Grimble stood in front of the opening to the library. There seemed to be no other owls about. Soren, however, felt the air stir and suddenly realized that it was a breeze. A wonderful thrill coursed through him as it had when he was on the stone outcropping of Hortense’s nest. Grimble now turned and blinked at them. Then commenced one of the strangest conversations Soren had ever heard.
“So you are here,” Grimble said.
“So we are,” replied Gylfie.
“You are conducting yourselves in a dangerous manner,” the Boreal Owl said carefully.
“Our lives are not worth two pellets here. We have nothing to lose,” Gylfie replied.
“Brave words.”
“Not so brave. Wait until you hear my questions. Then you’ll know I am brave.”
Soren nearly fainted. How could Gylfie even say the word!
Grimble began to shake almost uncontrollably. “You dare say the Q.”
“Yes, and I am going to say the what, the when, and the why, and every other word of a free and un-moon-blinked owl. For we are like you, Grimble.”
Grimble began to gag. “Whhh-what?”
“What am I talking about? Is that what you wanted to ask? Say it, Grimble. Ask how I know this. Ask anything you want and I’ll tell you with one answer: I feel it in my gizzard.”
“Gizzard?” Grimble’s face grew dreamy with memory.
“Yes. Gizzard, Grimble. Ours still work. And we know, we sense it—that you are not moon blinked. You’re faking it just as we are.”
“Not completely.” The owl blinked. A thin transparent eyelid swept across his eye. Soren knew about these winking eyelids. His parents had told him that when he began to fly, he would find them useful, for they would keep his eyes clear in flight and protect them from any airborne bits of debris. But Grimble was not in flight. No, Grimble was hardly moving. So why was his wink lid flickering madly? Then Soren noticed huge tears gathering at the far corners of his large yellow eyes. “Oh, if only I were perfectly moon blinked. If only I were—”
“Why, Grimble?” Soren asked softly. “Why?”
“I cannot tell you right now. I shall come to you tonight in the glaucidium. I shall arrange for a pass for you. They won’t mind as it is now the time of the newing. But let me tell you right now, what you are doing is terribly dangerous. What you are doing could invite a fate much worse than death.”
“Worse than death?” Gylfie asked. “What could be worse than death? We would rather die.”
“The life I live is worse than death, I assure you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Grimble’s Story
I thought I was being so smart,” Grimble said. He had led them into another crack in the canyon wall that was off the large one that led from the pelletorium. “You see, the snatching patrols had just snatched one of my young ones as I was returning with my mate from hunting. It was little Bess. She was my favorite, I have to admit. I swooped in and attacked ferociously. It was actually a cousin of Jatt and Jutt who had Bess in his talons. His name was Ork. He was considered very dangerous and, well, I killed him. The other owls were stunned. They shrank back from me, but then Spoorn and Skench flew in. They saw what had happened. Oddly enough, they were thrilled that Ork was dead. You see, the previous leader of St. Aegolius had died the year before and since then a bitter power struggle had gone on between Ork and his forces and those of Spoorn and Skench. Skench and Spoorn were so happy that they said they would spare my family, never come by our nest again, if I would agree to return to St. Aegolius and join them. They wanted me for my fighting skills. I had killed Ork with no battle claws at all, just my bare talons and beak. They needed me.
“Well, it seemed that there was no choice. I looked at my dear mate. There were three other young ones in the nest. I had to do it. I had to go. My mate begged me not to. She swore that we could go elsewhere, far away. But Skench and Spoorn laughed and said they would find us no matter where we went. So I joined them. My mate and our owlets promised they would never forget me. Spoorn and Skench promised that I could visit them thrice yearly, which, at the time, seemed very generous. I should have suspected something right away. But I didn’t know about moon blinking then, either. The visits would become meaningless if I were successfully moon blinked. My family would not recognize me nor would I have any feeling for them. This is because moon-blinked owls have no real feelings, and without our feelings we become unrecognizable over time to those who do have feelings. That is the evil genius of moon blinking.
“So I was determined, like you, to resist and to pretend. I was fairly successful. Skench and Spoorn had valued my fighting skills so much that they allowed me to earn a name. I had been number 28-5. But I became Grimble.” And now…” Grimble began to shake again. “Something has changed.”
“What do you mean? You resisted,” Soren said.
“Yes, to a point.”
“To a point? You either are or you’re not moon blinked,” Gylfie said.
“After every few newings, we are required even as mature owls to be reblinked. I think something has begun to change. It seems that although I resisted, now I am losing something. The faces of my dear mate, my little Bess, have begun to fade. When I used to visit them, my old voice came back. The call of Boreal Owls is like a song, some say like the bells that used to toll in the churches, but now it has become flat. Eight or so newings ago, when I made one of my visits home, I called out as usual as I approached, but no one recognized my call. Then two newings ago, when I arrived, neither my mate nor Bess recognized me.”
“Unbelievable,” Gylfie whispered.
“And now they are gone,” Grimble said.
“Gone?” said Soren. “You mean they left?”
“They left, or perhaps they were killed by Skench and Spoorn or perhaps…” Grimble’s voice dwindled off.
“Perhaps what?” Gylfie pressed.
“Perhaps they are there and I simply cannot see them at all, nor do they recognize me. I think I have become like air—transparent, like nothingness. Is that not the ultimate savagery of being moon blinked? I would say that in another few newings I shall be the perfectly moon-blinked elderly owl.”
“But why? Why do they do this? What is the purpose of St. Aggie’s?” Soren asked.
“And the flecks, what are they about?” Gylfie looked straight up at the Boreal Owl, who towered over her.
“Ah! One simple question, one not quite so simple. The purpose of St. Aggie’s is to take control of every owl kingdom on Earth.”
“And to destroy it?” asked Soren.
“You can be sure the kingdoms shall be destroyed, but control is really what they want. And for the kind of control they want they must moon blink. That is their main tool, for moon blinking destroys will, erases individuality, makes everyone the same. The flecks, however, are another kind of tool, a weapon for war.”
“What can flecks do?” Gylfie asked.
“No one really knows. I am not entirely sure. The flecks do have powers if certain things are done to them.”
“What kind of powers?”
“Again, I am not certain. They seem to be able to pull things toward them, sometimes. When I am working in the fleck storage area of the library, sometimes I think I can feel their force.”
Soren and Gylfie were mystified. “How strange,” Gylfie said.
“Teach us to fly, Grimble! Teach us to fly.” It was Soren who blurted out the words. The idea half formed seemed to explode at once in his head, sending tremors all the way down to his gizzard. There was a stunned silence. Gylfie and Grimble both looked at Soren and blinked but remained wordless.
“But you know, Soren, and you know, Gylfie, I can tell you what to do, and I can help you practice, but I cannot do everything. It’s very strange with flying. A young owl can do everything just perfectly but if you don’t believe…”
Gylfie and Soren both blinked at Grimble and together said, “If you don’t believe, then you’ll never fly.”
r /> “Yes, yes. I see you understand. And, of course, that is why none of the owlets in the glaucidium will ever fly. It is not only that the vampire bats quiet their stirrings and cause their feathers to turn brittle, but if an owl is moon blinked it, of course, has no notion of what it means to believe.”
“But we aren’t moon blinked,” Gylfie said. “And I don’t believe you are either, Grimble.”
“You give me hope, you two young ones. I thought all of my hope had been destroyed, but you give me hope. Yes, I shall try. Here is what we must do.”
So Grimble explained to them that he was in charge of organizing the products of the pellets—the teeth, the fur, and the flecks—after each day’s work. “I store them in the library and keep lists, inventories. I can get you a pass to help in the listings. I work mostly in a small area off the library and then take them in when I get enough. When I don’t do that, I am on day guard of the library. You will never be permitted in the library, but I can try to teach you how to fly in that small space. It isn’t ideal but it is the only place we have. It connects to the library, which is larger, but you can’t go in there because when I am in the inventory area someone else is guarding the library.”
“I thought the library had books,” Gylfie said.
“It does. But we store these materials there, too. Near the books that supposedly explain them.”
“Gylfie feels somehow deep in her gizzard that the flecks might help us escape.”
“Don’t depend on such things,” Grimble said sharply. “Your own belief in yourself will help you much more than any fleck ever will.”
And so it was arranged. Gylfie and Soren would be given passes to help in the inventory area, the inventorium, each night during the newing and on various nights until the moon was full again and all owlets were required in the glaucidium for moon blinking. Their first lesson would begin that very evening.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
To Fly
More flap, deeper flap. Your wings must almost meet on the upstroke of the flap…” Grimble directed. Soren and Gylfie were exhausted. This was much harder than anything either one of them had ever seen their parents or older siblings try to do.
“I know you’re tired, but the only way out of here is straight up. You have to build your muscles. That’s why I am not even having you practice hopping or branching. You do not have the luxury of gliding gently down from a nest. You have to develop your power-flight skills. So try it again.”
“But once we’re out,” Soren asked, “how will we know what to do?”
“You’ll know. What did I tell you? The still air has no shape. In the sky you will feel the mass of air as it moves around your wings. You will sense its speed, if it is bumpy or smooth, hot or cold. And you will know how to shape it and use it. Wind always has shape but there is no wind in St. Aggie’s. It is too deep for the wind to reach. And in these small spaces it is hard to even feel the air. It is dead, unmoving air in here. So you must work extra hard to give it a shape with your power strokes, your flapping. Your downstroke is your most powerful. On your upstroke, you want the air to flow through easily. That is why both of you have those feathers with slots, tip slots at the end of your wings. They separate and let you go up easily.”
Grimble demonstrated. He pressed forward just a bit, extended his head, and lifted his wings. And that was it—he was suddenly airborne. Twice Soren’s size or more, yet Grimble seemed to float up effortlessly. Would they ever learn? Had they even improved?
Grimble almost seemed to read their minds. “This is just your third lesson. You’ve grown stronger. I can see that. But you must believe it.”
And then, by their fourth lesson, it did seem easier and that was the first time they began to perhaps feel the belief in their gizzards. They could feel the air parting above them. They had each flown higher in the deep stone box of the inventorium than they ever had before. They tried to imagine bursting out of it into the welcoming blackness of the moonless night. They could begin to sense the contours of the bubble of air that formed beneath each wing and buoyed them up into the darkness. The newing would last for another two nights and then their learning sessions would begin to dwindle as the moon swelled, and they would be required to stay in the glaucidium for longer and longer exposures to its light for moon blinking. Finally, after the moon had grown fat and full and the first phase of the dwenking began, they would leave. They must leave at that time, for the vampire bats would be returning. It would be their time, as fully fledged owls, to submit to the bats and then there would be no hope of escape.
Although they had not yet been in the library, they would go there on the night of their escape, for, indeed, it was located higher and closer to the sky than any other region aside from the hatchery. Grimble planned to tell the library guard on duty for that night that he would relieve him for a few minutes as a disturbance had been reported in the pelletorium, in the very area that this guard supervised during the day. Grimble promised them that flying would seem easy after all their practice in the deep hole of the inventorium. They were curious about the library. Grimble had tried to explain what it looked like and how the books and the feathers and the teeth, the bones, the flecks, and all the bits that they picked out of the pellets during the day were arranged and stored. It was also in the library that some of the best battle claws were kept. Gylfie and Soren were very curious about them.
“They don’t make them here, do they?” Gylfie had asked.
“No. They don’t know how. Oh, how they wish they did. I hear Spoorn and Skench talking about it all the time. It requires a deep knowledge of metals, I think. They steal them. They go on raids to various kingdoms where owl chiefs keep fighting owls. They go into fields after battles and collect them from dead warriors. But they don’t know how to make them. You see, you think these owls are smart here at St. Aegolius, but Skench and Spoorn are so frightened of any owl being smarter than they are…well, that is why they moon blink everyone. No one else really knows how to read here. No questions allowed. So how can anything be learned, be invented? It’s impossible. They’ve been trying to figure out flecks for years, but I doubt they ever will. They never let anyone else study them and maybe find something out. Why, look at you, Gylfie. You, just through wondering and having feelings in your gizzard about flecks, probably know almost as much as they do—because you’re curious. But enough talk. Come on you two, time to practice. I want you each to go for that highest chink in the stone wall tonight. Soren, you get five wing beats to do it. Gylfie, since you’re smaller, I’ll give you eight.”
“You have to be kidding,” Soren gasped.
“I am not kidding. You’re first, Soren. Make every downstroke count. If you believe, you won’t ever go yeep.”
Soren closed his eyes as he stood on a low stone perch that jutted from the wall. He lifted his wings then, with all his might, powered down. I can do this! I can do this! He felt his body lift. He felt the air gather under his wings on the next upstroke. It was a big cushion of air.
“Good!” whispered Grimble. “Again. More powerful.” Soren was halfway up the wall to the chink and he had used only two downstrokes.
I can do it, I can do it! I feel the air. I feel the force of my strokes. I am going up. I am going up. I shall fly…
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Shape of the Wind
Tonight? Grimble, you must be yoicks. It’s not anywhere near the dwenking. It’s too soon!” Gylfie cried.
“We’re not ready,” protested Soren.
“You are ready. Soren, I gave you five strokes to get to the chink in the inventorium and you got there in four. Gylfie, I gave you eight and you got there in seven. Tonight is the night.”
“Why?” they both said at once.
Grimble sighed. He was going to miss these two. He might miss their questions most of all. It felt so luxurious to be able to ask and answer questions. He had once thought the sweetest taste in the world was that of a freshly killed vole,
but now he knew differently. The sweetest thing was a question on the tongue. A word beginning with that wonderful rush of air that w’s made. Oh, how he would miss these two young owls. They were lovely to look at, too, in their coats of newly fledged feathers untouched by vampire bats. “The thermals are coming this evening. This is why you must go.”
“Thermals? What are thermals?” Soren asked.
“Warm drafts of air. They’ve arrived earlier than usual. They’ll make flying very easy for you once you get out of here. You should meet up with them within a short distance from here. You’ll be able to soar.”
“We don’t know how to soar,” Gylfie said. “All we know how to do is flap.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll know exactly what to do when you meet the thermals. The shape of the wind will tell you.”
“Who is on guard tonight?”
“It’s Jatt.”
“Jatt!” Soren gasped. “That’s terrible. How will you get him to go to the pelletorium?”
“I’ll think of something. Don’t worry. I’ll get him out of there. I’ve already got you a pass for tonight between the third and fourth sleep march.”
The third sleep march had just finished. Soren and Gylfie sought out the sleep correction monitor in their area and showed them their passes. He blinked and told them to be off. They made their way silently through the stone corridors of St. Aegolius, alone with their thoughts. Yet those thoughts were the same, for they were deep in concentration as they tried as hard as they ever had to believe in their own ability to fly. They tried not to let themselves be distracted by the fact that the sum total of their flight experience had covered only a very small range of the usual maneuvers a young and newly fledged owl practices. They had no real knowledge of gliding, soaring, or hovering.
“Words, words, words,” Grimble would mutter if they ever brought up these notions that they had heard their parents discussing with older siblings. It was Gylfie who mostly asked such questions. And Grimble would always admonish her. “You’re thinking too much. You don’t need to know anything about hovering and soaring. All you need to know is rapid takeoff straight up—THRUST! POWER FLAPPING!” He poked his head forward as he said each word and fixed Soren and Gylfie in the fierce, uncompromising glare of his yellow eyes. “That’s it! That is all you need to get out of here.”