“You won’t tell anybody, will you, Octavia?” There was almost a pleading tone in Soren’s voice.
“No. What good would that do? It wouldn’t help get Ezylryb back.”
“Do you think that his disappearance has something to do with his past—with someone who wants to get even?”
Octavia coiled up and extended her head directly toward Soren. He had that same feeling again as if her gaze were penetrating his deepest thoughts. “Who told you that?”
“The rogue smith.”
“Of Silverveil?” Octavia lifted her head slightly. “Yes, I might have known. She’s quite different from her sister, isn’t she?” It was useless asking this snake how she knew anything—she just seemed to know.
But how come she doesn’t know where Ezylryb is? Soren asked himself.
Now Octavia picked up her feather duster and began whisking the film of dust off a stack of books on a desk near the claws. Gylfie gave a little sneeze. “Allergies, don’t worry. Go ahead, Octavia.”
“The place is a mess, isn’t it? It’s hard for me to come in here and tidy up. Too many memories.”
“Of course,” Soren said softly, but he had a feeling that Octavia was about to recount some of those memories, and perhaps moving about, keeping busy with this simple task of dusting, would loosen her forked tongue.
“You see, young’uns,” Octavia began as she neatened a stack of papers and continued dusting Ezylryb’s desk. “Ezylryb and I go way back, back to the time when he was known as Lyze, the almost legendary warrior of the War of the Ice Claws.”
The three young owls hardly dared to breathe as the chubby old snake began her tale.
“This War of the Ice Claws was the longest in history. It was well into its second century by the time Lyze was hatched. He was groomed, trained, raised to be a warrior, as were all the young owls from the Stormfast Island in the Bay of Kiel in the Everwinter Sea. His father, his mother, his grandparents, his great- and great-great-grandparents all were superb soldiers. Every single one of them had been a commander of an air artillery division. They were learned, too. Knew how to fight with their minds, not just with their talons. But it was soon apparent, as soon as Lyze first fledged and took to the wing, that this was one extraordinary young Whiskered Screech Owl. More brilliant than any of his siblings, which was later to cause trouble in the nest. He soon became the youngest commander of an air artillery division and shortly thereafter began in earnest to train colliers.
“Now you are probably wondering where I came in. Well, on the island of Stormfast there were, of course, nest-maid snakes. They were blind. But there was another breed of snake called Kielians, and they were not blind. They didn’t have rosy scales, but the blue-green ones like my own. I am a Kielian snake. We are known for our industry and wit. More muscular than the blind snakes and extremely supple.”
Octavia paused for a moment. “This isn’t all fat, you know!” She twisted her head about and patted her body with it. “Lots of muscle there. In any case, we could get into places that were unreachable to blind snakes and, because of our musculature, we could actually dig holes, be it on the ground or in a tree. Yes, our fangs were as effective as a woodpecker’s beak.”
The three owls froze as two long fangs shot from her mouth.
“Scary, aren’t they?” She paused to give the owls another good look, then continued with her story. “It was Lyze who first thought of using us in battle. Lyze and I were about the same age. My parents knew his parents, but there really wasn’t much mingling between snakes and owls in general on Stormfast. You have to understand that creatures who live in the Everwinter Sea and along its coast aren’t really sociable types. They stick to themselves. It’s such a harsh environment that it, well, does not lend itself to—how should I put it?—frivolity. Except for yours truly here.
“I was a problem snake. A problem as a young’un, and it only grew worse as I grew older. I loved fooling about, having fun, getting into trouble. I don’t mind telling you I was a terrible flirt in those days. It seems the whole industry thing for which our species was known had just passed me by. I can remember my mum saying once that if she didn’t know better, she’d think she and Pa were raising a chipmunk. Chipmunks are silly, incredibly irresponsible, frivolous creatures. I was driving my parents to distraction by the time I was a teenager. It was just around that time that Lyze came up with the idea to train Kielian snakes for battle. One day when Lyze was flying over the rocky crag where my parents had their nest, one of the few sunny days and I was out sunning myself, doing nothing, and my mum was ranting at me. Lyze heard her from above. He had just had the idea for a stealth force of Kielian snakes. He lighted down and said to my mum, ‘Give her to me, ma’am, and she’ll never have another lazy day in her life. I’ll turn her into a crack soldier.’ I, of course, was horrified by the idea. But before I knew what had happened, Mum and Pa had nodded their consent, and I was in Lyze’s talons being flown off to a training camp. The only compensation was that there were some handsome male Kielians. But my goodness, after a day’s training I wasn’t fit for anything but sleep.
“Well, you might not believe it, but I turned into a pretty fair soldier for the stealth force. I think it was Lyze who made me, to tell you the truth. That owl could inspire anybody.”
Soren felt a twinge in his gizzard. How true it is, he thought, and remembered his times flying with Ezylryb through forest fires, gales, and the worst of storms.
“Lyze took a mate shortly after I came into training. In a sense, that was when his troubles with his brother really began. His brother, a seemingly quiet, gentle owl named Ifghar, had fancied Lyze’s mate, but she did not fancy him. The War of the Ice Claws was getting fiercer. The league of Kiel, for it was the islands of the Bay of Kiel and the coast that had gathered into an alliance, was being beaten back by the league of the Ice Talons farther to the east. The King of the Ice Talons region was a brutal old Snowy who really wanted dominion over the entire Northern Kingdoms. It was at about that time that I was promoted to the most elite of the stealth-force units. This unit, called Glauxspeed, was in Lyze’s division, of which he was the commander in chief. I served him directly.
“Lyze and his mate, Lil, made a beautiful couple in battle. It was as if they did not even have to speak. Their gizzards were so in tune, so harmonious, that they instantly knew what the other was thinking. Together, they were a fearsome team. Their timing, their precision, couldn’t be matched. They were the anathema of the enemy. Everyone knew if the war was going to be won it would be because of Lyze and Lil.”
“So what happened?” Digger asked. “Was the war won?”
Octavia sighed deeply and put down her duster. “No, Ifghar became a turnfeather, betrayed them, betrayed his brother, his family, the entire Kielian league. So jealous was he that, by this point, he went to the other side and swore he could break up the team. His only condition was that Lil be given to him as a mate.”
“Oh, no!” all three owls said at once.
“I found out about the plan but it was too late. They were already on the wing, set to attack a recon unit on an island in the Bay of Fangs. I usually flew aboard a heavy old Barred Owl. He was a terrific flier, fast and silent, but he wasn’t available. They got me a Spotted Owl instead but she didn’t have the speed. I got there just in time to see the ambush led by Ifghar. It was all going according to his evil plan, except for one thing—Lil was mortally wounded. Ifghar went berserk, and Lyze…well, Lyze went yeep.”
“Yeep!” Soren was stunned. When birds went yeep due to some enormous fright, some gizzard-chilling terror, their wings folded under and they plummeted to earth. “It was lucky that a bald eagle was flying over just then. The eagle took a plunge and caught Lyze just before he would have hit the water. But he caught him by a talon, severely injuring it. Still, it would have been worse if he had fallen into the sea. He would have drowned. Owls can’t swim worth racdrops. The injured talon never healed properly. It was causing him
a great deal of pain. So he finally bit it off himself.”
“Bit off his own talon?” Soren said in dismay.
“Believe me, after the first pain he began feeling much better.” She stopped talking.
Digger sensed that there was still more to tell. He stepped forward. “Is there something else?”
“Yes, it was in that battle—the Battle of the Ice Talons, it was later named—that I was blinded. I was so distracted with Lyze going yeep that I didn’t see the fierce old Great Gray Owl coming up on the windward flank. I had coiled up to my tallest height and was frantically yelling at Lyze to break the yeep spell. The Great Gray swept by and in two seconds plucked out my eyes. That was the end of my military career. And it turned out to be the end of Lyze’s as well. He never picked up a pair of battle claws again.” She paused. “Not to fight, at least.” She nodded at the ones on the wall. “These old rusty ones are the ones he wore in that battle. I convinced him to retrieve them so they wouldn’t fall into enemy talons.”
“So what did you do?”
“Well, Lyze and I had become quite fond of each other by this time. He said that he was finished with war and had decided to retreat to a small island far from the Ice Claw Wars, which was in the Bitter Sea. There was a retreat there, an order of Glauxian brothers who were devoted only to study. They had a great library. So that is where we went for a good long time. Nobody asked any questions. Lyze read and read and read. And began his history, the one you saw on the history of the War of the Ice Claws. He also began his serious study of weather at the retreat. It was there I learned how to be a nest-maid snake and tend to his hollow and the hollows of many of the other brothers.”
“Where did Madame Plonk’s sister come into all this?” Gylfie asked.
“Oh, a year or so before the great tragedy, she had left her family’s hollow, desperate to escape because of her stepmother. Her life was utterly miserable. Music was not for her. There was something about her that Lyze and his mate, Lil, took a fancy to. I think they liked her toughness, and she seemed extraordinarily skillful with her talons. So Lyze gave her an introduction to the rogue smith on the island of Dark Fowl.”
“When did you decide to come to the great tree?”
“It was actually one of the Glauxian brothers’ ideas. He felt that Lyze had so much knowledge that it was a shame for it to be all locked up in a retreat. There were no young ones at the retreat. He felt that Lyze could be a natural teacher. So he advised him to go to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree where there were always young owls to teach. And Lyze said he would but he would never ever train an owl to fight. He would never ever touch a pair of battle claws again. So we came here. I swore an oath of peace, as well.” Octavia paused for several long seconds. “But you know, now I think it is time to break it. I’ll do anything to rescue my beloved master.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Eglantine’s Dream
There was stunned silence when Octavia finished her extraordinary tale. It was almost too much to absorb. Soren, Digger, and Gylfie made their way back to their hollow. It was past First Black, and Twilight and Eglantine had overslept. They were just now getting ready for evening chaw practice.
“Where have you been?” Twilight asked suspiciously.
“No time to explain now,” Gylfie replied.
“We’ll tell you all about it later,” Soren said and turned to look at Eglantine. She looked a bit peaked. Her usually lustrous black eyes seemed dull. “You all right, Eglantine?” he asked.
“I didn’t sleep that well. Bad dreams I think, but I can’t remember them really.”
The five owls left for their various classes. All the owls were required to attend all classes, even if they were not a member of that particular chaw. Tonight, however, they were all quite distracted and in navigation; Soren nearly crashed into Primrose.
“Soren, attention please!” Strix Struma hooted. “Too much harvest celebration, I think!” And she made a clicking sound with her beak.
In the dining hollow, near dawn after classes ended, Soren, Gylfie, Digger, Twilight, Primrose, and Eglantine gathered at Mrs. P.’s table.
“I’ll stretch myself out longer,” Mrs. Plithiver said, “if you’d like to invite some friends over.”
“Oh, that’s all right, Mrs. Plithiver,” Gylfie replied. “We’re fine just the six of us.”
But they weren’t really fine. Gylfie, Soren, and Digger were very quiet. Eglantine was twitchy; Twilight sensed that he had missed out on something important, and so did Primrose, for that matter. Soren thought it might have been better if they had invited a few other owls over, even Otulissa. A nonstop talker like Otulissa would have made it easier. Their breaklight, as this meal was often called, was delicious with Ga’Hoole nut porridge and milkberry syrup poured over it from the new harvest. Toasted mice and caterpillars dipped in a sweet juice made from the plump berries. No one, however, seemed especially hungry. In fact, they were ready to turn in by the time the first rays of the sun slid over the horizon. But first, of course, they had to go and bury pellets for Dewlap. There was only one more day and then they would have completed their flint mop. It couldn’t come quickly enough.
Soon they were all asleep in the hollow. But Soren, even in his sleep, could sense his sister’s restlessness as she fluttered in some storm-tossed sea of dreams. Then toward noon when the sun was reaching its highest point, a terrible shrill scream split the air of the hollow. A small tornado of downy feathers swirled up from the dreaming Eglantine.
Soren was immediately by her side. “It’s just a bad dream, Eglantine, a bad dream. You’re here at the tree safe in the hollow with me and Twilight and Digger and Gylfie. You’re perfectly safe.”
Eglantine put her talon out to touch Soren as if to make sure he was real and this was not a dream. “Soren,” she spoke in a quavering voice. “I knew those stone walls that you described, where the rogue smith had her forge, reminded me of something.”
“Yes?” Soren said slowly.
“Remember the isinglass when Trader Mags came last summer? When I saw that, it reminded me of something, too. It was after that, that I came out of my, my…”
“Condition,” Gylfie added slowly.
“Yes, Gylfie. It was after that, that I recognized Soren again. Well, in this dream, I dreamed of stone, and it has helped me remember more.”
“Remember what?” Soren said in a whisper. All the owls waited tensely.
“I know where they kept us now, kept all of us from the Great Downing.”
“Where?” Soren was now in a fever. For months, Boron and Barran had tried to figure out the mystery of the Great Downing. Where had the owls been before? Why they had been dropped in an open field far from any hollows or nests? The owls themselves were so confused and stunned, they could give no clues as to the answers to any of their questions. In fact, for the first several days, the only words they uttered in their strange little singsongy voices were weird chants about the purity of Tytos. The owls rescued in the Great Downing had all been some sort of Barn Owl, and the formal name for the family of Barn Owls was Tytonidae, or Tytos for short. Even when they finally were rested and brought back to health, not one of them could recall what had happened to them.
Eglantine opened her beak slightly as if she were about to speak then shut her eyes tightly. There was a long pause. “You see, it comes in patches. When I saw that thin sliver of colored stone last summer—the isinglass—and the moonlight through it, and I heard the harp tuning up, I remembered how much they hated music.”
“They? Who is they?” Twilight leaned forward, towering over Eglantine.
“Well, they were Barn Owls like us for the most part—some Sooties and some Grass Owls, a few Masked ones.”
“Yes,” Soren said slowly. “Now try and tell us more, Eglantine.”
“Well, they hated music. Music was forbidden.”
“Why was that?”
“I’m not sure, but for some reason we all craved music. They s
aid we weren’t working out.”
“What did they mean by that?” Gylfie asked.
“I don’t know.” Eglantine cocked her head quickly in one direction and then the other, in the way young owls often did when they were confused or disturbed.
“Do you remember anything about the place you were in or how you got there?” Soren pressed.
“Not really.”
“Was it a forest?” Digger asked.
“No.”
“Was it a deep stone pit?” said Gylfie, remembering the bleak stone prison of St. Aggie’s that spread itself through rock gulches and canyons with nary a tree or a blade of grass.
“There was stone. Most definitely there was stone like the stones of the rogue smith’s forge in Silverveil, all carefully carved and stacked into walls.” Eglantine blinked, and blinked again as if trying to see an image, an image dim and faded and steeped in shadows.
Soren suddenly had an idea. Last summer, Eglantine had started to shake, to have her fit, and then she remembered who she was when she had seen the fragment of the isinglass on Trader Mags’ cloth. Just seeing the sliver of isinglass had jolted her out of her stunned state. And then all the owls from the Downing started clamoring to hear the music, for, indeed, Madame Plonk had just started harp practice. The owls of the Great Downing had been frantic to get to the music. And it did seem to restore them.
“Gylfie.” Soren turned to the little Elf Owl. “Don’t you have some isinglass from Trader Mags?”
“Yes, I was going to string it into a whirlyglass, but I haven’t had the time. It’s almost all strung but just not hung together yet.”
“May I have a piece for a minute?” Soren asked.
“Certainly,” Gylfie replied.
Just as Soren was picking up a string with sparkling pieces of the mica stone, the noonday sun flared into the hollow. Eglantine turned and gasped and her eyes fastened on the bits of glass that Soren held. Slowly, the colored spots of light dappled the air and the dancing colors spread across her brother’s pure white face. “You look just like the stained glass windows in the castle,” Eglantine said softly.