“This is the closest we get to real meat,” the Whistler commented.
“What do you mean by ‘real meat’?” Katria asked.
“You know — caribou, elk. Of which I might add that as a gnaw wolf I only got the scraps. So you most likely know real meat better than I.”
“I would have to agree. This seems more substantial than those tiny boneless fish,” Katria replied.
“Yes, but the bones are bigger, so be careful,” Faolan said. “They’re just big enough to choke on, but not to gnaw.” Faolan continued in a thoughtful voice, “That’s the one problem with fish, I would say. Their bones are … are sort of soft. You can’t get a real grip on them, and to try and make a design on them would be impossible.”
“No, they couldn’t sustain a design at all,” Edme said, chewing on a piece of cod tail.
“Thus sayeth the two gnaw wolves of the Ring!” the Whistler winked his eye and spoke in a jolly tone, but Faolan and Edme were both suddenly overcome with a yearning for those long winter nights when the She-Winds blew and they were off duty. They would take a bone, a good bone, to where a Rogue smith might have set up a forge, and gnaw a lovely design while the owl went to work with hammers and tongs and created something beautiful out of a lump of metal. Those were special times. It seemed almost impossible now that they had spent evenings, often until the dawn broke, just making art!
“Look!” Mhairie said. She turned toward where the pearl whale had delivered the cod. The water was boiling with the silvery gray-green fish. There were hundreds of them.
“It must be their spring run, just like the salmon in the Beyond,” Faolan said. But the very sound of the word “spring” sent jitters through their marrow.
The pearl whales had slapped several more cod on the pillar base, but the brigade had eaten its fill so they started out again at press-paw speed.
“I’m not going to be carried in your mouth, Toby,” Myrr protested. “That is completely humiliating. I am a weaned pup!” He stomped one paw and wagged his tail vigorously.
“Then ride on my shoulders,” Toby replied.
Abban, who had fish scales glittering in his muzzle, stood in front of Burney. “I care not how you carry me. As long as I can see the sea.”
Burney swung him atop his shoulders as well. Maudie scrambled onto Eelon’s broad wings, where she had traveled when they flew over the ice floes. She was quite content and found that the feathers under the primaries were as soft as the fur of her mother’s belly. But what she loved most was the view. With her claws hooked over Eelon’s broad shoulders, she could peek out from behind his head and see everything.
On a clear day, the Distant Blue seemed real, not just a place the grown-ups talked about. “It’s just a band of color,” Eelon had said on that first day. “But every day does it not seem thicker and darker? Soon we’ll see solid land.”
“You’ll see it first, Eelon, and you, too, Zanouche.” Gwynneth was flying abeam of them. “Eagles’ eyes are sharper than wolves’ or owls’. It won’t be just blue then. You’ll see land, true land!”
True land. The thought sparkled in Maudie’s brain. “Do you think there will be trees and lakes and forests and mountains?”
“Where did you get those ideas, Maudie?” Gwynneth asked.
“I’ve heard my mum talk about such things and you as well, Gwynneth. You’ve been every place — the island of Hoole in the Sea of Hoolemere. You’ve seen the Shadow Forest and Silverveil, where your auntie came from. And what’s that place where you come from, Eelon and Zanouche?”
“Ambala. A lovely forest it was!” Eelon’s voice became rueful. “We lived in an ancient nest that belonged to Zanouche’s great-great-great-grandparents Elver and Zan, very good friends of King Soren.” He sighed. “But all that is gone now. We need a new place now, a new landscape.”
“With new creatures?” Maudie asked.
“Possibly,” Gwynneth replied.
“I want friends,” Maudie said in a small voice. “Friends who look a little bit like me maybe and speak the kind of words we all speak.”
“You mean the language we speak?”
“Yes. I don’t understand any of that fish talk. Abban understands it, but I don’t.” She paused. “And there’s one other thing I hope there’s not.”
“Something you hope won’t be there?” Gwynneth asked.
“Yes.”
“And what might that be?”
“Gnaw wolves.”
“Gnaw wolves? But your mother was a gnaw wolf and at one time so were Faolan and Edme and the Whistler.”
“I don’t mind if a wolf is born looking funny. Poor Edme — her eye never healed like my mum’s. But they shouldn’t be called gnaw wolves and made to feel separate and awful so other wolves beat them up.”
“I don’t think that will happen, Maudie. We are going to a new place. Our old ways won’t work. We must invent new customs, new laws, new ways of doing things.”
Though her vision was dim, Gwynneth looked at the little pup who seemed even tinier somehow on the massive wings of the eagle. Who was Maudie’s father? she wondered. Maudie had a deep reddish pelt, redder than her mother’s, which suggested that the father must have been red as well. The offspring of a red wolf who mated with a silver or a gray or a black wolf were usually “mud pelts,” the term for the dull brownish hue of their fur. Well, the color of Maudie’s pelt or who her father was did not matter, but there was no arguing that Maudie was an uncommonly intelligent pup. It was more than wondrous, Gwynneth supposed, that she had been born in a time of famine.
THE DAYS GREW LONGER. THE COD delivered almost daily by the pearl whales were rich with tender flesh. The animals felt themselves get stronger each day and were able to continue at press-paw speed. The pups were growing and soon capable of walking on their own for long distances, with only occasional breaks to be carried by the cubs, who seemed to have tripled in size, or the eagles. This meant that Eelon and Zanouche could resume flying out on scouting missions to track Heep. But so far there had been no sightings, even though the eagles were careful to fly under the bridge.
With the spring moon, the ice would often melt during the day, leaving great puddles on the bridge, and then refreeze at night. But the new ice was not that solid. It was “rotten,” as the wolves called the spring river ice in the Beyond. Their paws slipped and broke through to the puddles that still lurked beneath. And it was hard to discern a track, for no footprints could be left in puddles of water.
No one spoke the thought out loud for fear of jinxing their most desperate hope — that Heep and his rout had somehow met their end.
Dusk was falling when they came to what appeared to be a fork in the bridge. Both Zanouche and Eelon had flown out ahead to scout the two forks and see if one was more passable than the other.
“They both rejoin again within less than a league. From the air, they looked the same,” Zanouche said. Eelon nodded in agreement.
“What looks the same from the air can differ when on foot,” Edme said. “And now with this sea fog rolling in, it will be hard going.”
“Mhairie and I can scout,” Dearlea volunteered.
“No!” Edme snapped, then immediately apologized for her tone. “It’s just that I can take the north fork and Faolan can take the south.”
“Alone?” the Whistler said.
“Yes … yes, alone,” Edme said. There was something in the manner in which she spoke that let them know she would brook no objections.
The Whistler looked at his old friends as they walked off. He had known them a long time. He knew their ways from the time they were all young gnaw wolves together, competing at the Gaddergnaw Games. As he watched them disappear into the twilight, he knew that this was no mere scouting mission but a very private journey for each of them. In some way, it was connected to the Cave Before Time, where he himself had spent so much time as a member of the Blood Watch. The paintings in the Cave were deeply linked to Faolan, and, he now realized, pr
obably to Edme as well. That bone she carried had been found in the cave.
The Whistler watched them both as their paths diverged at the fork. This private journey was one that might not be so much of distance covered but time recovered. The two wolves seemed to him like outriders. Yes, that was what they were — outriders of time. It was not the terrain underfoot that concerned them, not the possible pressure ridges or the melt water on the bridge, but the folds in time. The Whistler thought of the old tale that the skreeleens often told, the story of the Ice March out of the Long Cold that first brought the wolves to the Beyond. It began with the chieftain who had reached the moment of cleave hwlyn, the moment when a wolf’s body separates from its soul and the soul begins to climb the star ladder. Only in this story, the chief was called back to lead his clan out of the Long Cold and his soul had tumbled from the star ladder. And now, thought the Whistler, what are we doing but coming out of another Long Cold on another Ice March, but from the opposite direction? It is all reversed. We have come to a fold in time! And those two know it. But the Whistler sensed something else. It was not merely time that was being folded. Two lives were folding in on each other. There was, he knew, a profound bond between these two wolves that had defied time. It could only be called love.
The pain in Edme’s hip worsened with each step, but she had to get to the place. That was what she called it in her mind — just “the place.” She could think of no other word. She reflected on the fact that she was a malcadh made and not born, and therefore had no tummfraw, the spot where malcadhs were abandoned to die after birth. But she had a sense of this place. If malcadhs were lucky enough to be selected to serve on the Watch, they had one last task before going to the Ring. They were told to seek out their tummfraws. This journey was called the Slaan Leat, a journey of forgiveness, a journey toward truth. But for Edme, it had uncovered a terrible lie — that she was not a real malcadh, but had been mutilated at birth by her vicious clan chieftain.
The journey that Edme was on now was her true Slaan Leat. She walked the north fork to another site of abandonment, where as an old wolf she had elected to be left behind, begged to be left. Her own deformity had been concealed for years. It did not show like those of malcadhs. Hers had been a slightly twisted femur that had grown worse and more painful with age, but never impeded her until the Ice March out of the Long Cold. Oh, my, she thought, I am truly a very old wolf. Thousands of years old. And now with each step, she was drawing closer. The ice was becoming soft, and yet there did not seem to be puddles. In fact, some rocks had become exposed, and a filigree of tiny lichens spread across them. She wondered briefly how a rock could become embedded in the Ice Bridge. If the bridge had been made by a moving glacier, all sorts of things could be rolled into the ice, from rocks to uprooted trees. But she did not wonder about this for long, because she suddenly knew that she was very near. Her heart beat wildly, her marrow shivered. Her hackles bristled straight up. She shut her single eye, and, feeling her legs crumple, she slid down to the rock surface. It was almost warm from the afternoon sun, as if it had saved the heat just for her. “I am here,” she whispered. “Here!”
It was not a tummfraw that Edme had arrived at — quite the opposite. It was her place of cleave hwlyn, the place where, centuries before, her soul had separated from her body, the place of her death. And now her heart began to slow, but she knew it would not stop. For she was not dying, but only entering an ancient dream. The story of the twisted femur that she had gripped in her mouth across the Crystal Plain onto the Ice Bridge was becoming clear.
Leave, leave now, dear Fengo!
I can’t leave you here to die, Stormfast.
In her sleep, Edme blinked — blinked, it seemed, with two eyes. For Stormfast had been her name and she’d had two eyes then.
My soul is pulling away. Skaarsgard is coming for me.
She spoke these words in her dream to Fengo.
And Fengo replied: He came for me, then cast me from the star ladder. I didn’t come back only to lose you again, Stormfast.
You didn’t return for me. You came back for the family, the teaghlachen, to lead them out of the Long Cold.
But I can’t do it alone, Stormfast.
Fengo, I promise you will not be alone … ever … ever … Slaan boladh.
Slaan boladh were the last two words that the wolf named Stormfast spoke. Their meaning in the language of Old Wolf was clear — “until the next scent post.”
On the other fork of the bridge, less than a quarter league away, Faolan, too, had fallen into a strange waking dream. His eyes were wide open. He stood very still and he experienced a kind of cleaving — not the cleaving of death but life, the life of his first gyre. A year had passed since Fengo had led the family, the teaghlachen, on the Ice March out of the Long Cold. Faolan’s first gyre was looking for something. But what was it? He squinted harder into the mists. What does he want? What is he looking for? Faolan wondered.
It was as if the spirit of his first gyre and his last gyre had comingled. Why is the old wolf weeping? Why am I weeping? Overhead, an owl was flying. It was Grank, the Spotted Owl, Fengo’s dearest friend. He was leading him somewhere. Suddenly, Fengo’s hackles rose. He caught it — a dream mark he had left, one of the special scent posts that wolves leave to indicate where a mate or a pup had died. At the same moment, he saw the Spotted Owl begin a steeply banking turn. He was spiraling down toward a scattering of bones. Faolan began to race toward that spot, his legs a blur.
“Here are her bones,” called Grank. It was Grank who had come with him to revisit the drumlyn he had made in honor of Stormfast. Now Fengo sought to retrieve just one bone to carry back to the Beyond, to the Cave Before Time.
Fengo looked down. Through the scrim of his tears he saw the bones, scrubbed clean and white by moons of the year since the Ice March out of the Long Cold. It was as if they were waiting for him. His eyes came to focus on one bone, one single bone — a twisted femur.
Faolan had first seen that bone in his dreams four moon cycles before, on the eve of the earthquake. And two moon cycles after that, he saw it for real, not in a dream but in the Cave Before Time. It had lain glistening in a spike of moonlight. He had called it the loveliest of bones and had been inexplicably drawn to it, drawn to it like the flakes of metal to strong rock.
He was not conscious of walking, or even moving, but suddenly, Faolan found himself on the other fork, the one Edme had taken. He saw the shape of a wolf curled in sleep. The bone was still gripped in her mouth.
He looked down at her. “Stormfast,” he whispered softly. The sound of the name was a welcome one. It had been so long since he had spoken it aloud. She rose up almost immediately. Her hip pain was gone!
“I told you, Fengo,” she replied.
“You told me what?”
“Slaan boladh — until the next scent post.” Edme paused. “And here we are — old wolves in new pelts.” She chuckled softly. “With new names — Faolan and Edme.”
“Can we become paw fast again?” Faolan asked. He cocked his head and looked deeply into her single green eye. His ears twitched nervously.
“But, Faolan, we were always paw fast.” She nuzzled him behind one twitching ear.
He stepped back and looked at her with such earnestness.
“I mean now, on this Ice Bridge, in our new pelts and with our new names. Will you, Edme, who was once Stormfast, for whom the volcano at the Ring was named, take me as your marrow mate, as your paw-fast wolf? For I, Faolan, now in my last gyre, but who was once in my first gyre, Fengo, take you forever and ever, Beyond the Beyond and into the Distant Blue and, when the time comes, unto the Cave of Souls.”
“I shall. And now I, Edme, in my second gyre, but who was once the she-wolf Stormfast, take you, Faolan, forever and ever, Beyond the Beyond and into the Distant Blue and into the Cave of Souls, as my paw-fast mate.”
The two wolves put their paws together. First Edme put hers atop Faolan’s, then Faolan put his atop
Edme’s, and they were made paw fast under the rising constellations of the stumbling wolf, Beezar, from the old world and that of the Narwhale from the new, the Distant Blue.
“Look, Edme, another constellation rises.”
“The Sark!” Edme exclaimed. “It’s the memory jug of the Sark!” Twelve stars sparkled in the night. It was as if the constellation had risen to catch the memory of this moment when two wolves from across the shoals of time were finally brought together and made paw fast again. The two turned and headed back to the brigade, to their new clan of motley creatures, whom they would lead into the world of the Distant Blue.
WHILE EDME AND FAOLAN BECAME paw fast under the first shine of a new moon, Abban crept down to the base of a pillar. He had a hankering for some capelin, and his mum was sleeping soundly. He often crept out when she was asleep. Ever since he had fallen into the sea, she didn’t let him out of her sight. But tonight, with a sudden and very thick blanket of ice fog rolling in over the bridge, it was easy to sneak out. Not even the Whistler and Mhairie, the wolves on watch, saw him scramble down the gentle slope of the ice pillars.
Abban’s mother just didn’t understand that falling into the sea had been the best thing that had ever happened to him. At first it was scary. He’d never felt so alone in his life; the sea had seemed to expand into an awesome and terrifying infinity. But once he had begun to plunge into its depths and the creatures came near, the terror receded. He and this salt world were kindred and well suited, better suited, he thought, than he had ever been to the Outermost, and he felt closer kin to these creatures that swam gently around him than to his father. Why is that? he often wondered. And why have I come back speaking so oddly?
When the words were still in his mind, they sounded nothing like the way they came out when he spoke them aloud. Something got twisted up in his head when he tried to speak aloud. And everyone thought he was half cag mag. But it simply was not so.