The pear tree drifted back into its dream. Little Fur went on her way, sniffing contentedly at the heavy brown perfume rising from the thick mulch of fallen leaves that lay below the trees.
Beyond the pear orchard was another field. Little Fur made her way carefully across it to where Ginger patiently waited. She had to avoid the flabby numbness of the dead patches of soil. At the edge of the field, she knelt beside a dead patch and took a little bit of moist moss and a seed from her pouch. She pressed the seed into the moss, then pushed both into the ground, making sure a little of the moss touched the good earth as well as the dead earth. Then she sang a song to encourage the seed to life.
I am like a mouse nibbling at the edge of a mountain, Little Fur thought as she stood up. But she was smiling as she closed her seed pouch. Being small, she had no contempt for small triumphs. If a mouse lived long enough, it might nibble away a mountain of cheese, and she was an elf troll, with the blood of two long-lived races mingling in her. There was no telling how many seeds she could plant before she entered the world’s dream.
“Craaak! Hurrying,” Crow cawed, swooping low so that his feathers brushed the tips of her furled ears. She laughed up at him and quickened her pace, dropping her hand to Ginger’s soft coat.
Soon they came to the high, square-trimmed hedge beyond which lay the beaked house. Crow had flown over it, but suddenly he veered sharply back and landed on the grass beside Little Fur.
“Are humans there?” she asked. She knew two humans tended the beaked house, but they usually left when the sun closed its eye.
“Craaak! Not humans. Owls,” Crow cawed urgently. “A manyness of owls. Crow must going. Maybe they gathering to hunting all crows.” He flapped into the air and away.
Little Fur looked at Ginger. “Maybe the Sett Owl foresaw my question and has summoned the owls in readiness.” She crawled on hands and knees under another fence and beneath the tough black branches of the hedge, eager for the strange, thrilling sight of the beaked house. Rising on the other side of the hedge, she saw that the crossed sticks fastened to the steeply pointed roof of the beaked house were dark against the brightness of a full moon.
Little Fur glanced about uneasily, even though humans usually came in the daytime, when the custodians opened the doors. They came, Crow had claimed, to sing. Little Fur had laughed at the idea of humans singing, until she had smelled the power that rose from their songs like smoke from fire. It was now her belief that human singing had some connection to the powerful pool of magic within the beaked house.
Little Fur slipped through a barrier of metal spikes. She had no need to worry about where she set her feet, because the yard she entered was cobbled in flat, moss-velveted stones. Earth magic ran freely and strongly about them, though it ended abruptly at the beaked house. Within its walls, the still magic had dominion.
An owl hooted. Little Fur saw that owls were perched along the roof in every niche and on every piece of jutting stonework. She made her way to the other side of the beaked house, passing the front steps that led to the massive doors. The doors were firmly shut, and she continued until she could see the enormous tree that grew on the other side of the building. Planted on the cusp of the human age, the tree was not quite asleep nor yet awake, but it knew Little Fur.
She came closer to greet it. But when her feet pressed down on the great crackling carpet of fallen leaves that lay about its humped roots, she looked up and saw that what she had taken for its foliage was in fact hundreds of owls. Still wondering if the Sett Owl had foreseen her visit, Little Fur went to the opening at the base of the wall that led under it and into the beaked house’s immense chamber. To her surprise, a great crowd of animals and birds was gathered at the opening. Barring their way was the Sett Owl’s attendant, a sleek rat named Gazrak. He was bristling with fury, and Little Fur could smell that some sort of argument was in progress. She moved closer, turning her soft ears, the better to hear.
CHAPTER 5
A Convocation of Owls
“You will have to come back later,” Gazrak told the assembled animals in a peevish voice that suggested he had said the same thing more than once already. “Herness is very busy,” he added pompously. “Very, very busy.”
“We have crossed half the city to speak to the Sett Owl,” said a drake. A small cluster of ducks about him quacked indignantly in agreement. “We came at great risk!” the drake added firmly.
“We all come here at risk,” chittered a red squirrel.
The rat turned his long twitching nose and slitted red eyes to the squirrel and hissed. “Gazrak can’t help that. You can’t see Herness until the owl convocation is over.”
“Well, how long is this convocation going to take?” asked a white cat in a pretty, purring voice. A goose hissed softly to warn her not to get too close, but the cat gave him an amused look. “Keep your feathers on, father,” she told him coolly, and turned her attention back to the rat.
“The owl convocation will take as long as it takes,” Gazrak said haughtily.
“What are we supposed to do, then?” demanded a weasel. The rat glared at her, then turned his eyes shiftily to the offerings that rose in a tantalizing little mound in front of the drake.
“You will have to come back. But you can leave your offerings. I will make sure that the Sett Owl gets them and knows who is owed an audience.”
“Not on your life,” snapped a stoat. “I’d sooner trust a snake than a rat to keep a promise.”
“Watch who you are insssulting,” hissed a snake, uncoiling to glare at the stoat.
“No fighting! It is forbidden for supplicants to fight in the grounds of the beaked house. Fighting is sacreligion,” shrilled the rat.
“What I would like to know is when this convocation began,” asked a deep, slow voice from somewhere in the crowd. It sounded like a sensible sort of voice, and Little Fur guessed it was a badger’s.
The rat eyed the gathering balefully. “Herness sent out the pigeons at dusk yesterday, and owls began arriving soon after. The Sett Owl has been interviewing them all night, and there are many owls still waiting to see her.”
There was a disgruntled murmur. Some of the animals glumly gathered up their offerings and departed. Gazrak went back into the tunnel in a fury, leaving those who remained to argue over what to do.
Little Fur returned to where Ginger sat watching stray feathers drifting down from the tree of owls. “The Sett Owl is questioning all of the owls, but no one knows why,” Little Fur told him.
“Little Fur could also question owls,” Ginger said.
Little Fur realized the cat was right. She had wanted to see the Sett Owl only so she could speak to other owls. The mother of the orphaned owl might even be here. Little Fur walked under the lowest branch of the tree, which creaked under the weight of a great horned owl, two ghostly-looking barn owls and several smaller owls. They blinked orange and yellow eyes at her.
“Greetings, Owls,” Little Fur said very politely, for owls have a keen sense of ceremony. “I am—”
“Whoo hoo, we know who you are, Little Fur,” said the horned owl. “What do you want of us, Healer?”
Little Fur did not know whether to be gratified or unnerved that it knew who she was. She bowed and began, “I came to see the Sett Owl—”
“Whoo! She is busy with owl business,” said a smaller owl. “She has called a convocation.”
“Hush,” said one of the other owls. “The great questioning is owl business.”
“Too true,” hooted the smaller owl.
“My business is also owl business,” Little Fur assured them. There was a rustling of feathers all about her, but none of the owls spoke, so she went on. “What I wanted to find out was if any of you here has lost a nestling, or knows of an owl who lost a nest with young in it during the storm last night.”
The horned owl said loftily, “The night was full of falling nests and broken eggs.” There was a rustle of agreement from the other owls.
&n
bsp; “I am speaking of a particular nest and a particular nestling,” Little Fur said. “Is there an owl mother among you who is grieving for her lost young?”
“Whoo hoo,” said the horned owl, waggling its feathery horns at her. “Owls do not make the mistake of getting too attached to eggs or nestlings. They are not strongly enough attached to life. It would be—”
“Foolish,” completed one of the barn owls.
Little Fur was puzzled. “I just meant—”
“Forgetting the loss of nestlings is natural and also more comfortable than pointless grieving over a broken egg,” said an owl from one of the other branches.
“But what if an egg falls and does not break, or breaks only to free its nestling?” Little Fur asked.
The horned owl said, “The chance of life after the fall is minus. Very minus.”
Little Fur was becoming exasperated. “I am speaking of a particular nestling which fell but did not die,” she said.
“We do not think of what happens after the fall,” intoned the horned owl. Little Fur felt an urge to pull its tail feathers. Owls were cleverer than other birds, but they had their limitations. She walked around the tree asking other owls the same question. Over and over, she was given the same answer.
Finally, she came to an owl who had lost her nest in the storm. “Many eggs and nestlings are lost in the lifetime of a bird,” she told Little Fur calmly. “It is not in the nature of owls, who see more deeply and wisely than other birds, to sit on hope and seek to hatch it into the lost nestling. As it falls from the nest, the egg or nestling falls from one’s heart, lest grief take root and grow to crack the spirit apart.”
“But this owlet . . .” Little Fur began. Then she stopped, not certain what she wanted to say.
“. . . will live or die,” the owl mother said.
And that seemed to be that.
Exhausted and baffled, Little Fur went back to sit on the step beside Ginger. “The owls say that once an egg or owlet falls out of the nest, the mother forgets it. They say that there is no point in their caring when so many eggs die. I will have to wait to see the Sett Owl after all. Perhaps she will order the owls who have lost nests to come to the wilderness. I am sure if they could see the baby owl and know she is their own, they would be glad to claim her.”
Ginger held Little Fur’s gaze until she saw what he did not say: the Sett Owl would not order any of the owls to do anything, because she did not give orders. She answered questions. Well then, Little Fur thought, I will ask the Sett Owl how to get the baby owl back to its mother.
Too restless to sleep or sit, Little Fur rose and began to walk around the beaked house again. She was curious about this convocation. One of the owls had named it a great questioning. Since the Sett Owl had called the owls together, she must be asking them questions. But what could an ordinary owl know that she did not?
Little Fur saw a fox sitting by the front steps of the beaked house. It was a big fox, but she could clearly see its bones curving under its dull red pelt. She sniffed and caught the hot bright stink of pain and the dank odor of infection. “Can I help you?” she asked, going over to it.
The fox turned its head to look at her. It was a male, she smelled now, handsome and well formed. Or he would have been, if not for his unkempt pelt and his thinness. His deep brown eyes were not clouded with pain, though, or with confusion. They were full of intelligence, but their bleak expression chilled her.
“What do ye want?” the fox asked. There was an unfamiliar accent to his soft voice that told her he came from somewhere other than the city.
“I . . . I am a healer,” Little Fur said. “I can smell that you are hurt and I thought I could help you.”
“I do not wish to be helped,” the fox said.
Little Fur was taken aback. “But . . . you would not be here unless you wanted help. . . .”
“Are ye so wise as to know my thoughts and intentions better than I do?” the fox asked coldly. “Perhaps I would do better to consult ye than the Sett Owl. However, I did not come here for healing, but to learn how to die.”
Little Fur thought she must have misunderstood. “You are afraid you are going to die?”
“I want to die,” the fox told her in a clear, stony voice, “but my will to live is too strong. I heard of the wisdom of the Sett Owl and I have come very far to see if she can tell me how to die. And now that ye have satisfied your curiosity, ye can leave me alone.”
Little Fur had never before had her healing refused. She went to Ginger, who was sleeping, and laid her cheek against him, seeking the reassuring beat of his heart. The encounter with the fox had unsettled her. He had said that he wished to die but could not. His instinct to live must be very powerful, she thought, for creatures did die by willing it. She had seen it in old animals who had grown weary of life and struggle and pain, in the remaining member of a life-bonded pair and sometimes in a mother who had lost a child. But the fox was neither mother nor elder, and he had such an absolute air of solitude that she did not think he had lost a mate.
She drifted to sleep and it seemed but a moment before Ginger was turning to lick her cheek with his warm, rough tongue.
“It has finished,” he said.
CHAPTER 6
The Sett Owl Speaks
Little Fur sat up. The sky was the pure, starless blue of very early morning, and owls were flying away in all directions. For a moment or two, it was as if there were a snowstorm in the air. Hundreds of pale, soft feathers drifted down to whiten the cobbles beneath the bare, reaching black arms of the tree.
“You,” the rat said decisively, pointing his black paw at Little Fur and ignoring the irritable yowl of a white cat and the grumblings of a weasel. “And you.” He pointed to the fox.
Then he selected a vole and a mouse on the fringe, both recent arrivals. Little Fur was so relieved to be able to go in at once that she didn’t argue for fairness. She crawled into the tunnel after Ginger, who had announced to Gazrak that he needed no permission to enter since he sought no answer for himself.
The huge chamber that was the interior of the beaked house smelled of polished wood, shining metals, and a strange spice that mingled with the scent of dying roses, which humans had brought as offerings. The smooth, dark flagstones gave off a reflection of the red glow of human false lights fixed to the walls of the chamber.
Little Fur did not climb out of the tunnel as the others had done, because there was no flow of earth magic within the beaked house. The mouse and vole gazed about in awe and apprehension. The fox sniffed the end of one of the wooden benches where humans sometimes sat, a flicker of loathing crossing his features, then looked at Little Fur as if he felt her watching. She quickly turned her eyes away and found herself staring at the feet of one of the enormous stone humans that stood all about the chamber, each in its own niche in the wall.
Gazrak came along the tunnel behind Little Fur and grumbled loudly when he found her blocking the way. Pushing past her, he hurried over to where the vole and mouse had laid down their offerings—a few nuts, late berries and crusts. Little Fur dug a packet of herbs from her seed pouch and reached out as far as she could to put it beside the other things. The still magic quivered against her cheeks as Gazrak inspected the offering suspiciously.
“What is this?” he demanded.
“Herbs to ease the pain of the Sett Owl’s crippled wing,” Little Fur said with shy dignity.
“Pah,” the rat jeered, but he passed on to the fox. “Where is your offering?”
“I did not know that I needed one,” the fox said. He was sitting with his tail curved around him. His air of solitary completeness struck Little Fur anew.
“Herness is not interested in excuses,” Gazrak snarled. “You must leave! Come back when you have a properness of offering for Herness.”
“Wait,” Little Fur said. “I have some fresh mushrooms that I brought for my supper. If those would do . . . ?” She set them alongside the packet of herbs. The rat cre
pt closer, his nose twitching.
“I cannot allow ye to pay for me,” the fox said. “That would mean I would owe ye a debt, and I do not wish to owe anything to any creature.”
“You don’t have to pay me,” Little Fur said. “The mushrooms can be a gift.”
“Then ye offer a friendship that I did not seek and do not desire. Take them back.” He turned to the rat. “I will go, and return when—”
“Enough of this foolishness.” The voice of the Sett Owl rang out from above. “Do not be so quick to spurn friendship, Master Fox.”
They all looked up to see her spiraling down from the shadows clustered beneath the roof. Her damaged wing made the descent uneven. She landed with a staggering awkwardness that filled Little Fur’s nostrils with the scent of pain and stiffness.
“He has brought no offering,” Gazrak whined to his mistress, who had landed on one of the wooden benches. “What are we to eat if—”
“Silence, Rat,” the Sett Owl commanded. “I might starve without offerings, but you are fat enough to last for a full cycle of the moon. Now be silent unless you wish to offer yourself as a meal out of reverence to me.”
The rat gave a shriek of terror and scuttled away.
The owl turned to the fox, who bowed his head in a handsome gesture and said politely but sternly, “I would not be indebted to ye either, Herness.”
“Whoo! You! Oh, you will pay for your questions, Master Fox. Have no fear.” The owl’s voice was chalky with humor. She turned her flaring eyes to Little Fur, still crouched at the opening of the tunnel. “It is good to see you again, Healer. I am grateful for your offering, and you may keep your supper if you will brew the tisane for me. But come out where I can see you properly.”
“I can’t,” Little Fur said. “I would be cut off from the flow of the earth magic if I came into the beaked house.”