The Golden Tree Page 3

  courage to leave for the Beyond. It was a place replete with memories - some good, some bad. It was a scroomish place where he had been haunted by the spirit of his father, Kludd, but also where he had heard for the first time some of the better-known legends of Ga’Hoole. He had eavesdropped on parents telling these stories at good-light time to their hatchlings before they went to sleep. While in the forest, Coryn had lived hidden in the stump of a tree in a day-for-night world because too often he had been mistaken for his terrible mother.”Winter is finally upon us, I think,” Soren said as they lighted down on a wildly waving branch of a large fir tree. Soren was partial to fir trees. They formed part of his first memories. Like Coryn’s, some of these memories were good and some were bad. But it was the good ones that he tried to concentrate on. Those times in the old family hollow of the fir tree in the forest of Tyto where he had first heard his father tell the stories of Ga’Hoole. Little did he know then that the great tree was a real place. And how vividly he remembered what his father had said to his brother, Kludd, when Kludd had asked him if the legends were true. “A legend, Kludd,” his father had replied, “is a story that you begin to feel in your gizzard, which over time becomes true in your heart.” But would his father ever have believed that there really was an island called Hoole, where the Great Ga’Hoole Tree did, indeed, grow? Could he ever have imagined that Soren would become a Guardian and that his own grandson, Coryn, son of Kludd, would become king? And would he have believed that Kludd had pushed Soren from the nest, attempting to murder him as part of his own rites of initiation into the brutal gang of owls called the Pure Ones? Soren shook the past from his mind.

  It had begun to snow. “If I know fir trees, there will be a nice roomy hollow, dry and sweet-smelling,” Soren looked up, “oh, I’d say about a third of the way from the top on the lee side of the trunk.”And there was. The five owls crowded in. “I’m starved!” Twilight announced. “This place is hopping with rabbits.”

  “Mmmmm!” Digger, Gylfie, and Soren all smacked their beaks in anticipation. Gylfie turned to Coryn. “Not up for a rabbit?” she asked.

  “Well, rabbits are fine. Just don’t go after one that has a white mark on its forehead.”

  “Why?” Twilight blinked.

  “It’s a long story,” Coryn said.

  “This is a morning for long stories,” Soren said as he watched the thickening swirls of snow outside the hollow.

  “Not on an empty gizzard, it isn’t!” Twilight boomed. “Let’s get hunting.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Coryn said.“Good idea. I wouldn’t want to grab the wrong rabbit.”

  Twilight and Coryn had been tracking a large gray rabbit when Coryn suddenly picked up soft mewling noises. “Grosnik!” he hissed.

  “Oh, for the love of Glaux! Are you sure, Coryn?”

  “I heard the babies,” Coryn whispered. Barn Owls were known for their extraordinary hearing abilities, which allowed them to detect the subtlest of sounds.

  “And no parent?” Twilight asked.

  “No. Look - there’s the den down there under that tree stump. I would have definitely picked up the parent’s heartbeat if there was one in there.”

  Among owls it was strictly forbidden to eat baby animals or to kill a parent if there was only one parent, thus leaving the babies orphaned. Of course, this was not always known to the hunter and many small animals had been orphaned when owls had unwittingly preyed upon their parents. But the circumstances here were clear. These babies, at least four, Coryn thought, would have been orphaned.

  Twilight sighed, “It’s funny, once you get your gizzard set on something, you can almost taste it before your first bite and you want nothing else. Vole seems so boring to me right now.”

  “Well, as you said, there are lots of rabbits around here.”“Yeah, they can’t all have babies, or white marks on their forehead … I hope!”

  “No, believe me.” Coryn said, “there was only one rabbit like that.”

  “What was its name?”

  “He had no name,”

  “No name? What made that rabbit so special?”

  “He just was. Don’t worn about it. It all happened long ago, in the Shadow Forest. Not here. I’m just always really careful when I go out rabbit hunting to check to see if my prey has that mark. He called himself a mystic. You know, he could see things that other creatures couldn’t - sort of like Soren has starsight and I can read the flames of a fire. Well, this rabbit could read things in spiderwebs.”

  “You gotta be kidding!” Twilight exclaimed.

  “No, not at all.” Coryn paused. “My visions are mostly about the present but the rabbit had bits and pieces of the past, the present, and the future. You see …” Coryn was

  about to explain what the rabbit actually saw. “There’s one now”“Him? The one with the mark?”

  “No!”

  A large fluffy white rabbit darted under the bank of a creek. Amid the swirling snow, he appeared like a solid sphere hurtling across the frozen bed of the creek. Twilight was on him in a flash. Coryn admired the speed with which the Great Gray killed. No matter what the wind direction was, it never offset his kill angle and he always managed to plunge his talons directly into the brain of the animal so that it was an instant, nearly painless death.

  “That is one beautiful rabbit!” Digger exclaimed as Twilight and Coryn returned to the hollow. It was customary among owls that whoever made the kill got the first choice of meat, or “firsts” as it was often called. Undoubtedly, Twilight would go for a haunch, for that was usually the meatiest on a rabbit. Soren, however, looked at the rabbit and said, “Hold on a second, Twilight. Before you get your firsts, don’t you think we should skin this rabbit properly? This is a beautiful pelt. Trader Mags came by last moon cycle with a pelt like this torn from a robe.”

  “One of the Others’ robes?” Digger asked. “Yes, of course. And she sold it to Madame Plonk for Glaux knows what. The piece was moth-eaten and not

  nearly as glistening white as this pelt,” Soren said.“Are yon suggesting that we try to best Trader Mags at her own game?” Gylfie asked.

  “I’m just saying that the new sewing guild the nest-maid snakes formed might be happy to get something like this. Or maybe we should just keep it for ourselves. Divide it up. Everyone could have a piece for their hollow.’

  “Oh, for Glaux’s sake, if you’re going to skin it, skin it. I’m famished,” Twilight roared.

  “Let’s skin it,” Coryn said.

  And so they did. As they sat enjoying the rabbit, which was unusually plump for this time of year, Soren suddenly said, “Do any of you remember that time - oh, we were much younger than young Coryn here - when we snuck out of the tree?

  “We snuck out at least a hundred times,” Gylfie said. “Which time?”

  “You snuck out?” Coryn blinked.

  “Of course we did,” Digger replied.

  “Did you get into trouble?” Coryn asked.

  Sometimes, Soren said.

  “Was it worth it?”

  “Always!” the Band roared in unison.

  “Well, what time was this one?” Coryn turned to Soren.Soren wiped the blood from his beak. “Well. it was right after a visit from Trader Mags and we had this idea - we were always fascinated about the Others -“

  “‘Who isn’t?” Coryn asked.

  “Anyhow,” Soren continued. “We had this idea that we would go find a new castle. or church, or - I don’t know - one of those stone hollows that the Others built, but one that Trader Mags hadn’t scavenged yet for all the goodies. We were going to get rich. I guess that was the main idea. Going to start our own business. I mean, we were young. We thought it would be fun going around selling things or swapping them.”

  “Otulissa said that the idea was stupid and that noble owls weren’t meant for business,” Gylfie said. “Remember? That was why she wouldn’t come with us. She said it was vulgar.”

  “That is soooo Otulissa!” Digger sa
id.

  “It probably was common, but it would have been fun,” Gylfie said.

  “Well, did you go?” Coryn asked.

  “Oh, we did!” Soren said. “We flew first to Tyto thinking that if there were any undiscovered Others’ ruins they might be there. But we didn’t find any. Then … I don’t know whose idea it was to head to the Shadow Forest…”

  “Mine!” Twilight chimed in. “I had dimly remembered something from my very youngest days. You realize, Coryn, that I was orphaned very young. Never knew my parents.”I should have been so lucky, Coryn thought.

  “Had to teach myself everything. Orphan School of Tough Learning is what I call it. For me, the great tree was more of a finishing school than anything else.”

  “If that’s not a pile of racdrops, I don’t know what is!” Digger blinked.

  “Give it a blow. Twilight. Finishing school my talon.” Gylfie stomped her tiny talons on the floor of the hollow.

  “Anyway,” Soren continued, “we decided to go to the Shadow Forest. And we did find a ruin. There were no jewels, no great tapestries like the ones Trader Mags salvages scraps from, no paintings. There was something much more precious.”

  “What was that?”

  “Bess,” Gylfie said quietly.

  “Bess?” Coryn asked.

  “Yes, Bess - the daughter of Grimble!” There were tears now in both Soren’s and Gyfie’s eyes.

  “And who is Grimble?” Coryn asked.

  “Was,” Gylfie corrected, and wiped away a tear with her wing tip. “You see, Coryn, Grimble taught us to fly. It was because of Grimble that Soren and I were able to escape St. Aggie’s.”Soren continued. “Grimble was killed when the Ablah General discovered him helping us to escape. There was a terrific fight. Grimble kept yelling, ‘Fly! Fly! Now’s your chance!’ I looked back and saw him bleeding on the ground, a wing half torn off.”

  “And did he die?” Coryn asked.

  “Oh, he died all right. But his bones brought Bess and us together.”

  “His bones!” Coryn blinked. “Is this a scroom story?”

  “In a way,” Gylfie said softly. “But it was because we had snuck out to look for precious things that we found Bess in that ruin. It was several moon cycles after her father had finally died. She would have rescued him if she could have. But she couldn’t, so she did the next best thing and brought his bones to this secret place.”

  “Secret place!” Coryn was nearly jumping out of his feathers, “Tell me the story, please.”.A child desperate to rescue a parent! How different from me. Would I ever dare rescue my mum, or…? Would I dare seek out my da’s bones?

  A shadow seemed to steal across Soren’s gizzard, sending a deep chill through his hollow bones. “I can remember her words almost exactly.” Soren sighed.

  “Tell it! Tell it!”“Yes, you tell it, Soren,” Gyhie said. Soren was the best storyteller of all. It was Soren’s telling of the legends when he and Gylfie had been thrown into the moon-blaze chamber in St. Aggie’s that had saved them from being moon blinked. There was a passion in his telling of stories that made the words take on new and deeper meanings. But it wasn’t simply a story he would be telling Coryn. Soren would be telling him of a secret place that only a very few owls in the great tree knew about, only the Band, Otulissa, Ezylryh, and Strix Struma, and, yes, two nest-maid snakes - Octavia and Mrs. Plithiver. They called it the Palace of Mists.

  CHAPTER SIXBess of the Chimes

  We had taken off during the milkberry harvest festival - always a good time to sneak out,” Soren began. “You know how all those older owls get tipsy on the milkberry wine and berry mead. And then there is all the dancing and singing that can go on for three days or more. We knew that we wouldn’t be missed. No one paid much attention to young owls at these times, especially back then. We had hardly been at the tree a year, maybe thirteen moon cycles at the most, when we got this notion of getting rich. Beating old Trader Mags at her own game, as Gylfle said. Otulissa would have nothing to do with it. It was raining that night as well she argued. So, why be out when there was so much frolic going on in the great hollow of the tree?”

  “Yes, but the winds were terrific,” Twilight said. “Rain or no rain, the winds were with us from behind. So we flew fast.”

  “As I recall,” Digger offered, “we made Cape Glaux by daybreak.”

  “But where would you even start looking for a ruin - an undiscovered one?” Coryn asked.Soren blinked and began to speak in his thoughtful way. “Good question. We were smart enough not to go to Silverveil. We knew Trader Mags had discovered all the ruins there. But the one place that had never really been explored was part of the Shadow Forest. It’s so dense with trees that there was not much space for the Others to build their stone hollows. We were young and impulsive, and although we had once been attacked by crows, we promised ourselves that we would be more vigilant this time. So we decided to go out and hunt during the morning hours but always together and then at night to go off separately to cover as much of the forest as possible in search of a ruin.”

  Coryn listened with rapt attention. What an adventure! A treasure hunt instead of a battle. Jewels instead of blood. And most of all, friendship. Daring young owls sneaking off from the great tree together on a quest.

  “By the end of the second day, we had found nothing and we knew time was getting short. We would have to get back to the tree. But that night we went out once more separately and Gylfie …” Soren paused. “Weil, Gylfie, you should tell this part.”

  Gylfie ran her beak through her primaries before she began her part of the story. “There is a place in the Shadow Forest where, if you fly high enough and are observant, you will notice the forest seems to dip down into a bowl. If you look closer, you will see the silvery ropes of a waterfall cascading from a great height into the bowl. I saw the falls sending up great plumes of swirling mist. I spiraled down and flew closer. Veils of mist were suspended in the air. The entire valley seemed to be neither quite of land or sky but hanging between the two. I began to see shapes in the mist as one sees shapes in the clouds. But then I slowly realized that these were not mere illusions or figments of my imagination. What I was seeing was real and made of stone. I flew back to the place we were to meet up if we found anything.

  “When we all flew there together, the mist was so thick you couldn’t see a thing. It was like a curtain hanging across the valley,” Gylfie continued. “The rest of the Band thought I had experienced some sort of gizzard dream. There wasn’t a stone visible. But suddenly, a sharp rogue wind tore through the curtain of mist like a knife. Four beautiful stone spires pierced the night. And that’s when Soren heard the chimes.”“Chimes!” Coryn exclaimed. It all sounded so mysterious, so beautiful. “What was it?”

  “I thought it was battle gear clanking in the right ,“Twilight said.

  “Only you,Twilight, would think that!“Digger sighed.“But was it chimes? A bell tolling?“Coryn asked

  “In a sense ,“Soren spoke softly.

  Coryn felt a shiver pass through him. This was going to be a scroom story, he thought.

  “We had fetched up just beneath one of the stone towers in a silverdrop pine. It took me about three seconds to identity the sound. It was Boreal Owl! You know how the call of those owls often sound like chimes in the night? Well, Boreals believe that if a Boreal dies in a bell tower beneath the clapper of a bell, then its scroom will go straight to glaumora. Or at least that was the tale that our friend Grimbie told us.”

  “You mean,” said Coryn, now aghast, “that it was a dying owl making this beautiful chiming noise?”

  “It was not a dying owl but the sound was very mournful,’”” Gylfie sighed. Her wings seemed to quiver at the memory of it. all

  “And desperate,” added Soren. “We decided we should go to her.”

  “Her? It was a female?” Coryn asked.

  “We were prettv sure it was a. female. So,” Soren continued, “we took off and flew toward the spire f
rom which the sound were coming.As we drew nearer, the sounds because louder-as Gylfie said the most mournful yet beautifull sounds any of us had ever heard.

  “A strange sight greeted us a we lighted down on the windowsill of the bell tower,“Soren continued. “There was a large bell that hung in the tower and from within it came the chimelike sounds mixed with the wing beats of an owl.On the stone floor were the bleached bones of another owl,one long dead.”Coryn felt as if the line between past and present were blurring, k was as if he were actually living within the story; it was as real to him as it was to the Band. Sorens storytelling voice slid through the dim light of the hollow as smoothly as the liquid ribbon, of a river flows toward the sea. Coryn felt its current.

  “We were perched on the window ledge of the bell tower,” Soren said, “‘Now, we had all experienced, scroomish, peculiar things in our days. Things that stilled our gizzards and sent quivers through our bones, but this was one of the strangest situations ever. From the bell we heard a beautiful song, a song that seemed to be made of silver. I cannot sing it but the. words were so lovelv.”

  “What were the words’” Coryn pressed.

  “I hope I can remember. Say them with me.” Soren looked at Gylfie, Twilight, and Digger. The four owls began to recite the song.

  I am the chimes in the night,the sound within the wind.

  I an: the tolling of glaumora for the souls of long-lost kin.

  I shall sing you to the stars,

  where your scroom shall finally rest

  ‘neath the great hell of the sky in a tower of cloudy crests….

  “When the song in the bell finished,” Gylfie said, “a beautiful owl flew from the bell and lighted down.”