The Golden Tree Read online

  The Golden Tree:Guardians of Ga’hoole Series (Book 12)

  Kathryn Lasky

  “Look at me, look at me!” the Great Gray hooted. His primaries sparkled silver in the moonlight as he carved a steep turn, then folded his wings and plunged toward a cresting wave. He swooped up, barely escaping the grip of the sea as the spume trailed behind him like a comets tail. Twilight looked to the rest of the Hand. “And they say seagulls do it better!”Gylfie turned to Soren, and Digger sighed then churred softly. “We all know what’s coming, don’t we?

  “Indeed!” Soren and Digger both said at once. Then Twilight began:

  I don’t just do it better

  I don’t even get wetter

  I’m prettier - hey, beautiful!

  I’m a gorgeous owl and not a gull!

  Waves crash, grass grows

  I can whup anything before it knows.

  The winds were capricious at this time of year and the owls of the Band entertained themselves by sliding in and out of their folds, rising and plummeting on the rogue drafts that buffeted the Island of Hoole.

  There was nothing that owls liked doing more than playing with air, with wind, and none did it better than the Band. Despite the season, almost winter and the beginning of what the owls of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree called the time of the white rain, the great tree still retained the nearly golden glow of summer. It had remained this way ever since Coryn, the new young king, had retrieved the Ember of Hoole several moon cycles ago from the volcano in Beyond the Beyond.

  Soren glanced toward the tree nervously. Its strange defiance of the seasons did not disturb him as much as knowing that his dear nephew, Coryn, was in his hollow, brooding. It was understandable that the responsibilities of kingship weighed heavily on the young owl, but Soren knew that it was the ember itself that added immeasurably to Coryn’s anxieties.Inside his rather modest hollow in the tree, the young king peered into the glow of the ember, the Ember of Hoole. Orange with a lick of blue at its center ringed with green, it was no simple coal, and he did not see simple things in it. Coryn was aflame reader, but reading the flames of a fire was different from understanding the shifting intensities of this ember. The images it yielded, like those of the flames, came without being beckoned, but they were more powerful than flame visions, often warped and not to he completely trusted. What the young Barn Owl was seeing now made his heart race and his gizzard quake. Peering into its flickering blue center he glimpsed a spot of white that grew rounder and larger. Like a moon, he thought. Like…a seam slants across the white sphere….

  Like … like a scar … . Like my scar. No, not mine. NYRA’s!

  CHAPTER ONEA Golden Glow

  Coryn, you look as if you’ve just seen a scroom.” It was midday and most owls at the great tree were fast asleep. Soren, Coryn’s uncle and chief counselor, had just entered the hollow.

  “If only she was just that - a scroom.” Coryn looked up from the ember in its teardrop-shaped iron cask that Bubo the blacksmith had made.

  So it’s Nyra again! Soren thought. There had been no sign of Nyra or any of the Pure Ones since Coryn had retrieved the ember and defeated the Pure Ones in the Beyond. Nyra had escaped. Most owls believed that she was as good as dead, her troops virtually destroyed, and the ember safe in the talons of Coryn, a youthful but canny leader. The balance of power had at last changed. But Coryn was still haunted by her, and he imagined always would be, whether she was dead or alive. Of late he had become even more obsessed. Soren studied his dear nephew as the young owl peered into the glow of the ember. His heart went out to him and he felt a sorrowful

  twinge in his gizzard. The scar that slashed Coryn’s face a wound inflicted by his own mother - seemed to twitch in a private agony. He felt compelled to address Coryn directly now about this obsession. Perhaps getting it out in the open would be a good thing.“Coryn, first of all, there is no evidence that she still is alive. And second, even if she is, with her forces all but annihilated she can be of little danger.”

  Coryn jerked his head around, unlocking his gaze from the glow. “But Uncle, Nyra is no mere evil owl, and if…”

  “And if,” Soren broke in testily. “I know, Coryn. I read the legends, too. If she is a hagsfiend ,..”

  “No, Uncle. Perhaps not a full-blown hagsfiend but a relic from that ancient time who, through some twist of fate or nachtmapen, was reborn into this one. And if this is true…” He hesitated. “Well, you know what I said when we finished reading the first legend of Grank the Collier.”

  Yes, Soren knew. Coryn had concluded that if his mother had the taint of a hagsfiend’s blood then his own blood must be cursed as well. It was idiotic, but no matter how often Soren reassured him, Coryn could not be convinced. Luckily, none of the rest of the Band nor Otulissa knew of Coryn’s fears. The last thing Coryn wanted revealed was that he might be the offspring of a hags-fiend.

  “So you saw something in the glow of the ember, I assume?” Soren asked.Coryn looked up and blinked with a sudden curiosity. “Why are you here with me and not in your own hollow with Pelli and your little chicks? It’s daytime. You should be sleeping.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “A dream?” Coryn asked.

  “Maybe.” Soren shut his eyes for several seconds as if seeking patience or perhaps the right words. “You know-how it is…, You have firesight and I have starsight.”

  “But starsight is when you dream about things that sometimes then happen. I don’t understand what you are saying. You dreamed about me finding images in the ember? The images of my mother? Then you might well know Why I am disturbed.”

  “Yes. I dreamed. But I don’t quite understand the dreams myself.” Soren sighed. He had been asleep in the cozy hollow that he shared with his mate, Pelli, and their three little chicks, Sebastiana, or “Basha” for short, Blythe, and Bell, when suddenly he realized that he was not in his own dream but another’s - or perhaps sharing

  Coryn’s waking visions as he glimpsed them in the ember. It had rather unnerved Soren, because in the legends they had read that Kreeth, the infamous hagsfiend of ancient times, had an ability to do just this: to enter other creatures’ dreams. Soren, however, was certain that it was starsight that he had experienced. Starsight was a peculiar and very rare phenomenon in which the stars in some mysterious way illuminated an owl’s dream. Most creatures thought that during the day, when nocturnal animals slept, stars vanished, but for some they did not. The stars became little holes in the fabric of their dreams and through these holes they saw things that often came true.

  And he had seen Coryn’s vision, though it was not a dream of a terrible moon that turned into a scarred face, or of flames and fear and terrible loss. It was like fragments of a vision within a vision, a dream within a dream. But did this mean that Nyra still lived? Would she come to kill her only son? Soren did not want to betray the slightest hint of fear or worry. This was a magnificent time for the great tree and for the young king. “As I said,” Soren began to speak with renewed firmness in his voice, “you have no evidence that she’s still alive. Nor do you have any that she is a hagsfiend. She’s just a miserable, evil owl. No more. No less.”“Maybe a little bit more,” Coryn said softly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Soren, when we were reading those legends, especially the parts about thehagsfiends - particularly Kreeth, when she was angered by Lutta - it reminded me …

  “Reminded you of what?” Soren asked quietly. The glow of the ember cast deep red shadows that leaped through the air of the hollow in a wild and antic dance.

  “It reminded me of my mother. When I was very young and she would get angry with me her face seemed to grow even bigger. There was a darkness like shadows beneath the white feathers of her f
ace and her wings darkened near the edges. too, and seemed to hang like rags, torn and crowish. You know how crows’ wings are ragged? At the time I thought it was my imagination, but while we were reading the legends and the descriptions of hagsfiends I kept thinking, ‘This is familiar, I know this from somewhere.’ The blood, the violence I learned of in those legends reminded me of a time in my own life: the Tupsi that required me to kill someone dear and close to me. And with my mother, as with Kreeth, it was not so much hate but the absence of any truly owlish feeling. She was so haggish.”

  Soren remained silent for a while. Perhaps the young king was right, but it would do him no good to brood endlessly about his origins and his inheritance. Blood hardly defines one’s character. We are made by our actions, not our blood, Soren thought. And Coryn was an owl of extraordinary courage, insight, wisdom and, most important, compassion. He of all owls had triumphed over the meanness of his life, the brutality of his upbringing. If he had haggish blood in his veins, he still had the noblest of gizzards.

  Outside a bitter wind blew and, although it was midday, it might as well have been night for the sky roiled with dark storm clouds. It was odd that even though it was now the season of the white rain, the milkberries that normally turned white had a new luminous glow more reminiscent of summer and the time of the golden rain. Perhaps most curious of all, however, was that although many of the leaves of” the great tree had fallen as always at this time of year, they had left behind a shimmering shadow of themselves. And some had not fallen at all, and still retained a golden splendor. The owls of the tree marveled at this peculiar phenomenon, exclaiming that it was like an endless summer. But Soren found this gilded beauty mildly disturbing. The shimmering nimbus of light that shone from where a leaf had fallen reminded him of scrooms, the unsettled spirits of dead owls that lurked until all their unfinished business on Earth was concluded.

  The young king and his uncle Soren were silent, enveloped in the soft glow that streamed from the ember’s teardrop-shaped cask. For several minutes, the two owls stood with their faces tipped toward the light of the ember, each alone in his thoughts. Most likely those thoughts were similar. Although they had read about the power of the ember in the legends, they knew it was not merely legendary. Its magic, with all of its good and its bad possibilities, was very real. With the ember came great blessings as well as grave dangers. When the ember had been retrieved after a thousand years, they both suspected that a small gash had been torn in the very fabric of the owl universe, an opening through which nachtmagen could seep.

  Nyra was the very embodiment of evil, but there had always been evil. Coryn wondered if, with this small rip in the world of the owls, Nyra could gain a talon-hold through nachtmagen. And if she did have even a taint of hagsfiend blood, would this nachtmagen give her the powers of a creature such as Kreeth, the arch hagsfiend of the ancient world? In the legends, Kreeth - with her weird incantations and experiments - had created some truly horrendous monstrosities. Could Nyra perhaps be a descendant of one of her last and more successful experiments? Worse, even, than a simple hagsfiend?

  That was precisely what worried Coryn. For what did that make him? This secret fear festered in him, haunted him, and caused him endless agony.

  Soren’s reading of the legends, however, had given him other concerns and other truths. In his gizzard, he knew that the most important lesson of the legends was to embrace reason and not magic, good or bad. He under stood Coryn’s obsession with his heritage, but he also knew that Coryn was intrinsically good. To rely on magic, or to become obsessed with the ember could only distract Coryn from the responsibilities of his role as king. To be a true Guardian of the great tree had always been considered every bit as noble as being its king. But it was up to the king to instill this sense of nobility - and to lead. In the oath of the Guardians of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, there was nothing about magic. And the notion of nobility through royal birth was rejected. The words of the oath that Soren had taken so many years before coursed through his mind and set his gizzard aquiver: I am the eyes in the night, the silence within the wind. I am the talons through the fire, the shield that guards the innocent. I shall seek to wear no crown, nor win any glory… .That was the oath of the Guardians of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree on the Island of Hoole in the middle of the Sea of Hoolemere.

  CHAPTER TWOA journey is Planned

  The ember’s glow bloomed like an enormous bloodred flower, casting vermilion shadows over the white-feathered faces of the two Barn Owls.

  “Coryn,” Soren began to speak slowly. “I have been thinking. In the last few days many owls have come to the great tree. They are even calling it the ‘Golden Tree’ not just because of its golden glow but because a new era has begun since our defeat of the Pure Ones. Word of our library has spread. Owls are on the wing - and are less fearful. They want to know about our chaws. They are especially interested in our weather and navigation chaws.” Soren paused and blinked. “What do you say, lad? Shall we have a go of it?” And to himself he thought, Nothing like a little expedition with the Band to dissolve the gollymopes,

  “What do you mean … ‘have a go’?” Coryn blinked at Soren. His uncle, although still a handsome owl, had uncountable nicks and marks of battles and from his life as a collier. His beak had long lost its pale tawny glimmer and was now tarnished from his years of plunging into forest fires to retrieve coals. His talons, too, had darkened and grown knobby with fire calluses. The white feathers of his legs were patchy and ash-colored. He looked like a hardened, seasoned owl and yet vigor and gentleness still flowed from him.

  “I mean travel, dear lad. Get the lay of the land. See what, exactly, these owls want to learn from us. Besides, it’s been so long since any of us have had a good flight - just for fun. Do you know that there is much talk that grog trees, which have been so rare in recent times, are now coming back? There’s even rumor of gadfeathers, by Glaux. How lovely to gather with one’s old friends in the branches of a grog tree and listen to the sweet tunes of a gadfeather. Ahh, to see old friends again!”“Mist!” Coryn exclaimed excitedly.

  “You call her Mist, but Gylfie and I shall always think of her as Hortense. She must be getting on now, but I long to go to Ambala and seek her out.” Soren detected a new sparkle in his nephew’s eyes. Yes, this is it. I must get him. cut and on the wing. This obsession with his haggish mother is dangerous. Too self-absorbed, an unwholesome indulgence for a king, especially one as intelligent and bold as Coiyn. “How about it?”

  “Yes …” Coryn said slowly.

  “You are worried that kings shouldn’t just have fun?” Soren blinked at his nephew.

  “Well, I don’t want to be thought of as …” He hesitated.“A sporting king?”

  “I suppose so, yes.”

  But, Soren said eagerly now, “even a king must be curious about how the hard-won peace lies on the land. These are exciting times.”

  “It is a good plan, Uncle!” Coryn spoke now with genuine enthusiasm.. “But we should meet with the Band to discuss it first, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, of course,” Soren agreed. “We’ll speak with them immediately and the parliament must be consulted on the morrow. First Black.”

  “And Otulissa, will she come as well?” Coryn asked, Otulissa, although considered by many a prickly sort with a confidence bordering on arrogance, was a favorite of Coryn’s. Otulissa was the first Guardian of Ga’Hoole that Coryn had met. Through some scroomish vision, an odd phenomenon in itself for an owl who was so dedicated to rational thought, Otulissa had been inspired to go to the Beyond. It was there she encountered Coryn and. seemed instantly to sense his destiny and that she was part of it. It was Otulissa, the prodigiously talented and knowledge-able Spotted Owl, who first taught Coryn to dive for coals. She claimed no credit, however, for Coryn had a remarkable genius for colliering and in no time had learned to pluck the most challenging of coals from the volcanoes’ spume - the bonk ones that many colliers never learned to ret
rieve.

  “I doubt if Otulissa, with her additional responsibilities, will be able to accompany us,” Coryn said. “But I shall certainly ask her.”Otulissa, an esteemed teacher of the tree, had recently been appointed chief ryb, as her expertise extended over so many of the disciplines - from the literature of the legends to the sciences, including weather interpretation and metals. She hardly had a moment to spare. Nonetheless Soren would go to the hollow where she resided with her old nest-maid snake, Audrey, to ask if she would travel with them. But first he would meet with Gylfie, Twilight, and Digger. And, of course, he would have to explain to Pelli. No doubt Basha, Blythe, and Bell would beg Soren to wait until they had fledged their flight feathers so they might go, too. But they were at least a moon cycle away from fledging, and this was not a trip for young’uns.

  Soren was just about to leave the hollow, immensely pleased with himself for coming up with this idea, when Coryn suddenly said, “Uncle?”

  “Yes?”“What about the ember?”

  “The ember? What about it?” Soren asked, slightly bewildered.

  “Will it be safe here?”

  “I can’t imagine a safer place than here in the great tree. We certainly don’t want to carry it around with us,” He paused and looked steadily at the ember. In a low voice he said, “We do not want to become slaves to the ember. If the legends taught us anything, it was that.”

  “You are right, Uncle. We are free owls!”

  CHAPTER THREEWhat About the Ember?

  Coryn looked across at the members of the parliament perched on the how-shaped birch limb. In his head he was searching for the right words to announce this trip. Soren was right. It would be curious to see how peace lay across the owl kingdoms now that the threat of the Pure Ones was gone - or at least greatly diminished. He was interested in not only what he and the Band might learn, but what they might possibly share with the rest of the owl kingdoms now that this menace was gone and every ounce of energy did not have to be devoted to fighting and war. This reminded Coryn of the owls who had arrived at the tree recently and told them of a meeting in Ambala. Coryn coughed slightly and began.