They turned and continued walking toward the vista, the open way leading the eye down to the valley below. Darryn and Karla’s village nestled in the immaculate vale, soft candlelight illuminating every house, the windows winking under the stars, the green curtain of the aurora rippling across the sky.  The whole range was dolloped in white, the trees labouring anemiously under their coats, the fresh snow mantling the peaks and skimming the village in a handsome trim, the fire in the square below the burning heart of the landscape.

 “It’s so beautiful!” Myndil cried, clasping his hands together. “I’ve never seen a mountain so covered in snow!”

 “Every year,” said Karla, “from now until March, when the great spring melt happens.”

 “Does your valley flood with all the snowmelt?” Aodhgan asked.

 “We have several streams and rivers that keep the water away from us,” said Darryn, pointing westward toward the mountain peaks. “My home is just there, on the opposite hill.”

 Darryn led the way down, Aodhgan followed to clear the way, and Karla and Myndil marched comfortably behind them.

 “You’ve come a long way from Erie,” Karla asked. “How did you get here?”

 “Aodhgan brought me much of the way. We rowed across the channel, and then he let me ride on him for the rest. I love riding on his wolf—I love hearing his paws pound into the ground and seeing his long claws dig up the road as we go. I rode on his cousin’s wolf halfway across Alba once, and it was so exhilarating! Eochaid didn’t dig up the road quite so much, but he did frighten a few kings. Since then, I always ask if he or one of his cousins will let me ride them, and they’re always so obliging! I know loping and bounding along as a wolf is nothing to them, but it’s infinitely exciting to me!”

 Darryn quietly examined Aodhgan, and though Aodhgan had a colossal figure boasting extraordinary strength, Darryn wondered where all the wolf bits were.

 “How come you were in these woods?” Myndil asked. “There seems woodland all around your village.” 

 “We were looking for a good Christmas tree,” said Karla. “Do you put up a tree for the holiday?”

 “Put up a tree?” Aodhgan repeated, looking bemused.

 “But trees are up naturally,” said Myndil. “Do you mean you cut them down only to put them up again?”

 “We don’t really do a tree for Christmas,” said Myndil thoughtfully, “but we do hang mistletoe around the abbey. Sister Iarlaith says that mistletoe keeps bad luck away the whole winter.”

 “What is mistletoe?” Karla asked.

 “I always thought it was a vine of some kind, but Brother Vindimir said was some kind of parasite, though I don’t know how a plant with lovely-looking berries could be like a flea.”

 “It’s a plant that grows from the droppings of a thrush,” said Aodhgan.

 “Oh.” Darryn paused, thinking how not to be rude. “And you hang that over your door?”

 “It’s a custom we kept from our druids.”

 “A wonder you don’t decorate trees, then.”

 “We do have the holly tree,” said Myndil, “though it’s really more of a shrub than a tree, and the leaves do like to hurt me when I touch them, but the leaves stay on the shrub all year round. We take the old growth to make wreathes out of and decorate w—hrf!”

 Aodhgan had stopped short in front of him, and Myndil was suddenly head first in a snow bank. He scrambled and righted himself, blew the snow from his eyes, and looked up. “What is it, Aodhgan?”

 “Wolves ahead,” Aodhgan replied, his ears tuned and listening.

 “Is it a cousin of yours, do you think?”

 “We have no cousins on the continent that I know of,” Aodhgan simpered, putting Myndil on his feet again. 

 “What did the wolf say? Could you understand its dialect of wolf language? Did it howl in an accent?”

 “The tone was different, but it was just letting its pack know we had entered their territory.”

 Karla gasped. “You can understand wolves?” she cried, her eyes sparkling.

 “I can.”

 “What did that one say?”

 “AwooOooOoooO?” Myndil offered. “Oh, you said it was a different tone, so aWOOoooOoOOo? Did it say we were friends coming to give nice treats and pettings?”

 “It sounded more like ‘intruders’,” Aodhgan explained.

 “Perhaps we should announce ourselves and say we’re friends?” 

 “I think they’re moving away from us. Don’t worry. The wolves won’t approach as long as I’m with you,” Aodhgan assured them.

 “We should still be careful,” said Darryn, clutching his axe, “there are other things in these woods that can kill you.”

 “I think with a werewolf as a companion, we’ll be all right,” Karla laughed. 

 “But have you ever tried making friends with the things in the woods that can kill you?” Myndil asked. “It’s amazing good fun! Brother Vindimir used to say that the little woodland around the abbey was dangerous at night and would only allow me to cut firewood during the day, but I found all sorts of wondrous creatures there, and none of them ever liked to hurt me—as long as I had something good in my pocket to give them.” He counted on his fingers: “I made friends with Ozzy the Wight, whom I found lying beside the wood. Mr Dullahan, of course, and Mr Dullahan’s head. Our nisser and his cow, and the pixies, who did nibble on my arm once, but when they realized I didn’t taste nicely, they went to live in the hawthorn tree and now eat the berries instead.”

 Myndil made an eager smile. Darryn walked a little farther ahead and held his axe closer to his chest.

 Myndil sped up and sidled him, just in case he was still frightened of the wolves.

 “Sister Iarlaith always told me, when I was growing up, that I should always look to bigger people if I ever felt afraid of something,” Myndil continued, “and that if there was no one else to help, I should either practice my running away or pray to God for salvation, and God always comes to my aid when I call.”

 God would not deny this; attestation would require him to be part of the conversation, and he was glad to be uncalled for and out of the way. The continent was a strange place, once filled with many rival gods and old practices, but where the ether was still teeming with the whispers of the ancients in Eire, the divine paracosm was strangely silent here. God thought it best to say nothing, lest he alert a rival to his presence and try to syphon Myndil from him. He liked Myndil’s mind: it was snug and compact and made creaking noises, fraught with ideas crashing into one another at haphazard, but the telar curtain of ceaseless thoughts hid him from the rest of the world, letting him get on with things, like sin, general depravity, and a healthy interest in cake. Using Myndil as an instrument of destruction was just a happy aside.