Tales of the Howling Queen

Overview

During the Winter Solstice 386YE the Minister of Historical Research, Silk Farkas, commissioned an investigation into the Howling Queen, a Varushkan sovereign believed to lair high in the Razors above the vale of Razorwatch in Perumaki. Like most such creatures, it was challenging for Marko Siwarsbairn - who assembled this report - to find any factual information about the Howling Queen. What follows is an overview of the sovereign, and three common tales collected from various sources that may illustrate some of the nature of the being.

Howling Queen

When it comes to researching a sovereign, the researcher starts at a disadvantage. The vales and cabals of Varushka have always preferred the oral tradition, and when they do write, they are not often inclined to contribute copies of scrolls to libraries. So the written record is not our greatest aid here.

It is even harder to provide research on a being whose influence on the lives of Imperial Citizens right now is as viscerally present as it has been of late. There are things that readers of this will know, right now, feel down to their very bones, through direct experience of meetings with servants of the Howling Queen, and the consequences of those meetings for themselves, their friends and family. How can what small dregs of information I can pull together matter, in the face of some of the vivid experiences some of you have lived through, not so many moons ago.

But I must try.

There are stories of course, and all stories point to some truths.

That the Howling Queen is an ancient sovereign, with some direct and vital control over plaguewulfs, lesser and greater seems undeniable. Is she really their mother? Does she truly seek the destruction of all life, and to turn the world into a "Silent Kingdom of the Dead"? I cannot lay my hands on definite answers for you.

I can say that there are enough journals of travellers returned from the Razors, telling of being attacked by plaguewulfs, ones with even more intelligence, than those met occasionally in Varushka or in Temeschwar are so commonly found that it is clear that the Razors is a centre of such activity.

I can also say that in all the stories that are well known across taverns and campfires, if any place is mentioned for her court, it is *always* the Razors. And as a scholar I can tell you that is rare. When folktales travel, locations often change with them. If the Howling Queen were not a true Sovereign and just a creature of stories we would not expect this kind of consistency.

Of course all also know, that if the razors are 'unsheathed' (clearly visible at sunrise) it often signifies that a band of plaguewulfs will attack somewhere along the road before the next sunrise. To the average Varushkan, this may seem to be a sign, a portent. But I have also read journals from travellers with a more investigative bent. They suggest that there is something in the skies that is tied to the Howling Queen's power, and that is only when clouds do not shield the constellations or the moon that the plaguewulves range.

Some other truths or near truths I think we can glean from recurring motifs in the tales told.

If she really birthed the plaguewulfs I cannot be certain, but in almost every tale we have of her, most notably, those of the Howling Queen and the Moon, we see a terrible longing. Whether the storyteller has her desperate to revive a dead lover or begging for a child so that she may nurture and thus be needed, there is a painful emptiness that drives her. There is, or once was at least, an instinct to mother, to connect.

Perhaps that is also a reason why there are tales of her being open to aiding mortals who seek her out. Yes, the tales usually tell of fearful prices that have to be paid - but her support is not inconsequential - it is known that she will lend out her Plaguewulfs to others - for a time and for a price. And of course, she may even welcome those who ask for her aid into her Court. Provided, of course, that they are prepared to die and live on only as a Winter husk. As you have so recently found out, with the Schlacta of Rot.

Indeed my colleagues have written of one of those bargains in recent years. In research into the volodny Bas Celik, Yannick Svarkikov drew heavily on Travels with Uncle Paanan which includes excerpts from Pakaanan's interviews with Bas Celik wherein she claimed to have travelled to the Razors to negotiate with the Howling Queen, and returned with three plaguewulfs to aid her in her fight against the Vard. What price she paid is not recorded.

In putting together this story I spent some time in the taverns of Varushka, asking for news of more recent times. When in Volodmartz, I heard of a time just a few years ago, where plaguewulfs had been troubling the roads around Kasli Mine. The mine owner was using slaves, and the stories told that they themselves had not understood why the plaguewulfs seemed to protect them - but the rumour across Opascari was that their grandmother, falling on hard times, and unsure how to make profit without slaves had travelled to the Razors, and forged their own bargain with the Howling Queen. Quite where this rumour sprang from is unclear - but the wandering volhov I spoke to was quite certain that at least once and maybe more often, Imperial Citizens made use of the Sentinel Gate to aid in getting the plaguewulfs under control. Perhaps someone at Anvil knows more, but it is from a time before the memory mists and so it is perhaps unlikely.

Is it true that the only way anyone may control a plaguewulf is to bargain with The Howling Queen? It is so hard to prove a negative. But I have not found a tale that links them to many others - except maybe hints, here and there, that the Shadowsmith might have brought plaguewulfs to Temeschwar. But if that is so, then the Shadowsmith is/was a volodny and could have learned the price of The Howling Queen's bargain from Bas Celik, and so his involvement is no barrier to her dominion.

But, to return to the tales. If they start out with a very human emptiness and longing, they turn very rapidly to a wilder savagery, and bitterness where nothing speaks to life, or heart or feeling. Have you heard the one that makes her seem a creature akin to Agramant - her power great, but fading over the course of the day, or several days or most often of all the turning of the moon. Fading so much that at the middle of each cycle, on the brightest night, she has to choose from among her children - both those she has birthed and those she has gathered - and feed upon their flesh - causing them utmost torment in order to revive her powers. And have you heard that though they be things without life as we know it, cursed, other, winter touched, whatever they might be called - this feeding does not end them as it might a human soul - but only leaves them weakened and wishing to find of prey of their own that they may return to their place in the court.

I do not mean to imply that I have any evidence that she draws her power from one particular eternal of course. If that was how sovereigns were then surely the Urizeni with the nets of heavens would have made a map of such relationships - even if it were flawed, it would exist, and to the best of my knowledge, it does not.

There are more tales - a veritable ragbag of them. Like the tales of my own forefathers, the Steinr, it is said by some that she fell from the stars. But the tales of her fall go even more fanciful - that she was perhaps a silver wolf, with a den out among the stars - her den threatened, she leapt, and that leap carried her to the highest peak in the Razors and there she has made her home. But how on earth is a scholar to reconcile that myth with the one that says she has been cursed by a mortal. The stories that end thus, don't start with her as a glorious shining thing of the stars but only as a proud Ushkan, caught in rivalry with another equally proud but then - and the tellers say with a shake of their heads - only then - more skilled in Winter magic than she.

But in this mass of tales what nuggets can I glean that will mean something to you. Perhaps you might have hoped that your long fight with the Schlacta of Rot might have destabilised her, might have reduced her influence. I fear it will not be so - or if it is, not for very long - for the one thing I do find where I find notes of her court - is that the names change throughout the centuries, and sometimes even in a space of just a few years.

Court of the Queen

Let me name for you a few I have heard and things associated with them

There is the Deadwood Knight, the Schlacta of Rot that you have known. There is the Stzena of Tears, a lone figure who wanders, either singing or playing music, who it seems, presages conflicts and changes within the court, or perhaps signals a time when The Howling Queen is discontent with those who serve her closest Then there is always an elder plaguewulf, I have seen them named Yarlek, Indor, Parnel, Davin, Shrawn. Perhaps our time will add to that list. There has been Nemoc the Betrayer, risen in the Court to pledging allegiance to someone already there, and then turning, though who he has betrayed and why changes from tale to tale There has been Rehan the Jealous, the Fighter in the Mists, Alimawan who turned against the Moon and at least a dozen so named across tale after tale. But since none of them take the principal role in the tales I have heard, I can tell you little in detail but that they served the Queen for long enough that someone thought them worth mention. Except of course that the list of names is usually followed by a coda that goes 'though they fought among themselves, with wildness and savagery, they none of them dared to face the Queen, for her they feared, and in fear, they revered, else their time in Winter end.

Three Tales

I feel that there is a weakness in this research - the lack of certainty I can offer you. And so I have concluded by including, in full, three separate tales. Each one, treats, in a different way, The Howling Queen's true intention - her ultimate and unquenchable desire to ultimately spread Winter across the world, such that no mortal life can exist, and all are under her power.

A tale of howling

He was golden, she was dark, zie was of silver. He was of the garden, she was of the forest, zie was of the sky. He was quick and sharp and joyful and so were they. Together three played.

He was sunlike, she was feral, zie was flowing. He was of the garden, she was of the forest, zie was of the sky. He was quick and sharp and joyful and so were they. Together three played.

He was laughter, zie was merriment, together they shone, but she was passion, and passion does not laugh. Together two played. He came back to the forest, sought out the wild den. Together they played. Until zie came shining, calling lightly. He didn't stay.

The lines of the strange clapping game tell the beginning of the tale, my listeners. Let me tell you the rest.

She was Inushka and he was Ivan and zie was Sasha. Inushka loved Ivan's touch and the way he stroked her hair. Even when she was young, her heart caught in her throat when he would turn from her to the birdlike Sasha. It seemed they shared dreams, that she, heavy limbed, could not share. She was Inushka, and she dwelt in the forest in a warm, cosy den. But she knew it was not the same as the stone built house with the pretty garden fence that Ivan went home to. He took Sasha there, but never her. For a time, he always came back and so it did not matter. But the times between visits got longer - and sometimes she missed him so hard she felt a howl in her soul.

One day, he came, and he talked for longer than usual, and though she heard not a word, she knew what she'd been told. His heart was not hers, nor his body, nor his soul. He would not come back to the den.

And for days she howled. And when she was done howling she left the forest, left the comfy den, went away. Away from other people, away from her memories. Away from the world that held Ivan and Sasha, happy.

She went where the flowers stopped growing, where the grass stopped growing, where at last the trees stopped growing, and there was just rock, climbing up towards the moon.

And do you know what they say? They say that she reached the very top of those rocks, just as the Moon reached the fullest it had ever reached, at the point in the sky right above the rock. And they say that she cried out to the Moon, and the stars and the skies that she would not rest until she had brought it to be that no one could have the happiness she had known when Ivan stroked her fur. That no one should have a loyal companion that made the day seem bright when she could not. And that she would spend her days in seeking an end to all life, so that the bleakness around would be the perfect mirror of the bleakness left inside her. And they say that the moon listened, and other forces did too. And they say that not many moons hence, she birthed the first child of her emptiness, and named it Yarlek the Destroyer.

And that was the beginning of her court and the ending of my tale.

A piece of silence

Stop up your ears, fearful ones, for only the strongest can hear this tale. Stop up your ears, timid ones, for only the bold can handle my words. I know you have heard before of the Howling Queen. I know you have been told of her ferocious appetite and her terrible power. But have you been told from whom she comes, and why she will never, never go away.

In short sharp words a truth I tell you, one that should chill you to the core. She came here before us all. Before the Vard, before the Ushkans, before soulful thing at all. And she came as a punishment.

Kicked out, cast out, from a realm of Winter so cold, so brittle, so unflinching that even the barest breath of sentiment, the slightest hint of compassion, oh and forbid it be! the tiniest touch of empathy a realm where any one of those things is cause for banishment.

And her banishment came with a task. If you pity them, then you shall end their suffering. Each and every single one you must take. Strip it of its life. Make it husk and nothing more.

And the task came with a warning. Start slow. It is not nothing to you to do this. Your touch is enough, but you must measure your strength until all are emptied. If you do not, if you spend yourself too fast then you can never return.

I do not think those tasks were delivered in words, and I do not know who the mortal was who got close enough to her for her to share the truth of them. But I tell you one thing for sure, that no mortal has spoken to the one who gave her the task -and never will neither.

But I can name them and will, because it is with that name, bravest of you, that you understand why I spoke of the need for strength to hear my tale. Because The Howling Queen is not courtly Queen you can bargain with - though over the years she has walked these lands she may be able to wear the mask of such a role. And she is not a thwarted lover, nor even a wolf pup turned into something more than an animal. She is a construct, a herald, a child cast out of the domain of a particular part of Winter. She comes, my friends from The Silent Witness. Let that chill you as it should, for now you know.

A guard speaks

In Perumaki, you will hear tale after tale of The Howling Queen. And too many of them paint her as an enemy to be wary of yes - but also as a Sovereign, who - in the Varushkan way - can help us, if only we know to bargain well.

I scratch my pen across the page to say this is not so, and I have seen it first hand.

Long was I a wagon guard, travelling the roads across Varushka. There are not many things I fear more than exactly the right amount for what they are, and not many things I cannot stomach.

But when the dark sickness was troubling the Vales across the Miekarova Volodmartz borders, we ran quarantine wagons between the vales - taking the recovered to help, in places where the sickness was and had not yet killed all. We drove in to a vale where we sensed the wrongness the moment we arrived. The inhabitants greeted us, they told us, in all joy that they had no need to fear the sickness, The Howling Queen had taken care of them. We withdrew, a little ways, but could not shake the feeling that something was not right. So we went along the road a little til we found a priest who could spare the time. Not one of them was what they seemed. Not one of them was human anymore.

We were well armed. We did not know what strength they would have - but we could not leave them like that.

We did not. And I do not doubt their words. The Howling Queen had taken care of them. But who would want that care. They're gone now, and I hope I never have to do that again. So listen well. Whatever they might do for you, turn from it, move on.

The Ballad of Lord Leohnar Gildaryn

And last of all, a ballad, that I heard not far from Perumaki, which the singer said was sung to mock one Lord Leohnar Gildaryn, presumably of Dawn. The song has spread across Varushka and, for all that it is modern, it may present some insight into the Queen and her servants.

All hail to the great protector! Weirwater's saviour's near Ignore the dead beneath his feet The graves he carries here

He tells me he will stand against The husks that I call forth Oh you should look closer to home Fore looking to the north

Ser Emrys, was the name I hear? The Druj he fought in vain Without your vaunted protection He died alone - in pain

Mercy? I do not practise much But you and yours held claim Did you try fight those Druj brutes too? He fell all the same

No husks will walk Weirwater A bold, audacious call That Glory will not shield you from Your Pride before the fall

You live, and yet, upon the path My feet and words do tread Your Glory counts for nothing When raised against the dead