Spirit Wolf

by Kathryn Lasky

  “Mhairie, Dearlea, listen to me. What Whistler says in one sense is right, or would be right if these were different times. But now words are important. A Great Chain, a new Great Chain, is precisely what I mean. Everything has changed in the Beyond. There is no more Ring, the Sacred Volcanoes have been smashed.” He swallowed. “There is no more Fengo, no Watch wolves to guard an ember. The land has been disrupted and so has the order. We have been abandoned, so to speak, on a tummfraw — a condition that Whistler, Edme, and myself are more than familiar with. It is time for a new order. A new chain of being.” He met their green eyes with his own. “And so let us begin now.”

  A quiet descended upon all of them. Edme, wrapped in the blue light of the crevasse, felt a quiver in her heart. Tears leaked out of her eye.

  Gwynneth now stirred. “Mhairie, Dearlea, you must be absolutely certain. You must put your gizz — rather your marrow — into this. For I am a Rogue smith and I know metals and I know a thing or two about chains, be they made of metal or wolves. Here is what I can say for certain — a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”

  THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE CHAIN were meticulous. First, each wolf dug divots for their hind paws to anchor them firmly in the ice. With their front legs they would grasp the hips of the wolf in front of them — all except for Faolan, who was the first “link” in the chain. His forelegs would be free to grab Edme. Banja was at the back of the chain and would be the anchor. From her long years as a Watch wolf springing from the cairns to guard the volcanoes, her legs were the strongest of all the wolves, except for Faolan. In front of Banja was Mhairie. The Whistler came next, then Dearlea, and finally Faolan. Gwynneth was to fly overhead, urging them on and ready to detect any weak links.

  “All right, wolves, prepare to dig in!” Gwynneth called out. “Port paw secured?”

  “Affirmative!” the five wolves responded.

  “Starboard paw secured?”

  “Affirmative!”

  Each wolf’s heartbeat quickened. Each thought, My paws feel anchored, but are they? They each dug in a bit deeper with their toes.

  “Grasp the wolf in front and confirm grip,” Gwynneth commanded.

  “Affirmative!”

  “Affirmative!”

  “Affirmative!”

  “Affirmative!” came the calls.

  Four wolves answered. Faolan did not, as his paws were ready to grasp Edme. He had never been so frightened in his life. Edme’s life was dependent on him, and the four wolves behind him could all perish if the plan failed. They could all plunge into this void of blue ice.

  “Engage now!”

  With that the wolves grasped more tightly as Faolan lowered down on his belly and slithered toward the lip of the crevasse. The strange blue light engulfed him. He had expected to see Edme immediately, at least the top of her head, but he realized that the walls of the crevasse were rippled with deep waves. And then there were strange flashes, ice shadows that almost blinded him. Never had he felt such a sense of menace as when he stretched deeper to lower himself down the crevasse.

  “I’m here, don’t worry!” Edme called.

  “Why can’t I see you?”

  “Stretch out just a little bit more,” she urged.

  “Not yet!” Gwynneth shrieked. “I have to prepare the rest in the chain.” She flew back to the rear of the chain. “Attention, everyone. Faolan has to go deeper into the crevasse. You are all performing wonderfully but now you must tighten your grip on the wolf in front of you. There could be pain, there could be blood. But you must all hold tight!”

  Each of the four wolves behind Faolan dug in with their paws. Mhairie felt Banja’s claws sink deep into her fur, beginning to rip her flesh.

  I am bleeding, bleeding for Edme. The tear was like a stone dropping into still water and rippling through the chain of wolves. For Edme, for Edme, for Edme. We bleed for Edme.

  Faolan hardly felt the flesh tearing in his hips. He had only one thought. If only he could have his old splayed paw back. Though it was misshapen, it was nevertheless bigger and, he imagined, stronger than the new paw. That old paw had condemned him at birth, but he knew it so well. So well, so well.

  “Don’t!” Edme barked. “Don’t think about it.” The top of her head appeared, then that single green eye. “Don’t think about that old paw, Faolan.” She was reaching for both his paws. At the moment Edme’s paw touched his, Faolan felt Dearlea begin to slip.

  THERE WAS A TERRIBLE HOWL AND then a shree. Edme felt Faolan’s paws jam in the pits where her shoulders met her forelegs. He had good leverage, then two sharper claws seemed to come out of nowhere and sink into her brow. Blood ran down her face but then there was the wonderful sensation of rising. Up … up … up … she willed herself straight up. One by one the stars winked and she rose into the blackness of the night and finally flopped onto a snowy mound. “Earth! Earth and sky!” That was all she could say. Faolan was licking the blood from her face. His own hips were bleeding from tears made by Dearlea’s claws.

  “If it hadn’t been for Gwynneth,” Faolan gasped, “we would have all fallen into the crevasse.”

  “Gwynneth?” Edme was confused.

  Dearlea began to cry. “I was the weak link.”

  “Nonsense!” Faolan said. “You did your very best.”

  “But when I started to slip it was Gwynneth who saved you, Edme. She flew right down into the void and grabbed your head with her talons. She lightened the load so I could dig in again.”

  “The chain didn’t break, Dearlea,” Gwynneth said firmly.

  “You were the first to slip because you were the first after Faolan,” the Whistler said.

  “Whistler’s right. It could have been any of us. You were the first to feel him take the whole weight of Edme, and if it hadn’t been for Gwynneth …” Banja didn’t finish the thought.

  Edme staggered to her feet. She looked around. Five wolves lay in the moonlight, exhausted. The snow was splattered with their blood. “You saved me,” she said to them. “You all saved me from a terrible kind of death. With your blood, your muscle.” She turned and looked at Gwynneth. “Your wings and your talons. You saved me. I am forever grateful, forever in your debt.”

  Faolan rose to his feet. His hip had stopped bleeding. “There are no debts. We can’t think that way. We must find a den near here. Rest some and then go on. For there is a new place for those who are willing, who are able, who are strong. We are going west. There is, I believe, a new world somewhere waiting. The moon that shines here will shine there, but here the land is broken and there it is whole.”

  Edme tipped her head to one side as she listened to Faolan. Something shivered in her marrow. Is it truly a new land or is it an old one? Is it the land of the frost wolf?

  They found the ruins of an old whelping den that was large enough for all of them to squeeze in. However, after what had seemed to Edme like an endless time in the crevasse, she had no inclination to sleep inside a den. She insisted on staying just outside even though it had turned cold again.

  “I’ll be fine, Faolan. Look, I’ll sleep here right at the mouth of the den.”

  She needed to see the sky, the black night dusted with stars. She needed to feel the wind whisper through her fur. She caught the shadow of Gwynneth’s wings printed on the snow.

  “You’re not sleeping inside with the rest?” Gwynneth asked.

  “No. To tell you the truth, I’ve never been much for dens. Especially not after falling into that crevasse.”

  “It must have been terrible.”

  “It was the nothingness of it that I found frightening. The nothingness and the blueness.”

  “The blueness?”

  “Yes, that odd blue light that was always there no matter day or night. It was always the same.”

  “You were down there for two nights and one day,” Gwynneth said.

  “It seemed forever, but the light never seemed to change. The color never changed.” She paused and blinked her si
ngle eye. “I never thought of this before, Gwynneth, but have you ever flown so high that you see only the blueness of the sky and nothing else?”

  “Oh, there is always something, even though I might not be able to see the ground. Often I can’t see the ground because of clouds. But there is never nothingness and it is never simply blue even on the brightest days. It is like black is never black.”

  “It isn’t?” Edme asked, cocking her head.

  “No, never. There is First Black, that’s what we call it. We’re past that time now and owls would call this the Deep Gray, the time just before the dawn. And then at the opposite end of the day — what you call twilight — there is what we call First Lavender, that begins to move into the Deep Purple that pulls in the First Black.” Gwynneth was perched on an upturned chunk of ice.

  “Will you go west with us, Gwynneth?” Edme asked.

  The Masked Owl wilfed and became as slender as a reed.

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I shouldn’t have asked,” Edme quickly apologized. Owls wilfed when they were either frightened or were trying to appear almost invisible while keeping watch for prey.

  “It’s all right. Don’t worry.” Gwynneth paused for a long time. “You know, Edme, I’ve always been somewhat of a loner. Preferred living in the Beyond closer to wolves really than owls. I lost my mum so young that I barely remember her. Then my auntie followed, and not long after my da, and now the Sark. But what am I going to do here, completely alone in an empty land? The herds are gone, so there isn’t even enough scat to fuel my fires. I’m not sure what this place is that Faolan is thinking of. It could be nothing, it could be a dream. But I’ll go.”

  “I’m glad. I’m really glad you’re coming with us. After all, you were Faolan’s very first friend in the Beyond.”

  “So I was,” Gwynneth said.

  Edme flinched.

  “Is something wrong?” Gwynneth asked.

  “No, nothing really. It’s just a crick. I couldn’t move much on that ledge and my hind legs have stiffened up a bit.”

  “You should get some rest,” Gwynneth said.

  “What about yourself?”

  “For our kind, sleep is for the day, not the night,” the owl replied.

  Edme circled three times as if she were in a den before she settled down on the ground. The cold didn’t bother her in the least. She felt wrapped in the black pelt of the night and the stars seemed to shine just for her. She wondered if she would ever want to sleep in a den again. She closed her single eye and beat back the horror of the ice walls, of the long blue, and feasted on the night.

  As she slept she felt a twinge in her hind leg. I know this pain, this old pain, but why? She shifted her position. In her dream, she caught a glimpse of a familiar wolf. Ah, the frost wolf, she thought. But no, this wolf was smaller and it limped. Two bright green eyes seemed to stare directly into her eye. You know me? the eyes seemed to say. But not a word was spoken.

  A furry little ball pressed into Edme’s flank and woke her. It was Myrr. She yawned sleepily.

  “It’s cold out here, Myrr.”

  “It’s warm next to you. I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too,” she mumbled as she slid back into her dream. But there is something I miss even more. Once more she felt the pain in her hind leg.

  FOR THREE DAYS THE SIX WOLVES, two pups, and the Masked Owl traveled together. The ruptured land made for slow going, but there was an amazing amount of small game. It was as if the spasms of the earth had unleashed a torrent of small rodents — voles, mice, and a large population of lemmings scraped up by the unmoored glacier. It was decidedly owl food, but after almost ten moons of famine the wolves learned quickly to adjust. Although they did look askance at Gwynneth’s manner of eating — with one quick gulp, the creature vanished headfirst into her beak and down her gullet.

  “I just don’t understand how you do it,” Mhairie said as she watched Gwynneth make quick work of a vole. “I mean, don’t you chew at all?”

  Gwynneth gave a slight belch, then replied. “No teeth, dear.”

  “It sounds almost too simple,” Dearlea said. “I mean, how can you taste it?”

  “It’s an aftertaste as the vole begins to break down in my stomachs, my two stomachs. The second stomach, that’s our gizzard, and that’s where we owls pack away all the fur and bones.”

  “Eeew!” Myrr said.

  “Now, Myrr,” Edme scolded gently. “We all have our ways and we must respect each other.”

  “But when owls are just pups how can they do that?”

  “We don’t call them pups, Myrr, when they are young. We call them owlets.”

  “Well, when they are owlets how can their stomachs be big enough for a whole vole?”

  “Oh, they’re not. We pick the meat off the bones with our talons for owlets to eat. It’s called their ‘first meat ceremony.’ Before that, owlets have only eaten bugs and things — crickets, worms.”

  Myrr shut his eyes. “I am really trying to be respectful about all this but — eating bugs!”

  Faolan looked on. “I used to eat bulbs and roots when I was just a cub. I mean a pup,” he said, thinking of Thunderheart.

  “You did? Why?”

  “It’s a long story for another time. Come on. We have to get on.” Faolan was about to say “on the trail.” But there were no trails left in the Beyond, no scent posts. It was as if the earthquake had erased everything.

  Gwynneth’s habit was to fly out ahead to scout the best route west. She had not been flying long when she looked down and saw an inexplicable formation beneath her. “What in the name of Glaux,” she whispered to herself. She first saw the dark tracks left by the surge of the glacier — thick deposits of soil and rock that had been peeled from the surrounding earth at the edges of the glacier. She thought again of what the owls in the north called a galloping glacier. Had the gallop stopped here in this peculiar pile of rocks, ice, and trees? A crushed forest seemed to pop out of the debris. And it was not just any forest, but one of the spirit woods that fringed the eastern side of the bight from Broken Talon Point. The toe of the glacier had raced from the northern kingdoms across the Bittersea, and then the Sea of Hoolemere, and through the Beyond on its relentless course to the west. And it had brought with it fragments of its plunder from all the landscapes it had crossed through.

  A spirit woods! Gwynneth felt herself begin to wilf at the very idea of one of these haunted forests where the scrooms of owls and the lochins of wolves often gathered. Her wings stuttered. Don’t you dare go yeep! Don’t let your wings lock! You’re dead if you do! But she felt herself begin to plummet.

  A vortex of mist swirled up before her eyes. A scroom! Da! She felt her wings unlock and there was a surge in her gizzard. She caught the wind and began to soar as a warm updraft billowed beneath her. She closed her eyes for a split second. My father’s scroom sent this updraft and saved my life. When she opened her eyes and looked beyond the edge of the rolled forest, she could see a clear path to the farthest western boundary of the Beyond at the Blood Watch. This was the way they must travel if they were to go west. It was as if her father Gwyndor’s scroom had commanded — bring them this way. There was a reason for her father’s scroom to appear at the moment it had. There was a reason for them to travel this way and not the route the Whistler had come.

  It was not until moments later, as she still glided down on the warm thermal, that she realized that there had been a bright glint at the very center of the vortex of scroom mist, like a small sun radiant in the dark of this night. Da’s helm! He was wearing the helm and visor that she had restored to the blue spruce tree.

  “I saw the end!” Gwynneth called.

  “The end of what?” Edme asked.

  “The glacier. I spotted the toe, the toe of the glacier.”

  “How can that be?” the Whistler asked. “I came this way from the Blood Watch and I didn’t see it.”

  “You came farther south from here. There
was thick fog that night. Remember? Maybe you just missed it. We need to go across the toe and …” Gwynneth stopped.

  “And what?” Faolan asked.

  “And into the woods.”

  “Woods? What woods?” the Whistler asked. “There are few real woods in the Beyond and none near here.”

  “Yes, I know,” Gwynneth answered.

  “So what woods?” Mhairie pressed.

  “A spirit woods.” Gwynneth inhaled and blinked her eyes rapidly. “I’ll explain when we get there.”

  IT HAD BEEN A LONG TREK ACROSS the glacier, but they finally arrived at the toe.

  “Well,” Mhairie said as she looked about. “Being a wolf of the Beyond, I haven’t seen many forests in my life. But I must say, I never pictured one looking like this!”

  The toe of the glacier had dug into the land, kicking up an immense pile of earth and debris. Trees stuck out every which way at odd angles. There were ancient hemlocks and spruce, but the most common were the white-barked birch trees, their slender limbs poking into the ground or clawing at the sky like bones picked clean. Though it was night when they arrived at the toe, the pale eerie whiteness of the birch seemed to hold the darkness at bay. Even the stars looked dusty in this powdered night.

  Edme shivered. I’m not an owl, but I might just wilf, she thought as she felt her marrow turn cold. She looked at Faolan. He seemed calm yet very alert, as if he were anticipating something. But what might one anticipate in such a place? For Edme the pale forest diluted the dark and she found herself yearning for the blackness of the star-cut night that she had come to treasure since falling into the crevasse.

  “Must we stay, Faolan?” she whispered.

  “It’s all right, Edme. Don’t be afraid.” He ran his muzzle through the fur on her shoulders. Her hackles were raised and bristling.

  “But must we stay?”

  “Yes, for a little while. It was a hard trek here. Myrr and Maudie are exhausted. We’ll just rest for the night. But I can tell Gwynneth is right. The way is smoother from here on to the west. It’s not even a day’s run from here to the Cave.”