Watch Wolf

nor Edme was sure quite what it was. As new members of the Watch, they were not included in the
gaddergovern,
the meetings in which business matters of the Watch were discussed. But tempers were short, and even theever-patient Twistling was snappish with Faolan.
    The She-Winds had abated and fewer owls were streaming in. It was mostly Rogue smiths who had stayed to tend the temporary forges they had set up.
    Gwynneth had stayed, and for this Faolan was deeply grateful. He and Edme had learned almost as much from Gwynneth as they had from Malachy, the
taiga
who specialized in owl studies. It was Gwynneth who really madethem feel what it was like to live an owl’s life, even though she was a hermit and lived mostly in the Beyond.
    But Gwynneth seemed to know less about what was going on at the Ring than they did.
    “Double shifts?” she had asked with mild surprise. “Now that the She-Winds are lessening, I can’t figure out why that would be necessary.”
    “Yes. See, there’s Edme. She’s just leaving her cairn by Morgan — and late at that. Her replacement must have been delayed. It seems like the
taigas
are always in a
gaddergovern
with the Fengo or some other high-ranking Watch lords.” Faolan paused. “Could you find out anything, maybe?” Faolan asked in a beseeching tone that Gwynneth had never heard him use.
    “Absolutely not! You’re asking me to gizzle!”
    “Gizzle? What’s that?”
    “To sneak in and hear something. Thus the name slipgizzle. In short, spy!” Gwynneth spat out the word. “Their stock-in-trade is information. I have no time or trust for such owls. I am no slipgizzle!”
    “I didn’t say you were,” he replied. “Ihave to get back to my jumps.”
    “Don’t be angry,” Gwynneth said, suddenly contrite. “I tend to go off a bit about slipgizzles. They have theirplace in owl society. And they’ve done a lot of good. The Great Tree is very dependent on them.”
    “All right. I’m sorry I asked you.”
    “Don’t worry,” Gwynneth said as she began to spread her wings. Effortlessly, she lifted into flight.
    As so often happened when Faolan stood close to owls or watched them take off into the sky, he seemed to feel stirrings deep within him, whispers from another time or another world. But it wasn’t just when he watched owls. These whispers had started coming to him during his
Slaan Leat,
his journey toward truth. There was a truth out there still waiting for him, and every once in a while, he caught a glimpse of it. Sometimes when he did his leaps, especially the high ones where he rode the warm drifts to wolf’s peak, he felt as though he was coming close to catching mists or wraiths from thepast.
    Owls called them scrooms, wolves mist or
lochin.
These mists from an unreachable past seemed to seep through his mind. He felt sometimes as if he were trespassing on someone else’s memories or dreams. But it was not his fault. He could never quite figure out what prompted these moments. And when they occurred, he felt as if he were a wolf out of time.
    When he had completed his scanning jump andlanded back on the cairn, he looked down and spotted Edme.
    “Going off duty?” he asked. Edme looked up at him.
    “Yes, finally!”
    “I’m on until dawn. Why aren’t you back in the den already asleep?”
    “I don’t know. I find it hard to sleep. It seems like the whole Ring is holding its breath and nobody is telling us anything.”
    “It’s not just us. Gwynneth came by and she doesn’t know any more than we do.” Faolan tipped his head skyward, scanning for graymalkins. From the corner of one eye, he caught sight of a Spotted Owl lingering low in the sky on the southeastern edge of the crater. He felt a funny twitch in his marrow. Was this owl cratering? Should he howl the graymalkin alarm? He listened for the brittle crunching that was said sometimes to emanate from the crater when a graymalkin approached, but he heard nothing. False alarms were not looked upon kindly. Besides, it was not really the season for graymalkins. They usually came with the She-Winds, flying under the camouflage of the throngs of colliers and Rogue smiths streaming in. Still he was nervous.
    “I’m going up!” he said to Edme. “Wait here.”
    Edme was so tired by this point that she could not have managed a hop. So she settled herself on the cairn’s platform and tipped her head to follow Faolan’s jump.
    He was a magnificent jumper, no doubt about it. The tales of when he