Siv said she tried to imagine this mountainous furry animal with lemmings crawling all over her. She understood that weird paralysis as the yellow light seeped from the hagsfiends’ eyes. “I don’t know how I ever escaped it,” Siv said. “How I ever broke from it.”
But I know, Dear Owl, how she escaped it: Ga’! I doubted that King H’rath had Ga’, despite his being a king of infinite goodness and courage. In that moment, however, as Siv told me of her escape when she was up against the ice wall, I knew in my heart and my mind and, most important, in my gizzard, that she had Ga’.
Svenka continued her story: “The worst part about it was that I was completely helpless. I stared into the sky. I stared into death…” She paused and could not continue. She simply could not say the words.
“As they tore her apart,” Siv said.
Svenka looked at her. “You know then how it is.”
“Oh, yes, all too well. I saw my mate torn apart at the battle of H’rathmagyrr.” She paused a moment. “And then did they take her head and fly off with it on an ice sword?”
“Yes.” Svenka’s voice was low and hoarse.
When the hagsfiends had left and the yellow glare had melted away, the moon once more turned silver, and Svenka awakened from her stupor. The lemmings, too, had moved on, and the great bear searched the scene of this dastardly murder for the remains of Myrrthe. What she found, which was little, was a foot with three of the four talons torn off, a wing. She buried them. But she saved one snow-white feather to bring back to Siv. She added in a growlish whisper, “And you know, Siv, the lemmings—they just kept coming and coming and coming, mindlessly racing across the land.”
We were quiet for a long time after Siv had finished telling me this sad story. “You know,” she finally said, “we could not have a proper Final ceremony.”
“But you had one?” I asked, somewhat surprised.
“Yes. I could not bear the thought of doing nothing.”
“What did you do?”
“It might seem odd, but you must understand that I still could not fly. So I climbed on top of Svenka’s head and asked her to stand up. She is so tall, I might as well have been flying. The sheer immensity of this bear will never cease to amaze me. I perched as erect as I could and, holding the feather in my talons, I recited a poem I had composed in honor of Myrrthe. Then I released the feather to the winds. It floated away on the curl of a katabat, a lively, wonderfully boisterous katabat wind.”
“Would you recite the poem for me now, Siv?” I asked.
“I’ll try,” she said, and began.
I see her in the wind,
I see her in moon’s light,
I see whiteness in the dark,
I see her day and night.
When the dawn meets the morning,
when twilight slips to night,
I think of dearest Myrrthe,
a bird so white, so bright.
She is the snow of the N’yrthghar,
her whiteness curls in breaking seas.
She is everywhere I look,
but she still is lost to me.
She is the song in my heart,
she is the wind beneath my wing.
Her mercy knew no bounds,
her faith as deep as any sea.
She is everywhere I look,
yet she still is lost to me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The First Battle Claws
And in the far firthkin, in the ice cave of the berg while Siv herself was steeped in grief over the loss of Myrrthe, I had my talons full with young Theo. I knew that this Great Horned was an owl of unusual intelligence and extreme stubbornness. He could be absolutely maddening at times, but I had never seen an owl learn faster. To be observed by Theo is an experience in itself. He seemed to see with his entire body. If there was such a thing as a gizzard with eyes—well, that would be Theo. I, of course, kept him away from my hollow and the schneddenfyrr. Despite all the lessons and my experiments with fire, I managed to keep a close eye on the egg—so as not to arouse Theo’s suspicions.
I myself knew a lot about coals and embers and flames, but Theo seemed to understand rock in ways I never imagined. First of all, he classified rocks into all sorts of categories that went way beyond the hard and soft groups into which Fengo and I used to separate the rocks during our initial experiments. He knew which rocks to use to split other rocks, and he seemed to sense just how these rocks would break when struck.
Theo often went off to look for the special rocks that he sought, ones that were extremely hard and that contained a peculiar element he called “redmor.” These were the ones he wanted, and they were most often found in what Theo referred to as “weathering regions” that were near the surface of the earth. The only problem with these rocks was that the fires had to be made much hotter than normal. Oh, what I would have given for a good bonk coal! My work would have gone a lot faster. But I worked hard to keep the fires going. One day as Theo was banging away, I imagined something very different emerging from the lumpy mass he was striking.
“Theo,” I said, “that prong you’ve got coming out there?”
“Yes,” he replied. “What about it?”
It reminded me of a talon but I wasn’t going to tell Theo that. Theo loved a challenge. “Can you make three more just like it? And join the four at the top?”
“Sure,” he said.
One of the first tools that Theo had made were pincers, which he called “tongs.” Clever gadgets, they allowed him to manipulate what he was making in the fire and then to hold it and dip it into the snow to cool it down. With his pincers, he now dipped the four-pronged object into the snow and held the finished piece up. “Pretty good, eh?”
“Excellent, lad. You are brilliant!” Theo’s eyes beamed and a shiver of joy riffled through his feathers. Sometimes I wondered what kind of life Theo had had. He was so obviously smart, but had no one ever praised him? I had no idea, because Theo never spoke of his family except for that one time when he told me of his uncle the teacher. “All right. Now I have a real challenge for you.”
“What is it?” His eyes blazed as brightly as the fire.
“I want you to curve those prongs at their pointy ends and make them hollow.”
It took him some time, but he did it and when he stepped back, he blinked. “It looks just like a claw, almost like my talons, but more like polar bear claws,” he whispered.
“Yes, Theo. You have made the first battle claws.”
“I what?” He looked stunned. But I was so excited, I hardly paid attention to his reaction. “Now make another one and we’ll have a pair.”
“You’ll have a pair!” he said hotly. “You seem to forget that I am a gizzard resister.”
I stepped close to him. “I am not asking you to fight, Theo. I’m just asking you to make these claws. Hagsfiends are on the rise, you know this as well as I do. The coalition with Lord Arrin and Penryck is a monstrous one.”
“Lord Arrin and Penryck?” Theo asked. He seemed surprised. “You mean the Sklardrog.”
“Yes, precisely, the Sklardrog, the sky dragon. He has joined forces with Lord Arrin. And I repeat: I am not asking you to fight, but just to make these battle claws.”
“There’s no ‘just’ about it. ‘Just’ is a stupid word to use. What difference does it make if I don’t fight if I provide the weapons that help owls kill each other?”
I was so exasperated. I wanted to wring his impudent neck. I squeezed my eyes shut for a long time and tried to think of a reply. There must be something I could say that might change his mind, but I didn’t know what. Then it came to me: I had to tell him about the egg and whose egg it really was. I began slowly.
“Theo,” I said, “I am going to tell you something that I swore I never would.” He slid his head around to peer at me. I knew I had his attention. Theo’s curiosity knew no bounds. “The egg in that schneddenfyrr up there.” I nodded toward the tree. “It is not just any egg. It is not an or
dinary egg.”
“It isn’t?”
Did he really know more than he was admitting to? I wasn’t sure. But I had to go ahead. “This egg is the egg of the beloved King H’rath, who was slain in the battle of H’rathmagyrr, and his mate, Queen Siv.” If Theo had appeared stunned before, he was now overwhelmed. “Come along, lad, I’ll let you take a peek.”
“You will?” He was completely astonished. I had not let him anywhere near the hollow with the schneddenfyrr since he had arrived. He followed me up.
“Step in, young’un.”
He gasped in disbelief as soon as he entered. The entire hollow was luminous from the glow of the egg. Its luster and the intensity of its luminosity had increased every day. I had never seen anything like it.
“This, Theo, is the future of our kingdom. This is a sacred charge that I have been given by Queen Siv herself. I must protect this egg at all costs. I have told you about Lord Arrin and his alliance with Penryck.”
“Oh, yes,” Theo replied. His voice quaked.
I felt there was more to this story than just “oh, yes,” but I was not going to pursue that now. “Well,” I continued, “Lord Arrin wants the egg. The hagsfiends want it. They have chased Siv halfway around the N’yrthghar. If the hagsfiends get it they will turn it to evil. With their nachtmagen, they can transform it into exactly what they are—part crow, part owl. Lord Arrin wants the egg because, as a hostage, it would be invaluable to his efforts to become the High King and rule the entire N’yrthghar. And I think he also wants it for revenge.”
“Revenge?”
“Just before the battle in which H’rath was killed, his own son was killed by one of the ice harvesters who had survived the attack in the Firth of Fangs.” I paused. “Killing H’rath did not seem to satisfy that vengeance he sought.”
“But that is my point. Killing never satisfies. Violence simply breeds more violence.”
I ignored his remarks and, looking him straight in the eyes, said, “I intend to do everything in my power to protect this egg. The queen herself has entrusted it to me. Do you know what it means for a mother to give up her chick? I am to raise him, see to his education.”
“It’s a male?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Theo, I am asking you to make me a pair of battle claws so I might protect this egg from destruction, to keep this hatchling from being murdered. You can see by looking at this egg that a special chick will hatch from it and—hopefully—grow into a great king. A king who can annihilate the hagsfiends—or at least nullify their magic.”
The long silence in the hollow was as intense as the luminous glow from the egg. These were the longest minutes that I had ever endured. But Theo finally broke the silence. “I shall make your battle claws. But first I shall make a good hammer. Without a good hammer, I cannot make what you want. The edges must be keen, the points sharp, sharper than anything you can imagine. I need a hammer to do this.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew in that moment the history of warfare had been changed. We would be unleashing terrible weapons into the world of owls. We had fought only with ice before, but now we had iron, as Theo called this new metal that he had coaxed out of the black rock. Were we creating something worse than magic with these iron weapons? But by these weapons a prince might be saved. Was it worth it? I thought so. Anything that could rid the world of the nachtmagen, the horrendous magic of the hagsfiends, was worth it. And this prince was our best, our only chance.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A Stubborn Owl Gets
More Stubborn
The sources for black rock were few and far between. Theo had exhausted the ones on the island in the Bitter Sea, but he felt that in the inhospitable Nameless region to the west there might be some of the rocks he needed. A particularly important ingredient was something he called “salt stars.” When combined with the black rock, this salt made the metal easier to manipulate. In the Nameless region, there were said to be evaporated lakes and one small landlocked sea. He felt this would be a perfect place to find the salt stars.
“I want you to take these battle claws with you, Theo,” I said.
“Why would I need battle claws in the Nameless? It’s far from the war. No hagsfiends go there. It is completely empty of owls, empty of everything, except for what I seek, and no one knows that these black rocks are worth anything.”
“It’s not the Nameless that I worry about. It’s getting there. You might encounter someone out there over the Bitter Sea.”
“No one ever flies over the Bitter Sea.”
“You did.” I paused. “I insist. No more arguments.”
He blinked. “Just one thing.”
This was the most exasperating young owl I had ever met. He never gave up. I sighed. Before I could say anything, he blurted out that one more thing.
“I might have made these battle claws, but I don’t know the first thing about how to use them. I have never fought in my life.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure out how if you have to.”
“It’s going to make me fly funny. I just know it. I mean, I’m adding a lot of weight. Glaux knows how I’ll rudder, do a banking turn, and I can forget a steep dive for hunting prey.”
“First of all, you’re not wearing these on your tail feathers. So let’s skip the ruddering question. Nor are you wearing them on your wings. They are to be worn over your talons. If anything, they will help you kill prey.”
“It’s an issue of balance.”
Issue of balance! Theo always got testy when he was being challenged. “It’s an issue of your stubbornness and your eternally argumentative nature. What we’ll do, Theo,” I spoke very slowly and carefully, “is have a few training sessions so you can—”
“Can what? Kill something? Kill you?”
At this point I exploded. “Will you kindly shut your big fat beak and listen to your elder? I should have kicked you out of here days ago!” Now he did look truly contrite.
“Sorry,” he said quickly. “Go on.”
“Oh, go on? You’re actually giving me permission to speak? What I was going to say before you so rudely interrupted me was that you’ll practice flying with them.”
“All right.”
“I’ve saved some gut and sinew from that snowshoe hare we had the other night. We’ll use that to strap them on.”
“Yes. That’s a good idea,” Theo replied. I blinked in surprise. A compliment from this youngster—rare!
“There!” I said a few minutes later as I tied the last knot. “Ready?”
“I guess so,” Theo said softly.
“Come on now. Get your gizzard into this. It’ll be fun.”
“Fun, he calls it,” Theo muttered.
“I’ll ignore that!” I replied. “Now lift off from the rock on top of the forge. The heat will give you a good updraft.”
A minute later, Theo was aloft. “You’re doing fine,” I called out.
“I might just have to keep flying over these warm updrafts forever. These things are heavy. Glaux knows what will happen if I get into cold air. The differential pressure alone will wreak havoc with my balance.”
The claws had not evidently wreaked havoc with Theo’s ability to talk. He kept up a steady stream as he circled over the forge. I mean, yak yak yak! No one could talk like that lad. I thought that perhaps I shouldn’t worry for his safety. He could probably just talk a hagsfiend to death, should he meet one.
I knew that to nudge him out of the thermal drafts, I was going to have to be up there—right by his side. So I took off and quickly slid in next to him. “Now come on, lad, let’s get you out of the thermals.”
“I don’t know, Grank. These things are heavy.”
“Look, we’ll just sort of slide into it very slowly.”
“All right,” he replied in a shaky voice. “Aiyeee!” He began to stagger in flight.
“Steady there! Steady!” I gave him a little bit of a wing prop by flying under him and pumping my own wings hard, se
nding up some puffy little pillows of air for support. “All right, you’re doing fine now.” Better than fine, actually. Theo was a beautiful flier. It was one of the first things that I had noticed about him shortly after he arrived. And for more than a minute now he had been flying smoothly with the added weight of the battle claws.
“I think I’ll try ruddering,” he said.
Ah, I thought. He is rising to the challenge. He began to rudder and performed an excellent banking turn.
As we settled down after our practice session, I could see that Theo was quite pleased with himself. “I don’t think you need any more practice. You’re a natural.”
“Natural what? Killer?”
“No, no, lad, a natural flier.”
“Technically speaking, we are all natural fliers, Grank.”
I churred. “I’m finished arguing with you, lad. Now, on your way and here’s my coal bag. Bring back a lot of rocks.” I paused. “And Glaux speed!”
“Thank you, Grank. Thank you so much for everything.” He paused. “And do you know what you are?”
“No, lad, what am I?”
“You’re a natural-born teacher.”
This indeed brought a tear to my eye.
I watched Theo take off and followed his flight as best I could until he dissolved into a fog bank that was looming offshore. Fog sometimes unnerved me, and this one certainly did. Who knew what might be lurking beyond those swirling downy plumes of mist that could instantly wrap a world in a thick impenetrable whiteness?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Siv Learns to Fly Again
“Hardly a wobble, now try a banking turn…little more rudder with the tail feathers, Siv.”
Talk about natural-born teachers! I was nothing compared to Svenka. Imagine, if you will, Dear Owl, a polar bear teaching an owl to fly, in particular, one with a severely damaged wing. Indeed, a wing that was almost half gone!
It was most uncanny that at practically the same moment I was coaching Theo to fly with battle claws, Svenka the polar bear was attempting to teach Siv to fly again. How I first found out, or suspected this, is in itself an interesting story. For the first time in several days, I was alone. Almost as soon as Theo departed I felt a loneliness as I had never before experienced. It was not a simple loneliness. It had weight. And this weight was almost crushing me. The egg, I knew, was still several days from hatching. I decided to build a fire, not for coaxing metal out of rock but for plucking some images from the flames. For a long time I had been unwilling to peer into the flames to search for anything at all. I had become accustomed to building fires purely for utilitarian purposes. Theo was learning so fast and his research about metal was so fascinating that I had nearly forgotten that I had abilities for interpreting the flames. And to be quite frank, I was frightened. What if the fire revealed that Siv, my beloved Siv, was really dead? What then?