The Burning Read online

“Are we close to the Ice Narrows?” Gylfie asked.

  “I don’t know, you’re the one with the brains.” Dumpy gurgled madly. Gurgling was the puffin form of laughter.

  “What are you doing out here, and how come your chick nearly slammed into me?” Digger asked.

  “Oh, you’ve come at a wonderful time,” Dumpy replied.

  “And what time is that?” Soren asked.

  “Puffinflockin-in the nocken.”

  “Puffa whata?” Twilight asked and then snarled, “Hey, beat it!” as another small puffin crashed into his left wing.

  “Puffinflockin-in the nocken is the night the pufflings take their first flight out over the ocean. But they often smash into things or crash-land.”

  “Yes, so we see,” Soren said and made a mental note: Puffins are such awkward fliers themselves they should not be teaching any bird how to fly.

  “The Ice Narrows!” Gylfie cried out. “Straight ahead.”

  “Oh, I’m glad someone knows where we’re going!” Dumpy cried out cheerfully. “Come along, my Little Dumpette. Follow Papa, and Papa will follow these very smart birds.”

  A few minutes later, they were crammed into one of the many ice nests that pocked the sheer frozen walls of the Narrows. Puffins nested in the cracks and rocky holes that they were so good at finding in the ice-sheathed walls of the Narrows.

  They are also very good at fishing, Martin noticed. “Will you look at that!” he said as he perched on the edge of the nest and looked straight down at Dumpy’s mate. She had just come up with a mouthful of fish and was proudly lining them up in a row on the floor of the nest.

  “Oh, Tuppa! Lovely, my dear, just lovely,” Dumpy said. “Such a mate I have!” He gazed at her with love in his eyes, and then at the fish with equal adoration.

  “Now, Dumpy dearest, how did our Little Dumpy do on Puffinflockin-in the nocken? Many crashes?”

  “Oh, yes, many. So many!”

  “Oh, good!” Tuppa lofted herself lightly from the floor of the ice hollow and waggled her bright orange feet gleefully.

  “Pardon me, madam.” Digger stepped forward. “But I am curious. Why is it good if your child crashes a lot when learning to fly?”

  Tuppa froze on the spot. Then her beak began to clack loudly and a tear leaked from her eye. “Now, now, dear!” Dumpy came over and patted her.

  “What did I say?” Digger asked. “I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings.” By this time, Tuppa had thrown herself onto the floor of the ice nest. Her immense chest was heaving with sobs.

  “It’s nothing,” Dumpy said.

  “Nothing!” Tuppa squawked and in a flash was back on her feet delivering a swat to her mate. “You call it nothing? Our only child leaves home and you call it nothing?”

  “Leaves?” Digger asked.

  “Yes. When a young puffin learns how to fly, it flies away. That’s it. Gone!” Tuppa began to sob again.

  “I can’t wait,” Little Dumpy said. “I’m not scared at all, and I keep telling Ma that I’ll be back. I’ll come back and visit all the time.”

  “That’s what they all say!” Tuppa sputtered. “But they don’t, do they? Do they, Dumpy?”

  “Nope. Too dumb to find our way back to the birth nest,” Dumpy senior replied.

  It appeared to Soren that Tuppa was still trying hard to blink back tears when her eyes suddenly flew open in alarm. She was peering into a corner of the ice nest. “What is that thing over there…that…that pile of dirty feathers?”

  “Oh, dear,” Gylfie muttered.

  “Let me explain.” Soren stepped forward. “That is an elderly Burrowing Owl. She is not at all well, and we are charged with delivering her to the Glauxian Sisters on Elsemere Island.”

  Tuppa took a step closer to Dewlap and peered at her. She walked around her as if to examine her from every angle. Suddenly, she plopped down next to the pile of dirty feathers. “Bring me that smallish fish, Little Dumpy.”

  “What do you mean ‘smallish’? Is that what you call a small fish? Smallish, and a big one ‘biggish’?” Little Dumpy asked.

  “Just bring it, for crying out loud!” Tuppa squawked.

  “All right, all right. Don’t get your feathers in a twist, Ma.” Then under his breath he muttered, “I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  Little Dumpy brought a fish to his mother, and Tuppa began to feed it to Dewlap, all the while making cooing noises and giving the old Burrowing Owl gentle instructions on how to eat it. “Yes, you little sweetie. Headfirst, that’s how we do it. Yes, eyeballs and all—that’s the tastiest part. Can’t miss those eyeballs. Yummy in the tummy.” Tuppa looked up at her mate. “Can I keep her, dear?”

  “She’s not a baby, Tuppa,” said Dumpy.

  “In the name of ice, she’s not even a puffin, Ma. Even I can tell that!” shrieked Little Dumpy.

  “But look how sweet she is, and eating the eyeballs, too,” Tuppa said.

  “I ate every eyeball you ever fed me,” Little Dumpy whined as he looked on enviously at the attention his mother was lavishing on Dewlap.

  “Can I keep her?” Tuppa said again.

  “I’m being replaced by a raggedy old owl?” Little Dumpy wailed. “Well, that does it!” Before anyone could stop him, Little Dumpy was on the edge of the ice hollow and had launched himself into the wind.

  “He’s flying!” Big Dumpy shouted. “Look at him go! Nothing like being insulted to get one out of the nest.”

  “Yes, it works every time. Doesn’t it, dear?” Tuppa said.

  All of the owls were thoroughly confused. “But I thought you said you wanted him to stay,” Soren said. “You were sobbing just a minute ago.”

  “What’s a minute?” Tuppa asked.

  “A very brief amount of time!” Gylfie almost roared. “And a minute ago you were sobbing.”

  “I know. Fickle, aren’t I? But I really would like to keep this owl.”

  “If only,” Otulissa muttered.

  “No, no, no.” Soren stepped forward. “It’s not possible. We have our orders, and we must deliver her to the Glauxian Sisters.”

  “I see,” Tuppa said. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to lay another egg next season. I wonder if I could hatch an old puffin. You know—no back talk.”

  “But the chicks are such fun,” Dumpy said.

  “Yes,” Soren said. “I’m sure you will find a baby puffin much more to your taste than an elderly Burrowing Owl.”

  “To my taste!” Tuppa exclaimed in alarm. “I’m not going to eat the baby, nor the Burrowing Owl. How savage!”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. I meant no such thing,” Soren replied. “It’s just an expression.”

  “Expression? What’s an expression?” Tuppa asked.

  “I think it’s a kind of fish, mostly found in Southern Waters,” Dumpy said.

  Oh, good grief. Here we go again, thought Soren.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Ice Dagger

  I’m exhausted!” Gylfie said as they flew up the Ice Narrows. “Completely and utterly exhausted.”

  “How can you be exhausted?” Soren asked. “We have a tailwind, and we’ve been flying for all of five minutes.”

  “What’s a minute?” Gylfie said in a mocking voice. “What’s an expression? What’s a this? What’s a that? That is what is exhausting, Soren. I couldn’t take another second, let alone a minute of their stupidity. How in the name of Glaux have they survived as a species this long?”

  “Well, there are different kinds of intelligence,” Soren replied.

  “Don’t you mean that there are different kinds of stupidity?”

  “Not exactly. We’d be stupid up here. Stupider than the puffins. It takes a special kind of intelligence to live in the north. What do we know about fishing or finding hollows in walls of ice?”

  “Hmmm,” Gylfie replied in a tone that suggested she was still less than convinced of the puffins’ intelligence.

  “So, what’s our course to the Ice Dagger?” Soren ask
ed.

  “Due north. We shouldn’t have any trouble spotting it, especially on a clear night like this. Ezylryb says it sticks straight out of the Everwinter Sea like a blade.”

  “I guess that’s where they get the ice swords.”

  “So they say,” Gylfie replied.

  It was at the Ice Dagger that the Chaw of Chaws would split to perform their various tasks in the Northern Kingdoms before meeting up again. Before this, Soren and Gylfie had always been together on missions. But now, for the first time since they had known each other, they would soon be heading in opposite directions. It would be an odd feeling. But it could not be helped. They had each been given tasks specific to their particular talents.

  “Ice Dagger, ho!” Twilight called out. A huge, jagged blade of ice sliced through the sea and stabbed the blackness of the night. Soren flew up to Twilight, who was flying point in the formation. “Will you look at that!” Twilight said, his voice full of wonder. “They say it never melts. That’s why they can harvest those fantastic ice swords from it. Just think, Soren, what we could do with ice swords!”

  Weapons, fighting, war in general—that was what occupied Twilight’s mind most of the time. And he was a superb fighter. He could fight with anything, from a blazing branch and battle claws to his tongue, which was as fierce as any weapon when he unleashed his taunting verses, which were known to make an enemy go yeep and plunge to the ground. Having another weapon to contemplate—ice swords!—was almost more than Twilight’s gizzard would be able to handle. Soren imagined that he could feel the twitches of Twilight’s gizzard right now. It’s doing a little jig in there, I swear.

  It seemed impossible that on this sharp frozen blade that shot up from the sea, they could find a place to land, but there was a protuberance about a quarter of the way up that was almost like the hilt of a sword. It was there that they alighted.

  The wind whipped around the icy blade that glimmered in the moonlight like a bewitched sea dagger thrust from the turbulent sea by some unseen water creature. Soren could almost imagine a claw beneath the surface gripping that blade. For the life of him, Soren could not figure out how other blades were made from the Ice Dagger, which seemed to him to be unbreakable. How could the owls of the Northern Kingdoms manage to pry off a piece to serve as a sword? It was also said that nothing was sharper than an ice sword, and that, properly taken care of, it would not melt even in the presence of fire.

  Twilight could not stand still any longer and had begun to fly in circles around the Ice Dagger for a close examination. “I can see cracks where they might have pried off pieces. By Glaux, those edges look sharp. Gotta watch where you set down around here.” His eyes were gleaming.

  “Enough of that, Twilight. I have a few words to say before we split up.” Soren coughed lightly and then faced the group. “We all know what we must do. And I know you shall all perform your tasks to the best of your abilities. Gylfie and Otulissa, you go directly from here to the Glauxian Sisters’ retreat to deliver Dewlap, and then straight on to the Glauxian Brothers in the Bitter Sea. Ruby and Martin, you proceed to Stormfast Island, Ezylryb’s birthplace, in the Bay of Kiel and find the Kielian snake called Hoke of Hock. Digger, Twilight, Eglantine, and I shall go to the Firth of Fangs to seek out Moss. After each group finishes its assigned task—whether it is research or petitioning for allies—we will then proceed to Dark Fowl Island. We will all meet there on the last night of the dwenking. Remember, you can’t be late. Winter sets in early here. The katabatic winds drive the ice, and if the ice floes jam the channels and passages, we won’t be able to tell the difference between an island and the mainland. We’ll be ice-locked. That’s what they call it.” The owls had all fallen silent, as if each one was imagining the terrible fate of being ice-locked, a prisoner of this frozen place.

  Soren looked up at the sky. Clouds rolled over the moon, causing shadows to dance across the Ice Dagger. It sent a quiver through his gizzard. “This is full shine,” he continued. “The last night of the dwenking, when we are to meet again, is fourteen nights from now.” Soren looked at each of the owls standing before him on the hilt of the Ice Dagger. “So, good luck and Glauxspeed.” He raised his wings, flapped once, twice, and lifted off into the night. Eglantine, Digger, and Twilight followed.

  The battle claws of Ezylryb encasing Soren’s talons sparkled fiercely in the moonlight. Once again, Ezylryb’s words came back to Soren: The claws are the keys to the Northern Kingdoms.

  So be it, Soren thought. So be it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A Circle of White Trees

  Phew! I hope that is the last I ever see of that batty old owl,” Otulissa said as they lifted into flight from the Glauxian Sisters’ retreat. Dewlap had been left in the care of the Mother Superior. Gylfie had tried to say good-bye but Dewlap blinked at her with vacant, uncomprehending eyes. “We’ll take good care of her, dear,” the Mother Superior had said. “Don’t worry.”

  Gylfie and Otulissa had tried to appear worried, but they weren’t. They were simply relieved that this part of their mission was over. They carved two graceful arcs in the darkening sky under a spray of stars.

  “I just can’t wait to get to the Glauxian Brothers,” Otulissa said. “Do you realize, Gylfie, that we are going to the very finest library in the entire owl universe?”

  “Well, seeing as there are only three—ours at Ga’Hoole, St. Aggie’s, and theirs—I don’t think that’s such a big deal.”

  “Oh, don’t be that way.”

  “What way?” Gylfie shot back.

  “You know. Just so…so negative,” Otulissa muttered.

  “I’m not negative, but it’s just that I don’t care how wonderful their library is. The way these owls live up here leaves something to be desired.”

  “You didn’t like the burrows at the Glauxian Sisters’ retreat.”

  “I’m not a Burrowing Owl.”

  “Well, neither are they. But what’s one to do? There are no trees to speak of around here,” Otulissa reasoned.

  “Understatement of the year. I can’t remember when I last saw a tree.” Gylfie sighed rather mournfully.

  “Most of the owls up here are Snowies. Snowies are used to ground living. At least, that’s what I’ve read.”

  “Well, I’m not a Snowy, and I found our quarters at the Sisters’ retreat less than comfortable.” Gylfie looked down at the barren, ice-coated landscape below. I am tree sick, she thought. How long has it been since I’ve slept in a tree? She missed the Great Ga’Hoole Tree desperately. She missed the creaking of the timber in a fierce gale. She missed the stirring of the vines in a gentle summer breeze. She missed the spicy smell of the wood on a wet rainy day. She missed the moss of her own little nest in the hollow she shared with Soren and Digger and Twilight. She missed the port of the hollow that framed the sky, which was like the most beautiful but ever-changing painting. Sometimes there were clouds that cavorted like a herd of woolly creatures against the blue, and other times, as the sun was setting, the sky blazed with deep oranges and flaming pinks. Then clouds would stretch out and remind her of whales swimming through a fiery horizon at the edge of the world. Gylfie missed all of it. And to think that she had once upon a time lived not in a tree at all but in the hollow of a tall, prickly cactus in the desert. But that was so long ago that it almost seemed like make-believe, some story she had made up about a little Elf Owl who had lived happily in the Desert of Kuneer with her mum and da.

  “Gylfie! Are you listening to me at all?” Otulissa was barking in her ear.

  “Oh, sorry.” She had stopped paying attention to Otulissa when the Spotted Owl had begun to run on about the library and the research she was planning to do and all the great intellects with whom she would have intense and wonderful discussions.

  “I asked for a course check. You are the navigator, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, yes…let’s see.” Gylfie flipped her head almost completely around and then straight up. “Oh, Great Glaux!”
>
  “What is it?”

  “Just that-the Great Glaux constellation. We are, indeed, in the Northern Kingdoms. It’s even more beautiful here. We never get to see it this time of year at the great tree.” Gylfie’s voice was full of wonder. “I am seeing constellations that Strix Struma only told us about. Look off to starboard, there—the Bear. Isn’t it magnificent? And look at the stars in its paws. See how they are slightly green? And over there, just a bit to the south of it, is the crown of Hoole and…”

  “But Hoole wore no crown,” Otulissa interrupted. “Remember the legend? I’ve studied the entire cycle of the North Waters.”

  Oh, here she goes again. She’s going to analyze a legend, Gylfie thought. Legends were made to be told and heard, not analyzed. And Gylfie knew this one by heart and gizzard. She would never forget it. At St. Aggie’s, when Soren had whispered this legend in the glare of the moon-blaze chamber where they had been put for punishment, it had saved them. Legends cleared their minds and helped them resist the deadly glare of the moon in that white stone cell. Soren’s voice came back to Gylfie now. Once upon a time before there were kingdoms of owls, in a time of ever-raging wars, there was an owl hatched in the country of the Great North Waters and his name was Hoole. Some say there was an enchantment cast upon him at the time of his hatching, that he was given natural gifts of extraordinary power. But what was known of this owl was that he inspired other owls to great and noble deeds and that, although he wore no crown of gold, the owls knew him as a king, for indeed his good grace and conscience anointed him and his spirit was his crown.

  But while Gylfie had been looking up, Otulissa had been looking down.

  “Look, Gylfie, trees!”

  “Trees? Where?”

  “Straight down there on that island.”

  “Why, we’re here!” Gylfie cheered. “We’re right on course for the Glauxian Brothers’ retreat. That is the island. And there are tall, tall trees just like…”

  “Yes, just like in the legend!” And Otulissa began to recite the story. “In a wood of straight tall trees he had hatched, in a glimmering time when the seconds slow between the last minute of the old year and the first of the new, and the forest on this night was sheathed in ice.”