Story Sheets: "Three Gifts of the White Wolf"

Surprise! We are already back with a new Story Sheets! Bet you didn't expect one quite so soon, but it was obvious it was coming, wasn't it?

After our last entry, it only made sense to jump right into the next one this week. As you well know, there are two stories (naturally) included in the collection Two Adventure Across Eternity, and you already know about "Duel On Dalpha" and the story behind that one, but what of the second story? Well, let us get into it.

As you might have guessed from just the title of today's story, this isn't another space opera tale of gun fights and mecha battles like the last one. No, it's very much the opposite. This is a story of swords, sorcery, and cursed lands. So why is it even here, being paired in a collection with a seemingly very different story? Well, I will explain that part a bit later on. For now, let us concentrate on the tale itself. What is "Three Gifts of the White Wolf" and where did it come from?

Believe it or not, it's actually a pretty old story I recently edited myself to completion. Since I was a much improved writer by the time I wanted to publish it, I sharpened this older tale up a good deal, though nothing in the piece itself has changed. That said, since this was never published before or looked at by other eyes, it is the readers who get to dive into this one fresh. Therefore I spent a good deal of time tempering this one up.

Anyway, enough of the technical details. What about where it came from? That is actually a very simple question to answer.

What happened is something that occurs every now and then where I will be writing or editing a story, novel, or even blog post, and I will be struck with an idea and have to put everything aside to write it down on the spot. For example, when I was editing Two Adventures Across Eternity to get it out by the end of 2023, I found myself in this same predicament. There was another piece I just had to write, so I dove into said story and came right back to editing again afterwards. When that story releases, I'll share the culprit that nearly delayed the collection. Either way, it happens more to me than I'd like to admit. I am not an organized writer in the slightest.

The problem with today's entry is mostly that I don't remember quite when exactly I wrote "Three Gifts of the White Wolf" because as soon as I was done I put it aside for later. I don't even think I properly self-edited it at the time. The reason for this is that, much like "Duel On Dalpha" and a few other stories I've written, there isn't much of a market for tales that fall in that novelette groove between novella and short story. Most magazines are desperate for space and the cost of eBooks makes selling them on their own against longer pieces look like a bad value proposition. So I decided to put aside until an opportunity arose where I could finally give it to readers.

And now you've got it!

I'm happy to finally get this one out because it marked a bit of a shift in how I consider writing stories. I believe I wrote it after reading a bunch of Andrew Lang's Red Fairy Book because I wanted to write a tale in that vein but, obviously, not quite so short. That ended up being the story we are discussing as today's subject. Since then I tend to have a lot of fairy tale influence in everything I do, whether I intend to or not.

Custom cover similar to the one for "Duel On Dalpha"

As it might be evident from the above art, a classic painting used for the cover (the art is actually used for the back cover for the paperback version!) sets the tone for the story. For those curious, the painting in question is Eugene Boudin's "Coast of Brittany" work from 1870, only a bit darker and more twisted than the original piece was intended to be. This is because the setting for "Three Gifts of the White Wolf" is the same as an earlier story, "Inside the Demon's Eye" which ran in StoryHack Issue Three a while back, and the location is the same as that one.

You might be wondering if this means the stories take place in Brittany--why else would the cover be like this, after all--but that's not quite the case. No, these stories don't even really take place in the past.

I'll have to explain this the best I can.

I have to be careful here, because a lot of what the Black Lands are, the setting of these two stories, is properly revealed in this very piece, because it is the lynchpin to the tale itself. Please be patient if any of the following explanation sounds vague, as I like to avoid spoilers in this entries if I can. I'm assuming not everyone has read the subject of today's post yet and are perhaps deciding on reading them afterwards.

"Three Gifts of the White Wolf" is about a dying warrior named Sagest wandering the lands, searching for a place to die. His time is up, and he only wishes to stop his suffering and move on from this place where only horrors roam. What he meets along the way are challenges he did not expect and revelations he never considered, all before ending his quest in a way the Black Lands never would have allowed. It's a quest of a different sort.

I've not been very subtle in the past as to what I consider the true name of the Nameless Kingdom, (which has been mentioned in stories outside of these two) or where it comes from, but this tale reveals it all, so I will leave that bit of trivia for readers to discover for themselves. Regardless, the titular "gifts" are meant to be permanent, always there, even if not visible to the naked eye, and are obtainable by those who are willing to seek them out. There are always answers and paths we might not have thought of in our lives that can lead us the strangest of places. All we have to do is keep alert and always get up again. There's always another way out.

"Three Gifts of the White Wolf" is part fairy tale and part sword and sorcery story, but I don't consider those things all that separate from each other in the first place. Mainly, this is a story that needed to be told, and I'm glad I was finally able to finish it and deliver it to readers. As mentioned before, I'd been waiting for my chance for a while. The idea for this release thankfully came to me in a way that gave both these stories proper exposure to readers. And in this story's case, you can read it for yourself for the first time ever!

The original painting of the "Coast of Brittany" by Eugene Boudin, 1870

As for why this story was specifically chosen to be in a package with "Duel On Dalpha" instead of anything else, such an explanation is not quite so obvious on the surface. However, I can assure you that the two of them have connections under the surface.

Aside from the endings having much in common with each other, and both dealing with certain epic events of history that happened long before either protagonist were even born, each story is also about the fact that mistakes of the past, some of which said protagonists had no control over, will always roll out to affect the present in unexpected ways. How we deal with those mistakes also carries on into what the future will be like for those who come after us.

I am very proud of both of these adventures, and am more than pleased that I found a way to release them to readers in a unique package. For the longest time, it felt like I would be sitting on them forever. Thankfully, you can now not only get them in eBook form, but also in the unfortunately rare Pocket Paperback edition. Now anyone can finally enjoy two tales taking place across eternity from the other, yet both with the same general ethos and sense of place. All in all, I'm fortunate to have been given the inspiration to write them at all in the first place.

As for the Black Lands themselves, they might very well return in another story in the future, but the stories set in it aren't a proper series like say, the Galactic Enforcer or Night Rhythms stories are. They are, after all, hinted at in other tales I've written. Perhaps even in the first book I ever published. It is just a setting that may potentially be visited again in the future.

For now, however, we shall leave them behind.

Don't let this release or these entries fool you into thinking that I don't have plenty of material on the way. There are a few more pieces on the side, in production, and waiting in the pipeline still to be jotted down. I've got a lot to put out even still.

With the Star Wanderers publication coming in the near future in tandem with a tale in Cirsova issue #20, as well as other projects yet to be revealed, I am looking to having had put out around 25(!) total short stories by the end of 2024. This does not even include the novels still backlogged in the process. Suffice to say, I have many more on the way even after these, but I still have to get back to them and get them ready for you. That said, obviously more Story Sheets entries will be on the way when I do finally put them out. I look forward to sharing more stories with you when the time comes. This series is always a fun time.

That's all for today! Thank you for all your support and for reading these stories in the first place. It is only thanks to you that I can keep it up.

So lets reach even higher. Next time we'll stretch out touch the stars themselves. It'll be quite the journey, just you wait and see!

Three Gifts of the White Wolf is available in Two Adventures Across Eternity in both eBook form as well as an exclusive Pocket Paperback edition!