For many years more the Traveler lived in the ocean, and the more of the ocean he discovered, the more endless the life of the ocean grew. Even the wild flourishing of life upon the land could not compare to what creatures his silvery trails found. He traveled all the oceans of all the world, and even the ocean above the sky. The gods set the sun in the sky, and the lady Night was given her eye the moon and the stars of her cloak, and men spread across the whole world, and the dark things were chased into the ocean.

Still, the time came for the Traveler to leave the ocean. It was overly full of the dark things, and he tired of their hateful gurgling racket, and their wicked perversions of the life of the ocean and the land. Were he another sort of god, perhaps, he might have put an end to them, but his only wish was to gaze upon them no more. Thus the Traveler took a form not unlike that of men, and walked out of the ocean into the world the gods had made.

Though the Traveler looked much as other men, something of his countenance held the same terrible features as it had in the ocean, and to other men he looked as if he was not so different from a shark (when, in truth, it was the sharks who were not so different from him). The world he found was very different from his ocean save in one regard: there were no paths from any one place to another. Any time a man or a god wished to travel somewhere, they had to find out all anew how one might journey across the land, and go over all the same rivers and mountains as every other god or man had found before.

Thus the Traveler set about walking across all of the lands. Gravel shattered under his boots and all living things stood out of his way, so that even the trees in the forest moved to one side, and the mountains split in twain, and the rivers changed their courses where he walked. All creatures of the earth came to value the Traveler’s paths, and none wished to trouble him in the least but, even among those vicious men who might think such thoughts, no thoughts became deeds, for all feared to stand in the Traveler’s way. They did not know what consequences were to be had, and did not wish to learn them.

The Traveler found himself again in need of fellowship on the paths he walked, and he caused to be created Panther. Like the Traveler, Panther was dark and fearsome, and like the Traveler, he knew how to find hidden paths. As the Traveler, his amber eyes held a mind as bright and impossible to behold as the sun itself. The Traveler was well-please with Panther and all those panthers who would be his descendants. Panthers did not fear the Traveler, though all others feared the panthers nearly as much as the dark things, and the panthers traveled to all corners of the world to tell the Traveler what they saw.

It was not so many years before the Traveler had been across all the land of the earth, for the land was not limitless like the ocean. He saw many sights, and saw men and the earth grow older and sometimes wiser. In but the passing of a breath, men had learned to ride the horse, and in a dozen heartbeats he saw them lash machines of wood and iron to the beasts, and travel further and faster than any one man on foot. The Traveler made the owls his familiars, and cast them out across the lands to follow the horses and carriages of men. He would ride amongst these men, and on foot find the hidden paths of their cities, which became more grandiose with every passing breath.

The Traveler saw beasts which had the forms of men, and he saw men descended from beasts, long forgetting their ancestry. He saw the gods leave their chariot in the sky and watched the passing of winter. He saw how many of the gods waned, and how new gods were born or made. He walked among men, and some men walked beside him. They did not fear him, and those men who were unafraid had his favor on all the paths they walked.

As the cities of men grew, the Traveler saw the paths men made upon the earth grow too, and he felt his power waning. Those gods who had brought forth the land and life were no longer needed, or even remembered, and men were set hard to the task of finding even the most diligently hidden paths. Seeing that this was good, the Traveler determined he would lay where all men walked, and all men who sought the paths hidden and known would have to seek him or follow him or learn all of his nature they could. In this way the ancient god became known to men who has never known of such a god as the Traveler, even as they still did not know his name.

But there were those who the Traveler favored, who showed no fear, and who walked with him always. The oldest god took out his own heart and fashioned it into raw iron and fire. He placed his heart into those great and terrible machines used by men to travel their new roads, and thus he always traveled with those he favored. The beasts of the Traveler, though made by men, breathed fire and roared as fearsomely as his panthers, and they cruised his roads with the same dark menace of his sharks. No man, machine, or beast would bar their path, for they all felt the Traveler amongst them, and feared the consequences of standing in his way.

In the great city of the East, when the second golden age of men had long since passed, countless buildings had been constructed. They towered high above the land and the horizon had become lost behind their metal, concrete, and glass. All the men and women in the great city lived in these buildings, and their feet were far from the earth. Below the streets and the buildings, they dug tunnels so that even when they walked to and fro, no man or woman’s feet touched the ground.

There was a young girl who lived on the fifth floor of one of these buildings. Sometimes she would sit up very late at night with only a single light in her entire apartment lit, and she would sew clothing. Sometimes she would read dictionaries in all different languages. She bought them at used book stores and brought them home, and memorized all the words in them. She bought books in languages she didn’t speak and in this way learned to read in all the world’s languages. Sometimes she would just sit by her window and watch the sun and the sky over the city, staring out across the buildings and down onto the streets.

When the girl was not in her apartment, she liked nothing better than to walk through the city streets and see all the traces left by men and women in the cracks of the sidewalks and the gutters of the curbs. She followed a thousand lives on a single block, and read the names of a thousand men and women all on a single street corner. Most of it was trash, and she had no illusions about this: cigarette butts and bottle caps and candy bar wrappers and scraps of cellophane. Sometimes she would find pennies and turn them heads up, but every so often the girl would find a small treasure. She found a tiny love note writ upon a paper the size of her pinky finger. She found a cheap copper ring with a plastic emerald in it, which she knew an old man had given as a gift to his granddaughter. And one day she found a small, green seed.

The girl took the seed back to her apartment. She found a pot and some soil in her closet (she had many things in her closet, and did not know how all of them came to be in her closet), and she put the seed and the soil in the terracotta pot, and put the pot on her windowsill. Though she watered it every day, the seed would not take root and sprout. She knew it was not dying, yet somehow she could not make it grow. She lay with her arms on the windowsill and her head on her hands and said, “Little seed, little seed, why will you not grow for me? You have light, life, and soil, what more do you need?”

One day, the seed answered. Perhaps it had always been speaking to her, but she had only on that day learned to understand its language. The seed said, “I am far from the earth where I grow, little girl. I cannot live on the air alone.”

Well, the girl wanted to see the small seed grow, for she knew by the language of the sidewalks it was a special seed. She told the seed all of this, how she wished to watch it grow, and she told the seed she would do anything to help. The seed told the girl how she could give it life, and it would in turn give life to her. Thus the girl held the seed in her left hand and did not let it go for three days and three nights. The seed grew without water or light, and put roots around her fingers like rings, and wrapped around her wrist like a bracelet. She plucked the tiny leaves off the plant one by one as it grew round her arm, and over the years she made herself a gown of green leaves. As long as they were in her presence, the leaves would not wilt, but stayed as supple and green as the day she plucked them.

When the gown was complete, the plant spoke again. “The time has come for me to bear a seed,” the girl understood the plant to say. “But my seed can only grow at the top of the world. Will you carry my seed for me?”

By now the girl cared deeply for the plant, as they had nourished one another for quite some time. She agreed to carry the plant to the top of the world. She gathered up her gown and set out from her apartment with the tree. She traveled out of the city and into the woodlands that beyond. Her legs did not get tired, for the roots of a tree do not get tired. As long as she walked in the sun she needed no food and when she walked in the rain she needed no water. She traveled far to the north, but so long as she wore her gown of green leaves she did not become cold.

She went further north than any living man, where the wind was so terrible and the weather was so cold that no living thing grew. In this barren land she found a mountain at the top of the world. She climbed to the top of the mountain and found there a tree, ancient and twisted, scarred by time and long since dead. “Here,” said her plant. And thus the girl placed the seed of her plant at the base of the ancient tree.

She returned to the city, but every year at the same time she would carry a backpack full of books to the top of the world, and read to the plant. She read it books in every language of the world, and in this way she nourished the plant at the top of the world. It grew into the tree, and the tree became green with life again. The girl and the plant which grew about her arm lived for a long time, and when she felt she could no longer journey between the great city and the top of the world, she carried all her books to the tree at the top of the world, and went to live inside the tree forever.

When the ocean took a mortal wife, their dreams escaped into the world. The ocean and his wife took their dreams from the mortal world and placed them into their daughter, the ocean’s heir. Some few dreams fled from the tower where the ocean and his wife lay together for a single night, and these dreams made their way into the lands where mortals dwelt.

The dream, Kathleen, skipped over the waves of the ocean, confused and frightened, yet desiring freedom from the world of dreams. Who is to say if she came from a mortal woman or from the ocean, for their dreams shared a room and there was little to distinguish one from another. She left the tower and the ocean, and fled to the cities of men.

Kathleen would sleep during the daytime and, as she slept, she would dream of mortal men. When men and women dream, their dreams take life from their sleep. But in the slumber of dreams, the lives of men and women find their inspiration. In this way, the city in which the dream Kathleen slept became inspired by her slumber. Few other cities had their own dreams and, in truth, this one did not know she lived within its walls. The men and women walked and dreamed in the day, and in the night Kathleen walked the gaslit streets, a flicker of light to mortal eyes. The city did not know it dreamed her dreams, but it loved her just the same. Every artist to paint, every writer to write, and every poet to sing in the city was, in some way, in love with Kathleen.

This was the burgeoning age of romance, with an ode composed to a beautiful woman every hour of the day, and endless portraits of endless beloveds being painted and sold. In all of these there was something of Kathleen: her smile there, a quirk of speech here, the tilt of her head, a certain attitude and bearing. It is said that cities are living things, and if this were true, then Kathleen was the soul of this city.

Kathleen was charmed by the city streets, by their gas lanterns and warm light through drawn curtains. She would read all the works of the city’s poets, seeing how they had fallen in love with her without ever seeing her. She wandered through the galleries and the homes of the wealthy, and smiled at how this artist had posed his model just as Kathleen slept, or how that artist had placed her features over those of another woman. She read all the books on the city’s shelves, and recognized herself hidden in the crowds.

However, after many years of being the dream of the city, and being comforted by the love of all the city’s artists and poets and writers, Kathleen discovered she was still lonely. “I cannot touch mortal flesh, and they cannot see me, for I am still but a dream to them,” she thought to herself. So thinking, she became determined she would be seen by mortal eyes and touch mortal flesh.

The first night Kathleen sought out a writer. She came upon him sleeping, and found his manuscripts and love letters. She found many pages torn to shreds, and letters to loves long lost hidden away in a chest. As she touched and read each of these letters, their parchment became her skin, and thus she came to have skin made of old love letters.

Kathleen admired herself in the mirror whilst the writer slept, pleased to behold her features for the first time, as they crinkled and folded. But soon she was tired, and realized it would be daylight was not long off. She returned to the high tower where she always slept, and there spent the day dreaming, her love letter chest rising and falling.

The second night Kathleen sought out a sculptor. She found one who was sleeping, and found all his soapstone carvings and half-finished marble figures. She touched each of these, savoring the sensation of her fingers on cold stone, and in touching the carvings her body become much more than a shell of paper. Her skin turned the purest white, still writ with love letters, but she had far more substance than skin alone.

She whiled away the hours of the night picking up pieces of sculpture, tools, and books, simply for the sake of feeling their weight, and feeling her body respond in kind. But daylight was too soon on the horizon, and Kathleen became tired again.

The third night Kathleen sought out an artist. Emboldened by her newfound substance, she searched until she found a painter with his light still burning. She appeared before his door and, when he answered, she told him, “Paint me.” He knew immediately she was the muse of the city, for it was impossible not to recognize her. Even had he wished otherwise, he would have been compelled to obey. But she was a muse, and she was beautiful, and the painter did nothing more than take her hand, lead her to his studio, and prepare a canvas.

He painted through the night until, in the earliest hours of first twilight, he fell asleep at his canvas, drooping in his stool, brush clattering to the floor. Kathleen crept up to see what he had painted and marveled at the work in oils, wanting to touch it, but knowing it was still wet. “I must stay the day here,” she thought, “so that when my painter awakes he will know it was not a dream.”

The painter, upon waking late in the day, was sure he had been dreaming, as Kathleen had guessed he would be. He saw first his canvas, and second the white-skinned woman with love letters writ on her body, and his heart quickened. This was the muse, and as she slept, and dreamed, and inspired him with her dreams, so he took canvas after canvas, mixed his oils, and painted her sleeping form over and over.

When Kathleen woke up with the setting of the sun, she found herself surrounded by herself, her artist still painting in a fury of pigments. She woke gently, and gently she approached him and took the brushes from his hand. She set his paints aside and took his hands in hers. “No,” she said to him, waving him away from his canvases. “I want you to paint me. Paint me.”

The artist understood what she wanted. He rinsed his brushes first, and set out his paints and his palette. Then he painted Kathleen. He painted vibrant life into her skin. He painted over the love letters. He painted color into her eyes. He painted red into her hair, and he painted each detail of her body. But still, under the paint, she was made of love letters and marble, and she would be all of these things ever after, the paintings, the poems, and the sculptures.

Kathleen the dream had her mortal flesh and she embraced the artist in thanks, holding him close as she felt, for the first time, the warmth of another mortal’s touch, and the feel of skin against her own. She kissed him, only to see what such a thing was, and left him to his inspiration.

To this day Kathleen lives in the city, sleeping in its towers during the day and inspiring all its artists. She is still written of by poets, and she still appears in great novels, and she can still be seen in paintings and sculptures. Every once in awhile she will go out and find another poet, or another writer, and cover her skin in love notes. She finds another artist to paint her a fresh and bright new face, and in this way she inspires each new generation.

The time came to pass when the sun was set in the sky, and men and gods lived in a world without constant fear. The dark things were driven into the ocean by the sun’s light, which was terrible for them to behold and was a sword stroke wherever it fell on their bodies. But the sun could not shine over the whole of the world at all times. Men would hide where they could in the earth, and gods would flee to the sky and, under the cloak of the lady Night, the dark things would come forth from the ocean’s depths. Their breathing, like running water, and their voices, like northern winds, would echo across the empty midnight lands, and families would hold each another close in hopes the dark things would not find them.

One such family was a man with eyes like the evening sky at the violet edge of sunset, and a woman with the sort of clear brown eyes all men find themselves falling into once in their lives. Between them they held a daughter with eyes as blue as her father’s and as warm as her mother’s. When she was born, her father and mother took her to the old witch who lived in a tree at the edge of the ocean. It was said the witch derived her prophecies from the dark things themselves and she had lived by the ocean since before the sun. “Such eyes as these,” said the witch of their child, “will see clear only on cloudy days, and best of all in the rain.” And that was all she spoke.

The witch’s prophecy left the parents bewildered and unhappy. There had never been a cloudy day in those ancient times and rain did not yet exist. Yet it seemed to them that clarity of sight was no small thing in the world. They cared well for their child, and all of them hid as deep as could be in the rocky crevasses of the earth when the dark things came forth in the night.

One long night, hidden away in the caves, they heard the dark things’ voices howl more terribly than they ever had before. Both mother and father squeezed their eyes shut, blinding themselves to the darkness, but the young girl’s eyes stayed open. It was she who saw the night itself cloud over, and felt the blasting gust of icy breath as the dark thing entered the small cave. Her mother and her father kept their eyes tightly shut, and they shrank back against the wall of the cave, and pressed both their arms still more tightly around their daughter. All around them raged the howling anger of the dark thing, and they felt the walls of the cave shudder as its claws struck sparks. The screeching rose in pitch until they thought they could bear it no longer, that their ears might burst. Then, with as swift as it was ferocious, the dark thing was gone. The man and the woman opened their eyes to the first gray light of dawn and discovered it was one another they held, and their daughter was nowhere to be found.

They ran out from the cavern and called high and low. They followed the great furrows dug in the stone and the earth by the dark thing, all the way to the ocean. Even had they known one dark thing from another (for no two were alike), they would not have known the form of the one who had taken their daughter. In a state of abjection, they went to the old witch by the ocean and begged of her any help she could give.

“These dark things can be bargained with,” said the witch, “but such prices men pay for what bargains they make. Perhaps if you had entrapped it in your home, then you might eke out some favor from the creature, but now it shall be costly.”

“We will pay any price for our daughter,” said her mother, and her father nodded his assent.

The witch told them they were to sleep on her floor by the hearth fire in her small home. Every night for three nights she sat up and, though the howling and scraping of the dark things woke them, the mother and father feigned sleep. They pretended they did not hear the old witch speaking to the dark things in their own tongues and they pretended not to wonder what transpired between them. On the fourth night, as they lay with eyes closed against the dark, they heard the old witch speak and the dark thing howl so loudly it seemed the tree with her little house must fly to kindling. Moments later, the witch roused them to a darkness even more total than that of lady Night and her cloak.

“Here is the one you seek,” she said, and though they could see no shape there was (perhaps) a hint of something barely reflected in the nearly invisible glittering of the witch’s eyes, something like a mass of animate hooks, long as a snake and larger than a horse. They could all of them hear it scraping gouges in the wood floor over the sound of its rushed breathing.

“What must we do,” asked the father, his voice quavering only a little, “for our daughter?” Something like a sigh, if such a sound as shale falling over itself could be a sigh, emerged from the blackness and the dark thing screeched in such a way as would not be heard again until metal was rent from metal.

“All it asks for is your sight,” said the old witch.

The mother and the father allowed as this was a small price to pay, but the witch placed a hand before them, a hand on each of their shoulders. “Know all that it asks. It asks for all your vision entire. All you have seen, all you might ever see, all that is sight and all you know of sight will be taken from you.”

“We will pay any price,” said the father. And with those words, the old witch dropped her hands from their shoulders and they heard the scrape of the dark thing draw close. They felt tremendous pain, and then blessed sleep.

The mother and the father awoke to the gentle sadness of the witch’s voice and each soon discovered they had no memories of anything they had ever seen, not even their daughter’s face. “Oh, your eyes,” murmured the witch. “Your poor eyes.” Even so, all they could think was to ask for their daughter, careless of the dried blood upon their cheeks.

No sooner had her mother and father spoken, than they heard their daughter’s voice. “Mother? Father? Is that you? Where are you? It is so dark… I cannot see.”

They asked the witch if it was still night, though they knew the truth by the warmth on their faces. Mother, father, and daughter were reunited, but the child’s eyes, once so clear, had become a dark and troubled blue, shot through with veins of amber. She could see no more than her parents.

The witch felt pity for them, and let them live by her tree, and they did what they could for her. Mother, father, and daughter learned the land well enough that they could wander freely, though the girl’s parents could never again see in their mind’s eye where they wandered. One bright day the old witch saw the young girl sitting far away on jutting spur of rock over the waves. She went over to the girl, and found her quite distressed.

“What troubles you, child? How may I ease your distress?”

“I do not think you can,” said the girl. “I have known ever since the dark thing brought me up from the depths that my parents were blinded for my return. I am thankful, yet it fills me with sadness, and I cannot cry.”

“Ah,” said the witch. “Sadness I can do nothing about, but take my hand and perhaps you may shed a few tears.”

The girl took the witch’s hand, and the witch carefully led the girl down to the ocean. She placed a few bitter grains of sand on the girl’s tongue and scooped up the salty water in her hands. “Now, child,” she commanded, “tilt up your head, for though you cannot see it, you must look to the sky.” The girl did as she was told and the witch let drop after drop of ocean water fall onto the girl’s cheeks.

Gradually the girl’s brows came together, and her eyes squeezed shut tightly, and ever so slowly her lips screwed up until a great sob wracked her body. The girl fell to her knees, her mouth open in shock and sorrow, as another sob tore from her throat. Her eyes sprang open and her tears flowed down her cheeks.

First she sobbed, and struck her fists against the sand and rocks of the ocean, and then she laughed - still sobbing and still crying - and then she gasped. For as the tears rolled down her cheeks, the darkness in her eyes came rolling out of her head and into the sky. The white clouds turned gray, then almost black. They spread across the sky. The amber flecks of her eyes struck from the clouds into the ocean and a sound like a landslide echoed across the water. The clouds blocked out the sun itself and began to cry.

“It’s so beautiful,” said the girl. “I can see the sun again!”

With her words, the great thunderstorm struck at the coast, lashing it with winds and rain for hours on end. The old witch and the girl, and her father and mother, huddled inside the witch’s tree. All the while the girl smiled as the witch had never seen before, always repeating, “I can see the sun.” In the darkness of the thunder and lightning, they also heard the dark things howling, and they knew what had been done with the girl’s sight.

When the storm had ended, the girl found she was blind again, but she was no longer sad, for she could weep again, whether in sorrow or joy, and whenever she shed tears she would see the sun.

For as long as I can remember, I had the Eye That Sees. My right eye (most people would expect it to be the left, but most people don’t understand levels of statistical significance) sees the truth, so that I may speak it.

I must have been asleep when it was taken from me. The gods do not have the gifts of mortals, and sometimes they steal a bauble here and there as a gift for a beloved. The gods are ever falling in and out of love, and plucking gifts from mortals in their endless passions - a living heart of true love, and swatch of un-tearing cloth. My eye. I know who took it. I know to whom he gave it. It is still my eye, and it still sees.

There are only so many ways to go about gaining a prize from a god. The most common route is eternal praise and blind loyalty. Well, I’ve still got one good eye, so that route is closed to me. One can also plea for sympathy or empathy. I find it unlikely anyone who would take my eye will feel strongly about my plight. One may also perform heroic deeds, as gods love a good show as much as anyone else, if not more.

Alternatively, one has the option of beating down the gates of heaven, and striking the gods about the head until they return what is mine. I have, perhaps, given myself away in this regard.

Now, gods do not become gods just because they build a house on top of the world. I made my decision in seven breaths, though I am a slight man, and have no weapons about me save my wits and my words. The moment my choice was made, the gods sent a great warrior with six arms to slay me. “Before you do so,” I told the warrior, “let me tell you six stories. For each story that is true, you must stay your blows.”

Thus I set out on my journey to the gates of heaven, and told the warrior my first story, the truth of his name. He stayed one blow of his sword for one night, but the gods then sent the four winds to carry me off. I am a slight man, and the task would not be difficult for them, but I demanded that they prove their might. “I am heavier than I look and I do not wish to be dropped. Here, move this mountain, and I shall go willingly.” One after another they struck the mountain with all their might until they were exhausted and had no strength left to lift me.

The following day I told the six armed warrior my second story, and so named each of his swords. I was reprieved from yet another strike, but the gods sent a horse which could breathe fire, which had skin of stone and hooves made of cold iron, to trample my body and burn me to ashes. “Very well,” I said, “but before you do let us drink to your health.” And so I put out the fire inside the horse with the water of life, and climbed up on its back in the blink of an eye. “You dare not throw me off, horse, for you see how easily I bested the winds and doused your fires. I should throw you past the thrice ninth kingdom if you even dared to buck.” Thus I rode the horse with stone skin and cold iron hooves, even though I do not ride horses and was very uncomfortable.

My third story named a new star after each of the warrior’s six arms, and his third blow was stayed. The gods sent a wolf as big as a house to come and eat me alive. “It is nothing,” I said to the wolf, “to eat me, for I am a slight man. Come, I wager I can easily eat more than you. Let me prove it before I die.” I took the wolf directly to the nightshade plant, and challenged it to eat more than I.

For my fourth story, I named for the warrior each of his six sons, and told him of their deeds. This story was as true all my stories, and my life was spared a fourth time. The gods must have been growing worried, for I walked with their warrior, I rode their horse, I had bested their four winds, and killed their wolf. They sent seven dragons with seven heads, who were to rend my body to pieces and scatter it to the ends of the earth. Each dragon was stronger than a hundred men, and larger than five houses. “Very well, Dragons,” I said, “You are stronger than I, and there are too many of you, but I must tell each of you a secret before you kill me. One of you is the king of all dragons. Let me speak to each of you in turn, and you will know the truth.”

I spoke with each dragon and told each one he was the king, and how the others conspired against him. “Strike first, before I present you the crown, or they will surely take it from you.” The dragons tore one another to bits, and from each of their heads I pulled their teeth, and these I made the horse with stone skin and cold iron hooves carry.

I told the six armed warrior his fifth story, about the six greatest enemies he would defeat, and I named them all. This was true as well, and so there was but one sword remaining to strike me down. We stood at the edge of heaven and saw how the gods had set an army before us. I planted each tooth of each dragon and soon an army grew from the ground. “There,” I told the dragon warriors, “is the army which slew the seven dragons.” Thus the army of heaven and the army of the dragons destroyed one another, and soon I stood before the gates themselves.

“Now, my steed, kick them in, for the stuff of heaven falls easily to cold iron.” His hooves struck the gates of heaven three times and beat them down. All the gods cowered within, for I had slain their wolf, their dragons, and their entire army, and I now stood before them with their own steed and warrior.

“You have taken the Eye That Sees from me, and I have come to take it back. You need only return it, and I will leave without another word.”

“Ha!” said the god whom I knew to be the thief of my eye. “You are mortal and iron hooves mean little to a god. Instead I will strike you down and we will see how well you walk without even your life.” So speaking, he leapt at me, with the intent to strike the life from my bones at a single blow.

“Now, warrior,” I said, “here is your sixth story. Your last sword was never meant to pass through my heart, but was forged to slay a god. It cannot harm mortal flesh, but the name of the god that shall die spitted upon it is this very same one who has stolen my eye. This is the story, now let your last sword strike at the truth.”

In saying it, this story was true. The six armed warrior passed his sword through the god’s body and the god was slain.

The home of the gods was silent, until at last a goddess stepped forward, carrying something that glittered green. “My thanks,” I said to her, and returned my eye to my head. She bowed and, seeing her, I saw too that she had seen me through my own eyes and come to love me. But the love of a goddess is a fickle thing, and to see the eyes is not to see the man. I returned to my home, alone, as I had left, without the horse and without the warrior, and returned to speaking what truths I saw with my eye.

Thus, in saying it, this story is true.

The dark things lived in the deepest forests, even after Crow brought fire to men, and preyed late at night upon those lone outposts of men which dared the forest’s edge. The soldiers of one small village which occupied the very edge of the forest would patrol the lands by day and by night. The forest was large and the canopies of the trees grew so closely together that its deepest coves never saw daylight. The perils of the darkness were known by everyone of the village, and great pains were taken to protect their homes and families.

However, some men and women dwelt within the forest, trading with the village, though they did not chose (or were not able) to live in it. These people knew how to live in the forest, and though there was no reasoning in it, the villagers looked upon them without any feelings of kindness or human fellowship.

Thus it happened a group of patrolling soldiers came upon a maiden of the forest as she was picking mushrooms. Now the borders of this village were barely defined, and because of this the soldiers took it upon themselves to be offended, and demanded to know why the girl was picking mushrooms that, by all rights, belonged to the people of the village.

“But, good soldiers,” said the girl, “I have been coming here since I was able to follow my mother through the forest, and we have picked these mushrooms for many years. We were never told they were property, and we have never seen any other men or women of your village farming here.”

“Well then,” said one of the soldiers, “It would seem you are far in debt, and must pay what is due or forfeit your life.” The maiden was comely, and by the countenance of the soldiers she knew what price they desired. She sought to flee, but the beasts (for beasts they has become, in the form of men) were upon her in a trice. They stole away her innocence, and thought nothing further of it, leaving her in the forest as the villagers left all their darkest memories.

The maiden, alone, crawled back to her mother and father, but when they discovered what the soldiers had done to her, she was turned away from her home, for it was a common superstition that the victims of evil deeds carried the evil with them. The maiden was forced to live for months on what she could scavenge in the forest, hiding wherever she could from the dark things and mundane predators which lurked within it, and making friends with all the birds. Months passed as they will and, though she carried the evil deed in her belly during this time, through her nourishment and goodness its evil was washed away. The child came into the world free of past misfortunes, but as the tiny girl was born, her mother passed into those unknown lands to which souls may only travel without a living body.

The birds of the forest heard the soft cries of the infant, and when they found the fallen maiden, they were sad. But to honor her memory, they carried the infant into the treetops, and saw to all her needs. She was raised by the birds and learned their language, and each bird taught her all of their songs. When she was old enough to follow the birds through the forest, she found the bones of a cougar who had died long ago. She carved a pipe from these bones on which she could accompany the birds, and with which she composed new songs for them.

The girl became a woman, where the gentleman time leads us such girls, and she roamed without fear throughout the forest. Even the places where the sun had never shined, and where the riverwater which had never seen daylight ran were not foreign to her. Wherever she wandered, she sang her songs and played her pipe, and no creatures dared harm her.

As the young girl was growing up, one of the dark things from the forest (or perhaps the only dark thing of the forest, for their numbers were never certain) had seemingly lost its fear of the fire of man. It ventured out into the village nightly, suffering the light from Night’s eye the moon, creeping through the shadows cast by the lanterns in all the homes, and carried away men, women, and children alike. Their fates would never be known, and the soldiers could do nothing more than raise the alarm when they saw the dark thing in their midst, all to no avail. It seemed the fate of the villagers was to be carried away into the forest one by one, or leave their homes forever.

Rumors spread, as they will, of the singing maiden in the forest who had a magic flute which could drive away the dark things. (Much like fairy tales, rumors have only a passing acquaintance with the fullness of truth.) Having no other options, the soldiers searched and searched, and at last found the strange girl with her flute and her singing. They tried and tried to ask for her help, but she spoke only the language of the birds, and she could only smile and trill at them in return.

At last, Raven, the sister of Crow, landed on her shoulder and explained what the soldiers asked of her (for the raven, like the crow, also spoke the languages of men). The girl found their request strange, but allowed them to lead her to the village. (Raven remained on her shoulder, explaining to her all the soldiers spoke.) At the edge of the village the soldiers stopped her and explained, “The people of the forest may come no further than this. We will provide you any food or warmth you wish, so long as you come no further.” This too seemed strange to the girl, as she slept each night in the boughs of trees.

The soldiers left, and the sun departed after them, and so the girl played her flute for the moon. She asked Raven to tell her a story as she played. In her flame-scorched voice, Raven told her of a beautiful woman, defiled by soldiers, who died in childbirth, and whose daughter was raised by birds. Raven spoke of the selfish village which shunned outsiders, and would let have of them within its borders.

The girl thought Raven’s story was very sad, and her playing became melancholy. As the raven spoke, and the girl played, a shadow moved from the trees towards the village. If a thistle bush could grow into a tree, and if that tree could walk in the fashion of a man nearly lost to old age, and with the carriage of a vicious wolf, then it might have had something of the shape of what moved towards the girl and the raven.

It came closer, and she paid it no mind, for she had seen many shadowy forms in the darkest forest. The dark thing breathed like a running river and stopped too far from the girl for anything of its true nature to be discerned. There it seemed to root itself, waiting, as she played.

Well, the raven’s story ended, but it filled the girl with such sadness that she played on, as a slow trickling of tears ran down her face, under her chin, and along her neck. All night long she played, letting the sorrow of the story empty from her body, into her music, and from there out into the world. She played on and sang, and the lady Night closed her eye and drew back her cloak. The fingers of dawn touched the sky, and still the dark thing did not move, even as dawn pierced it through, bit by bit. She played, even as the fullness of daylight rose above the horizon, and the dark thing was long reduced to wisps and dead shadows at the forest’s edge. She played and sang until her song filled up the hearts of every person living in the village.

Only then was she empty of grief, but from that day forth no one in the cursed village laughed ever again, and the vileness of the dark thing seeped into the ground, so that nothing would grow. Today the village is long vanished, but the melancholy of the girl’s song of the deepest forest still remains on the spot at the edge of the woods where nothing grows. She is said to wander still, deep in the forest, and those who tire of the melancholy may risk the darkness to hear happier songs.

The island nations were known to the world for the miracles of art and craftsmanship found throughout their many-shored lands. On one island lived makers of masks, on another lived machinists who built clockwork devices of unparalleled ingenuity, and on one island lived men and women who drew portraits in ink and charcoal for which other men traveled from far across the oceans to procure.

In a small town of this last island a finely dressed gentleman opened a small shop wherein he sold finely crafted art supplies. The gentleman ran a modest profit, and came to be known as an artist of no small talent with the brush and ink himself. He made his own ink and kept it in a tiny silver bottle. He tied his own brushes from strands of silvery, silken hair the likes of which no man or woman had seen before. Oft times he was asked where he might have found such hair, or if he would sell the brushes, but he would only reply, “I have spun the hairs of my brushes from the moonlight, and they are not mine to sell. Such dishonesty would bear terrible consequences, for no dishonorable hands may touch the silver of the moon.”

The gentleman’s gallery and art supply store came to be held with some regard, and his drawings found their way onto the town’s walls, a stairway there or a foyer here. Ladies would sit for portraits, and he would dip his silver brushes into his little silver jar, until the portrait very nearly seem to breathe life upon its completion. The gentleman was given to wandering the small town’s cobblestones, lit by gaslamps in the night, drawing the shadows. Some days, when it snowed, or when it was especially cold and gray, the gentleman left the borders of the town and returned with landscapes so perfect their buyers claimed to be able to feel the cold off them.

One young woman followed the gentleman out of the town on just such a bleak winter’s day, and hid herself away as she watched him sit upon a rock and draw the many empty branches of the trees around the small town. After a time the most gentle smile she had ever seen crossed his arch face, and he lifted his silver brush into the air. There, without paper or parchment, he drew a tiny fluttering sparrow. “Go on, little bird. Flutter away and sing songs for the bold.” And that was just what the sparrow did, for all the young woman knew. She had fled as soon as he spoke the words, thrilled and frightened in equal measure by what she had witnessed.

Over the next few days the gentleman found his small gallery haunted, not with a ghostly spirit, but by a small young woman. She drifted silently through his shelves, peering into his drawings in search of any birds they held, searching for sparrows perhaps. She looked closely at all his inks and the brushes, as if they were fountains from which water might spring at any moment. The gentleman would watch her for however long he wished to be amused, and then he would ask with a sardonic tone if he could help her. The young woman would blush furiously and tell him no, and after a few minutes more of looking at his drawings with her ears bright red, she would run out of the shop.

One evening the gentleman took in the midnight air, as he was fond of doing, and a shadow followed his own. The young woman watched him wander from lamplight to moonlight, until he sat on a bench beside a deserted street and began to fill in all the shadows on a page of parchment with broad strokes of his silver brush. She shivered as she watched, for as he drew, the empty street came to life on the page. In images alone, at first, but then the shadows he drew upon the page came to life in the empty street. Finally, with a single sinuous movement, he inked a black cat onto his page which was not anywhere to be seen until his brush lifted from the paper. “Go now, little black cat,” he said, “and watch behind those too honest to watch for themselves.” The young woman sank deeper into the shadows as she watched the cat vanish into the night and the gentleman pack up his ink and brushes. It was no surprise to her to see the drawing, without the cat, hanging in his gallery the next day.

The gentleman smiled his sardonic smile and took his amusement as always, making the young woman blush with his inquiries, and drumming his manicured nails on the lacquered wood of his desk when she had left. His gaze traveled to the tiny silver inkwell and contemplated his brushes. He spent the next several days making the finest inks he had ever made, in fifty colors, and tying fine brushes from the softest hair in his possession. Every day he would watch the young woman come in and see what she made of his lovely new inks and wonderful brushes, but though his inks and brushes were most elegantly crafted, she seemed to have eyes for nothing but his inked drawings, staring at each one as if she could see clear through the woods or the windows or the eyes in them all.

Of course, he could not go for very long before he felt the need to walk out past the borders of the town. Any day the sky was full of clouds (and there were many such days in the island nations) filled him with the desire to travel. It was on just such a day as this - as he sat on the roots of a great and gnarled old elm tree, with paper in his lap and a brush in his hand - that he said, “You may as well come out. I know you are watching me draw.” Thus the young woman crept out from the tree where she had hidden herself away, and came to sit next to the well dressed gentleman.

“Well,” he said, “now you see why my own ink and my own brushes are not for sale. Though it is my greatest joy and love to share beauty with the world, they could not be used by aught other hands but my own.” So saying, he sketched in a deft few strokes a springtime tree, and the young woman watched in amazement as a tree grew up from the earth and unfurled its leaves. “The tree is for truth,” he said. “I draw such things as I may so long as they bring the world to rights.”

“Do you suppose,” asked the young woman, “that you could draw an eagle?”

“I assuredly could, my dear,” said the gentleman, and he dipped his brush into the silver inkwell, and drew into the air itself until he had drawn an eagle onto the branch of a tree fully twenty feet away. “The eagle,” he said, “is for honor.” The eagle looked down from its perch and the gentleman said, “Go then, and watch always over the honorable, so that even in solitude their actions do not go unobserved.” The eagle gave a cry as if in response to the gentleman’s words and took off from its perch to perform its task.

The young woman had no more questions for the gentleman, but she sat in silence while he drew, watching the lines take shape and the shapes take form. Whether she ever saw what images he drew was not so certain, for she seemed as much lost in her own thoughts as the fine gentleman was lost in his drawings.

The following day the gentleman once again prepared brushes and inks. Customers came and went, and many of his fine brushes were sold, and some of them asked for pictures, while others considered what drawings he had already finished. The young woman returned to his gallery again, but now she was full of questions about his drawings. Was that one there a drawing of honor? Was this one meant to be truth? Did that one speak of courage? The gentleman smiled in his slightly ironic way but nodded, for she saw all the truth in his drawings. He tied brushes as she spoke, each one meticulous and careful, but the young woman had no interest in his brushes or inks, only what works he had done.

For three more days the gentleman pressed inks and tied brushes and spoke to the young woman about his drawings. She learned all the secrets of the strange magic he worked, and all he had brought into the world. He had planted trees on all the island nations, and sent birds to all the corners of the earth. He had filled jungles with cats which guarded secrets and sent spiders out into the desert to live with selfless men. The gentleman came to enjoy her questions, and even made her a gift of one of the exquisite brushes he made whilst talking to her. She was quite delighted by the brush, but soon returned to asking after the pictures he drew.

One evening when he went out amongst the gaslit streets she happened to walk with him. She did not ask questions or chatter meaninglessly, and he did not speak as he looked for those shadowy forms which made sense only in his own mind, which he would draw during the night. When he sat, this time on the steps of a building with all its lights put out, the young woman took a deep breath and said, “Have you ever drawn anything for another person?”

The gentleman tapped his brush against the tip of his nose and said, “I have drawn quite a few things for quite a few people, but perhaps that is not your meaning. Perhaps that is not what you wish to ask?” And here he smiled his usual sardonic smile.

“Perhaps,” she said, and was silent for a moment or two as he laid out his paper and pens. “If there was something only you could draw for me, would it be rude of me to ask?”

He looked at her again, that same smile on his lips, tilting his head, and said, “It is never rude to ask. Never be afraid of that.”

Thus the young woman asked the gentleman, “Would you draw wings for me? Would you draw wings on me? You’ve drawn the sparrow and the eagle and the dove, and they have all flown over the earth. I only wish to see what they see.”

“Ah, that,” he said. “From time to time a clever young man or woman has come to me with just that question. I’ve drawn cups always full of gold, the finest gowns ever worn, and magical horses who could ride on the air. But it is always their obligation to make the world better.”

“What would I have to do with them?” asked the young woman. “I would do anything for wings.”

The gentleman made a dismissive gesture, an ironic twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, there’s nothing you have to do. Wings are honor and courage. So long as you are honorable and brave you will have your wings.” He dipped his silver brush into his tiny inkwell and slowly drew feathers onto the young woman’s back. “That is really very little to ask of anyone, don’t you agree?” He dipped his brush again and drew wings upon her feathers.

The young woman shivered and her wings rustled for the first time as she felt them folded against her back. She ran her fingers over her feathers and closed her eyes for what seemed like a single moment. But when she opened them again to thank the gentleman, he had vanished and the dark blue of twilight glowed on the horizon.

Though she could not thank the finely dressed gentleman with his silver brushes, she was certain he knew the fullness of her gratitude, and she took to the sky as if it was her birthright. Her wings were quiet and the air was warm and she soon was flying far above the small town and leaving it very far behind. Her wings carried her to many of the distant island nations, where she met all manner of people. Some of them showed her strange sights she had never seen, and the young woman always did all she could for those who asked; her generosity was without boundaries.

One day, in a town known for its masks, the young winged woman was given a mask by another young woman who who was a maker of masks. The woman with the mask said, “Please, my true love lies far across the ocean. He sends me stories, but I do not trust my masks to the sailing ships. Will you carry it to him?” Of course the winged young woman agreed, for it was a beautiful mask and she felt herself to be as romantic at heart as any young woman, perhaps a little more. She took the mask and tied the ribbon around her head and flew off to find the young man who was the woman’s true love.

In a matter of days she flew to his island, and under the silver softness of Night’s eye, the moon, she alighted upon the young man’s balcony. She moved to wake him, but as she beheld him sleeping, her breath caught and she could not take a single step. She was struck by his beauty and held motionless. Some small noise must have woken him, for his eyes soon opened and looked at her.

“Ahh, what is this,” he said. “A dream, a dream. It must be a dream, for you wear my beloved’s face, but you have the form of an angel. Oh, my angel, oh my beloved. Such stories I would write for you. Come closer and let me speak poetry to your ivory skin.”

Still hypnotized by the poet, the young woman stepped closer, and before she quite knew what he was doing, he had written love poem upon love sonnet all about her skin. Before she quite knew how much time had passed, the sun was rising and the poet, exhausted, was sinking back into sleep. “Go, my vision,” he said. “Carry my love to my love, my angel. My vision in a dream, visit her in her sleep.”

The young woman flew from the balcony, forgetting to leave the mask. She knew she should carry the poet’s words back to the woman who loved him, but she was afraid, for he made her own pulse quicken as well. She knew she should carry the mask back to the poet, but she was afraid he would be angered or upset over her deception. Thus she flew onward, passing through rain clouds and over islands, until she returned to the small town from whence she had come. Exhausted, she collapsed into a deep sleep in a field by the trees where the gentleman used to draw portraits with ink from his tiny silver bottle.

The next morning, when she awoke, she found herself lying in a wide pool of ink. She looked at her skin and discovered all the poet’s words had been washed away. And when she brought her hands to her face, she found the fine porcelain mask cracked and broken, so that her touch caused it to crumble to dust. For all of that, it was only when she rose to her feet that she found her wings were no more. Those gifts of honor and courage had melted away in the night, with the words she did not say and the face she did not show.

She ran back to town, but the gentleman had closed up his gallery some months ago and was long departed.

Before there was light, life, or land, there was only the ocean. The ocean was dark, and deep, and existed alone. But the ocean brought forth from itself life and light and land, and all these things were one thing. And when the ocean had brought forth light and life and land, then the ocean and the land together brought forth the gods. The ocean made the gods to create things from light and life and the land. The ocean made the gods to create souls and mountains and rivers and shadows, and all the things of the earth. Among the gods, the greatest was the first, and was known as the creator.

The creator was the god who lit the sun itself (the heat of the world which even the gods cannot touch), and the god who built the great chariot which still carries the furnace across the world, and in which all the gods reside. The creator was known by all the gods to be their greatest inventor, their finest crafter of souls and land and light. Thus when the creator brought forth two children, a boy and a girl, it was known that the children were destined to become great inventors as well, so they were sent far from one another.

The boy was named Daedalus, and the girl was named Tea. The boy, Daedalus, was sent to live in the great chain of islands in the south. The girl, Tea, was sent to live in the lands to the east.

This was long before Crow brought fire to the world, and the dark things still walked the earth at night, carrying off men and women. The great chain of islands were ever vulnerable, as the dark things would hide in the ocean from the light cast by the great furnace in the sky, and the islands had water on all four sides. The people of the islands feared the night most of all, for their numbers were few, and the numbers of the dark things were many. They would hide in the caves of the highest mountains, but still, every night, the cries of the dark things’ victims would echo across the land.

Though Daedalus was still very young, he wondered why they had to run and hide from the dark things every night. He asked the people of the island and they told him. “Young Daedalus, the dark things lived before there was light or life or land. They belong only to the dark, and all else is abhorrent to them. They are older and more powerful than the gods, which is why even the gods cannot touch the furnace which drives them away. We do not know why they take us, but it is surely for no good end, and so we must hide, and hope they do not find us.”

Daedalus thought upon this for a day and a night, and at last he determined he would stop the dark things. He called all the men and women of the island together and told them of his plan. “We will ring the island with a great maze,” he said, “and when the dark things come from the ocean to carry us off, they shall become lost in its twists and turns. We will know the true path, and may come and go as we wish, and at night we need only sleep at the center of the maze.”

“How is it,” asked one man, “that the dark things will never solve this maze?”

“Hah,” said Daedalus. “They cannot find but a few of us hidden in the caves, and I am ten times as clever as any ten of them put together. It is certain they will never see the true path.”

This was enough to assure the island village, and in a trice they set to building Daedalus’ maze. It took eleven days to cut the stones, and eleven days to move them into place, but when the maze was finished, and all the village knew the true path, they moved to its center and spent their nights there. Daedalus’ maze was as good as his word, and the dark things never learned the true path.

By this time Daedalus was very curious about what lay beyond the ocean. “I wish to see what lands there are beyond our great island chain, so let us build a boat and we shall travel where the winds carry us.” The people of the village feared this idea, for they wondered how such a boat would survive a single night on the ocean. But Daedalus assured them, “I have built a maze of stone on our island, so I shall build another maze on the boat and the dark things will not harm us.”

In a trice the boat was built, and Daedalus set around the four corners of its deck crosshatched game boards, and carved playing pieces from the bones of animals. “Now let us set sail,” he said, “and I will entangle any dark things in a maze of a new design.” Thusly Daedalus set sail.

The very first night, as the sun went down, Daedalus set out the carved bones on the playing boards. As the crew slept, the dark things climbed from the ocean onto the boat, but they were stopped by the boards, and soon young Daedalus matched each one in the game of carved bones until the light of dawn crept in under Night’s cloak, and the dark things climbed back into the ocean. Thus it was, each night. During the day, Daedalus would sleep for only two hours, and he would stay up the whole night through, matching the dark things in a game. For three nights he played, and on the fourth day the crew sighted land.

The men of these distant shores were amazed by the ships, and enthralled by Daedalus’ story. But upon mention of his name, they smiled with familiarity, for his was a legend well known amongst their village. They told him the story of the creator, and of the son and the daughter.

This was the first Daedalus had heard of his sister, and in the space of seven breaths he decided he must find her. “There is no better way to search than from the height of the furnace,” he determined, “so I must learn the secret of the birds and fly to the furnace, therein to find the creator, that I might be shown where my sister has gone.”

Making this determination, Daedalus set out into the great forest. Here he spent seven days and seven nights, learning the language of birds. And when he had learned all the languages of all the birds, he spoke with them, and asked them to teach him the secrets of flight. For yet another seven days, Daedalus learned the secrets of flying from the birds.

No sooner had he learned the secrets of flying, than young Daedalus grew a tree in the shape of a wing, and made feathers from paper, and with this he flew high into the sky, up to the chariot of the gods (for he was quite strong, and almost tireless). All the gods welcomed him to the chariot, as the gods did with all visitors - for so few were able to make the journey that any new visitor was quite rare. He was given wine and cheese and when he was refreshed he was taken before the creator.

He was greeted warmly, and the creator said, “I am glad to see you my son, and to see you have become a good man. Tell me what you would know?”

Daedalus greeted the creator just as warmly and replied, “All I wish to do is be reunited with my sister. If I may ride upon your chariot for one full day, that I may find her, I would be grateful.”

Thus Daedalus was granted a day in the chariot of the gods, and he watched the land below as they flew above it, until at the easternmost lands, Daedalus saw a great wall and knew that his sister would be there. He thanked the gods, and flew down to the wall.

It was not long before Daedalus found his sister, and there were many more stories between the two. Like the creator, each had a great family, and to this day, all the greatest creators are children of Daedalus or children of his sister Tea.

In the forests of the north lay a village rarely visited by men. The people of the village ventured forth only on such rare occasions as they needed what few necessities which their own forest could not provide. It was said the village lay under a curse, and this was enough that few dared its borders.

On a day when the sky was low and gray, a young girl named Thaume was playing past the borders of the village, where the forest became dark and the sounds of men faded away. She had promised her parents to stay within the village’s boundaries, but she was not so from them she could not walk back. It was quiet at the edge of the village. She could not hear her parents or the elders call out to one another, nor the sound of dogs barking and goats bleating. She could not hear the chimes or the ringing of metal on stone. The only sounds came from forest creatures, the birds and crickets and small rodents, and of course her own voice. Thaume would spread out her skirts, pretending she could conduct conversations with the birds, and spend no small time conversing with herself.

She was so pleasantly distracted by her pastime that she did not see the man who crept out of the woods until he was almost upon her. He was the roughest sort of man, unshaven and dressed in skins, and Thaume recognized him as one of the hunters who lived far up in the north mountains, only venturing down to trade their skins for good steel and grain. She knew many stories about these men, and knew she should flee, but he was already upon her and she was paralyzed by fear.

“What have we here,” said the rough man. “It is a girl, far from the herd. A price always well had for these and all the work I could ask. Let us not kick up a fuss, for you’ll fetch a fairer price with all your pretty face intact.” With this he reached to take Thaume’s arm, that he might bear her off to the mountains.

As he did, a furious snarling came from all around him, and three dark shapes detached themselves from the deepest woods. Wolves, white teeth gleaming, yellow eyes ablaze, they leapt upon the hunter. His own hands flashed with good steel and blood flew across the quiet meadow. The hunter gave a shout and the wolves growled back and in the space of seven breaths the man had fallen, dead, his throat torn asunder.

The wolves limped to the girl, who had not moved, nor come to any harm. Blood flowed freely from their wounds, matting their fur and trickling over much older scars. The largest of the wolves had one eye of yellow; the other, starred by knitted and hairless flesh, was white as the moon itself. One of his ears was notched and torn. Like the stories her grandmother told, he spoke in a language she could understand.

“This clearing and all who dwell within it belong to us. This meadow is under our stewardship. None may take anything from it save by our leave, and none my take anything unwillingly. The mortal man has paid his price for breaking our law. This meadow belongs to us, and none may trespass. Long ago a bargain was struck, and we allowed your people to dwell within our forest. What have you to offer, that we should leave you to come and go from our meadow as you please?”

The young girl thought she might go to tears but, perhaps in the blood on the grass, or perhaps in the white eye of the wolf, she found strength and the words to bargain. “I am only a girl,” she said, “and so I have nothing, but one day I will become a woman. I will give over this woman to you, and all her life, if I may come and go from this meadow and fall under your watchful gaze.”

“Very good,” said the wolf. “Hold out your hand, brave child.” Thaume did as he said, and quicker than a jackrabbit he cut open her palm with his teeth. “Press your blood into ours, and our bargain is met.” This, too, Thaume did, pressing the burning cut on her hand against the hot blood flowing from each of the three wolves. One was black and young, and she could hardly see his blood. Another was white and seemed older than either of the others. The largest wolf with the eye like the moon was gray throughout and bloodiest of them all.

Time passed, as he will, his watchful eye upon all the world around him. The young girl Thaume grew to become a woman, and spent as many of the days of her youth as she was able in the meadow. It was agreed upon by all of the village that she had grown into a striking woman, with raven hair and flashing dark eyes. No one could quite say when she changed, but everyone recognized the wise woman she had become, and how she knew the way to the truth of complex matters. She spoke of the weather and of the crops, she could command any animal in the village with a word, and even the bravest and strongest man of the village found himself meek under her gaze.

For all this, the villagers did not think her a witch. She laid no curses, and cast no spells. She merely knew many things and, by some unspoken aspect of her bearing, commanded all around her.

As it happened, some men came to doubt whether there was any curse upon the village, after so many years of superstition. They had not seen the village and they well knew its inhabitants ventured to other settlements on occasion. Why should any sort of curse concern them?

This was the way a baron of the lands fell to thinking. The village lay within his province, but tradition dictated he not tax it, nor trespass within it, despite no other earthly reason for it not being subjected to his rule. He determined this would not continue, and thus sent word to his tax collectors that they were to go into the village and extract his reasonable tribute.

As it has ever been with small villages and small towns, the villagers knew of the tax collectors’ approach well before they reached the clearing at the village’s edge. Knowing nothing better to do, the men of the village gathered together what few valuables they had, for they were peaceful by nature, and truthfully they could think of no other reason save tradition that the baron’s men had never taxed them before. They sent one of the boys to seek out Thaume’s advice, but when he knocked upon her door, she was not home. Everyone in the village heard the distant sound of wolves howling.

The tax collectors heard this sound too, and their three horses rode close together. They fancied they saw shapes in the woods around them but the bravest man among them told them it was nonsense, and they kept riding until they reached the meadow. In this meadow stood a woman with raven hair and flashing dark eyes and she immediately demanded to know why they trespassed in her meadow.

His courage fleeing, the bravest tax collector said, “We do not trespass, madam, but only come to seek the rightful tribute for the baron of these lands. His taxes have long been denied him and we only wish to correct an oversight.”

“These lands do not belong to the baron. Let him bargain with the wolves for his tribute, if he likes, but you will take nothing.” As she spoke, she fixed him with her dark eyes. In one eye, those three men saw the moon, and in the other they saw a flame. They had no more courage, and left the meadow without another argument.

When the villagers learned the tax collectors had gone, they went to seek out Thaume to thank her, for they were sure it was her doing. They found her in her home, but she said only that she had been sleeping all the while, and had known nothing of the tax collectors’ approach.

The tax collectors returned to the baron and told him what had come to pass in the village. The baron was put quite out of sorts, for it seemed to him they had not made any effort at all. “You turn back on the word of one woman? If your courage is so little, then let me send some of my own with you.” And at this he called forth a contingent of five soldiers to accompany the three tax collectors back to the village. “Surely five soldiers are more than enough to collect a pittance from a middling village.” The tax collectors could not argue, and they set out once again, feeling more assured with five men at their backs.

Once again, the villagers came to know the tax collectors returned, and again they collected their meager surplus, and a boy went to seek Thaume’s council. All heard the howling of the wolves, and the boy knocked upon Thaume’s door in vain. The tax collectors and the soldiers, too, heard the howling, and all of the tax collectors were pale with fear, but the hardened soldiers thought nothing of the wolves. They carried steel and wore heavy armor. They had faced blades and arrows and spears, and slept with danger breathing upon their necks. They cared little for wolves, perhaps because they knew little of them.

Once more, they entered the meadow, and the woman with raven hair and dark eyes stood before them, demanding they account for their intrusion. None of the tax collectors could meet her eyes, and the soldiers felt as if they were, themselves, not before the baron but the king himself. Still, one soldier urged his horse nearer the woman and said, “We only seek the rightful tribute for the baron of these lands. His taxes have long been denied of him and we only wish to correct an oversight.”

“These lands do not belong to the baron,” said the woman. “Let him bargain with the wolves for his tribute, if he likes, but you will take nothing.” The soldier saw the moon and the flame in her eyes, but he had seen flames and the moon on many nights. He felt fear, but this too he knew well. The soldier drew his sword and the others followed suit, and he expressed in more insistent terms their desire to pass to the village.

“Very well,” said the woman. “The consequences are yours to bear.” With these words she stepped to the side, into the forest.

The soldiers and tax collectors urged their horses forward, but no sooner had they done so, than a furious snarling arose from the woods. Three dark shapes leapt from the shadows and fell upon the soldiers. Metal sang through the air and blood spilled freely upon the meadow, soaking the earth. In the space of seven breaths, all of the soldiers lay dead, and two of the tax collectors. The last one, the same brave tax collector who had spoken to the woman once before, fled into the woods, fled all the way back to the baron, his horse nearly dead of exhaustion.

Of course the villagers all learned of this new turn of events, and they spoke to Thaume of it, but she claimed she had been quite busy with needlework all the while. And it was true that one of her fingers was pricked red and bloody.

The baron was quite furious when he learned what had befallen his soldiers. “Wolves!” he shouted. “Three wolves and five soldiers and all that returns is one worthless tax collector! I shall go to the village myself and see what answer they have for an army!” Thus the baron prepared all his soldiers for battle and set out for the village, but no amount of threats or persuading could convince the tax collector to return again. Dismissing him as a worse than useless coward, the baron set forth without him.

All the village was alive with fear. The baron approached with an army. They wished they had simply given up their tribute to the first tax collector and been done with it. They did not collect their belongings, for they felt there was no hope of soothing the baron’s anger. They did not send for Thaume because they did not think even she could stop an army. Still, the howling of wolves echoed all through the village and all through the dark woods where the baron and his soldiers marched.

He entered the meadow, his men and their horses filling it all up and the woods behind them, and found only a dark haired woman with glinting eyes blocking his path. Before she could speak he addressed her. “I am the baron of the lands, and by my right I come to seek my tribute. We will have what is mine, and if you do not remove yourself from our path, we will march on anyway.”

If such a thing could be possible, the woman’s gaze darkened and flared at the same time. Fire glinted in one eye and the moon gleamed in the other. “These are not your lands,” she said. “They are the wolves’ lands, and if you would take anything from them, it is the wolves you must bargain with.”

This time, she did not step into the shadows, and the baron and all his men saw the woman become three wolves. First she became a shadow, and her shadow became the shadow of a wolf, and from this shadow all three wolves leapt upon the baron and his soldiers. The baron’s throat was torn open first. The soldiers all drew their weapons, but as they did, the branches of the trees reached out to hold them fast. The vines wrapped around their wrists and throats, and thistles and thorns put out their eyes. The wolves ran among the baron’s army until the meadow and the forest were nearly a lake of blood, and no man was left alive.

The villagers did not go to tell Thaume what had befallen the baron and his soldiers. They knew there was no need. One young man, who crept around her house with the curiosity of all such young men, was sure he saw the prints of wolves in the soft grass, and it seemed to him that her door had not been red a day before, but the paint looked fresh, so perhaps it was new.

The next day, when Thaume was seen at the grocers, she said, “I do not think we will be taxed again.” All the men and women of the village knew they were well-protected. As for the brave tax collector, he became the new baron of those lands, and he felt it best to leave the traditions as they were. He never had a thought of taxing the small village again, for he had no desire to bargain with wolves.