Spirit Wolf (5 page)

IT HAD BEEN BARELY HALF A MOON
since Faolan had been at the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes, but everything had changed. It was not simply that the volcanoes had collapsed. There were textures at the Ring that Faolan would always remember — the way the black sand of crushed lava felt between his paws, the gritty sound it made when blown by the wind, the plumy softness of the deep ash beds. But none of that remained. Faolan walked through the still-smoldering ruins of what had been the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes, his sisters by his side.

“Be careful! That lava is running hot,” Faolan cautioned Dearlea as she veered close to the wreckage of Stormfast. Or was it Morgan? Faolan found it impossible to fix his bearings.

They passed the scorched remains of two Rogue
smiths, their blackened talons still clutching their tools. One held fast to his tongs, the other a hammer. Faolan stopped to study them, dread flooding his stomach. But neither one was Gwynneth. Faolan shut his eyes.
Let her be safe. Let them all be safe
, he prayed.

He looked down again at the two smiths. In all the tumult, how had they managed to cling to their tools? The collier's art was diving into forest fires to retrieve prize embers and coals. They knew how to negotiate tricky cross drafts, plunge between the tongues of flames for the freshest coals without singeing a feather. He hoped most of the owls, at least, had survived.

But there was not an owl aloft in the sky and not a Watch wolf to be seen. The cairns on which the wolves had stood their watches were annihilated. An eerie silence enveloped everything. Gone were the deep rumbles of the quake and the pervasive gurglings of the boiling lava cauldrons; the sizzles of coals and embers were mere whispers now as they cooled with no colliers to retrieve them.

“Malachy!” Faolan gasped as he spotted the body of the
taiga
with the crooked hips, who was the Ring's expert on the owls and their ways. Malachy was pressed beneath a boulder, his head bashed in. But how odd that in death
his hips now seemed straighter than they ever had in life. Near him was the body of Conny, a short-eared owl from the Great Tree, who was a distinguished collier. It was said that he had learned from King Soren, the best collier the tree had ever seen.

If they are gone … if a strong flyer like Conny couldn't escape … how could Edme survive?
With each step, a dark dread rose within him.

“Edme!” His bark scratched the air. “Edme!” He barked again. There was a rustling sound from a pile of rock fragments, then a small explosion of dust and ash hurled toward him.

“Faolan! You're safe.” And like a little whirlwind behind her came Myrr, yipping happily. “You're here!” Edme exclaimed. Her whole body quivered with joy.

“You're alive!” Faolan said. His eyes were brilliant with his panic and relief. “You're alive!” He began to sniff her all over, as if to convince himself the wolf before him was really his dear friend. His fellow Watch mate, but something else trembled in his marrow.
She is more than that, much more than a Watch mate!

“Edme, Edme!” He couldn't stop repeating her name.

“Faolan, your paw!” she gasped. “The time of the mending — it has come.” A tear sprang to her eye. She
shrugged and gave a halfhearted chuckle. “But not for me. Remember, I am a
malcadh
made, not born.” Her face flinched and she looked away almost as if she were trying to hide her single eye. As if she felt embarrassed, as if the failure were hers. Faolan couldn't bear it. He took a step closer and licked her tear away. She shivered at the touch of his tongue on her face.

“Your eye was ripped from you when you were so young. It's not your fault. And you see more with your single eye than any wolf with two. You are the wolf dearest to me.”

“What's this we're eating?” Faolan said when they had settled into the makeshift den that Edme had organized.

“Lemming,” Edme replied. “It's odd to think that before the earthquake we were all starving. But the glacier dug up all these little rodents.”

“I don't understand,” Faolan said. “Half of the Ring looks like ice now.”

“I think the glacier broke through here, ruptured or something. There was another tremor here last evening and Myrr and I saw a crack. The front of the glacier slipped off, just slid away from this chunk. We watched until it was almost out of sight.”

Myrr came up wagging his tail. “It's like the White Grizzly,” he said.

“Oh, that story,” Faolan replied quietly.
And what happens when old legends come to pass, when they come true?

“As far as I can tell, it passed north of here,” Edme continued. “It crashed straight through the MacDuncan territory, shoved west right over Crooked Back Ridge. The glacier leaves a huge track and along its edges there were these little rodents. I finished off the dying ones and Myrr and I brought them back.” She paused. “It's so awful. After all those moons of famine we find all this food and there's only us to eat it.”

“You can't mean that everyone is dead?” He began to splutter, “I saw Malachy and Conny, but … but … All the Watch wolves?”

“The Fengo is dead,” Edme said.

Mhairie and Dearlea gasped. “The Fengo, dead?”

Edme nodded. “I set out his body where the drying place for bones used to be. There are still vultures about and they have made short work of it. His bones are almost bare.”

“He should be on the cairn of the Fengos,” Faolan mourned.

“But that's the queerest thing of all. The cairn still stands!”

Faolan met her solemn gaze. “Then we need to place Finbar's bones there when they are ready. We need to do his final ceremony. Do you remember how it is done from the Bone of Bones?”

Edme looked at Faolan. Her single eye shone brightly. “The Ring might be broken, but its spirit is not.”

THE FIVE WOLVES STOOD IN A
circle just as the curve of the moon slid up on the horizon like a thin, sparkling blade. The fog of their breathing misted the air of the circle as they huddled together. Their postures were those of grieving wolves, their tails drooping as if they lacked the strength to hold them properly. Their muzzles trembled. Their hackles were raised and their ears shoved forward just a bit as if perhaps they were waiting for the whispery drift that was said to pass when a
lochin
came one's way. Edme's bright green eye glistened with tears as she began to recite the Fengos' ritual from the Bone of Bones.

“Since the time of the first Fengo, it has been commanded that the weathered bones of the Ring's chieftain be brought to the cairn, along with any bones he has
carved during his lifetime.” Edme looked over at Faolan. “Do you think his bones are ready, Faolan?” He nodded, and she continued, “We stand watch the first night in case the bones attract a scavenger.”

Edme closed her eyes for several seconds. She was recalling a night from three moons before when she and Faolan had been out scouting, taking turns hunting for tracks. While she waited for him in the den they had found during one of the worst blizzards, she had become aware of a presence. She looked up expecting Faolan, but instead she saw something that rattled her to the marrow. It was a huge but ancient wolf who seemed to glow like a
lochin
.

But the real shock was that the wolf before her was not a
lochin
come down from the Cave of Souls. It was Faolan come in from the blizzard, his pelt stiff with frost. Nevertheless, she had sensed a secret, a visit from a presence older than time.

“Faolan, you should be the one to stand the watch.”

Faolan said nothing, but nodded. He knew she was right.

So, in the trickling light of the sickle moon, the four wolves and the pup, Myrr, transported the bones of the
last Fengo of the Ring from the drying beds to the cairn of the Fengos.

“Give Myrrglosch that bone,” Faolan said. “Let the bit of a miracle place the Fengo's last bone.” He nodded at the cairn of the Fengos, which still stood erect and whole despite the earthquake.

As soon as Myrr placed the last bone, the five wolves sank down to the ground and covered their eyes with their paws, a gesture of utmost submission to the highest authority. Then, rising, but with their tails still tucked and their eyes still shut, they tipped back their heads and howled at the dim splinter of the moon. As Watch wolves of the Ring, Faolan and Edme were the only ones who knew the howls that had been incised on the Bone of Bones. But little Myrr listened carefully. He would not howl, but he whispered the phrases to himself.

“Lupus, guardian of the Cave of Souls, Skaarsgard, keeper of the star ladder, here lie the bones of your humble servant Finbar Fengo, watcher of the Watch that was begun in the time of the first Fengo, who led our clans out of the Long Cold on the Ice March. Guide Finbar's spirit now to the star ladder to follow in the tracks of Hamish, Fengo before Finbar, and then that of O'Meg and that of Pegoth.” Faolan and Edme continued reciting
until they had named all the Fengos for a thousand years. By the time they had finished, the sliver of the moonlight had slid away to another world and all was dark.

Edme, Mhairie, Dearlea, and Myrr went to a new den nearby that Edme had dug out from the rubble, and Faolan settled down to guard the cairn of the Fengos. He was not tired at all, but his mind was divided. While one part kept watch, the other slipped into a kind of waking dream that had started when he and Edme had begun to recite the names of the Fengos.

In his dream, Faolan saw a Spotted Owl perched near the wolf. The owl was battle weary, yet listened with rapt attention to what the old wolf was saying. There was a closeness, a compelling confidence between the two creatures. Their heads were bent toward each other so they nearly touched. Faolan could almost catch threads of their conversation.

“You came to learn about fire, did you not? I can help you,”
the old wolf was saying.
“I can teach you some things, but not everything, Grank.”

Grank!
The name reverberated in Faolan's head and his marrow quickened.

The owl named Grank seemed puzzled at the old wolf's
words.
“How can that be, Fengo? How can you help me learn more … about fire?”

In his dream, Faolan was dimly aware that Fengo was the wolf's name, not his title. What was he witnessing in his dream? Had he gone back to the very origins of the Ring, more than a thousand years ago?

The owl addressed the wolf as an equal with no honorifics. Faolan was so far back in history that there was no Watch at the Ring. The only wolf was a plain old gray named Fengo.

“You are able to fly over craters from which the fire leaps. You can look into the heart of a volcano. On the wing, you could catch the hottest coals.”

Soon the voices dwindled and the mournful strand of a wolf's
glaffling
wove through the night. The old wolf was sitting alone on a ridge, his head thrown back howling the strange mad music of grief. There was no trace of the Spotted Owl.

Where is he? Where is he? Where is Grank?

Never gone so long.

Has he been killed?

Does he now climb the spirit trail, Lupus?

When the song ended, the mists rose and the wolf on the ridge had changed again and appeared older. An owl that was not Grank flew off with an ember in its beak — a green
ember with a lick of blue at its center. The Ember of Hoole! The first king had been anointed. The old wolf could rest now.

But though Fengo's spirit longed to slip from his pelt, it was not quite over. Faolan felt the marrow leaking from him, a cool wind whistling through his bones. They were becoming hollow. Deep in his belly he felt a small spark, a kindling.
I have a gizzard! I am becoming an owl! I chose to be an owl — a Snowy Owl!

The beak opened and a beautiful sound ribboned the air.
Song!
It was at that moment the owl realized something else was very different.
I am female! I chose this, too. I am back … I am back,
she thought. The wind ruffled through her feathers. She felt so light, so free. She angled her wings steeply and swept into a deep banking turn. The sky tilted and the moon winked from behind a cloud. The constellation of the Little Raccoon was rising and she could almost brush its forepaws with her wing tips. The wind shivered through her delicate face feathers. She blinked her eyes and a thin membrane wiped across them clearing her vision. As she flew, it felt as if she were embracing the whole world, the entire universe.

She looked down. She was flying over the Sea of Hoolemere. Over the spreading crown of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree. Fengo had long been dead. The first king long dead. A new king ruled.

She alighted in the Great Tree and quickly found her way to Madam Plonk, the Great Tree's renowned singer. Madam Plonk was poring over her “collectibles,” as she called her vast assortment of silly doodads she got from Trader Mags.

“Brunwella?”

The Snowy Owl wheeled about as she heard her name.

“Fee!”

“Yes.”

“What a surprise, but do call me Madam Plonk, dear. It's a bit more formal around here. Now, I hope you're coming with good news?”

“If you mean am I going to stay, no,”
the owl replied.

“But, Fionula, I am going to need your help. This is a big job. They have let the job of tree singer go vacant for too long. The grass harp needs to be tuned. The blind snakes instructed.”

“I can stay for a little bit, but you know as well as I that in my gizzard I am and always shall be a gadfeather.”

Madam Plonk sighed.
“You gadfeathers can't keep still. Restless creatures, the lot of you.”

What Madam Plonk had said about restlessness had more than a grain of truth in it. It was, however, not simply a matter of place. There was something deeply restless in Fionula's gizzard.
I have a restless soul.
Something flashed
in her mind's eye. The figure of a wolf with a tattered pelt.
“Brunwella, I mean Madam Plonk, have you met the new Fengo of the Watch yet?”

“No. You know I don't get on with wolves that well.”
Fionula winced.
“It's not that I don't like them exactly, I just … I can't explain it. All that business they do with bones. Why don't they just swallow them like we do? Get them wrapped up in a nice little pellet and yarp the whole business? But, no, they make such a … a …”
Madam Plonk was searching for the right word.
“A fetish really, carving them and all that. Seems silly.”

“Not to them!”
Fionula replied sharply.

“Now, don't get huffy. You'd think you were a wolf or something. I just have to say that I don't care a bit for their odor.”
Madam Plonk had now plucked up a strand of black pearls and was draping them over her shoulders.

“What about their odor, what's wrong with it?”
Fionula said.

“Meat. Too much meat in their diet.”

“We eat meat.”

“Yes, but not big meat like they do. And we cook a lot of ours.”

“Well, we have fire, or here at the tree you do at least. And the wolves don't.”

“They have plenty of fire over at the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes. More fire than they know what to do with.”

Fionula felt her gizzard stir. Her feathers puffed up.
“It would be against the
gaddernock
for them to cook their meat using embers from the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes. They guard those volcanoes. The Bone of Bones, third
gwalyd
— ‘No embers from the coals of any of the five volcanoes shall be used by wolves for the purpose of cooking meat. Only owls may use these coals for their iron mongering. If owls wish to cook meat, they must bring to the Ring coals from forest fires.'”

“Now, how ever do you know that, Fionula? Bone of Bones, what's that all about?”

Fionula shook her head and blinked several times. Her yellow eyes grew dim.
“I don't know how. I just do.”

The sun was just bleaching the eastern sky when Edme came out of the den.

“Did you sleep at all, Faolan?”

“Not really, but I'm fine,” he answered.

Edme cocked her head at him. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, but …” Faolan hesitated. “Edme, there's nothing left here. We have to move on. Go.”

“Go?” Her pelt bristled in astonishment. “Go where?”

“West. We have to find the Sark, if we can. And the Whistler at the Blood Watch.”

Edme met his eyes steadily, and Faolan knew she understood. “But that's not all you have in mind, is it?”

He shook his head. “We're going much farther west.”

“Farther west?” Dearlea had just come out from the den, her sister right behind her.