The Wolf Age Read Online Free PDF

he neither knew nor cared.
    The hills about them were riddled with holes like empty eye sockets: dens of werewolves, he supposed. One of the hills had been cut down to bedrock and walled around; the holes in its sheer sides were smaller: windows, not doors. That was where they were taking him.
    And only him. When Morlock looked about incuriously, he saw that the other human captives were gone. Either they had been left somewhere else or they had been eaten on the way. He neither knew nor cared.
    To the west, there was another far greater walled edifice, and behind the walls were rising ranks of tableland, each rank thick with toothlike protrusions, each surface notched with dark den-holes. That must be the ill-famed city of werewolves.
    Beyond it to the north was a mountain, tall enough to overshadow the highest of the tablelands. From the ragged cone at its peak, it was a volcano, though it seemed to be dormant. Mounted on its higher slopes was a gigantic circular device, gleaming in the light of the minor moons. On its upper rim two silvery globes of unequal size moved at separate rates. In its center were starlike symbols forming an all-too-familiar shape: a wolf. On its lower rim was a third globe-lightless, almost impossible to see, but larger than the other two.
    A moon-clock, Morlock deduced, with a faint awakening of interest. He wondered what it was for, who had built it, what powered it. He turned his eyes away resolutely.
    Ahead of him lay the walled lair: clearly a prison. From snatches of wolfspeech he understood from the captors, he guessed it was called the Vargulleion. There would be no moon-clocks there. He walked through the tomblike gate of the prison with unfeigned indifference in the midst of his captors, wolvish and manlike. First their shadows were swallowed by the darkness within; then their forms were lost and they made their way down the lightless hallway. A dim red light glowed at the end of the hall: an open door, leading to the prison interior. From it Morlock heard iron slamming on stone and many voices of men and wolves.

    They took him to a cell on the highest floor of the Vargulleion and locked him in. The lock itself was a simple crossbar. But there was a guard station opposite the cell door, with a manlike and a wolvish guardian posted, watching him with cold interested eyes. He hoped they wouldn't always be as alert as they were now.
    The cell had two cots. There was a window, high in the wall, and the light of the minor moons poured through it, painting the filthy surfaces with silver. (The window had a wooden shutter, but it was propped open.) He saw a narrow dark hole in the floor: the commode. Impossible to escape that way, but it might represent some structural weakness in the cell he could exploit.
    Morlock lay down on one of the cots and slept. He never knew how long. When he awoke there was sunlight glaring in the window and he found a bowl of food and a bowl of water on the floor by his cot. The food was a mash of peas or beans or something-no meat, thank God Avenger. The water was even more welcome. He wasted none of it on washing, of course.
    When he was done he examined the bowls carefully. They seemed to be tin of some type-perhaps brittle enough that he might break off a few fragments.
    A man's voice shouted words at him. He looked up to see a guard standing at the bars of his cell. The guard rattled the bars and motioned with his hand: he wanted Morlock to bring the bowls to him.
    The guard's hands were resting between the cell bars; Morlock thought about leaping forward to trap the guard. Now, perhaps, was not the timethere was still another guard, in wolf form, standing ready-but he noted the guard's recklessness. That, too, was a weakness that might be exploited.
    As he stood and walked deliberately toward the cell door, the guard stood back. He used hand motions to direct Morlock to pass the bowls through the bars and drop them on the ground. Morlock did so and stood back.