A thousand years ago, in the springtime of a myriad of petals, the village of Muzhenghaak stood on the edge of the Plain of Aurigainia. The peasants who lived there were the last of the clan of Bashi-Bar-Ghaaki, a ruthless lot. Those folk, it is said, would barter away their souls for the promise of ghoors of gold, the gold they hoarded in their waist-belts.
In those days, the villagers, fearing mortality and death, were enticed by the craftiness of the White Werewolf, and swore a hellish covenant with the beast on the holy Book of Ghirke. The creature agreed to grant them a thousand years of mortal life, and for their part, the Muzhenghaakis agreed to be eaten, at the end of that time, in an all-inclusive onslaught.
Just think what one could do in a thousand years! A thousand years of prosperity, a thousand years of joy, of love life for a thousand years, and after that happy millennium, how willingly would one go to one’s death in the jaws of the Werewolf!
Yet, nothing of the kind happened at all. From the moment the pact was made, the peasants of Muzhenghaak ceased to grow up, ceased to age, ceased to grow old and die. For a thousand years, the sultry Simoom lived in her womanhood with the same lover Yvgevny, and even Chungrani’s child, baby Mukshentor, born a millennium ago, never grew a day older.
At night, the villagers could hear the White Werewolf’s caterwauling in the Plain of Aurigainia, always nearby. Sometimes, the glowing red eyes of the beast could be seen in the windows of the sleeping Muzhenghaakis, always waiting, waiting for the end of time to come, for the day of reckoning to be at hand.
By day, the villagers huddled in their huts, telling horror stories they had imagined, of the coming of the Werewolf. The stories they told were repeated for hundreds of years, always gruesome in detail. In one story, you stand there, frozen in fear, while the Werewolf gleefully consumes the entrails of your loved one. In another version, you stand there, frozen in fear, then the Werewolf looks away, and when you least think it will get you, it lashes out and you know no more!
What became of the Muzhenghaakis as a people? Cringing in fear, they built nothing and farmed nothing, and yet, they were known throughout the land as a society of miserly consumers.
For a thousand years, they took everything from the soil and gave nothing back. Seeking timber for their fires, they stripped the countryside of forests until not one tree was left standing. They grew the same crops year after year, until all the nutrients were sucked from the ground and the crops could grow no more. They mined the land of precious stones to be sold in the marketplace for food and clothing, until the terrain had a gouged-out appearance, full of pits and crevasses. In turn, they dumped their garbage and refuse out on the fields, and in the lakes and rivers, and even the hills, until the surrounding acreage had a stench about it, which no traveler would dare come near.
In towns nearby, they brought nothing to the marketplace. Yes, they purchased all the latest clothes, tools, furniture and other articles with their ghoors of gold, but they made nothing and sold nothing in return. Merchants welcomed their money, but were glad to be rid of the conniving Muzhenghaakis, specters of persons that they were. They came to market year after year, looking not one day older than they did a score of years ago, and the elder townspeople knew something was terribly wrong.
When the closing days of millennium arrived, the peasants of Muzhenghaak feared their doom time. It was early spring, but there were no flower petal showers in that year; it was the year in which the last of blizzards struck, the last of storms before the Great Warming came. Cold north wind blew hard into the Plain of Aurigainia and snow strangled the cobblestone passageways of the village. Inside their homes, villagers huddled, passing on the legend of the White Werewolf as it was told for a thousand years. Some prayed to the Goddess of Stotemastartia, but their prayers were not answered. Some prayed to the old Ice Gods who dwelled in the north, but their prayers were not heard. Some prayed on the holy Book of Ghirke, but to no avail, and some called upon magic of Those Who Dwell deep in the earth, but magic, as well, was of no avail. Many habitually went about their business as they had for a thousand years, dumping their slop in open sewers running along the roads, while others scoured the land for what sustenance they could find.
Hidden from view, Simoom dressed herself in her white gown, her white overcoat, gloves and hat. She counted every hour up to the final moment, her eyes glowing red with expectation.
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