Free The Wolf Age by James Enge

long been on his mind, "Why doesn't Hrutnefdhu have hair on his face?"
    "He does," Rokhlenu replied, startled.
    Some of the guards laughed. Morlock mulled it over, and then mimed shaving. That was what he was really concerned about. If there was some way for a prisoner to get the privilege of shaving, then he might acquire a razor and keep it. A straight edge of steel could be useful in so many ways.
    The guards laughed again. Rokhlenu seemed surprised and a little embarrassed when he understood Morlock's question. He laboriously explained that Morlock's words implied that Hrutnefdhu had no fur on his face in the night shape, which was apparently an embarrassing blemish for werewolves and which Rokhlenu knew was not the case with Hrutnefdhu. He taught Morlock the vocabulary of shaving (khlut: razor, srend: oil, khlunv: shave) and then said, "But Hrutnefdhu doesn't shave. Someone shaved him good, long years ago."
    The guards laughed again, even more uproariously.
    There was some joke here that Morlock did not understand. He opened his hands and looked at Rokhlenu expectantly, hoping an explanation was coming.
    Rokhlenu turned his head to one side: he understood that Morlock didn't understand. He mimed an action with his hands: a razor lopping something off. He said, "Hrutnefdhu is plepnup." He mimed again and repeated, "Plepnup." Morlock guessed that plepnup meant castrated. He turned his head to one side.
    When Hrutnefdhu next appeared, Morlock's guess was confirmed. The guards had been much amused by his conversation with Rokhlenu, and they made Hrutnefdhu take his loincloth off and show his mutilated genitals to Morlock. The pale werewolf was deeply humiliated; his mottled face grew red with shame and powerless rage. Not just his testicles had been removed; his penis too had been savagely mutilated. He glared at Morlock as he stood naked at the barred cell door.
    Morlock, for his part, was furious at the guards for humiliating the weak and timid trustee. He was sorry that something he'd said was the cause. He would have been hard pressed to explain that in one of his native languages, though. As the jailors finally allowed Hrutnefdhu to turn away, Morlock blurted, "There is them. There is you and me."
    Rokhlenu looked at Morlock in surprise. He turned to Hrutnefdhu and said, "He's right. There is them. There is you and him and me."
    "Plepnupov," hissed Hrutnefdhu. "Eh? You, me, him? All plepnupov. Eh?"
    "If they had their way," said Rokhlenu. "So the Stone Tree can have them."
    Hrutnefdhu turned and ran naked down the echoing hallway.
    "That was bad," Rokhlenu said, turning away from the laughing guards, taking Morlock by the arm as he did so. "It was also good. You have a strange shame, Morlock."
    "Oh?"
    "Yes. To have no bite does not shame you. To get bite from the jailors, that shames you. To have no shirt does not shame you. To have a shirt while your friend is naked, that shames you. To stand with a plepnup and say youand-me does not shame you. To let aplepnup stand ashamed before you, that shames you."
    "I suppose so."
    "Yurr. You don't say much, do you? Are you more talkative when you know more words?"
    "Not really."
    "Now there is you and me and him against them."
    "Against," Morlock said. (It was a new word.) "If that means what I think it means, it is a good word."
    "Isn't it, my friend?" laughed Rokhlenu. "I thought you would like it. Us against them. I almost feel sorry for them, don't you?"
    Morlock thought the matter over for a moment and then said, "No."



here came a night without a moon, an eyeless night, in the wolvish phrase. It must have been early in the month of Drums. Rokhlenu did not transform into a wolf but stayed in human form, shivering in the dark cell with Morlock.
    "How do you stand it without fur?" Rokhlenu asked him finally.
    "I don't sleep much," Morlock admitted. "A few hours a night. There's no point in it anyway."
    "Isn't there? I like to sleep when I can. Dreams might be the only way I