From the darkness appeared a feminine face, more beautiful than any the wolf had ever seen. Her eyes shimmered silver, purple, and pink.

  She spoke: “Kovak. We await your return. Come to us.”

  The face vanished and the darkness returned.

  Kovak slowly opened his eyes to the world around him, aware of only his kneeling posture and the cold wind stroking his snout and ears. He squinted as the sheer whiteness of the surrounding landscape met his pupils. When had it snowed?

  He rubbed the pain of the bright, reflective snow from his eyes, then opened them wide. Then he remembered.

  He knelt in a basic meditation posture on a rock outcropping atop a mountain, but not one of the peaks on the Jagged Jaw range. This summit was much higher than even the Gnaw, and was one of many peaks that rose in every direction as far as he could see. A thick field of puffy, white clouds stretched out below, somewhat resembling a snowy plain between the peaks. This was Kovak’s home, and he was dreaming again.

  Or is it just a dream, after all? The wolf wondered.

  “No, it is not just a dream.” The old wolf behind him spoke up in a voice both betraying his venerable years and still full of authority. Kovak’s ears involuntarily flattened for a second at the sound of the words.

  “It is good to see you again, B’keul.” Said Kovak in his native tongue.

  “Good to see you, young one.” the elder wolf answered, also in their tribal language. “Though it has not been long since we last spoke.”

  “I remember Eshj Eshja.” Kovak admitted, this time using his spiritual teacher and guide’s formal title. “I forget, but then when I return here each night I immediately remember again. It is just as you said it would be.”

  “Perhaps.” Said B’keul. “Until it isn’t.”

  “Indeed.” Kovak had learned to go along with his mentor’s cryptic assessments and observations. If he didn’t understand in the moment, experience had shown him that, in time, B’keul’s message and the lesson therein would be revealed.

  “Soon. Soon, Kovak will you have access to a greater portion of what now lies dormant within you.”

  “Oh?” Too intrigued by this comment to remain passive, Kovak probed for more.

  “I have seen it.” The elder wolf assured his young pupil. “You will receive a quickening.”

  “A quickening?”

  “Yes. A forthcoming encounter will hasten your development, and within a moment’s time you will advance years into your inborn talents.”

  “What encounter?”

  “I cannot reveal those details lest I risk altering your path. I only told you this much to better prepare you. When the quickening is upon you, recognize it from what I have said and do not be afraid, nor resist it, however unpleasant that moment may be for you.”

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  “I will do as you have said, Eshj Eshja,” Kovak rose to his feet.

  “Remember also what you have learned of the Krael Lad Iknius,” said the old wolf.

  “The Three Awakenings?” Kovak asked. “From the tale of Goris the Lone Wolf?”

  “The same, yes,” said B’keul. “More than a campfire tale, those verses reveal much about the becoming, especially the quickening. Things that are not taught in the manuals and meditations.”

  “When Goris quickened as a result of his near-death experience, he experienced the Krael Lad Iknius,” Kovak recounted. “These were three moments of… turmoil, insight, enhancement of his abilities – to be honest I always struggled to make sense of that part of the story.”

  “Of course,” said the mentor to his pupil. “It is a strange thing to consider, not taught within the detailed accounts of the becoming over time as the wolf slowly matures. The awakenings are given only to those wolves who are quickened. They balance the settling of the vast energy of the becoming as it manifests in a very short time. In a way they teach the wolf lessons he or she might have learned over years in a small window of time.”

  “I see.” Kovak did not.

  The three awakenings in the story of Goris the Lonewolf read like personal disasters, aside from one incident where Goris wielded immeasurable power to destroy a Rahmhrok beast with his psychic attack. Even that feat was more of an accident than a conscious act. Kovak wanted no part of such chaotic experiences.

  As if reading the younger wolf’s mind the mentor smiled. “You will understand when the time comes.”

  Kovak nodded.

  The two stood in silence for a moment.

  “You are troubled.” Said the teacher.

  “Of course I am.” Replied the pupil. “I wish to come home.” The younger wolf surveyed the surrounding mountains and inhaled deeply as if to take the scene in with his breath. “You still can’t find me, nor see the way to where I am?”

  “I cannot.” The older wolf conceded. “It is as if you are no longer in our world at all, Kovak. I went to the Kelam Alyr for aid, and even their magic can find no trace of you. It is as if…”

  “As if I were dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet I am not. I live.”

  “You indeed appear to, for I have seen your quickening and known other things about your journey.”

  “But?” Kovak pressed.

  “The dead according to our understanding, continue their journey of learning and growth even beyond the living world. Perhaps you have gone beyond the veil and from there your soul reached out to contact me, your old mentor.”

  “I assure you, I am not in the afterworld. The place where I am is the world of living flesh and growing trees. It is a place where children are born and the venerable are laid to rest in the ground. I cannot accept this idea of my demise.”

  “A lost soul might say the same things.”

  “Even the observations about the living world around them? I’ve heard no tales of the after which include newborn babies. Nor is it right for one to age in the afterworld, yet these eight years show on my frame and in my heart. I live. I age. If I were dead I would know it.”

  “Very well, I will say no more on the matter. Shall we examine your sword forms?”

  “Yes, teacher.” Kovak drew his long sword with masterful ease and crouched into a low stance.

  “Ah.” B’keul approved. “The Keh Hyajiman form it is! Proceed.”

  For what seemed like hours the forms went on. The student, now a very apt warrior, tirelessly flowed through postures and strikes with meticulous precision and care. The teacher found little to correct but offered what challenges he could to sharpen his pupil even further. At some point the scene began to fade, and Kovak knew his body was waking from a night of much needed sleep.

  He watched stoically as his mentor and the home he yearned to return to faded from sight, giving way to the campsite, subdued and cloaked in the gray of night, his friends sleeping soundly on the other side of the smoking ashes the fire had become.