The Wolf Gift (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 1)

"It,s too soon for you to resist it," said Margon. "It will come on you every night for perhaps fourteen days. Now, with Reuben he learned to control it after what? - the tenth? But only because he had yielded to it so completely before."

"Yes. That,s probably so," said Thibault.

"But it,s always been a fortnight in my experience," said Felix. "After that, the power is infinitely more controllable. For many, seven nights in any one month is enough to maintain vigor and sanity. Of course, you can learn to keep it down indefinitely. There is often a discernible personal rhythm to it, an individual cycle; but these responses vary greatly, and of course the voices of those in need of protection - the voices can provoke us anytime. But in the beginning, you need that fortnight because the Chrism is still working on your cells."

"Ah, the cells, the cells," said Reuben. "What were those words that Marrok used?" He turned to Laura.

"The pluripotent progenitor cells," said Laura. "He said that the Chrism worked on these cells and triggered the mutation."

"Well, of course," said Stuart.

"Or so we theorize," said Felix, "with the feeble insights we have today." He took a deep drink of his wine, and sat back. "We reason that those are the only cells which can be responsible for the changes that take place in us - that all humankind has the potential to be Morphenkinder - but that,s based on what we now know of human chemistry, which is more than we knew twenty years ago, or twenty years before that, and so forth and so on."

"Nobody has yet clearly defined what happens," said Thibault. "In the early days of modern science, we attempted to grasp things with the new critical vocabulary at our disposal. We had such high hopes. We outfitted laboratories, hired scientists under clever ruses. We thought we,d finally learn all there was to know about ourselves. We learned so little! What we know is what you,ve observed in yourselves."

"It involves glands, hormones, surely," said Reuben.

"Indisputably," said Felix, "but why and how?"

"Well, how did it start?" Stuart asked. He smacked the table with his hand. "Has it always been with us, I mean with human beings? Margon, where did all this begin?"

"There are answers to those questions ...," said Margon under his breath. He was reticent, obviously.

"Who was the very first Morphenkind ever?" asked Stuart. "Come on, you must have a Genesis myth. You have to tell us these things. Cells, glands, chemicals - that,s one thing. But what,s the history of this? What,s the tale?"

Silence. Felix and Thibault were waiting for Margon to answer.

Margon was considering. He appeared troubled, and for a moment lost in his thoughts.

"The ancient history isn,t all that inspiring," said Margon. "What,s important now is that you learn how to use these gifts."

There was a pause and very gently Laura spoke up. "Does the hunger increase over time - the desire to hunt and feast?"

"Not really," said Margon. "It,s always inside us. We feel partial, diminished, spiritually starved if we don,t give in to it, but I would say that is there from the beginning. Indeed, one can get sick of it, and withdraw for long periods, ignoring the voices." He stopped.

"And your strength, does this increase?" Laura asked.

"Skill increases, of course," said Margon, "and wisdom. Ideally that increases as well. We have bodies that renew themselves constantly. But our hearing, our vision, our physical abilities - these do not increase."

He looked at Reuben as though inviting his questions now. He hadn,t done this before.

"The voices," said Reuben. "Can we talk now about the voices?"

He,d tried to be patient, but this seemed the moment surely to cut to the point.

"Why do we hear the voices?" he asked. "I mean I understand our sensitive hearing, it,s part of the transformation, but why do the voices of people who need us bring on the change? And why would stem cells in our bodies transform us into something that can track the scent of malice and cruelty - it,s the scent of evil, isn,t it - and we,re driven to seek to wipe it out?"

He put down his napkin. He looked intently at Margon.

"This is for me the central mystery," Reuben continued. "It,s the moral mystery for me. Man into monster, all right, it,s not magic. It,s science and it,s science we don,t know. I can accept that. But why do I smell fear and suffering? Why am I impelled to go to it? Every time I,ve killed, it,s been a consummately evil perpetrator. I,ve never erred." He looked from Margon to Felix and to Thibault. "Surely it,s the same for you."

"It is," said Thibault. "But it,s chemical. It,s in our physical nature. We smell evil and we are driven almost madly to attack it, destroy it. We cannot distinguish between an innocent victim and ourselves. They are one and the same to us. What the victim suffers we suffer."

"Is this God-given?" asked Stuart. "Are you going to tell me that?"

"I,m telling you just the opposite," said Thibault. "These are finely developed biological traits, rooted in the elusive chemistry of our glands and our brains."

"Why is it that particular way?" asked Reuben. "Why aren,t we chemically driven to track the innocent and devour them? They,re sweet enough."

Margon smiled. "Don,t try it," he said. "You,ll fail."

"Oh, I know. This is what undid Marrok. He couldn,t bring himself merely to do away with Laura. He had to ask forgiveness of her, launching into a long confession as to why she had to die."

Margon nodded.

"How old was Marrok?" asked Reuben. "How much experience had he had? Shouldn,t he have been able to defeat us both?"

Margon nodded. "Marrok wanted to do away with himself," he said. "Marrok was weary, careless - the shell of the being he,d once been."

"Doesn,t surprise me," said Laura. "He challenged us to destroy him. At first, I thought he was trying to confuse us, frighten us to death, so to speak. Then I realized he simply couldn,t do what he wanted unless we fought back."

"That,s exactly right," said Reuben. "And then when we fought back, he wasn,t able to overmaster us. Certainly he must have, on some level, known that this would be the case."

"You are going to tell me, aren,t you," asked Stuart, "who this person was, this Marrok?"

"The story of Marrok is finished," said Margon. "For reasons of his own he wanted to destroy Reuben. He,d passed the Chrism through carelessness and convinced himself that he had to eliminate the evidence of his mistake."