Spirit Wolf Read online

  “Listen, all of you,” Faolan said, shaking the image from his mind. “We have to pass this way. There is no choice. But I tell you we are not going to become food for carrion eaters. Gwynneth, you fly out ahead and scout for any crevasses. We shall walk carefully. We’ve all been taught to walk on river ice, testing it with our dewclaws. We shall do the same here. Do you understand?”

  The other wolves nodded solemnly.

  Faolan squared his shoulders, raised his tail, and then barked, “Let’s go!”

  The five wolves set off, Gwynneth flying above to scour the landscape for any dangerous breaches in the ice and listen carefully for any gaps in the wind as it swept over the glacier that might indicate a crack.

  This scheme worked for a little while, until a ground fog rolled in and blocked her surveillance. She swooped down to her companions below.

  “It’s hard to tell what’s below from up there. Before this ground fog rolled in it looked fairly clear. However there’s something else I need to tell you.”

  I am so bad at this kind of thing, she thought. There was no gentle way she could introduce the subject that was troubling her. She wished there was the language equivalent of a slipstream, the partial vacuum created in the wake of another larger bird that allowed one to fly swiftly, barely stirring a feather. But there wasn’t, so she just blurted out the news.

  Edme gasped in dismay. “What? What are you saying, Gwynneth?”

  “Banja has a pup. I found her in my old forge.” She ruffled her feathers. “I know this sounds strange.”

  “Definitely!” Faolan said. “It chills me to think of that wolf as a mother.”

  “Well, that’s perhaps the strangest part. She’s a very good mother,” Gwynneth replied. “It has changed her completely. She’s a different wolf.”

  “To put it mildly,” Mhairie sniffed. “She was a Watch wolf who was not supposed to mate, and here she has a pup.”

  “Yes, she’s a mother now. And anyway, I don’t think anyone can consider themselves Watch wolves any longer. There is no Ring. There is no ember to be guarded.”

  “Has she mended?” Edme ask. There was a slight tremor in her voice that no one detected except Faolan. He leaned in closer to her.

  “Yes,” Gwynneth sighed. “She has a second eye. She didn’t even realize it until I pointed it out to her.”

  “But the pup is fine?” Edme asked.

  “Yes. It’s female. Banja named her Maud. She’s perfect.”

  “That’s really good. I’m happy for her. I really am.” Tears glistened in Edme’s eye.

  Faolan cocked his head and looked at his dear friend. In truth, she was so much more than a friend. Those feelings, those undeniable emotions that had racked him as hard as the turbulent waters of the bight, roiled within him again. He had been absolutely desperate when he had thought she might be hurt, or that he might never see her again. He had been prepared to throw himself into that raging sea and drown right then.

  “I promised that I would go back for Banja,” Gwynneth continued. “Help her. And now that we know that we are going west …”

  “You can’t leave her alone!” Edme interrupted. “You can’t! To think that there is new life after all … all this.” She swung her head about to take in the devastated landscape that had once been the Beyond.

  “Go back, get her,” Faolan said. “We’ll meet you at the Blood Watch.”

  “But is there still a Blood Watch?” Gwynneth asked. “The cairns on those mountains … what could be left of them?”

  Faolan swallowed. “We’ll meet you at the Cave Before Time.”

  “The Cave Before Time?” Edme asked. She and Faolan’s two sisters seemed startled. They had all sought refuge in the Cave during a blizzard, and none had forgotten its strange paintings.

  “Is that what you call it, Faolan?” Mhairie said.

  “That’s its true name, I believe,” Edme replied, turning to Faolan. The green light of that single eye was so intense it pierced his bones to the marrow.

  “Yes,” Faolan replied softly. “We might find the Whistler there.”

  There is so much more than paintings in that cave, Edme thought. So much more! Edme sensed that at the Cave their journey west would truly begin. That was where the frost wolf she had glimpsed those long moons ago would meet the wolf she knew as Faolan.

  She felt a twinge deep in her marrow, but there was another pain even deeper — one in her hind leg, somewhere between her hip and knee. Her femur? But her legs had always been fine, ready to spring forward in a kill rush, or leap from the top of a cairn at the Ring. She took soaring leaps, especially when she was on guard for Stormfast. There was something about that cairn — the keybone on it gave her purchase like no bone in the other four Watch cairns. Her leaps on Stormfast had given her a reputation for strong hind legs. The last thing she needed now was bone freeze. There were liniments that could ease the pain, but once bone freeze set in, there would be no jumping as before. Of course there was no Ring as before either, so perhaps it did not matter. But she had to stay strong. She had to carry on west, Beyond the Beyond, on to … where? She was not sure, but she trusted Faolan. Hadn’t she always?

  The thought caught her up short. Haven’t I always trusted Faolan? It was as if Edme’s mind reeled back in time. If there is a Beyond the Beyond, there must be a Before the Before. That’s where we are going — somewhere before time. Suddenly, she was frightened.

  Faolan explained to Gwynneth precisely how she could find the Cave Before Time, even if the entire landscape had been disheveled. “The stars don’t change, Gwynneth. You fly two points off between the port hind paw of the Little Raccoon and the first claw of the Golden Talons.” He pointed to the sky, using all the correct owl names for the constellations. “You’ll find it. Remember, two points off the port hind paw and the first claw of the Golden Talons — paw to claw.”

  “Yes, I’ll find it. But …”

  “But what?” Faolan asked.

  “How do you know the owl names so well, Faolan?”

  “It’s a long, long story, Gwynneth.”

  Faolan tipped his head and looked at his old friend Gwynneth, his first friend in the Beyond, as she took flight.

  Myrr wagged his tail. “Is it a memory, Faolan, or just a story?”

  “Is there a difference?” Faolan asked, then ruffed up the pup’s pelt and rolled him. “Come now, you need some play. Everything might be a wreck, but when was the last time any of us played tag? Let’s stay right here for a while. The fog isn’t bad at all and we can see the ice is solid.”

  “I’m it!” Edme said and began to scamper about.

  “Be careful,” Faolan called. “Don’t move outside this area.”

  But there was a small explosion of snow and Edme vanished. A frightening howl curled into the air and began to dwindle, as if the sound were being swallowed by the earth as the one-eyed wolf plummeted down a deep gouge in the fangs of the glacier.

  THE CAVE WHERE THE WHISTLER had camped had not been as destroyed as he had first thought. He had gone out and scouted for other wolves and, as far as he could ascertain, not a single Blood Watch wolf had survived the earthquake. What the earth hadn’t swallowed or crushed, the glacier had. He had seen it approach, slowing by the hour. It was frightening, but it possessed a terrible beauty, an appalling splendor.

  Now another sound threaded through the shambles of the Cave, just scratching noises and then something else.

  “Where is that coming from?” the Whistler said aloud. He was still unaccustomed to his new voice. The sound he heard was a terrible plangent keening, as if the very earth were crying in some awful glaffling. The Whistler blinked. Nearby, under the debris of the quake, was a singing rock, and he was certain that it was transmitting the mournful sound.

  The singing rocks were composed of minerals of a peculiar structure that resonated sound across long distances. This sound had a low, darkly rich tone that he recognized. His fur bristled. He knew that voic
e. It was Edme! He tore around the area to try to find a clear path so he could press himself against the singing rock. Finally, he found it. The rock had been dislodged and a small crater was left where it had been anchored. But it had not rolled far and, once he scraped off the dirt and ice, the sound was crisp.

  He heard the voices of other wolves as well. Faolan, Dearlea, Mhairie, and one other — a pup! They were all there and it was clear that Edme was in some kind of unspeakable danger, trapped, possibly injured. He pressed his ear closer to the rock.

  Edme was perched on a ledge of ice just above a deep crevasse, but of all the animals, she was the calmest. Faolan was nearly hysterical. She had never seen him in such a state.

  Somehow she had landed on a small ledge and escaped injury. She had not fallen too far — she couldn’t even see the very bottom. For the crevasse was not simply a straight vertical slot into the earth, but appeared to undulate. The ice walls were wavery structures with bends she couldn’t see around.

  She managed to scramble herself upward a bit and was clinging to another ledge slightly higher than the first, but unfortunately a lot narrower. What frightened her the most was the peculiar blue light that suffused the air. She had looked below just once and seen that the light deepened to a darker and darker blue until it was nearly black. It chilled Edme to her marrow. This was a dead black, not like the night chinked with stars. It was the black of everlasting nothingness.

  “We’ll figure out something, Edme!” Faolan called. “We’ll get you out of there.”

  She heard Faolan and his sisters beginning to argue. In the background, Myrr was whimpering and Dearlea said something about eagles plunging in to retrieve her.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Edme snapped. “A bird with a wingspan of an eagle could never fly in here. It’s narrow, like a slot.”

  Again, her friends above began to argue.

  Edme had great powers of concentration and she simply blocked their endless bickering from her ears. Edme had learned a thing or two about ice in the past year, the year of the deep cold when the summer and spring moons came and went but it always felt like winter. She knew that just as there were dozens of kinds of snow, there were at least as many kinds of ice. She could see that she was in what she thought of as a weeping region. There were large patches of the ice sheets that appeared to be slick with water — melt water. This made it all the more dangerous for her. Trying to climb would be deadly; she was lucky that she hadn’t slipped off as it was. She peered intensely at the sheer walls of blue ice, her single eye blinking again and again. But it was only her outer eye blinking. The inner eye that guided her remained steadily open, its gaze hard and bright. Some of the melt water had refrozen and glistened luminously like a lens, revealing a complex network of tiny cracks inches beneath the smooth surface of ice. Could she possibly uncover them, excavate them using her dewclaw, the fifth little claw on her front paw? This claw was totally useless for hunting or protection, but it was good for digging and maybe perfect for scraping out these fissures. If she could dig these cracks out, she would have some purchase points and she could attempt a climb. It was going to be time consuming, but she could do it.

  She began quietly. She did not want to tell the others what she was trying until she was sure it could work.

  And it did work for a while. She managed to lift herself a good distance up from where she had begun. She found lots of little cracks to dig out and afford her a grip. But then she reached a long smooth section with no cracks at all.

  Edme was exhausted. “What’s happening?” Faolan called down. “I don’t hear you scratching.”

  “I’m taking a little rest.” For the first time she felt like crying. She looked at the walls of ice that had imprisoned her, the glowering blue sheet directly in front of her. She had studied it for hours or so it seemed; she had lost track of time in this ice hell, this blue Dim World. She felt as if she knew the ice sheet better than she knew her own body. She had studied its every crack, no matter how minute. She could see the tiny buried bubbles of air. Some were close to the surface, some much deeper. They bloomed like galaxies in the long blue night of the ice, but they were not stars and this was not the sky. She watched as some of the melt water beside her began to refreeze, knowing it wouldn’t help her. She needed to go up, not sideways, up, up, up, up to the sky, up to the earth, up to Faolan.

  “Has Gwynneth come back yet?” Edme called out. She had left the day before and ordinarily it would not have taken long to cover the distance, but a pup would complicate the journey. There was at least one thing they were all thankful for: The weather had grown warmer, warmer than it had been in countless moons. It meant they could sleep out right next to the crevasse without fear of freezing.

  But the warm weather brought new worries as well. If the ice inside the crevasse melted even faster, would it make Edme’s position even more dangerous? As it was she was hanging on by her claws. But if the ledge became even slicker … Faolan could not bear to imagine what might happen.

  “Have you found any more cracks?” Mhairie called down.

  “Don’t worry, I will,” Edme called back.

  She could not let her friends know of her despair. Then they might all give up, give up and leave her. She was not ready to die alone, like the Sark. She had memories, but not enough. Not yet!

  It was just at this moment a deep, sonorous howl unfurled on the wind. Even Edme could hear it.

  The Whistler!

  “WHISTLER, I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! How did you ever find us?”

  “The singing rocks.”

  “The ones near the Blood Watch?”

  “The very same. One was overturned by the earthquake, but it seems more resonant than ever.”

  As do you, Faolan thought. The Whistler’s speaking voice was so different. The rasp was gone, yet his howling, which had always been beautiful, seemed even deeper and richer.

  “Edme’s trapped,” Faolan blurted out. “She fell into the crevasse and she was scratching out cracks to get a toehold. She managed to claw her way up quite a bit, but now —” His voice cracked. “I … I don’t know. We think she’s grown tired. She hasn’t made any sounds for hours. She is not even answering us.” Faolan’s voice clutched with despair.

  He walked to the edge of the crevasse. “Edme, you’re just resting, aren’t you?” There was no response. “Edme? Edme, guess what? The Whistler just arrived. We’re going to figure something out.”

  “Look!” Dearlea cried. “Look, it’s Gwynneth, she’s back!” They all tipped their heads up.

  The shadow print of Gwynneth’s wings stretched across the icy field. She had a lump of something in her talons.

  “Great Lupus, she’s carrying a pup!” Faolan cried out. “But where’s Banja?”

  “Wolves don’t fly — well, only this little one,” Gwynneth said, setting down gently by the wolves. “Meet Maudie. Her mum should be here by evening.”

  In the strange blue light of the crevasse, something quickened in Edme. She sensed a new alertness in Faolan’s voice. For however long she had been suspended in this blue void, what had depressed her most of all was the absolute despair that had seized Faolan. It was as if the very marrow were leaking from his bones.

  She heard Faolan’s voice. “I have an idea. When Banja arrives, I think we can do it.”

  “Do what?” Edme called. These were her first words in many hours. “Do what, Faolan?”

  “Oh, Edme.” His voice soared with delight. “Edme, we’re going to get you out.”

  “How, Faolan?” she yelled.

  “We shall be five wolves when Banja arrives. We can make a chain of wolves — a Great Chain!” he howled.

  Mhairie and Dearlea looked at each other with apprehension. Was it sacrilege? A profanity to speak of the Great Chain in such a manner? A chain of wolves? The Great Chain was the bedrock of all the codes and laws of the clan wolves of the Beyond. And Faolan was a gnaw wolf! He should know better than to speak so freely of the
Great Chain.

  The first inscription gnaw wolves were required to gnaw on a bone was that of the Great Chain, carved in descending order, beginning with Lupus.

  Lupus

  Star Wolves (the spirits of dead wolves who have traveled to the Cave of Souls)

  air

  ceilidh fyre (lightning)

  chieftains (clan leaders)

  lords (pack leaders)

  skreeleens

  byrrgis leaders

  captains

  lieutenants

  sublieutenants

  corporals

  packers

  gnaw wolves

  unranked Obeas

  owls other four-legged animals

  other birds, except owls

  plants

  earth

  fire

  water

  Banja arrived at twilight. “Of course, of course, I shall be part of this chain — this Great Chain.” Her eyes sparkled.

  “Faolan,” Mhairie said hesitantly. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure of what?” Faolan looked at her sharply.

  She glanced at her sister “We … we are worried. You are calling this the Great Chain, a chain of wolves. Isn’t this a perversion of the Great Chain? Isn’t it” — she paused — “blasphemous?”

  Faolan looked at his sisters aghast. “What’s blasphemous is leaving Edme to die alone!”

  “No, no!” Dearlea protested. “That’s not what we meant.”

  Mhairie hastened to agree. “We would never leave Edme! It’s just, you know, calling it a Great Chain.”

  The Whistler stepped forward. “What does it matter what it’s called, Mhairie? It’s just words.”

  Faolan struggled briefly with this idea. He was happy that the Whistler had come to his defense, but there was something slightly askew in his logic. It did matter what it was called.

  Faolan looked at his sisters. He loved them and he needed them to understand. He leaned in and began to speak.