Wolves of the Beyond 02 - Shadow Wolf

them?”
    The Sark turned her head and looked slyly at Gwynneth. “I know conventional wisdom, at least from a collier’s or Rogue smith’s point of view, is that hotter is better. But you, my dear Gwynneth, deal in metals. I deal in earth, clay, glazes—glazes made from crushed bones, sand, borax, and any mineral I can pull from the river and grind down. But the real secret is not the recipe for the glaze but to fire it at just the right temperature. And to get the right temperature, guess what the secret ingredient is?”
    “What?”
    “Scat.”
    “Scat?”
    “You call it poop.”
    “You mean like white splatters, wet poopers?” Gwynneth was shocked. Owls were proud of their neat system of digestion; indeed some felt compelled to call it a noble process.
    “Sometimes, but those white splatters—the seagulls especially—are too far away for me.” The Sark bent down and kicked a pile of dried moose poop toward Gwynneth.
    “Eeew!”
    “Don’t eeew me. Owls can’t smell worth scat—pardon the pun!” The Sark began to mold moose scat into little rounds. “These little moose patties burn steady, burn slow. I can get the most gorgeous glazes you’ve ever seen.” She paused and looked up. The skittering eye was bouncing around as if it had a life of its own, but the other eye was steady as the Sark took in Gwynneth’s expression. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You look sick, sick like…no, not the yarpie barpies. Isn’t that what you call it when your pellets go soft on you?” The Sark didn’t wait for an answer but regarded the Masked Owl with a renewed intensity.
    Great Glaux, Gwynneth thought, how could she tell ? This really was a wolf wise in the way few were. Not that the other wolves were dumb, but the Sark was like one of the healers at the great tree, to whom owls came when they were seriously ill. Well, there was no use trying to hide anything. Gwynneth had to talk to the Sark about what she had found on the ridge. It would be a relief. A pellet seemed to fly up from her gizzard.
    “Oh, pardon me, ma’am. I didn’t mean to yarp right here!”
    “Don’t be ridiculous!” replied the Sark. She picked up the pellet in her mouth and plopped it on top of the moose patty. “You don’t mind, do you?”
    “Mind what?”
    “Me using your pellet. I have a hunch this combination could be—how should I put it?—quite dynamic in the kiln. You don’t know how long I have been trying to get a turquoise matte glaze.”
    Gwynneth had no idea what the Sark was talking about. But there was one thing that both Gwynneth and the Sark had in common: They were both artists. “Sure, help yourself,” she said.
    After the Sark had put the moose patty and the pellet in the kiln, she turned back to Gwynneth. “Well, nowthat you’ve yarped your pellet and are looking a tad better, come on inside and tell me what’s on your mind.”
    Gwynneth took a deep breath.
    “I’m here about—a malcadh .”
    “You don’t say…” The Sark turned around from fluffing a pelt she had dragged nearer to the fire for Gwynneth. The skittish eye grew still. “Why would an owl be interested in a malcadh , except of course for the obvious?”
    Gwynneth’s feathers puffed up with indignation at this last remark. “Because a wolf was interested in that malcadh before any owl, fox, cougar, or moose,” she snapped.
    The hackles of the Sark’s fur rose up in a small cyclonic flurry. “What are you saying? The mother came back?”
    “No, not the mother. And the pup was not prey for any other animals. It was not eaten.”
    “Are you saying that…” The Sark gasped and seemed unable to go on.
    “Yes. The malcadh was murdered.”
    The Sark’s skittish eye went into a spinning frenzy, and her legs began to wobble. “You can’t be serious!” But even as she spoke, she knew that this Masked Owl was telling the truth. For a malcadh ’s life to end this way—it was not a natural death.
    “I have never in all my long years…” The Sark’s breath came fast and she eased herself onto the heap of rabbit pelts. “All right, tell me what you saw, what you heard.” She knew well the extraordinary information that owls could gather through their ear slits. “Tell me everything.”
    And so Gwynneth did. The fire had begun to gutter out when the Sark finally got up to get some more kindling.
    “Are you sure you don’t want a bonk coal?” Gwynneth offered, simply to break the