Legends of Belariath

Callie Volopa

The Story of Wobaki, The Man Who Knew Everything

A Legend of the Vulpine

As Told by Callie Volopa

Ten thousand years ago, a vulpine of the Water Tribe named Wobaki dedicated his life not to hedonism, but to the other core precept of vulpine culture, knowledge. From a very young age he traveled throughout the world, discovering wonders beyond his imagination and expanding the vulpine understanding of the world. Every fifty years he trekked back to his tribe to share what he had learned, and his people were awed by his wisdom and knowledge.

The quest for learning consumed Wobaki's life and took him far away from home on countless occasions. He traveled farther than any vulpine had ever gone before; in fact it's believed that some of the places he visited still haven't been discovered by imperial civilization. Traveling alone, with no family of his own, Wobaki had a deep sense of loneliness in his heart, but had grown to accept it as the price of the life he'd chosen.

Wobaki was only truly happy when he returned to his village to share what he'd discovered. Every time he did so, it brought smiles and wide-eyed amazement to the faces of everyone from the Tribal Elders to the littlest kits who'd never before heard him speak. Whenever he returned, the people would beg him to stay, but each time he declined, wanting to go back out into the world and continue to unlock its secrets.

Then one day, while Wobaki was back in the village for his eighth lecture, he had a very special visitor. Upon first glance she appeared to be The Lady Herself, Mother of All Vulpines. She certainly had the gold fur and wise voice of The Lady, but if Wobaki had been looking more closely he'd realize she had only nine tails instead of The Lady's ten.

In truth, his visitor was a Tayva Din (an “Original Child”) of The Lady, her daughter, Laymeesha. But when Wobaki saw her, he fell to his knees and worshiped her as The Lady, and the mischievous, somewhat egotistical Laymeesha did nothing to deter him. She spoke to him of a mountain on the other side of the world, and promised that if he climbed it and retrieved from it a glowing blue stone, it would grant him the knowledge he'd sought all his life.

Even though Laymeesha's reputation for being a troublemaker was well-known and well-deserved, for whatever reason-- hubris, perhaps-- Wobaki didn't bother counting her tails or doing anything else to verify her identity. In his mind his goddess had entrusted him with a sacred task. And this quest would take him farther away from home than he had ever been before; he traveled for decades on foot and by sea to reach his destination, for he disdained the use of magic or animals to make life easier.

Almost 47 years to the day since leaving the village, Wobaki reached the mountain. It took him seven days to climb it, but at the end he did indeed find the glowing blue stone that Laymeesha had told him about. It was quite small, able to fit into the palm of his hand, but it shone clearly in its place, so that even someone who hadn't been looking for it would be able to tell it was no ordinary rock. Wobaki took hold of the stone, and as promised, he found the knowledge he'd been seeking-- the knowledge of absolutely everything.

He saw happiness, heartbreak, joy, pain, birth, death, love, hate, and everything else in the lives of not just those he knew, but of everyone in creation. He saw the past, present and future merging together and spreading out in front of him; learned secrets even the modern world of 10,000 years later would not be able to fathom. Worst of all, he saw all the evil things people had done to each other, were doing and would do in the future. And he was haunted by the image of a future many millenia distant, in which sentient beings would annihilate each other with explosive weapons that wiped out entire cities.

The knowledge of everything he'd seen caused Wobaki to go irredeemably insane within five minutes of touching the cursed stone. For a mortal, any mortal to know everything is a terrible burden, one best left to the gods, and he couldn't handle it. Fortunately for him he was at the top of a mountain, so he had a quick way out: He flung himself over the edge of the cliff to his death.

Laymeesha appeared at the top of the mountain after Wobaki killed himself, and even she was horrified by what she'd driven Wobaki to do. She took the stone in her hand and shattered it into a million shards, allowing the wind to carry it away like dust. Then, returning to the Water Tribe, she spoke in the public square-- this time identifying herself-- and told the people of Wobaki's last quest. This story made not just the Water Tribe, but all vulpine tribes venerate him even more.

To honor Wobaki's memory and recognize his grandfatherly wisdom, vulpines began using the word 'wobaki' to mean 'grandfather', replacing the old word, jenteleen. Ultimately the language evolved so that 'woba' means 'father', 'wobaki', grandfather; 'wobakiki', great-grandfather, and so on. The wise scholar Wobaki will forever be closely linked with his people through their very language, and though he never had children of his own, in a sense millions of vulpines call him 'grandfather' every day.

BACK