(GoG Book 07) The Hatchling (12 page)

Some chance,
thought Uglamore.

Nyroc had managed to keep Phillip in his sight for a few seconds after entering the Shredders. But as he was tossed and spun by the wild winds, it felt as if both parts of his stomach had crashed into each other. He did not know which way was up or down. He was pitched and tumbled by the cutting winds of the torrent. He thought he saw several of his tail feathers whiz by him. Would there be any feathers left? Did he care? Did he care if he lived or died?

Nyroc suddenly realized that he was tired, so very tired. Not just of being chased, but of living with his strange and frightening mother. If life as a Pure One was the only choice, would it be a relief to die in this shredding wind? That was Nyroc’s last thought in the Shredders. He dimly realized he had ceased to flap his wings and he gave himself up to the lashing currents of the hag winds. The roar of the Shredders grew fainter and fainter in his ear slits.

W
hen Phillip tumbled out of the Shredders and was immediately captured he knew his own quest for truth had ended. The horrific meaning of the special treatment he had been granted since Nyroc’s hatching began to sizzle and pop in the Sooty’s gizzard like a sap tree bursting into flames: Who had been among the first owls to be brought in when the Sacred Orb, as Nyra had referred to her egg, hatched? Himself. Who had been appointed chief preener? Nyra, who had always regarded him with utter contempt, made
him
the companion for her dear hatchling. It all began to make a terrible, dreadful sense. He knew now that he had been set up as Nyroc’s best friend so that he might help Nyroc prove himself worthy to become an officer in the most elite unit of the Pure Ones.

What happened?
Nyroc wondered as he dragged himself to his feet. Every one of his hollow bones ached. He
staggered forward. Then tried to spread his wings. They felt strange. “Where am I?” he wondered aloud.

“With your mother!”

He wheeled around suddenly. He could hardly believe it. How had she gotten here? Nyra looked at him sharply, coldly. “We thought you’d never come to. But you have. And except for the loss of feathers, you look quite fit.” She paused. “Fit enough to kill,” she added.

“What?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. It is time for your Special ceremony, my dear. Be pleased I am willing to forgive your offensive behavior.” Nyroc was so stunned he could hardly speak.

“Well, what do you say?” Nyra hissed at him. “Aren’t you going to thank me for my generosity?”

Nyroc stared at his mother. Flames seemed to leap before his eyes. Terrible images seared his brain, sizzled in his gizzard. He simply had to know.

“Well?” Nyra asked again.

“Mum, could I speak to you alone before the Special ceremony? I need to know certain things.”

She regarded him silently for a long moment before speaking. “Of course, dear.” His mother flew a short distance away from the other Pure Ones who had accompanied her. Flight was too painful for Nyroc since so many of his
feathers had been broken off. He waddled in a most humiliating fashion after her.

When he reached her, she was running her beak through her own sparse breast feathers. This gesture of hers always made Nyroc’s gizzard squirm with guilt. “I’m quite a sight, aren’t I?” She laughed softly. It seemed to break the tension.

“I missed you, Nyroc. You are all I have.”

“But, Mum.”

“You are my world.”

Her world? What does that mean?
Nyroc wondered.
To be her world. Is that love?

“You are the Union, the Empire.”

“But do you love
me
?” Nyroc asked.

In that moment, Nyra wilfed. Confusion and anger swam in her dark eyes. The scar that ran down her face seemed to twitch. She tried to say the word “love.” Her beak opened and a guttural sound tore from it, but Nyroc did not understand it. She ran her beak through her breast feathers again. And once more, Nyroc felt that twinge of guilt in his gizzard.

“You do! I know you do, Mum.”

“You shall be great, Nyroc. You shall rule not like a general but like a king, an emperor. It is your destiny. You were hatched on the night of the eclipse. Not since the
ancient King Hoole has there been such an owl as you. I know it. I feel it in my gizzard.”

“King Hoole,” Nyroc repeated.

“Yes, King Hoole,” she whispered the words. “Are you ready for the Special ceremony, my…my…my love?”

She said it. She loves me!
“Yes, Mum. Yes. I am ready.” And the images he had seen in the flames receded, then simply melted away completely.
After all,
Nyroc told himself,
she lied to me about my father’s death because she wanted me to be strong—and to love him more. Yes, that must be it.

They returned to the circle of trees where Stryker, Uglamore, and several of the other top lieutenants perched, waiting. Nyroc was so excited by his mother’s proclamation of love that he did not notice at first that he was standing amid trees—real trees—just as his mother had promised. He looked at them now. “Mum, these are trees, aren’t they?”

“Didn’t I promise you that I would show you a living tree?”

“Oh, yes, General Mam.” And Nyroc raised his talon in a perfect hail Kludd salute.

His mother’s gizzard trembled with pride. “Bring forth the prisoner,” she commanded. Blyrric and another officer walked in with a Sooty Owl tethered between them by vines. They quickly tied him to a tree.

Nyroc stopped in his tracks and blinked. “Phillip?”

“Who in hagsmire is Phillip?” Nyra replied.

“Go, Nyroc! Fly away!” Phillip screamed.

Nyroc peered forward and blinked. The world was coming into focus—sharply, all too sharply.

“Oh, Dustytuft. So that’s what you call him. Well, you’re going to call him ‘dead’ soon,” Nyra said.

Nyroc turned toward his mother in disbelief. “But it was supposed to be an animal like a fox or…or…” Nyroc did not want to let the vile words out of his beak. Only now did the true horror of what had been planned for his Special ceremony explode in his brain. He let the words come. “…Or Smutty, the prisoner.” He hated himself in the very core of his gizzard for saying those words. He would not do it. This was not combat. It was murder. But he had let the words tumble from his beak to keep from thinking something even more horrible.

“But that’s too easy. You hardly know Smutty. Remember, I told you that the first lesson of hate is easy. You were told to hate your father’s killer, Soren. Easy, right? But the second lesson would be harder.”

Then the flames suddenly raged in Nyroc’s brain. He felt his gizzard stir. “But Soren didn’t kill my father,” he blurted out. “It was the Great Gray. You told me lies. It was all lies.”

“Who told him? Who told him?” Nyra screeched and flew at her lieutenants.

“Nobody told me. I saw it in the flames,” Nyroc howled. “And I shall not kill Smutty—or Phillip, Mum. I shall not!”

“You must,” she shreed. “You must prove yourself worthy of this Union. This Empire! You must kill someone close to you.”

Another image filled Nyroc’s mind. He saw a hollow in a distant fir tree. He saw two young chicks, one not even ready to fly yet. He saw the older chick creep up behind the younger one and shove him out of the hollow with his talons. It was his father. It was his father’s Special ceremony. Then he saw a flutter of white, a white that rivaled the moon. It was his mother.
You did it, Kludd. You did it. So young, but you did it. Come with us!
It was his father’s Special ceremony many years ago. So he had proved his worth by trying to murder his only brother.

Nyroc swiveled his head around to his mother and fixed her with the fiercest gaze he could muster. “Mum, I will not do this. No matter what.”

“No matter what?” screeched Nyra. She spread her wings, lowered her head, and began to speak in a cold, deadly voice. “Not even if I kill you?”

“Fly! Fly! Save yourself! I’m not worth it!” Phillip cried out.

“He’s right, Nyroc,” his mum said. “The stinking little Sooty is not worth it.”

“Everyone is worth something,” Nyroc replied. His own tone surprised him. His voice suddenly sounded very grown up.

Nyra looked surprised. Uglamore began to speak. “General Mam, perhaps there might be a better way…”

Nyra wheeled about. “Get out of here, all of you. I must speak to my son in private.”

Uglamore spread his wings to take flight. Stryker, Doc Finebeak, and the other officers followed.

When they had risen well overhead and began to dissolve into a cloud bank, Nyra turned to Nyroc.

“What of your father? Don’t you love him?” she snapped.

“I never even knew him.”

“Oh, you will know him very well, my dear, if you do not complete your Special. The scroom of your father shall haunt you and hunt you wherever you go until the end of your days!”

Nyroc felt himself wilf. He swung his head from his mum to Phillip and then back to his mum again. “No,” he said firmly.

That simple word enraged Nyra more than anything else. She flew at her son. He tried to back off but her talon tore across his face. He felt a searing pain.

“Fly, Nyroc, fly!” Phillip shreed. His voice was filled with agony.

Then Nyra stopped and looked at her son, aghast. “What have I done? What have I done?”

Nyroc looked down. Blood was dripping on his talons. In a dazed voice, suddenly sickeningly sweet, Nyra said, “Darling child, that was not the way it was supposed to be. Not your blood. Not yours.” Then her feathers fluffed up; her dark eyes turned wrathful. In less than a second she was flying full force at Phillip. Nyroc was in a yeep state, unable even to lift his wings. But it would have made no difference. It was too late. Nyra moved like lightning. Phillip lay dying at her talons.

“What have you done?” Nyroc hopped over to Phillip, whose head was at an odd angle. His eyes were filmy and there was a deep gash in his chest. Gasping for every breath, he whispered hoarsely to Nyroc, “Fly, Nyroc, fly.”

Nyra plunged her talons into Phillip’s chest and ripped out his heart.

“I hate you!” Nyroc shreed at his mother.

“No, you don’t, my dear. You’ll get over this.” Nyra was speaking rapidly in a breathy voice. “This is going to be
our little secret. We’re going to pretend that you killed Dustytuft, not me.”

He glared at his mother. For the first time he saw her shrink back a bit. He had to get out of there. He had to fly straightaway even though he was missing half his tail feathers and the wound on his face was still oozing blood. “It will be our secret, Nyroc.” She spoke with a desperation he’d never heard before. “You passed your Special ceremony. Isn’t that great? So we cheated a little. I know you would have done it, given a little more time.”

“You…know…nothing!” Nyroc said, slowly enunciating each word.

“Nyroc, you are my world. My entire world.”

“If I am your world, it is a world I do not want to live in.”

He then spread his tattered wings and flew. He clamped his beak shut against the pain of flying so nearly featherless. But he felt his will surge through his gizzard.
So this is free will?
he thought.
It hurts!

N
yroc was utterly and completely alone. He had no idea what he was flying toward. He knew only what he was flying away from: away from the rocky burnt-up canyonlands, away from the Pure Ones, away from his mother and the bloody scene that still boiled in his brain. He flew into the windless folds of the black night, wrapped himself in its cool silky darkness. He was weak, very weak, and he knew he could not fly far with his tattered feathers. But he had to fly just far enough.
Just far enough to get away.
The words played over and over like a chant in his head.

He looked down.
Those are trees,
he thought.
And perhaps if it were not night, I would see the green.
But the tall timbers that poked at the sky seemed to be fringed in black needles.
Yes, needles,
Nyroc reminded himself.
It’s winter. The leaf trees would have molted. Phillip had explained what leaf trees did in the winter.

Phillip!
He felt his gizzard lurch with despair. He could not think of Phillip now.
Just think of away. Just think of away.
Perhaps that is the Shadow Forest beneath me. It can’t be The Barrens for there are hardly any trees in The Barrens. Phillip said
—He cut off the thought.

Suddenly, Nyroc knew that he could not flap his wings a moment longer. He had to light down somewhere. He began circling. It was difficult. His ruddering was off. He gave the command to his tail but it just wouldn’t respond as it had in the past. The trees were dense. He had heard that trees had hollows. Maybe he would find one. Maybe not. He’d settle for anything right now. He suddenly saw a bright reflection like a silver blade split the night.
It’s the moon come down to earth! No, of course not. It is the moon’s reflection. It must be a pool, a pond, a lake!
He had heard about such things. Nyroc began a gradual dive toward the forest pool.

He lighted down on a log on the pebble beach. A thin skin of ice had begun to form over the water. He crept toward the edge and looked down. There was still a patch of water left and when he looked and saw his own reflection he gasped. A seam ran diagonally down his face just like his mum’s except that his slanted from left to right down his face, while his mum’s had gone from right to left. His scar was still red with the blood that had caked in the seam. A shiver ran through his gizzard.
I am exactly like my mum!

And at that instant, two things happened. From the
middle of the lake a mist rose. It began to swirl into a vague shape.
It’s a mask! A metal mask!
Then it was as if Nyroc had stepped out of his own body and was hovering over the lake, and yet when he looked down, his talons were dug firmly into the pebbles of the beach. Could he be in two places at once?
Impossible!
But inside his head he could hear a voice, a voice he did not recognize, calling to him.
Come here, lad. Come here. Nod pule.
He saw something like his own shadow moving out from him. It was going toward the swirling shape.
Toward the scroom of my father.