The Source

In the time between times, in a forest beneath a holy mountain named Enthymeme, a wolf wandered in a winter storm. She was snowblind, lost, starving, and far from her pack. Crazed with hunger, not caring where she went, the wolf trespassed into a cave and sat at the abandoned hearth she found within.

Sheltered from the snow, the wolf sniffed out old meat scraps buried under cold ashes. After eating, she found a spring marked with unreadable text. Her thirst overwhelmed her sense of foreboding, and she drank.

Satiated, the wolf fell into a sleep so deep it was as if she was draped in the skeletal rags of death and on her way to the underworld. Eyes shut to the unending snow outside, she dreamed of infinite and empty tunnels. Deep underground, she wandered for a lifetime through caverns and stalagmites until she came to a river that played melodies off the walls. In the water, she gazed at her reflection and saw though her head was that of a wolf, she stood upright on human legs. The image froze her, enthralling her for an unmeasurable time.

Finally, the moment was broken by a resplendent voice echoing through the tunnels. She followed the song and came unto an angelic being. This unknown divinity, beautiful beyond measure, appeared as a man with five avian heads. He sang of mother chaos, the birth of the sky and the sea, and of the lost times. He made the wolf promise to remember the song and then sing it to their children when they were born into the world. She agreed and they laid together as lovers.

The wolf awoke, pregnant. Each day, she howled in agony, dragging her swollen belly about the cave while hunting mice and snakes. Each night she watched the winter, the snow storm that would not end, rage outside. When she slept, her five unborn pups crooned from inside her hidden spaces, reminding her of the promise she had made. She woke each morning more exhausted than the last, the hallowed tune of an unnamed god pounding in her ears.

After two and a half moons, the she-wolf gave birth. The children came out not as wolves, but as humans with bird heads: an owl, an eagle, a peacock, a raven, and a dove. The owl child came first and was stillborn, a curse and a punishment for trespassing in the spaces meant for immortals.

Next came the eagle child, who was keen eyed and the strongest of the five. Third and forth were the peacock and the raven. When the fifth and last of the children, the dove headed child, was born, the exhausted mother laid down and closed her eyes. The newborns suckled and there was momentary peace.

A sickening hiss filled the cave and the owl child rose, an animated corpse under the sway of the death goddess Hamartia. The she-wolf scrambled up, herded her living children behind her and battled with the abomination, maneuvering the fight out into the snow. The mother was victorious, but at mortal cost. She lay prostrate on the ground, wounded and bleeding, barely able to breathe. Dying, she fulfilled her promise. She whispered the psalm of an anonymous five headed dream god, the ethereal story of the birth of the cosmos, into the twice dead ears of her own child.