Wolves of the Beyond: Shadow Wolf (6 page)

I’m big but I’m stupid,
Faolan thought.
Why did I ever try to do that—stand up like a grizzly?
It struck him that even Thunderheart might have been appalled by his behavior; she might have thought he had misused what she taught him. The very idea was intolerable.
How many wolves could offend not one but two species of animals?
he thought. He had never felt so disgraced in his life.

When Dain had finished reading, a silence followed that would have seemed awkward had it not been
interrupted by a very young pup who burst out, “Mum, why did the wolf carve the word ‘humble’ so many times?” This earned the poor pup a solid thwack, and he took off squealing.

“Here, here!” Dain snarled. “We are assembled to witness the rituals of contrition, to right the wrongs given to outflankers.” He turned his glare on Faolan. “Continue, gnaw wolf.”

Faolan arched his back as high as possible, tucked his tail between his legs, then advanced toward the two outflankers. When this was completed, he sank to his knees and flattened his belly to the ground, then twisted his neck. Finally, he rolled on his back and presented his belly to the two outflankers. While in this position, he began to confess his error.

“I, Faolan, gnaw wolf of the Pack of the Eastern Scree, am guilty of the actions gnawed on the bone of shame by Heep. I swear by my marrow that the truth has been carved, and I am prepared to make amends by carving this bone presented to me by the estimable Lachlana and Tamsen, distinguished outflankers of the Pack of the Blue Rock.”

Adair had explained to Faolan that he must carve his contrition bone with the Great Chain, and, at the
precise point where his conduct had offended the order, make his mark—that of the spiraling lines of his footpad.

Faolan had been carving the Great Chain from the very first day he had joined the wolves of the Beyond. At first, gnaw wolves were expected to render a simple version of the Great Chain, but as they advanced, they learned that the chain was much more intricate, with myriads of links between classes. Because of his proficiency in gnawing, Faolan had been told to do more complicated versions of the Great Chain. He wondered if these wolves knew he was already up to the fourth order. If not, he could do the simplified version that would make for easier and quicker work.

But just at that moment, he heard the first note of a howl, a perfect note that swooped up into the night. He turned his head and was amazed to see that the sound had issued from the twisted throat of the Whistler. It rose in the darkness like a beautiful night-blooming flower. The others joined in, for they had spotted the mist of Duncan MacDuncan, and this could be the last night they would be able to see it before the Moon of the First Snow arrived and the constellation of the Great Wolf slipped away until spring.

Faolan turned his head from the bone. The old chieftain had reached the top of the star ladder. His twisted beard was neatly braided once more and he seemed to be peering right down at Faolan.
I must carve the whole chain as I know it,
he thought.

There would be no shortcuts. He studied the antler, licked it several times to become familiar with its surface, and then began to inscribe the Great Chain.

“Look at the sun he carves,” someone whispered. “You almost feel the heat!”

“It’s frightening—too real,” said another.

Faolan tried to close his ears, but he could not help but hear a third wolf say in a quavering voice, “Could he be from the Dim World?”

Faolan had meant only to carve the bone as best he could. But it seemed that no matter how hard he tried, he never got things right. But he wouldn’t stop trying; he couldn’t. He would leave for the Pack of the Fire Grass at dawn.

BY NOW, FAOLAN KNEW THE RITUALS
of contrition flawlessly. It didn’t bother him anymore to hear the story that Heep had carved recited aloud. In a short course of time, he had left behind three bones of contrition, carved so exquisitely that many wolves began to fear he was an agent from the Dim World. But it ceased to bother Faolan. Let them think what they would, for no matter what they said or how they looked at his bones, he was determined to carve as well as he could. The wolves of the Watch were said to be the finest carvers in the Beyond. And it was them he wanted to impress. If they were true artists, they would not view his work with superstition.

Faolan could not get out of his mind the beautiful note the Whistler had sung when Duncan MacDuncan’s
lochin
reached the top of the star ladder. But why, Faolan wondered, did he seem to feel that the mist of MacDuncan still lingered even though it could no longer be seen? It was as if there was a scent trail Duncan MacDuncan was following through the stars, and it led straight to Faolan. It made no sense, but Faolan felt the mist of MacDuncan hovering just above him.

All of these thoughts were streaming through Faolan’s mind when he mounted a ridge and caught sight of a wolf. Lael! The Obea of the MacDuncan clan. Faolan’s breath caught in his throat. There was only one reason why she would come so far from Carreg Gaer. A
malcadh
must have been born into the River Pack, Heep’s pack.

Faolan was upwind of the Obea, so she could not catch his scent. He crouched low in a ditch, peeking above the fringe of winter grass. The only scent he could detect was that of the newborn pup the Obea carried by the scruff of its neck. It must have been the pup of the mother he had seen just before the
gaddergludder
.

The Obea’s sterility seemed to have affected even her urine and other scent marks. Faolan imagined that the Obeas must be bereft not only of scent and offspring but
of feelings as well. Lael might as well have been carrying a clod of dirt. And even from where he crouched, he could see that her eyes were strange. They were green like the eyes of all the wolves of the Beyond, but absent of any light whatsoever—as cold and as distant as the stars. He thought of the winter stars that the wolves called the muted constellations, which appeared in the blizzard-wrapped nights of the hunger moons.

From his vantage point, he could not see any obvious deformity in the pup. He assumed that this pup’s only fault was to have been born too early, for this moon was not the birthing time for wolves. Early pups, although not precisely
malcadhs
, were abandoned because they were deemed too hard to care for. More often than not, they had unseen flaws within and would soon die.

Lael climbed a very steep incline to the highest part of the ridge. She kept her pace steady. The tiny creature dangled from her muzzle, and Faolan could see its hind feet kicking weakly. When Lael reached the top, she put the pup down. Smack in the middle of an owl flight path! Faolan knew it was a route to the volcanoes, where Gwynneth gathered coals. But it was also a moose trail.

“How thoughtful!” Faolan muttered. If the owls didn’t get the pup, the moose surely would. It made him shudder
to think of that pup squashed under giant hooves. He hoped it would be over shortly. But he could not help wondering how long the little pup would be left mewling into the vast nothingness, how lonely it must feel.

Faolan’s own recollections of abandonment were vague. He knew only what Thunderheart had told him, what she had surmised. That he had been left on the big river’s edge during the time of the Moon of the Cracking Ice, and the fragment of ice on which he had been placed tore loose. He would have died had he not snagged on Thunderheart’s foot. He had gone from cold and nothingness to warmth and milk and that huge booming heart. His fear of the nothingness was only faintly remembered, but he would wish it on no living creature. And yet he knew the death of a pup was a small price to pay for the health of the clan. It must be done. It was the most sacred of all the laws in the
gaddernock
.

He continued to watch the scene from the ridge. The Obea had set the pup down not just on top of the neighboring ridge but on a flat piece of table rock that looked as if it had been placed there for exactly this purpose. The perfect
tummfraw
! Then, without giving a backward glance, the Obea turned and headed down the path she had come.

Faolan was filled with an agonizing mixture of anxiety and curiosity. Did the little pup wonder what had happened to the milk scent of its mum? What was it feeling right now? Was it cold? A chill wind had blown up. Could he rescue this pup, as Thunderheart had done for him? But that was impossible for he had no milk, and it was most certainly against the codes of the wolves of the Beyond for another wolf to interfere with a
malcadh
.

When the Obea had dissolved into the gathering mist of twilight, Faolan could stand it no longer and began to move out of the ditch and make his way to the
tummfraw
. When he was almost to the top, he could hear sporadic soft whimpers from the pup. The last part of his climb seemed endless. Every step he took felt like a betrayal of the most sacred codes of wolves. But he only wanted to look.

No, this is a lie
. A voice seemed to fill his head.
You want to give comfort
. By his marrow, it felt as if the mist of MacDuncan had followed him right to the top of this ridge. He looked across the starry indigo dome of the night sky. There was not a sign of the Great Wolf constellation, nor the star ladder, nor the Cave of Souls.
Then why do I feel him?

Faolan took one more step. There was the pup, tinier than he could have imagined. She was a tawny drop of gold and perfectly formed. He had never seen anything so perfect. But so tiny that every time her heart beat, it shook her entire body. How tempted he was to lick her, to give her a momentary bit of warmth before she died. He could tell she would not live long. The first snowflakes of the season began to fall. Perhaps she would be buried under them and fall into a frozen sleep. They said it was a good way to pass from life. Yes, he wished for a blanket of heavy snow. Perhaps it would camouflage her from the owls or the prowling land animals such as bobcats and cougars. And it was doubtful that moose would take this path if the snow was deep.

He would not touch her, but from the top of the ridge, Faolan began to howl a prayer to Great Lupus, a prayer for snow.

THE SARK OF THE SLOUGH WAS
outside her cave building up the fire in her kiln when the bedraggled she-wolf staggered up the trail. “Oh, my!” the Sark sighed. “I’ll be with you in a moment, dear.”

She tossed her head toward the cave. The Sark’s skittish eye, which some said was the color of a spoiled egg yolk, slid in the opposite direction. She saw a shudder pass through the she-wolf.
Well
, thought the Sark,
at least she has enough strength to be a wee bit frightened of my stupid eyeball
.

The she-wolf walked stiffly toward the mouth of the cave. She was desperate for comfort but half afraid to enter the den of this strange wolf living outside the clan, who toyed with fire and who some said was a witch. But it was the fire the Sark used to brew her
potions. The forgetting potions. And the she-wolf needed to forget.

The she-wolf let her eyes adjust to the darkness, found the pile of pelts in the back, and, circling tightly three times, sank down to rest. She sniffed the fur and picked up traces of the scent of the last
malcadh
mother who had slept on the pelt. It was old, more than a year. The she-wolf was utterly exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep.

Her eyes darted about the cave. It was the oddest wolf den she had ever been in. Skin bags hung on protruding spikes made from antlers, and on some ledges, there were clay pots and jugs. She had heard that the Sark knew the magic of turning earth into objects—things that could be used. The Sark was like the owls in that way, but the owls mostly used their fires for metals, not earth and clay. On the cave walls were also skins with marks that looked as if they had been scratched in with a shard of burnt wood, but the she-wolf had no idea what the marks meant. Some of them were rather pretty, however, and made pleasing designs. There were also bundles of feathers—no owl feathers but ptarmigan and other grouse arranged in bursting sheaves. The Sark even had clumps of dried grasses, herbs, and mosses hanging upside down.

The Sark came into the cave and with her teeth took a stopper from a jug lying on its side, to let a thin trickle of water spill into a small clay container beneath it. Then she shook some leaves from one of the hanging clumps. From another container she got lichen and sprinkled it over the top of the water.

“Drink that,” the Sark said, pushing the mixture toward the she-wolf. “It will start the forgetting.”

As soon as a
malcadh
’s mother was driven from the pack, the forgetting began. In the wake of forgetting, for a time there was a darkness deep within her where the pup had grown. And then eventually, that darkness faded to gray, so it became just a shadow of her loss, allowing her to go on, find a new clan, a new pack, and a new mate. But for some, the forgetting took longer. They teetered on the brink of the deep darkness without ever really allowing it to fill them.

The she-wolf looked gingerly at the clay bowl. It was all so odd—the bowl, the water from a jug, the bits of grasses and herbs floating in it.

“Go on, dearie, take a good swallow. Now, you’re not one of those she-wolves”—the Sark avoided using the word “mum” or “mother”—“You’re not one who went
by-lang
, are you?” Some pregnant she-wolves seemed to
sense they were carrying a
malcadh
and went deeply away to try and escape the Obea.

“No, there wasn’t time,” she sobbed. “She was perfect.”

“But it”—the Sark used the word “it” when referring to the pup—“it was early. No chance, my dear, and lots of problems. Now drink up.”

She was careful not to say the darkness will come, for sometimes it only made the mothers resist. The Sark knew about resisting. She knew about not forgetting. But it was too late for the Sark, too late. Indeed, her whole life was dedicated to remembering. And so now, as the she-wolf became drowsy and fell into her long sleep, there was a whiff of something that stirred a dim memory for the Sark.

Aaah, yes,
she thought. The she-wolf had eaten sweet grass from the high plains during the last of the summer moons. It had been during a late summer moon when the Sark had made her decision never to join a clan. It was the first time she had spotted what she felt sure had been her Milk Giver, her mother. She had been a yearling then. She resisted going to her memory jug. She was not in the mood for stirring up anguish.

The Sark’s memory jugs offered their own kind of law, which was as important to her as the elaborate, complicated codes and traditions of the Great Chain or the
gaddernock
were to the clan wolves. She did not need some high-ranking wolf to tell her how to bow to rank. She felt that the veneration and submission rituals were excessive to the point of being ridiculous.

Memory was sacred to the Sark, not empty rituals, and although she understood the need for the laws of the Beyond, they often seemed as dead to her as the bones they were carved on. Memory was alive in the way a river is alive and flowing. But this river was flowing not with water but with the tributaries of scent. It was the scent that brought the memories.

The Sark believed that if there was no memory, the bones that contained the
gaddernock
would crumble to dust. Most of the rituals of the wolves made no sense to her. What the Sark sought were experiences, feelings, and colors. Too often, life for the wolves of the Beyond was only about hunting and the elaborate social codes of the clans. Without memory, there could only be indifference. Without memory, there could only be blind
obedience. Without memory, there could be no true consciousness, and the wolves of the Beyond would live in a walled, colorless world without meaning. She peered into the deep shadows of the cave, where her memory jugs stood like sentries of her past. Then she glanced at the mother of the
malcadh
. The she-wolf was sleeping deeply and would for two days. She would awake ravenous and go out to hunt. She would leave, and she would not look back.