“A castle!” the other four owls exclaimed.
“Yes,” Eglantine said. “When we first got there, we thought it was so beautiful, even though it was in ruins with many of the walls down and just parts of others standing, but we soon learned.” Eglantine was talking now in a dreamy voice as if she were in some kind of a trance. “It was beautiful but there was ugliness, too. They called themselves the Pure Ones and, at first, they seemed kind. They wanted to teach us to worship Tytos because they said we were the purest of the pure of all the owls, and that is why we spoke the praising songs. But it wasn’t at all the way that Mum and Da used to read to us, Soren. No, not at all. I mean, you remember how Mum would try to hum a little tune and almost sing. We could not do that. They wanted nothing to do with music. They thought music was like poison.” It reminded Soren of St. Aggie’s, where questions were thought to be poison and the worst punishments were reserved for those who asked questions.
“But it was the one they called the High Tyto,” Eglantine continued, “he was the worst. He never said much. But he was so frightening. He wore a kind of mask, and they said his beak had been torn off in a battle.” Then Eglantine realized what she had just said and fell into a faint.
“Metal Beak!” they all whispered in terror.
Gylfie immediately began flying over Eglantine, wafting drafts of air down upon her face to revive her. Twilight also tried, but his wings churned the air so violently that Eglantine was practically lifted off the floor of the hollow.
Eglantine’s eyes blinked open. “My goodness, I fainted, didn’t I?” Then she looked up at Soren as she staggered to her feet.
“Take it easy now, little one,” Twilight said. “You’ve just had a bad fright.”
“No, no I’m fine. I’m really fine. I feel so much better. But just imagine—I came face-to-face with Metal Beak. It’s all coming back to me now. He was the one who hated music the most. He thought it was impure. In fact, he thought any owl who was not a Tyto alba was a little less than completely pure. He made the Sooties and the Masked Owls and the Grass Owls do all the worst jobs. Oh, and yes, before we could become true members of the Way of Purity, we had to sleep in stone crypts with the bones of the old Tytos that they called the Purest Ones.”
“The Purest Ones?” Soren said, perplexed.
Gylfie had remained very quiet, but when she heard about the little owls being put in the stone crypts, she began to speak. “I think that they did to Eglantine with stone what the owls of St. Aggie’s did to us with the full moon.” Gylfie was referring to the horrendous moon-blinking process during which the young owlets at St. Aggie’s were forced to sleep with their heads directly exposed to the scalding light of the moon. It disturbed their gizzards in a profound way and seemed to destroy their will, along with any of the individual characteristics that made up an owl’s personality.
Gylfie continued, “Only instead of being moon blinked, they were stone stunned. I think I’ve heard of it. In the Desert of Kuneer, there are a series of deep, blind canyons—a maze really—and if one gets lost in them, the stone can affect the brain. If the owls come back, they are a bit odd, you know, weird in the head.” But there was something else that Gylfie felt in her gizzard but did not mention. She was almost sure that the bones in those crypts were not the bones of owls, but of the Others. The thought, however, was too chilling, too sickeningly terrifying to even mention.
Soren’s eyes fastened on Eglantine’s wing where she had suffered her most severe wound from the Great Downing. The feathers had grown back, but patchily. He felt swollen with anger at this vile owl Metal Beak. “I can’t believe how he hurt you, Eglantine. It makes me want to kill him. No wonder Mum’s and Da’s scrooms warned me.”
“But you don’t understand, Soren. It wasn’t the Tyto owls of the castle that did this to my wing. Oh, they did plenty. Feelings in my gizzard are just really coming back now, but it was the other owls, the ones who raided the castle and snatched us. That is really how I and all the rest of us got hurt. They nearly got away with us but the owls from the castle, the High Tyto and the Pure Ones, followed. There was this huge battle as they tried to snatch us back, and I dropped. So did a lot of us because something came along and scared them all. I was surprised that I survived the fall. But then I was worried that I would be snatched again. That is why I dragged myself to hide under that bush where Digger and Twilight found me.”
“Were the owls who snatched you, Barn Owls as well?” Gylfie asked.
“Oh, no. All sorts. There was a raggedy-looking Great Horned, and she had a huge bare patch on her wing that made her fly all funny.”
“Skench!” Gylfie and Soren both blurted out at once. Skench, whose cruelty knew no bounds, the Ablah General of St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls had just such a patch on her wing.
“So they were from St. Aggie’s!” Soren said.
It had all come back so clearly to Eglantine that now she could hardly stop talking. But meanwhile, one thought prevailed in Soren’s mind. Were they actually any closer to finding Ezylryb? Could Eglantine remember where this castle was with its odd rituals that celebrated the purity of Barn Owls in such an awful way? Was Ezylryb there, or had he simply gotten lost? Had he been stone stunned? Or was he dead?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Chaw of Chaws
In times of trouble, however, there can come a certain closeness, a kind of coziness of spirit. It was never so true as in the hollow of Soren and his mates, Gylfie, Twilight, Digger, and now Eglantine. The stories that Eglantine told held a peculiar fascination for the owls in the hollow. Finally, it was Digger who asked, “Eglantine, can you remember what the ground was like around the castle? I mean, was it like Silverveil or The Beaks?”
“I’ve never been to The Beaks, but how do you mean, Digger?”
“Well, were there tall trees, or was it scrubby with short bushy plants? Was it hard-packed earth, bare, or maybe sandy like a desert?”
“Oh, none of those, I think. I can’t remember exactly, for they hardly ever let us out. Although from the broken walls, I could catch a glimpse. They didn’t permit us to fly up high. I think there was grass, though. And they used to speak of a meadow. But I don’t think there were big trees or trees with leaves, because I can remember when I was just hatched, the hollow in our fir tree—remember, Soren, how you could hear the wind through the leaves of the nearby trees? No, we only heard the wind whistling around the stone corners of the castle.”
“Well, that’s helpful,” Digger said thoughtfully.
“Why?” asked Gylfie.
“I was just thinking, that’s all.” There was a tense silence in the hollow.
But Soren was thinking, too. Of course, Digger would be interested in the ground. Digger knew the ground—what kind of plants grew there, the feeling of every kind of soil. He had become one of the best in the tracking chaw. In fact, when Soren gazed around he realized that within this hollow were the best of the best of each chaw.
“Eglantine,” Soren asked, “do you remember how long you had been flying before you were dropped?”
“Not long, I think.” There was another pause.
“Eglantine, do you think that there is any way you might be able to lead us back to the castle? You see, I am thinking that it’s been more than two months since Ezyl-ryb disappeared. Endless search parties have been sent out but so far nothing. In fact, Boron just assumed that was what we were doing when we went to Silverveil. Indirectly it was, but really we went to find out more about Metal Beak. Now, what’s to stop us from trying to find Ezylryb? Between us…” Soren stopped and looked around. “We could put together a pretty good chaw.”
“What are you talking about, Soren?” Gylfie asked.
“Gylfie, you are the best navigator Strix Struma has ever taught. I heard her telling that to Barran. Digger, you can track like no one else, and Twilight you can fight”—Soren’s voice dropped off—“if that’s necessary.” Twilight swelled in anticipation. “Do
n’t you see?” Soren continued. “We have the makings here of a great chaw—the best of the best of the chaws.”
“Let me get this straight,” Gylfie said. The little Elf Owl stepped right up to Soren and stood directly under his beak. “Are you proposing that we should undertake this search for Ezylryb on our own? No rybs, no grown-up owls?”
“That’s exactly what he’s proposing, Gylfie,” Twilight boomed. “For Glaux’s sake, we went to Silverveil on our own. Found the rogue smith. She gave us our first real clue, in a sense, about Metal Beak.” Twilight paused and nodded deferentially to Soren. “Well, after the scrooms of your mum and da that is.”
“Well, if that is the case…” Gylfie’s voice fell to a whisper. Soren was nervous. If he didn’t have Gylfie’s support, he couldn’t do it. “If that is the case, Soren, you must be our leader.”
All of the owls in the hollow nodded their heads in agreement. Soren was stunned. He didn’t know what to say. Finally, he spoke. “I thought the plan up, that is true. But the plan would be nothing without each one of you. Your faith in me has stirred my gizzard. I shall do my best for you.”
“Soren!” Otulissa suddenly flew into the hollow. “I want to come, too.” The meddlesome Spotted Owl had been perched on a branch just outside the hollow. Otulissa’s yellow eyes were dim with tears. “Ezylryb made me believe in myself and not just my…my…” It was the first time Otulissa had ever been at a loss for words. “You know how I was before I joined the chaw. Ezylryb made me believe I could do things because I was just me, and not just because I was a Spotted Owl. I hate that thing that you were talking about before.”
“What thing?” Soren asked.
“That stuff about purity, that one kind of owl is more pure or better than another. The most ancient order of owls, the owls that all of us are descended from—whether we are Barn Owls, Snowies, Spotted, or whatever—those first owls were all called Glaux. And every owl celebrates the spirit of Glaux. My mum told me that, and it is true. For indeed with that ancient order began a special kind of bird. As owls, we owe our uniqueness, our ability to fly silently, to see through the darkness of the night, to spin our heads almost all the way around to those first owls. And you know from navigation that we call our grandest constellation that shines through every season the Great Glaux. But for those owls that Eglantine talked about, that was not enough. They want to destroy all the others.”
They were all dismayed by Otulissa’s gracious speech. Soren thought that she must have been eavesdropping more than once to have learned all this. She almost started to blubber now with tears and chokes. It was the most un-Otulissa moment any of them had ever witnessed. “I feel so strongly about this. You know me, I’m not an emotional kind of owl but this…this…I…I can’t explain, but you must let me be a part of this.”
“Of course,” Soren said. Otulissa was very smart and beyond being smart, she of all of them possessed the most sensitivity to atmospheric pressure changes. She had proved herself invaluable to the weather chaw.
And this would be the best of the best of the chaws! Indeed, it would be the chaw of chaws!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Empty Shrine
They had picked an evening to leave when there were no classes and no chaw practices, but still they were careful to leave the tree in twos or threes near First Black and then once again take off from the cliffs where they would not be spotted. And they all, even the smallest, wore battle claws. They had filched them from the armory in the forge. Bubo happened to be gone so it was not a problem. Twilight had gone early in the morning of their flight and taken them from the forge and placed them in the crags of the cliffs.
Soren had insisted that they practice with the claws, for none of them had flown that often with them. Eglantine had never flown “clawed,” as the expression went.
“You need a lot of tail ruddering, Eglantine. See, you don’t have the same balance as before,” Soren called out as he watched his sister fly in a wobbly line out from the cliffs.
“She’ll get it,” Twilight said.
But Soren wasn’t sure. Eglantine still seemed so fragile to him. Was she ready for this? She was the only one who would be able to recognize the ruined castle where she had been imprisoned. But then suddenly her flight seemed to even out.
“That’s it! That’s it!” Soren cheered her on, her wings set and balanced on a smooth horizontal plane. “Phew!” Soren blew through his beak in relief. Still, it disturbed him that he was in fact doing just the opposite of what Ezylryb had sworn never to do again. Soren was not only picking up battle claws but arming a young innocent owl with them, as well. Then he thought of Octavia and the words she had spoken to them in the very chamber where Ezylryb’s old claws hung rusted but not forgotten. I swore an oath of peace, as well. But you know, now I think it is time to break it. I’ll do anything to rescue my beloved master.
The time had come, Soren realized. If there was any chance of rescuing Ezylryb they must do it now before winter set in. There was no choice. The first blizzard could happen any day now and by then it might be too late. Soren ordered Eglantine back to the cliff. Then he stood before the chaw and spoke in a quiet but strong voice that did not waver as he gave the order. “Flight positions. Get ready to fly. Lift!”
And six owls rose into the night.
The plan was to first fly back to the place where Eglantine had been found in the Forest Kingdom of Ambala. They would then somehow try, with Eglantine’s help, to find their way to the castle ruins and hopefully to Ezylryb. As they flew, Soren wondered that if they were successful in reaching the castle, and if Ezylryb was there, how would they actually rescue him? Perhaps he shouldn’t think so far in advance. When they got there, maybe a plan would come to him. The first task was to get there—to this awful place where young owls were forced to sleep in crypts with bones of these so-called Purest Ones, whatever that really meant.
Twilight was flying point at the moment and Digger flying below, for they were the ones who knew the territory where Eglantine had been found. “We are in Ambala and approaching the area of the Great Downing,” Twilight called down to Digger. Digger immediately went into a ground dive. Gylfie began to hover over him.
Twilight turned to Soren and nodded. This was the place. Soren looked up and found the Star That Never Moves.
“Gylfie, take a sighting of our position between Never Moves and the first head star of the Great Glaux constellation.”
When Gylfie had their position fixed, they all began to spiral down, except Twilight. Twilight continued to hover above—alert for any other owls in the region. Then, with Digger and the others, they would try to work backward from the spot where Eglantine had been found and reconstruct a path to the castle ruins.
They lighted down in the dry creek bed. “Well, the tracks are gone by now as I expected,” Digger said. “But I do remember where I first picked them up.”
“Let’s start with the actual bush where you first found her, Digger.”
With long strides, the Burrowing Owl was there in no time. The others followed.
“Oh, my!” said Eglantine. “This is surely the place. I wouldn’t forget it. It seemed as if I spent forever here.”
“Now, Eglantine,” Digger said, “fly along this creek bed and try to remember where you were dropped.”
They had flown less than a minute. “Do you think it was here?” Digger asked. For this was where he had picked up her tracks.
“No, I think it was farther. It was pretty wet.”
They flew a few more minutes. “Here! Here!” Eglantine suddenly said. She lighted down. There was a very small, gurgling stream of water, no more than a few inches deep. “I remember that rock!” She lifted a talon and pointed. “I remember thinking, ‘Lucky I didn’t fall on that.’”
“Good! Good!” said Soren. “Prepare to fly! We’ll make at least three circles overhead and, Eglantine, you try and sense which direction you came from.”
“Oh, I don’t
know, Soren. That’s going to be hard. I was so scared, and there was so much commotion. I mean, it was a battle up there.”
“Just do your best, Eglantine. That’s all you can do. If we have to, we’ll fly out in every direction from this spot—Gylfie, you’re navigator, so keep track of our position.”
Eglantine couldn’t remember, and they did begin the slow process of flying out in all directions.
The night is not simply black to an owl. There are layers of blackness of different densities. Sometimes the black is thick, a gooey black unleavened by starlight or the moon, and sometimes the black is thin—still black, but an almost transparent sort of blackness. It all has to do with the shine and the set of the moon above, of the constellations rising or vanishing, and the features of the earth below—whether the land is clad in forests or barren and hard with rock. Just as Twilight was an expert at seeing through the very deceptive grays of twilight and dawn, so Soren was skillful in “reading the black” of the full night.
“Thin-to-coarse black,” he called out as they flew over a sparsely wooded area. Then, half an hour later as they flew in another direction, “Water black turning to crunchy.”
“No!” said Eglantine, “I know that we never flew over water.”
The owls banked steeply and went back to their starting positions. As they settled down on the limbs of a tree, Gylfie suddenly had a brilliant thought. “If these owls just wanted Barn Owls, and mostly Tyto albas, at that, doesn’t it make sense that their castle might be located either in Tyto or very near one of its boundaries? More specifically, the boundary it shares with Ambala, which is very small.”
So they headed in the direction of the Ambala-Tyto boundary. Soren asked Otulissa to fly out as a scout. It was not long before she came back with the report of a meadow. “Upwind and to the west, but I spotted a forest fire just a little bit north of west. I would say two points off the second head star of the Great Glaux. I don’t think we need to worry with the wind in this direction.”