Karolina Lewestam “Silla” – excerpt:
It was evening. But not an ordinary evening, but the evening of the Aurora.
A fire was burning in the cave, which illuminated the walls with a pleasant yellow. Ari was on the ground. His little sister Aniju was sitting on him, pounding on him with her fists and yelling:
– Get up! Ari! Move up! We won’t make it! By Zorza! Today, Zorza, Ari! come on!
– Stop! Well, stop now! get down! defended Ari, who was, yes, a lot bigger – he was almost eleven and Aniju was only five – but he still couldn’t defend himself from her barrage of blows.
– NO! Get up, I’ll stop!
Ari finally managed to grab the girl by the waist, immobilize her arms and pull her off him.
“Next time you want someone to get up, don’t sit on their stomach,” he advised her, brushing himself off.
“Next time you don’t want someone sitting on your stomach, get up!” The girl grinned, brushing her bangs out of her coal-black eyes.
“Next time…” Ari began, but nothing made sense to him, so he stuck his tongue out at his sister and said to his mother, who was throwing eggs into boiling water over the fire:
“I’m going to get the sled!”
– Just be careful! Mom laughed. “Remember last year we were almost late for the Aurora (may it always shine) because some Black Bird snatched Ari’s sleigh harness and Ari had to run after him into the woods?”
– Yes! I remember! Ha, ha. He came back all pissed off! His hair was… oh, like that. Aniju dramatically grabbed her hair to show what Ari looked like after the fight with the Bird.
“Picked but harnessed,” Ari said with dignity, curled his overlong hair into a knot at the nape of his neck, donned his jacket, lit the fire torch, and marched out of the cave into the darkness.
“Just hurry up!” We have to leave in five minutes! Mom screamed again. “Aurora does not wait!”
Frost hit his cheeks. As always on the night of the Aurora, the sky was perfectly clear; a smaller moon, whose name was Siarnaq, was slowly rising above the forest. Shadows trembled on the snow in the golden torchlight. There was a sharp, electric scent in the air that always preceded the arrival of the Aurora. Ari walked and whistled. After a while, he made sure that Aniju couldn’t see him – he was the serious big brother, after all – and started jumping up and down, dancing around the snow heaps. The sledge was tethered just beyond their rock, a few paces from the entrance to the cave. It was enough to turn where the rock ridge ended.
Ari swerved—then stopped immediately.
A wolf sat motionless in front of the sledge. In addition, it was not an ordinary wolf, of which many lived on Tlate Hiin, but an amazingly huge gray wolf with a graying muzzle and a black stripe of fur on its back. It was so big that its muzzle was at the height of the boy’s face.
Ari may have been skinny as a stick, but he wasn’t short. The boy swallowed. He hadn’t expected a wolf here, and certainly not this wolf.
Silla – illustration from the book mat. press
He knew a little about him. Like that his name was Gho and that he wasn’t from around here. He just showed up on Tlate Hiin a while ago. It was said that he ran out of the Sleeping Forest and immediately went to the house of the soothsayer Sia. Wolf Gho never spoke to anyone else and only occasionally scurried across Tlate Hiin, his eyes leering from side to side. But a few days ago, when Ari had pulled aside the curtain at the entrance to the cave to see if it was already getting dark, he saw Gho the wolf sitting in the distance watching him with a strange expression on his face. Ari jumped up and immediately ducked inside, then forgot all about it.
And now Gho the wolf was sitting in front of him, looking at him in the same strange way. As if he suspected something. It wasn’t pleasant.
“A human pup,” the wolf finally said with a gurgling growl. – Ari. Your name is Ari.
Ari nodded.
“Show your eyes,” growled the wolf.
He said it in such a way that the boy didn’t even think not to listen. He opened his eyes wide. Ari’s eyes were not black like Mama’s and Aniju’s, but greenish, and the wolf stared at them for a long time with his yellow eyes. Then he began to sniff: sniffed the boy’s face, his jacket, his gloves. When he stuck his nose right into Ari’s collar, tickling his spiky mustache, the boy flinched and jumped back; he almost dropped the torch.
“Well,” said the wolf to himself. “Something is right and something is wrong. It’s not so easy to collect my thoughts… I’m getting old.
Your…your father, Tiikai, was the first Tlate Hiin fisherman to die, right?
Ari got angry. He didn’t like it when people mentioned his dad. Everyone knew that a few years ago the frost on Tlate Hiin had begun to get colder, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for fishermen to cross to the Southern Lakes to catch fish. But they kept trying, because when the frost grows, everyone gets hungrier. Fortunately, the fishermen were always helped by the seals that entered the lakes from the sea, poked their mustachioed heads out of the ice holes and laid fish on the ice for people, bears and wolves. Once, when dad and his bear friend Pou-Pien went fishing, it turned out that there were no more seals in the water. disappeared. Instead, some monsters inhabited the lakes. They were the ones who pulled Ari’s dad into the water. What monsters? No one knew, because no one got to look at them, but Ari overheard Pou-Pien telling his mother, “He’s just gone, Narija! He’s gone, by Zorza! And the water in the ice hole turned red with blood!”
Then another man and two bears died, and finally the fishermen stopped fishing. It was just too dangerous. Everyone switched from fish to Black Bird eggs, and a difficult time began for Tlate Hiin. There was always something to eat, but no one ever had a chance to eat their fill.
Ari didn’t want to talk about it with a stranger. He mustered up his courage and said:
“What is it, Gho?” I don’t have time to stand and talk. We are in a hurry to Zorza.
The wolf shook its great head.
– I think that the Aurora, may it always shine on us, can bring interesting news – he gurgled. – Yes. Go, go to Zorza, human cub. I have a feeling that Sii will read something from Aurora today that may interest you.
And he bared his teeth, whether in a smile or as a warning, I don’t know.
“It’s better not to answer anything, because it seems that the old wolf is not right in the head”, thought Ari and took a cautious step back. Also, I don’t like the look on his face at all.”
“Something has grabbed the world by the throat and won’t let go,” Gho growled, as if he was speaking not to Ari but to someone lurking in the darkness somewhere behind him. “It’s getting colder, hungrier, crueler.”
Cows… Yes! Even they… Something is happening… The end, the end may come. And you, human cub…’ The wolf lowered his voice and brought his head closer to the boy. His eyes shone, reflecting the fire from the torches, and Ari felt his acrid breath on his face.
“And you… listen to me now… listen to me very carefully…”
Ari swallowed. He took another step back. The wolf was not only strange; it could also be dangerous. After all, didn’t wolves hunt sometimes? And this one here would have taken one snap of his teeth and Ari wouldn’t have stood a chance.
– Ari?
It was mom’s voice. Aniju hopped up next to her. The boy let out a whoosh of air. He didn’t even realize that all his muscles were tense while talking to the wolf.
Mom and the wolf looked at each other. Neither of them said anything for a long moment, they just stared at each other warily. It was weird because Ari’s mom always spoke warmly to everyone on Tlate Hiin, like old friends.
“Narija,” said the wolf at last.
– Gho.
“Your son…your son is almost grown up now,” growled the wolf.
– He’s not an adult. Nariya stiffened. “He’s not twelve.”
“Borrowed time goes faster,” growled the wolf.
– Goodbye. I’ll meet you at Zorza, my mother replied coldly.
Let us always shine. The wolf looked at Ari one more time, spun around, and disappeared into the darkness in one bound.
The little moon of Siarnaq was already shining high above the forest. The three of them stood silent for a moment, their shadows flickering in the snow.
“What did he want from you, Ari?” asked Ania finally.
– I don’t know. He looked at me and sniffed me, then talked about the end of the world.
“Was he nice?”
The boy hesitated.
– NO.
“Then why is he picking on my brother?” What is it, his brother? I’ll punch him! The girl shouted in the direction where the wolf had disappeared.
Ari laughed, though he still felt a little uneasy.
“Okay, beat him up, just remember to hit him fast before he bites your arm off.”
“It’s Sia’s soothsayer wolf, isn’t it?”
“The wolf who lives with Sia,” Ari scolded his sister. “The wolves aren’t anyone’s. Nobody is someone else’s.
“I am our mother,” Aniju said, offended. – And you as you want.
They stared into the darkness for a while.
“Okay, kids, let’s get going,” Mom snapped out of her thoughts. “Aurora won’t wait.” I have balls. She showed a small bag. “Aniju, get on the sledge, Ari, put on the harness.
let’s go!
And they set off.
Sila – cover mat. press
Tales of the World of Zorza is a new fantasy series for young readers from the Agora publishing house for children, created by the philosopher and publicist Karolina Lewestam, illustrated by Mariusz Andryszczyk. “Silla” is the first book in the series.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
