(GoG Book 08) The Outcast (18 page)
“Catch coals?”
“Yes.” Fengo nodded. “Catch coals and then make fire and see what can be made from fire. With that, I might be able to help you for I have explored the effects of flames on certain materials.”
“It doesn’t just burn things up?” I asked.
“Not always. Sometimes it changes things.”
I was intrigued and was wondering what these changes could be when he interrupted my thoughts.
“And perhaps one day you shall see where the ember lies buried.”
“Do you mean the wolf ember?” I asked him, for that was how I thought of the ember I had seen in his eyes.
“It is not the wolf ember,” he said quietly. “It is the owl ember. Make no mistake. It is the Ember of Hoole.”
“That cannot be!”
“Why not?”
“Because it has been told that Hoole was the first owl: In that time when all birds were alike, the first one to become an owl was called Hoole. It was even said that he was a mage. That he possessed good magic. But it is just a story from a time long ago when there were no high kings, no kings at all. The word ‘Hoole’ now means first of a kind.
“And in our wolf language the word ‘Hoole’ simply means owl. You see, my friend, it was the spirit of a Hoole that I followed when I led my kind here from our icelocked land.”
“The spirit of an owl? Not a real owl?” I asked him.
“Oh, she was real all right. But long dead.”
“You mean a scroom, then.”
“Yes, a scroom, if that is what you call the spirits of the dead.”
“Hoole,” I repeated the word softly. It had a lovely sound that seemed to spin out into the darkness like that wild and untamed song of the wolves when they howled into the night. “Hoole,” I said it again. Like a silvery filament of moonlight, it whispered through the dark.
Book One:
The Capture
Book Two:
The Journey
Book Three:
The Rescue
Book Four:
The Siege
Book Five:
The Shattering
Book Six:
The Burning
Book Seven:
The Hatchling
Book Eight:
The Outcast
Book Nine:
The First Collier
Book Ten:
The Coming of Hoole
Book Eleven:
To Be a King
Book Twelve:
The Golden Tree
Book Thirteen:
The River of Wind
Book Fourteen:
Exile
Book Fifteen:
The War of the Ember
A Guide Book to the Great Tree
Lost Tales of Ga’Hoole
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Text copyright © 2005 by Kathryn Lasky.
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eISBN: 978-0-545-28339-7
Artwork by Richard Cowdrey
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