The War of the Ember (9 page)

Y
ou expect us to give refuge to this ember?”

Tengshu had never seen the H’ryth in such a rage. The stream of green light flowing from his eyes, which signified deep wisdom, had intensified. “Do you know what has happened since you’ve been gone? What I have just this morning been informed of?” The plumage on the H’ryth’s head had been closely clipped except for the single blue feather that stood straight up. This was the identifying mark of all spiritual guides, the pikyus in the owlery. The feather quivered with his rage.

“No, honorable Gup Theosang. Enlighten me.” “An alert page from the Dragon Court has just discovered that a score of owls has fled.”

“What?” Tengshu felt a quaking deep in his gizzard.

“They used the same strategy as the perfidious Orlando.” The H’ryth’s voice, which was usually smooth, was rasping.

“Self de-featheration?”

“Yes, and undoubtedly there were some accomplices. Two, possibly three, lower-echelon servants have gone with them.”

Tengshu was aghast. He closed his eyes. “I am deeply sorry. I should not have abandoned my post at the Wind’s Gates.”

Gup Theosang’s wings sagged a bit as he perched on the branch of petrified wood in the hollow at the very highest point in the Mountain of Time, a place known as the Hollow of Supreme Concentration. “It is not your fault. They would have found some other route to the River of Wind.”

“Perhaps, but my qui lines might have detected their track, some remnant feather from their flight.”

Gup Theosang was an owl of great empathy. “I do not need you wallowing in remorse. I need your brain, Tengshu. You are a sage. These owls undoubtedly will join Orlando, who now calls himself ‘the Striga’ as I understand. There is no telling what they will do. But eventually they will come back here and wreak havoc. We must prepare. I knew it was a bad thing when the
Guardians came here. For more than a thousand years we had lived untouched by owls from any other worlds, kingdoms. Splendid isolation!”

He calls it “splendid,” this isolation,
Tengshu thought.
But one cannot live like that forever.
It was too late now. They had a responsibility to help the Hoolian owls. They could no longer indulge in this so-called “splendid isolation.” Although for years, Tengshu, who was also known as the Sage of the River’s End, had led a hermetic life, he was more cognizant and versed in the wider flow of life than one might imagine. He was wise, but he was also politic. With subtlety, he could steer owls not toward his own purposes, but better purposes. He intended to do that now with Gup Theosang, the H’ryth. But unlike the Striga, he did not manipulate through falseness or flattery but directed through clarity and honesty.

“Gup Theosang, you are right. The Ember of Hoole has no place in here. It will put us at great risk. It will put in greater jeopardy any hope for isolation of our Middle Kingdom, an isolation that we have valued for centuries.”

“I am glad you see my reason.” The H’ryth nodded.

“I do. I do indeed. But I also see that the seal of our kingdom has been broken. For almost one thousand years, the Hoolian world did not know that we existed.
Although by the grace of our first H’ryth, Theo, we knew of them.”

“He knew that if they knew of us, ultimately there would be fighting. He taught us the Way of Gentleness because he so hated the weapons that he had made as a…what do they call them? I cannot even remember the dreadful term.”

“Blacksmith.”

“Yes, blacksmith. And already we have seen a battle using these vile weapons in our own air, our own sky.”

But what the H’ryth does not understand,
Tengshu thought,
is that there is no such thing as “our own sky,” or “our own air.” The sky is the very thing, the entity, the reality that connects us all, no matter if we are Hoolian or Jouzhen owls.

Tengshu continued. “And there could be more fighting, Gup Theosang. The tyrannical owls, who called themselves the Pure Ones, chased the Guardians here. But we know from Theo and the Theo Papers that the Guardians are good owls, noble owls. Now you must realize that Orlando and the Dragon Court owls who have fled to the Hoolian kingdoms will join forces with these so-called Pure Ones. You see, it is the Pure Ones who want the ember, and so does Orlando. If that ember falls into the wrong talons, it will be catastrophic for all
owls no matter where they live—here or in the Hoolian world.”

“You cannot be sure the dragon owls who just fled will join Orlando and these Pure Ones. Or, for that matter, if Orlando will join the Pure Ones.” There was a note of desperation in the H’ryth’s voice.

“Gup Theosang, Orlando already has joined the Pure Ones.”

“What?” The H’ryth staggered on his perch. “You know this with certainty?”

“Yes, with absolute certainty. Reports from trusted sources—sources too…simple to lie—put Orlando and the owl called Nyra, leader of the Pure Ones, together.” He waited a moment. The green light that flowed from the H’ryth’s eyes seemed to congeal. “Not only that. There are rumors about eggs—strange eggs.” He remembered Dumpy’s reconstruction of the conversation he had overheard between the Striga and Nyra.

The H’ryth gasped in alarm. “This is bad. Terrible! You remember the middle chapters of the papers of Theo?”

Tengshu nodded solemnly. “I do indeed! In the Theo Papers there was a section pertaining to the reproductive habits of the Dragon Court owls. It was theorized that if these owls’ feathers were allowed to grow to
extravagant lengths they would no longer be able of produce offspring. It would effectively terminate egg laying. And the eggs these Dragon Court owls had laid prior to the therapies to stimulate feather growth had been extremely strange in color. Not white and spherical like all owl eggs, but gray that would darken to black. And they were often oddly shaped.”

“Tengshu, this can’t be!”

“I’m afraid it is true, and then where are we?”

“Then we stand in grave danger of violating our Theotic Oath.” The Theotic Oath was the vow to Theo in which the owls of the Mountain of Time swore to maintain the Dragon Court forever in the ways prescribed by the revered Theosang, the first H’ryth. “What do you propose, Tengshu?”

“I propose we do exactly as you have suggested. We should not agree to provide a refuge for the Ember of Hoole.” This much had become very clear to Tengshu. It was the Hoolian ember. It had no business being out of the five kingdoms at the other end of the River of Wind. But at the same time, the Hoolian world needed their help. Help to vanquish once and for all these maniacal owls, now reinforced with recruits from their own Middle Kingdom. He took a step closer to Gup Theosang. “But sir, we should not deceive ourselves. We can avoid
the ember, but we cannot avoid the battle, nay, the
war
that will inevitably come. The survival of the civilized kingdoms of good owls depends upon the outcome of this conflict. The fury and the might of these evil owls and their forces could easily be turned on us, our own Jouzhen empire invaded. If we fail, the world of owls will sink into an abyss of darkness and the most sinister epoch imaginable will commence. I am asking for an entire Danyar division. We must fly across the River of Wind to the Hoolian Kingdoms. And fight!”

This was going to be a massive war. It would require immense power. This would be the War of the Ember.

T
hough Otulissa had never been a member of the tracking or search-and-rescue chaws, she had a sixth sense about certain things beyond her expertise. This sense began to stir in her gizzard. Shortly before she and Cleve had left Dumpy off in the Ice Narrows, Otulissa had warned Dumpy to say nothing but to keep his eyes wide open, and if he saw anything alarming, he was to fly immediately to Nut Beam, one of the Jossian messengers who had been installed at Coryn’s command on the Ice Dagger. Nut Beam would then get word to the Guardians.

Otulissa and Cleve had been holding fast to a north by northeast course. The wind was hard on them, but soon they would be inside the protection of the Ice Talons. There was a momentary lull in the wind and then the rain came down harder, denting the surface of the water below. Otulissa’s sixth sense twisted her gizzard painfully and she took a sudden dive.

“What are you doing?” Cleve called out as he watched her veer off the shoulder of the headwind.

“Course change!” she shouted back urgently. Now she was carving a turn that put them on a due east heading. Otulissa was hovering over a swirl of water. Laced in its foamy frills were feathers—blue feathers. Some pale, some the blue of midnight, some the tint of sapphires. None, however, were the turquoise of the Striga’s feathers. “This looks like a reverse eddy,” she said. “They sometimes occur spontaneously near land formations like this.” She indicated with her head the long reach of coastline to one side and the easternmost claw of the Ice Talons. “They begin at the head of the narrow inlet far inland and eventually spin their way to sea, catching bits of airborne flotsam as they go.”

“Such as blue feathers,” Cleve replied. Then like the blare of an alarm, “Otulissa!” Cleve hovered just inches over the swirling feathers.

“What is it, Cleve?”

“There aren’t just blue feathers here. Some are painted bright pink. And look—blood! There’s been a fight near here.” Cleve tried to quell the rising panic he felt. If there were wounded owls, he needed to help them. This was his duty. Cleve was a healer. He turned to Otulissa. “We need to think this through. It’s a short
distance to the shore. We can get out of the wind under the rocks there.”

A few minutes later, the two owls huddled on a small scrap of beach under a rocky overhang. They had plucked the mass of feathers from the water so they could examine them more closely. There were several kraal feathers stained with blood. “Broken shafts!” Cleve said. “This was a real battle.”

“And then there are the emerald and cobalt-blue ones,” Otulissa said.

“Yes, but those aren’t broken. I’d wager the blue owls won.” Then he inhaled sharply. “That’s not a kraal feather or one from a blue owl.” He picked up a creamy white feather, a primary from a Snowy Owl, by the look of it, the bottom portion of which was soaked in blood. A few red berries still clung to it. “That’s a gadfeather’s,” he said.

“A gadfeather’s!” Otulissa said, shocked. “Gadfeathers just sing. They are peace-loving. Kraals fighting is one thing, but gadfeathers? Are you sure it’s a gadfeather’s? I mean, there are lots of Snowy Owls up here and not all are gadfeathers.”

“There are bright berries, here, in the blood. And I know of only one gadfeather in the Northern
Kingdom whose plumage is this creamy color. Isa!” Cleve whispered.

Otulissa wilfed. She had heard Cleve speak of Isa. Her singing voice was renowned. At one point, Otulissa had wondered if Cleve had not once been the tiniest bit in love with Isa.

“We are not far from kraal territory here,” Otulissa said. “Straight inland there is a place called the Gray Rocks. Poor ice there, but the kraals like it. There are no firths, no fingers of water penetrating the territory. It is deep inland. Bushes grow there from which they harvest special berries for their dyes.” She paused. “It was also,” she spoke slowly, “a favorite place for hagsfiends. At least in the time of the legends. But why would it be favored now?” she asked in a professorial manner. Otulissa had begun pacing up and down under the overhang, her wings tucked neatly behind her so that the edges of the primaries interlocked in a seam down the middle of her back. “Yes, we must ask ourselves why they would go there. True, it is far from salt water, which hagsfiends feared. But why are the blue owls so fearful? It is very hard to make a traditional schneddenfyrr in that region, for there is little ice. They must seek this place for its remoteness and…and…” Otulissa’s single eye began to
sparkle. “Of course, how easy it would be for an owl of such plumage”—she held up the cobalt blue feather—“to blend in with those gaudy kraals! That’s it, Cleve! Gray Rocks could have been the battleground.”

“We have to go. There might be wounded and dying owls there that need help.”

“There might be fighting owls there, as well,” Otulissa said, and looked at Cleve, wishing for the umpteenth time that he had worn battle claws. “We have to approach carefully. Remember, there is not much cover.”

But there was no need to approach carefully. A quarter of a league inland they began to sense an eerie stillness that was not the absence of the sounds of the Everwinter Sea and its crashing waves and grinding ice floes. This was the silence of death. They spotted the first body, that of a kraal, gilded, and glittering in the rising sun of the dawn, then a few yards away that of a pink-dyed kraal. As if to underscore the evidence they had found in the swirling eddy, there were a few unpainted feathers that spun through the air on that inexorable course to the coast. Something flinched in Otulissa’s gizzard. If these were gadfeather owls, why? Kraals stole. Yes, they could get into trouble. But why gadfeathers? Gadfeathers were harmless. They lived only to sing.

“There’s someone alive down there!” Cleve suddenly said. He swept down. “Great Glaux! It’s Isa!”

They found a bloody mound of creamy feathers but Otulissa could tell immediately from the billowing of the chest plumage that the owl was still breathing.

“Isa, it’s me, Cleve. What happened? Was it kraals?”

She gasped and then struggled for breath. “No, the kraals already dead. We just came to sing and…and…”

“And what?”

“Blue owls…with…with eggs.” Cleve and Otulissa looked at each other.

“The eggs are here?” Otulissa asked urgently.

Cleve touched Otulissa with his wing. “Easy,” he said.

“No, not here. Bad ice for schneddenfyrrs…to…to…to…” Cleve and Otulissa leaned closer. But there was only the sound of the Snowy’s last breath, and then nothing.

“She was about to tell us where they took the eggs and then she…” Cleve’s broad shoulders sagged. “I…I…can’t believe she’s gone. Her voice…She had the most beautiful voice in the Northern Kingdoms.”

Otulissa extended her wing tip and touched Cleve softly. “I am sorry, Cleve. I am so sorry.” Cleve
straightened up and took a step toward Otulissa, spread his wings, and wrapped them around her. “This is terrible, Otulissa, terrible. And now we’ll never know where the eggs are.”

Otulissa stepped back. “No, Cleve, there is only one place they could take them that is hidden and where the ice is good quality for schneddenfyrrs.” Cleve blinked. “The Ice Cliff Palace,” Otulissa said. “That is the only place they could go.”

“We should tell the others. Nut Beam can take the message.”

“Not yet,” Otulissa said. “We need more information. I want to know how many blue owls are involved in this. Did some leave in advance before…before this…this massacre?” She looked around at the slain owls. There were two dozen. How many had it taken to wreak this devastation? The kraals and gadfeathers had clearly been outnumbered.

Meanwhile, in his hollow at the great tree, Coryn blinked into the fire of his grate. It seemed he had been studying the flames for hours. He had sensed shapes, albeit vague ones, but he had a feeling that Tengshu’s mission in the Middle Kingdom, his interview with the
H’ryth, was not going in the direction they had hoped. And he had sensed something else in the flames, in the way they licked up against each other’s flanks. Coryn blinked several times and flicked his thin third eyelids to soothe his eyes and clear them of the fine ash kicked up from the grate. Then he peered again into the flames. It was as if pressure was building in the very gases of the fire. In a bulging flame, he caught an image with that unmistakable flicker of orange and a lick of blue at its center tinged with green: The ember. It began to tremble violently. Sparks seemed to fly from it. It was so real Coryn stepped back. “But it’s just an image…just an image,” Coryn whispered. The meaning, however, was clear. He could read the flames now. He saw a massing of not just owls but all sorts of creatures—wolves, bears, puffins, and others he could not make out. Then, like Tengshu, he realized that it was not a mere battle approaching but a war, the War of the Ember!

He knew immediately what he must do. Otulissa and Cleve were already in the Northern Kingdoms seeking out information about Nyra, the Striga, and whatever nefarious machinations they were up to. It was a spy mission, essentially. But Coryn knew now that the Guardians needed more than just information. They
needed the help of every good creature they could muster for this war.
Who was left at the great tree who was not only seasoned in battle but extremely clever?
he thought.

“Kalo!”
Could she do it?
he wondered. Of course she could! Captured by the forces of the Striga, she had been condemned to death by fire. But there in the Shadow Forest, Coryn had found her and together they had confronted and fought her captors to the death. She was an owl of extraordinary courage, as was her younger brother, Cory. But despite their superior skills, Coryn felt he needed an owl whose experience went beyond courage. One whose knowledge of Nyra stretched far back. The answer was simple: Gwyndor. The Masked Owl had known Coryn from his very first days as a young hatchling in the canyonlands. He summoned the page who perched on the branch outside his hollow and asked him to fetch Gwyndor, Kalo, and Kalo’s brother, Cory.

Coryn had met Kalo years before in the desert when he had been an outcast who was reviled by every owl in the kingdoms, because he so closely resembled his mother that he was often mistaken for her. But Kalo had befriended him and, in fact, he had saved the egg that would hatch to be her baby brother, whom they named Coryn in his honor. Kalo, young Coryn—or Cory as he
was called—and Kalo’s mate, Grom, now all lived at the tree.

Coryn reflected on the owls who would accompany him on this mission. Clever, diplomatic—that was essential—and strong. When they arrived in the hollow, he wasted no time. “Would you, Kalo, Gwyndor, and Cory, go with me to the Northern Kingdoms?”

Just then Octavia slithered in with some milkberry tea. Coryn blinked.
Odd time for tea,
he thought.

“Yes,” Octavia said quietly. “I sense your surprise. But you know us nest-maid snakes. I sensed that you were agitated, Coryn. And now I have a feeling you are going to the Northern Kingdoms.” Before Coryn could reply to Octavia, Kalo answered his question.

“The Northern Kingdoms!” Kalo exclaimed. “Oh, I have always wanted to go!”

“I don’t suppose you might consider taking an old Northern Kingdom creature along?” Octavia interjected. “I do know the lay of the land, so to speak. And unlike the other nest-maid snakes I was not always blind.”

“You weren’t, Octavia?” Kalo asked.

“Oh no, my dear.” She paused.

Gwyndor broke in. “Octavia flew with the original stealth unit of the Kielian League. She and Ezylryb.”

“Great Glaux!” Kalo’s beak dropped open in surprise.

“I know what you’re going to say, Coryn—that was ancient history. Well, it was. We live long, we Kielian snakes. I flew with Ezylryb in the War of the Ice Claws—double wing commander and tail launcher in the Glauxspeed Division.”

Kalo was in awe. “Glauxspeed Division! That was legendary.”

“Didn’t seem much like a legend or a fairy tale when I was flying tail, believe me!”

“What did you launch?” Kalo’s brother Cory asked.

“Ice rockets. Can’t be blind to do that. Quite a team we were back then. But we were both wounded. I, actually, the worst. Lost my eyes. So we hung up the battle claws—literally—and, well, to make a long story short, we sought a more quiet, scholarly life. We went to the Glauxian Brothers’ retreat and eventually came here.”

“But Octavia,” Coryn said, “do you really want to go back there? I think bad times are coming.”

“Yes, I sensed that. Your gizzard’s in quite a turmoil. Mrs. P. sensed it, too.”

“But you haven’t done anything like this for years,” Coryn said. The anxiety in his voice was clear. “And frankly, we’ll need to move fast. This is no holiday jaunt.”

Gwyndor felt a wince in his gizzard. No owl or snake liked being reminded of its age. He sympathized with
Octavia. She had a depth of knowledge about the Northern Kingdoms that none of them possessed.

“Look, Coryn.” Octavia wound herself into a plump coil. “I know I am old. I know I can’t fight the way I used to. But I know the Northern Kingdoms. Hoke of Hock is a distant cousin of mine. We go back. I know a lot of the owls in the Frost Beaks division and, of course, the old Glauxspeed. Not to mention that I speak fluent Krakish. Look, I know I’m fat. But I’ll go on a diet immediately.”

“You’re not too fat for me to carry!” Kalo said enthusiastically. “You know how strong we Burrowing Owls are. And there are four of us. We can trade off.”

“I can carry you, too, Octavia. I insist on doing my share,” Cory quickly said.

Coryn didn’t reply immediately. Cory was young, but bold and energetic. He rose to challenges. He had proved this already on two different occasions when he was determined to find and rescue his sister. “All right. You can come, Octavia.” He paused and looked into the empty sockets of her eyes. “You are valuable. I should never underestimate your knowledge of the Northern Kingdoms and its creatures.”

Had she not been eyeless, the old nest-maid would have shed tears.
This,
she thought,
is not just a noble king, but an owl with a generous gizzard.