wayside-parliament

I have sung to you of Kirnikalam, Mistelin's warrior bride; of the strength and courage of their children, whose children's children became in their time the first werewolves; and how her sudden passing into Death's domain left Him so bereft as to tear a hole in the weave of the world, to create a place neither living nor dead, from which He could in His own time say farewell. This land of rest became His place, and it brought Him peace.

Amruoc, Lord of the Hunt, saw what Mistelin had done, and it gave him pause. He sat in thought for three days without moving, turning these events over in his mind, and for those days no arrow would fly true, no track could be found, no snare would grasp.

At dusk on the third day, two hunters sat hungry beside their fire. And they became aware that they could smell meat cooking, and they found a third man sitting across the fire from them, roasting a fat rabbit and staring without seeing into the flames. And just as it occurred to them who he was, one about to cry out, and the other to rise and kneel before their god, Amruoc spoke: “What is it that you hunt for?”

“We came looking for deer,” said the second hunter.

“Not what you hunt,” said Amruoc. “Why do you hunt at all?”

“For food, my lord,” the first hunter said. “We mortals must eat, after all.”

“Is that all?” Amruoc asked, meeting their eyes for the first time.

“What other reason could there be?” they said.

The firelight shifted, and he was gone.

The rabbit remained.

It tasted divine.

***

Throughout the land, hunters began to tell tales of a man, cloaked and hooded, who appeared at their camp without a sound, gave them meat, and asked them why they hunted. The bowmen of the north forests, the spear-throwers of the southern plains, the fisherfolk on the sweetwater lakes, and the seal catchers on the Seven Rivers all met with him. The Children of Dusk spoke of him, and the orcs, and the lionfolk. Every hunting animal, from bobcat to shrike, said they had seen him. But not one could say he had been satisfied with their answer.

One night at dusk, a young ferret emerged from his burrow to find the Lord of the Hunt had made camp outside his door. He bowed, and tried to hide his fear, and said: “Greetings, my lord. If you've come to take my pelt, at least let me bid farewell to my family first.”

“Am I Mistelin, that you think my heart so movable?” Amruoc stared into his fire. “Yet I have no need of your pelt, nor of anything else from you.”

The ferret felt bolder, enough to feel, instead of fear, the curiosity that now filled every creature that breathed, and to ask: “Lord of the Wilderness, how goes your search?”

“Long and weary,” said Amruoc, “and I know not how much longer and wearier. Were I anyone but myself, I would say that I hunt something which cannot be found, and I would do well to give it up and go home.”

“But you yourself will not?”

“I cannot. I am the hunt, not the hunter. I do not give up. And if I give up the hunt, what home have I to return to?” He looked down at the ferret for the first time. “Do you hunt?”

“Only voles and prairie chickens, my lord.”

“And why is it that you hunt?” Amruoc asked, wearier than ever, as if praying to the rising moon that this would be the last time.

“You have said it better than I ever could,” said the ferret. “More than hunger, more than thrill, more than knowing that, if only I seek it the sun will rise tomorrow: I hunt because I have not given up.”

Amruoc felt a great weight lifted off his soul, and he smiled. “At last,” he said, “my hunt has not been in vain.” Here was a hunter who truly understood the hunt, as Amruoc had thought only he could. “Go and say your farewells, my friend. From this day forth, you hunt with me.”

And so began the Longest Hunt, which continues to this day. And any hunter, if they be wise enough, and determined, and seek to become one with the hunt, may one day find themselves before Amruoc. And if they answer His questions well, they will hunt alongside him forever, in death as in life, and what they seek together, Amruoc alone knows.