From Cape Glaux they set course almost due north for the Beyond, even though this was not the most favorable direction in terms of the wind. But Grank wanted to avoid the more populated areas in the Shadow Forest and Silverveil and in particular any grog trees where owls gathered to drink the potent berry juice and to exchange gossip and news. The fewer owls they saw, the better.
Hoole was disappointed. He had wanted very much to see the beautiful green forests of Silverveil that he had heard about from Berwyck, and he had even hoped to meet up once again with the Glauxian Brother.
They fetched up for the night on the very edge of the Shadow Forest that pressed hard against a spirit woods. This was not an ideal place, either, for spirit woods were said to be haunted by the scrooms of dead owls who had not quite finished their business on earth. Grank would have to keep a close eye on the young’un.
That morning they settled into a hollow in a fir tree. It had definitely seen one too many storms and as it creaked violently in the least wind, Grank had an uneasy feeling in his gizzard.
“Now, you stay put, lad. No getting up, no sneaking out for a little morning flight. You need your rest. Remember, when we get to the Beyond, you’ll need all your energy.”
“Yes, Uncle Grank. You’re going to teach me to collier, aren’t you?”
“I promised, didn’t I?”
“That you did.”
But it was more than colliering that Grank wanted to teach Hoole in the Beyond. He needed to teach the young’un about the wolves. He would need Fengo’s help for that. And Fengo must also teach Hoole how to listen to the various sounds of the volcanoes. Each one of the five volcanoes produced a variety of different sounds. It was not unlike the ice harps that the gadfeathers played, that were said to have their moods depending on the time of day, the weather, the time of the year. So, too, the volcanoes seemed to have their moods. Grank himself had been hopeless in interpreting them. He now looked back on that day that he had retrieved the ember as one of pure accident. Yes, the side of the volcano had seemed to turn transparent and suddenly it was as if he could see into the very heart, the gizzard, of this one volcano. He spied the ember as it had bubbled to the surface. Quickly, he made a dive for it and as soon as he grasped the ember he had felt its power.
But for Grank, it had been too powerful, and a strange interlude ensued in which he grew lethargic and uncaring. For all of the ember’s power, Grank had failed to exploit or use any of it. He was simply overcome, and finally Fengo told him plainly that he was not equal to the power of the ember and urged him to put the ember back. Later, the wolf had said that he was eternally grateful that the ember was retrieved by a good owl like Grank and not an evil owl, a graymalkin, who would not slip into leth-argy as Grank had but sink to profound evil.
But, Grank thought, was Hoole that owl of both goodness and power? Was his power such that he would be neither vanquished by it nor use it for tyranny or nachtmagen? And even if Hoole were such a good owl, as Grank suspected, it was not a given that he would know how to use the power wisely and with compassion. For this, an owl must be prepared, raised in the way of Ga’. So far, he had tried his best, but was it good enough?
Grank thought about all this as he tried to sleep in the growing light of the morning. Failure to do his proper duty by Hoole was unacceptable, unthinkable. Forget courtly behavior with all its affectations. How could he have ever worried about such trivialities with Hoole? He must raise a prince to be a king. A king must be tempered like metal. He thought of how Theo worked with the metals in the forge for the battle claws. He heated the metal until it was white-hot and then hammered it, then folded it and hammered it again. Through this constant cycle of heating and hammering and folding, he made claws that were strong yet flexible. That was how a prince must be tempered to be a king. Strong enough for any battlefield, any war, but tempered with compassion and wisdom so that he knows the richness of restraint, the fruitfulness of peace, and the grace of mercy. And just such a king was now desperately needed.
By noon, as streaks of sun washed into the hollow where they slept, Grank gave up on sleep and wandered out in search of a vole, or perhaps a weasel.
He had flown over one of the few meadows in the region and looked for the tracks of a ground animal in the tall grass. He found one and began to follow it and did not notice that it led right into the pale trees of the spirit woods before it dwindled to nothing. He sighed deeply for now he was truly hungry, having anticipated a plump rat or rabbit or vole at the end of the track. He jerked his head quickly as he heard a sigh as if in answer to his own. It couldn’t be an echo. There was nothing in this place to create an echo. He had alighted on a bare mound where the path had ended. Surely a weasel or mole or whatever rodent he had been chasing did not sigh. But he heard it again. A sound not so much like a sigh but a ragged expiration of breath. He stood perfectly still, his feathers becoming flatter and flatter against his body. He saw something in the tree ahead of him, gathering like mist.
It was H’rath—the scroom of H’rath. He was thankful that at least it was he in these woods and not Hoole. He had never encountered a scroom before, but his grandmother had, and she had told him that one must wait for the scroom to speak. She’d told him it was not like speaking at all but that the words seemed to fill your head. It was a very peculiar way of hearing and communicating. And it was incomplete. The scrooms could rarely tell you everything, though they seemed to know what was going on in your own mind. So much so that when one was communing with a scroom, one barely had to form the question before the scroom sensed it. Grank stared at the scroom of H’rath and a sadness seeped into his gizzard.
Don’t be sad, Grank.
It is you, Your Majesty?
Just H’rath. We no longer need titles once gone.
Grank felt himself float and rise toward the limb on which the mist had gathered. And yet when he looked down he saw his body still standing there on the mound.
Have you seen him? Grank thought, but did not actually speak the words.
Yes, he is indeed something to behold.
I am trying, H’rath. Doing all I can to raise him to be a great king like you.
I was a good king, but never a great king. I did not have Ga’.
But he might?
I can’t answer…
What can I do for him? If he does have the seeds of great Ga’, how can I nourish them?
I am not sure. I have feelings but no real answers…But…but…you must urge him to…Yes! To look for the channels.
Channels? Channels of what?
In the flames, Grank, in the flames.
The mist began to seep away. H’rath…H’rath…don’t leave.
“Don’t leave!” It was his own voice shouting aloud that brought him out of the strange trance. He looked down. He was exactly where he had been: on the mound, his talons firmly digging into the earth. He looked up and blinked where the mist had gathered, where he had floated and spoken to the shape that was H’rath. But there was nothing there. Nothing at all.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
At Last, the Beyond
Deep in a cliff cave in Beyond the Beyond, the remaining mates of Dunleavy MacHeath licked the socket where his eye had been. “Hordweard gone, eh?” he said.
“Yes, my lord,” a yellowish wolf replied in a tight voice.
“She won’t last long without me. Stupid she wolf. She’ll come back.” He paused. “Won’t she?” There was silence. Then his hackles rose and he snarled. “Won’t she?” The yellow wolf sank to her knees, lowered the maimed stump of her tail, and said in a quaking voice, “Of course, my lord. Of course!” He rose now and walked slowly about the cave. The newest litter of cubs scattered to the deepest shadows. They already knew not to be in their father’s way when he was like this. A tiny black cub named Blackmore had already been kicked so hard by his father that his brains were addled and he stumbled around half the time in a daze. Each of MacHeath’s mates had been maimed by him in some
way during one of his violent rages. One, Ragwyn, had a terrible scar that ran across her face like a bolt of jagged lightning. Another, Dagmar, had only half her tongue, and Sinfagel, like MacHeath himself, was missing one eye. “Won’t she?” He snarled again and again as he walked up to each of his mates. He stood now across from Sinfagel who was groveling at his feet. He nudged her face upward roughly. “Look me in the eye!” He roared and then roared again with laughter. “Quite a pair we make, my one-eyed bonnie! Don’t we?”
“Yes, my lord,” she answered, terrified.
Three more days passed and still Hordweard had not returned. MacHeath knew that the other wolves had not accepted her into their packs. She was too old for mating, too slow for hunting. “She’ll come back. She’ll come back,” he muttered again and again.
He finally sent Ragwyn to seek her. He wanted at least to know where she was dwelling. Ragwyn returned with more news than he had anticipated.
“She is living close to the cave of Fengo,” she told him.
“Does he pay her much attention?” MacHeath asked, suddenly nervous. It would not do to have Fengo taking up with one of his mates. How humiliating that would be! She was still his, by Lupus!
No, no, not really.” Perhaps a bit more than the other wolves, she thought. But she would not tell MacHeath this. So she moved on to the other news. “Owls have been spotted coming over the southern ridges. They should be here by moonrise.”
“You mean Grank?”
“Yes, sir. And two others. Maybe more. I’m not sure.”
“Is that so?” MacHeath said slowly. He had never trusted that owl, not in all the years Grank had been coming here. He closed his remaining eye. Sometimes it was almost as if he could still see with his missing eye. It was as if the empty socket had visions of its own of a very private nature. And what if one of those owls is the one destined to retrieve the ember, the wolf ember? he thought. Suddenly, MacHeath had an idea. “Ragwyn, get my gnaw-bone.” Ragwyn went over to the pile of bones that had been gnawed in such a way as to be inscribed with designs. This was a pastime for many of the wolves, and MacHeath’s gnaw-bones were considered crude compared to most others. Still, every wolf leader had his favorite.
“No, not that one, idiot! My best one.” He kicked away a pup who had come too close. Ragwyn fetched his best gnaw-bone. It had been scraped and then engraved with a fairly decent profile of one of the volcanoes. “Now listen carefully, Ragwyn. I want you to take this bone to Hordweard and tell her she may keep it if she will provide me with information about the owls.” He dropped his voice lower. “Tell her that she can keep the gnaw-bone while she is thinking over my proposition. If she decides to help…well, let’s just say no hard feelings about our little spats—or her leaving.”
Ragwyn’s eyes opened wide and green with surprise. “Your best gnaw-bone, are you sure?” Before the words were completely out she knew she had made a mistake. He gave her a hard swat across her muzzle, which sent her reeling.
“There he is, lad. There he is.” Grank pointed his beak in the direction of a high arching cliff. Fengo had spotted Grank before anyone else and leaped up into the air with excitement, giving howl after howl of joy. As the owls approached, Hoole was mesmerized by the sight of this handsome wolf leaping high into the air, leaping in a stream of moonlight. The wolf’s back glinted in the moonlight and bright star-shine that spangled the night. Grank explained that the wolves of the Beyond were not just wolves, but dire wolves—almost three times the size of a normal wolf. As they drew closer, Hoole could see the intense green color of the wolf’s eyes. Grank told him about the color, and that deep in Fengo’s eyes, one could see something that looked like green fire. And then if Hoole looked even deeper into the green fire, he might see something else. “It’s like the reflection of orange flames from the volcanoes but in the center of that flame, lad, there is a glimmer of blue circled by a shimmer of green, the same green as the wolf’s eyes.”
“What is it?” Hoole asked.
Grank was evasive. “Oh, maybe nothing. It’s different, I imagine, for every creature who looks into Fengo’s eyes.”
Hoole found this a very unsatisfactory answer. “Does every dire wolf have it?”
“Have what?”
“Have that thing you saw in Fengo’s eyes.”
“All dire wolves’ eyes are green, but none except Fengo’s have what I saw.”
“Well, why won’t you tell me what you imagine it to be?”
“No. That would spoil it for you.”
“No, it wouldn’t. I promise,” Hoole pleaded.
Grank had no intention of telling Hoole that what he had seen in Fengo’s eyes so long ago was the ember. The owl ember. Hoole must discover it for himself. Grank had taught Hoole much in the short time he had been on this earth, and the learning would not end, but Grank felt that his role as a teacher was not the same now. He must let Hoole learn things on his own, come to conclusions through his own observations. The time for independent thinking had arrived. Independence would be the best teacher now. So the third or fourth time that Hoole asked the question of what he had seen in Fengo’s eyes, Grank simply replied, “End of discussion. Prepare to land and meet my dear friend Fengo.”
When his uncle Grank said “end of discussion” he usually meant it. So Hoole kept his beak shut tight.
Fengo welcomed them both. He insisted that all four of them move into his cave. “There are so few trees here, and what ones there are have the most miserable hollows imaginable. Stay here with me. It’s comfortable.” He gestured to the ledges that protruded from the walls. “Plenty of perches, or if you prefer, nice little owl-sized niches in the walls. That moss on the north wall is very soft.”
“That is very kind of you. How would you feel if only Hoole lived with you for the time being?” Hoole swiveled his head quickly toward his uncle, but Grank shot him a sharp glance. Fengo seemed somewhat taken aback.
“Hoole has learned much from me,” Grank continued. “But I think it is time for him to…” He hesitated. “To move on. There are many different ways of thinking, of living, of behaving. I would like him to come to understand the ways of as many kinds of animals as possible. Would you take him on for a spell? Perhaps take him on a caribou hunt?”
“Caribou hunt!” echoed Hoole. Now, that sounded exciting! But why was his uncle making him stay with Fengo? Why not Phineas or Theo? He had hoped that he and Phineas might share a hollow—just the two of them together so they could whisper into the day. They had become such fast friends.
After Theo and Phineas and Hoole left to have a quick fly around the ring of volcanoes, Fengo finally found a moment to have a private talk with Grank.
“Let’s go inside the cave,” Fengo suggested.
“Not to the ridge?” Grank opened his eyes in surprise. That was usually Fengo’s favorite place to talk.
“No, too many wolf ears around.”
“Spies?”
“Possibly.”
When they entered the cave they did not go deep into it, but sat close to the opening with Fengo watching the entry. Lowering his voice, he began to speak. “So what is this visit all about, my friend?”
“Hoole. He’s the son of Queen Siv and King H’rath,” Grank replied quietly.
“And they are both dead now, I take it?”
“The king died in a tremendous battle on the H’rathghar glacier. His one-time friend and ally Lord Arrin turned on him. Made an alliance with the hagsfiends and swept in. Queen Siv lived. The egg had just been laid before the battle. She was forced to flee with it. But she knew that she could not keep it with her. It was too dangerous. They were hunting her. They desperately wanted the egg.”
Fengo got up and paced back and forth several times across the entrance of the cave. “Does the lad know that he is a prince?”
“No. He thinks he was orphaned, or thought so.”
“Think? Thought? What do you mean?”
Grank told him how Hoole, unbeknownst to
any of them, had met a female gadfeather. He then told him about the attack in the cove and how Hoole was convinced that this gadfeather who helped save him was his mother.
“But you say she flew away.”
“Flew away before I had time to really see her. But Hoole is certain that she was his mother.”
“And you?”
“I don’t know, Fengo. He could be right. The boy has firesight. Did I tell you that?”
“No, as a matter of fact you didn’t. Is it as good as yours?”
“Far better. He drains every fire he’s around of any image I might see. He had been practicing this during the day when most owls sleep. It’s not that he’s sneaky in a malicious way. It’s just that he has this overwhelming curiosity, and I suppose in some sense he wants to protect me. So he goes off on his own. Taught himself to fish on his own, basically.”
“Hmmm, sounds like an interesting lad.”
“Oh, he’s more than interesting, Fengo.”
“You mean he’s…”
Then Grank cut Fengo off. “Yes, that is precisely what I mean. I believe he’s the one, the one who can retrieve the ember and not be overwhelmed by it as I was.”
“But how will he learn how to catch coals, colliering? Certainly not from me. I don’t understand why you want him to be with me. Not that I object, mind you.”
“Oh, he’ll learn colliering all right, like he learned how to fly—with little or no instruction. He’s a natural. But from you, he can learn the way of the wolves. From you, he can learn compassion for animals different from himself. Had we remained in the N’yrthghar, I would have had him live with a polar bear. I want him to gain empathy with land animals, legged animals.”
“It won’t be easy. He flies, we run. I don’t know whether he’ll understand. I can see the lad’s quick, but…”
“He’s more than quick. Anyone can be quick. It’s his depth, his feelings for things. The way he reads the telling fires is extraordinary. He doesn’t just read them. It’s as if he lives them. They radiate within him. That is why I am almost convinced that it was his mother, Siv, that he saw first in the flames and then at the cove. If he lives with you for a while in this cave and smells the scents and breathes the air that you breathe and gnaws the bones that you gnaw, he will begin to sense the real essence of wolves’ lives. He will not need to be a wolf. He will become one not in his shape or body but in his mind. And when he travels with you, although he shall be flying, he will feel the fall of every footstep you make as if he is running. His beak will seem like fangs, his feathers like fur. This is his genius. And with his genius, he will learn lessons in compassion that we cannot begin to imagine. I know this, Fengo. He is an extraordinary owl.”