“What’cha think, Cap?” Bubo asked.
“Can’t see much from here. Not the course of its river at least.”
Soren knew that what Ezylryb meant by “its river” was the constantly moving and changing air that was embedded deep in a hurricane and, as it flowed, directed its course. “From here, it’s hard to see much. I think I see a smudge of rosy light stretching from The Barrens to maybe even The Beaks.”
“Huh, that be curious,” Bubo said. “The Beaks. Usually sweet as spring there. Nary a storm nor even the slightest thundershower.”
The Beaks! Even though it had been long ago that Soren and his band had been caught in its deadly charm, The Beaks still struck fear in him. Surely, Ezylryb was not thinking of going to The Beaks. It was known to be a dangerous place for owls with its mesmerizing beauty, softest moss, plentiful game, and the shimmering Mirror Lakes.
“Heh!” snorted Ezylryb. “Imagine that! The Beaks on fire. Very curious. Might want to see that myself.”
Soren exchanged glances with Otulissa.
“The Beaks,” Otulissa whispered. “The Beaks is the last place we need to go.”
Soren knew exactly what Otulissa was thinking. She wanted to go to the Northern Kingdoms, specifically to the Kielian League to gather forces to help fight the Pure Ones, but so far no one had paid much attention to her idea. She spent unbelievable amounts of time in the library, researching the Northern Kingdoms and all their various clans.
Later, a decision was made, and as twilight stole over the sea and the Island of Hoole was wrapped in the first purpling of the night, a chaw rose into the sky. It was not just any chaw, however. At its very center was the Chaw of Chaws. Perhaps this had been Ezylryb and Barran’s strategy from the beginning, when the Snowy monarch of the tree suggested that Gylfie fly with search-and-rescue and then Ezylryb suggested that the weather-and-colliering chaw reconnoiter the possibility of forest fires in The Beaks. Maybe it had all been a grand scheme to assemble the band in addition to Ruby, Martin, and Otulissa for an action that was more extensive than finding two lost owls. Soren didn’t know, but he felt more confident than he had in the last three days as they circled and climbed higher over the Sea of Hoolemere and set a course for The Beaks.
“South by southeast,” Gylfie shouted out. Now, in addition to her usual navigation responsibilities, she had to fly low-level for search-and-rescue.
The hurricane was far to the southwest of them but was causing unstable weather throughout most of the Southern Kingdoms. Massive thunderheads piled up like mountains around them, and as they approached the coast, they threaded their way through a string of electrical storms that were setting forests on fire. It was unimaginable to Soren that either Eglantine or Primrose could fly through this kind of brutal weather. Lightning cracked the sky, flaying the blackness of the night. “Showing its bones,” as owls said. Each time a bolt sent its jagged white fire across the night, Soren flinched. That whiteness bothered him. Why? He’d flown through electrical storms before. It was all part of being a member of the weather chaw. There was another crack. The blackness was fractured once more by the bony streaks of lightning, and just above the horizon, it looked as if a deranged skeleton were dancing an eerie jig across the night sky.
Ezylryb had dropped back from the point position and slipped in next to Soren.
“The path of this hurricane and its speed make me think that the most logical place Eglantine and Primrose would be blown is toward The Beaks. Hurricanes, as you know, go counter-round, so if it gives you any peace of mind they would at least be on the less turbulent side of it.”
But it didn’t give Soren much peace of mind because ahead the coast of The Beaks raged with fires. And Eglantine and Primrose knew very little about navigating through forest fires. Some choice, he thought, being battered to death by a hurricane or being fried by a forest fire!
Twilight, who was flying point, now called out, “Mirror Lakes ahead!”
And for the band the words were like an electrical current crackling through their gizzards.
Soren blinked. I shall not be transfixed. I shall not be charmed. I shall not yield! Below him, the usually still and gleaming silver surfaces of the lakes danced frantically with the reflections of flames.
“Great Glaux!” Gylfie gasped. “It looks like hagsmire.”
Indeed, Soren thought he was looking into the very heart of owl hell. The flames dancing across the surface might have been the devils of that hell, the hagsfiends that flew with not two wings but dozens, all tipped with fire. Was this yet a new way that the lakes could work their deadly charms? It could be like fire blinking, the most dreaded trick that fire could pull on a collier. This happened when the fire, raging with all its deadly beauty, transfixed an owl so that it could not fly. The owl went yeep, lost all instincts to fly, and suddenly plummeted to the ground or, in this case, into the water to drown.
Then suddenly there was a loud clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning hissed down toward the lake, momentarily bleaching the dance of flames a luminous, violent white. And in that split second, Soren’s forgotten dream of early summer burst upon him—piece by piece by piece: the fog; the sea afloat with fragments of paper; suddenly finding himself not over the sea but The Beaks; the lakes shattering into hundreds of dazzling shards; their blinding whiteness reminding him of something; the feeling of dread. No time to wonder. Then his vow “I’ll take these lakes—piece by piece. Yes, Mrs. Plithiver, piece by piece by piece.”
But, of course, now he knew what the whiteness was. “Nyra!” He screeched, and he thought of Eglantine and Primrose. Piece by piece by piece that evil owl had captured them, their minds, their instincts, and now their bodies!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Sacred Orb
The Sacred Orb!” screeched Nyra. “Do you have it? Do you have it?”
“Worry not, Madame,” a lieutenant called Stryker replied, “it is tucked safely in the flight pouch.”
“I’ll peck out the eyes of the one who drops it! And then their gizzard!” Nyra said in a deadly voice.
“Fear not, Madame Pureness. Fear not,” another Pure Guard shouted over the roar of the flames.
“Can we find a safe tree?” asked Ginger.
Eglantine and Primrose were being flanked by several guards. There was no possibility of escape. And, most shockingly, there was Ginger with a disgusting smirk on her face. Eglantine should have known. Primrose was right about Ginger all along.
When the tree had burst into flames, they had all been blown out in the same direction, and then before they knew it, the guards had closed in on them. Now what was this talk of a sacred orb? Strange words, and Eglantine was not at all sure what they meant. But she couldn’t think about that now. She had to think about how to get herself and Primrose out of this fix. Primrose looks odd. What have they done to her?
“Safe tree!” a guard called out. “Safe tree ahead!”
Before them was an enormous oak that had been singed by the fire but had never actually ignited. It now loomed in the scorched and red-stained night. A hollow opening, not large but adequate, revealed itself midway up the tree. The Pure Guards roughly shoved Eglantine and Primrose through the opening.
“First the Sacred Orb and then I’ll tend to you!” Nyra swiveled her head and glared at Eglantine.
“Here, Madame Pureness.” A large Barn Owl stepped forward. Eglantine was stunned as her eyes fell on a Barn Owl egg, glistening white and perfectly round. The other guards folded their legs and dipped their heads in an odd and awkward movement.
“Bow down!” Nyra shreed at Eglantine and Primrose. “Bow down, for this is your future ruler. Your blessing. Your curse. Your new Glaux Most Pure.”
Eglantine and Primrose blinked and bowed as best they could.
“I’ll need some more moss for the Sacred Orb’s nest. I have used practically all my down. Gort, you and Tonk go out and fetch some moss—rabbit ear if you can find it.” Rabbit ear moss was the softes
t of all the mosses, and scarce. “Nothing but the best for Little Purity,” she said softly, but her eyes had a hard, fierce gleam like no mother’s eyes Eglantine or Primrose had ever seen.
Then Nyra stepped toward Eglantine in the cramped space. Her white face was streaked with soot. Her black eyes bore into Eglantine. “She knows.” Although Nyra faced Eglantine, it was as if she were directing her words to the Pure Guards. There was a deadly calm in her voice. “She knows that I am not her mother. That I am Her Pureness. Right, my darling?” And the word darling curled like the meanest snarl in the close space of the hollow. Eglantine wilfed. She became almost half her size, and her gizzard quaked as it never had before.
Primrose stole a glance at her with an odd mixture of fear and relief. Relief to see that her old friend was back, seemingly restored to her senses. But, thought Primrose, Nyra doesn’t know what I know. She doesn’t know that I am not shattered. And then Primrose wondered if Eglantine realized it. She had to keep up the act, but was there any way she could let Eglantine know that it was just an act, that she was all right? If she could, there was a chance that somehow they could escape, but they would have to work together.
“I should have suspected,” said Ginger suddenly. “When she wanted to fly in this weather, I should have known something was up.”
“That it was more than just mother love?” Nyra stepped closer to Eglantine. “Mother looove,” she dragged out the word. “More like Mummy’s dummy!” she sneered and cackled. The Pure Guards joined in with soft chur-rings. Without taking her eyes off Elgantine, Nyra again directed a question to the Pure Guards. “But this one—” She cocked her head toward Primrose. “Is she properly shattered?”
“Yes, Your Pureness.” The Sooty Owl who had guarded Primrose stepped forward. “Good and proper, Madame Pureness.”
“Oh, no!” Eglantine moaned.
“Oh, yes,” Nyra paused. “Darling!”
Fear not, Eglantine. Fear not! Primrose thought. Oh, if only there was a way I could send her a message, some code, anything! If only I could think of something.
But it wasn’t Primrose who thought of something. It was Eglantine. Her eyes fastened on the gleaming egg. Where, she wondered, had Nyra hidden it the many times she had come to visit? There was, of course, no telling when this egg had been laid, or how close it was to hatching. If I could someway, somehow get that egg, Nyra would go yeep. More than yeep! Great Glaux, all the Pure Ones would be in our power if we had the egg!
Eglantine, after all, had been trained for search-and-rescue and the members of this chaw were known for their talon dexterity. They were often required to pluck owl chicks from the forest floor. Many times these chicks were injured, and they had to be handled with extreme care.
Think, Eglantine! Think! The words silently thundered in her brain. Nyra turned to her once more and spoke in that voice that despite its slow calm tone was somehow like a blade cutting the air. “I am down, as it were, to my last fluff of down. My breast is sore and nearly bare from providing the lining for the Sacred Orb’s nest. I feel that you should contribute to your little nephew’s or perhaps your niece’s comfort.” She nodded toward Eglantine’s breast feathers. It was a shocking suggestion. Nyra laughed as she saw the dismay on Eglantine’s face.
Wait, Eglantine suddenly thought. This is it! My chance!
“Start plucking!” Nyra ordered.
Eglantine stepped up to where the egg rested.
“Bow before you approach.”
“Oh, sorry,” Eglantine said in her most submissive voice, and once more began to perform the awkward little bowing maneuver. Her shoulders shook and she seemed to cringe, which Nyra observed with pleasure. I must bow deeper this time. This is it. This is it! I have to move fast.
Primrose looked on, trying to maintain the glassy stare of a shattered owl, but something was prickling her gizzard. She’s going to do something. I just know it. I have to be ready!
Then it was as if Eglantine’s and Primrose’s minds merged, their gizzards were in harmony, and together they grew bold. With her back to the rest of the owls as she bowed, neither Nyra nor any other owl could see what Eglantine was doing. Under the deception of a most obsequious bow, Eglantine’s talons extended, her two back toes reversing direction as all owl toes can, giving her a powerful grip. Eglantine did not simply stand up from her bowed position, she launched herself like a feathered missile straight out of the hollow’s opening. Primrose was on her tail.
“They’ve escaped!” Nyra shreed in a stunned voice.
“Worse than that, Madame Pureness, the Sacred Orb is gone!”
“Noooooooooooooo!”
And Nyra, although she was not flying, went yeep and fell over in a dead faint.
Into the darkness the two young owls flew. “I’m right beside you, Eglantine,” Primrose said.
“You’re not shattered?”
“No,” she replied.
“You’re a stronger owl than me.”
“No time to talk. They’ll be after us in a minute.”
Primrose saw Eglantine cock her head in the inimitable manner of Barn Owls as she tried to orient to a sound. They must be coming already! Primrose thought.
“They’re coming in from the west, about two points off my tail, above us but still behind by less than half a league.”
The smoke seemed to be growing thicker. Primrose suddenly had an idea. “How good are you at low-level flight, Eglantine?”
“Not as good as a Pygmy or an Elf, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah, but you can do it. Remember that lark in the dark, that meadow we went through last spring? You were great for a Barn Owl.”
“For a Barn Owl maybe, but…”
“But nothing! We’re being chased by Barn Owls, and you’re better than they are.”
Eglantine supposed this might be true. The Pure Ones, being so pure and all, had probably never just gone off larking about with lowly Pygmy owls.
“And I have another idea,” Primrose said excitedly.
“What’s that?”
“The smoke is getting really thick. Smoke rises. We go down low, close to the ground. The air will be clearer but they won’t be able to see us as well.”
Smart! Eglantine marveled at her best friend’s quick thinking.
“Hang on to that egg and let’s go!” Primrose descended in a breathtaking inverted spike. Eglantine followed.
Above them, they heard the screech of not just the few Barn Owls who had been in the hollow but what sounded like an entire squadron. It was one of the Pure Ones’ elite forces—the Nyra Annihilators.
How long can we last with them on our tails? Eglantine dared not guess. Oh, Glaux! Let the smoke stay!
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Hostage Egg
It was Otulissa who had first told Soren that he must have starsight. He and Martin had been in a fierce and brutal encounter with the moonfaced owl. They had survived, but barely. As soon as the moonfaced owl and the other attackers had been driven off, he realized that he had dreamed of this very same moonfaced owl called Nyra before he had met her in battle. He had dreamed of the encounter in an odd, fragmented way that had made no sense to him at the time. He told Otulissa about the dream later. She had been quiet for a moment and then looked at him curiously. “You have what they call the starsight,” she had said. “You dream about things and sometimes they happen. The stars for you are like little holes in the cloth of a dream.” Otulissa had told him it was a gift. But it was a very strange gift, and one that stirred his gizzard with the deepest of fears.
So when this dream from early summer came back to him, piece by piece by piece, it had all begun to make dreadful sense. And because the members of the Chaw of Chaws and the other owls of Ga’Hoole knew of Soren’s strange gift, they listened to him. It was Soren who now flew in the point position, and it was Soren who now gave the command to Gylfie and another small Elf Owl along with Digger and assorted trackers to begin to fly low.
“We need all the low fliers we can get,” he said. “If you can fly beneath this smoke you’ll see more.” In Soren’s dream, there had been a brief clear place that he had flown into where the air was limpid—free of smoke and almost translucent. They had to get to that place now.
Huddled in a hole beneath a large rotted-out tree stump, Eglantine and Primrose peered out and up into the thick layers of smoke.
“You were right, Primrose. It’s pretty clear down here. I hope they don’t get the same idea. That squadron is scary.”
“Well, so are we,” Primrose said defiantly. “Let’s just hope that the smoke doesn’t clear off for a while.” She paused. “We’ve got to think.”
The situation was complicated. If it cleared off they could be found. But if they could steal away under the cover of the smoke and somehow get out over the Sea of Hoolemere with the egg, well, then they would be almost home free. And what power they would have. Eglantine looked down at the egg. I’m an aunt! The idea seemed very weird. Who knew how this owl chick would hatch out? A monster like its parents? And if it weren’t, what chance would it have? It was all very sad. If they could get the egg back to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, the poor thing might have a chance at a decent life. Eglantine began to think about eggs and chicks and hatching and what made owls the way they were. Why had she and Soren been born one way and Kludd another? Mrs. Plithiver had said that from the time he had first hatched, Kludd was trouble. He had been insanely jealous. How is one born jealous? Distracted by these thoughts, Eglantine had not noticed that the smoke above them was thinning.