The War of the Ember Read online

  The sun fell in a bright column from almost directly overhead, illuminating one of the busts of ancient explorers that lined the map hollow. The one they called Magellan. He wore a funny round hat and had a beard longer than any Whiskered Screech could hope for. Now a shadow fell across that beard, a short shadow due to the sun’s angle, but recognizable nonetheless. Bess noted the slight dip in the crown of the head, the soft swoop of the brow tufts. It was a Boreal. And not just any Boreal, but the very one who had supposedly been poisoned and lay dying in the bell tower. Worse, it was wearing battle claws! Bess felt her gizzard tremble and then lock. She had been completely duped. And there was only one reason why an owl, a strange owl, would find his way to this place and attempt such a deception. The ember!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Scholar or Warrior?

  Bess was a scholar. She had never fought. Never worn battle claws, never held a weapon, never even wielded a burning branch—perish the thought! There must be no flames in the Palace of Mists with its treasure trove of books and maps. But now she knew that Bess the scholar would have to change. Was she up to it? Did she have a choice? She had no doubt that the intruder was after the ember. How many places in the palace had the Boreal Owl searched so far? If he went through the passageway and was persistent enough, he would find the spiraling tunnel to the stone chamber, the one the Others had called the “crypt.” It was a burial vault that contained coffins and the relics of great scholars. It was in one of these coffins that Bess had placed the cask that held the Ember of Hoole.

  The Ember of Hoole presented baffling and often dangerous choices to those entrusted with its keeping. Forged in the fires of the Sacred Ring of volcanoes in a time before time, retrieved more than a thousand years ago by Hoole, it was this peculiar and powerful ember that anointed the true kings of Ga’Hoole. There would be other monarchs, good ones, but to be an embered monarch was very special. There had only been two in the entire thousand-year history of the tree: Hoole and Coryn.

  With the ember came many blessings. But it seemed that with every blessing there came a curse. For the ember contained in its fiery gizzard a power for both good and bad—for bad especially in the talons of a weak or evil owl. One had to be exceedingly careful in its presence. Hoole, an owl of exceptional mettle, withstood these influences. However, it had been so long since owls had lived under the rule of an embered king that they were not always prepared for the dangers it posed.

  Now wedged between two lethal-looking stone arrowheads, Bess thought of the tribulations that had accompanied the ember since Coryn had retrieved it. Many of the owls of the great tree had fallen under the ember’s thrall and had begun to worship it; then sometime later the Striga, the strange blue owl from the Middle Kingdom, came to exert a malignant influence over Coryn and to seek even greater power by seizing the ember. Thank Glaux, Bess thought, he had failed.

  Would Bess fail to protect the ember now? Would she fail to act? The minutes lengthened; the shadows, too, as the sun passed its zenith. The silhouette of the Boreal Owl began to slide over the cabinet. Would he turn toward the passageway that led to the crypt? Should she wait? She did not complete the thought but seized two sharp stone points, one in each talon, burst from the cabinet, and flew at the Boreal Owl.

  She flew directly for the owl’s gizzard and would have landed a fatal blow except for the glancing swipe of one of the intruder’s battle-clawed talons which sent her reeling. Blood spun through the air. At first, Bess was not sure where it came from, but then realized the blood was not her own. She saw it stream from the underside of the intruder’s wing, a spot called the wingpit. Had she struck the gizzard or the heart it would have meant his instant death. The owl staggered in his flight, and Bess was relieved to see his wounded wing droop. Confusion swam in the owl’s eyes. But Bess’s relief did not last for long. The furious owl hurtled wildly toward her with startling speed despite his wound. The arrowhead fell to the floor with a clink. The intruder attempted to seize it, but missed and, in one swift, graceful movement, Bess shoved it out of his way with a sweep of her wing tip, and then quickly retrieved it for herself. The two owls now began circling each other. Bess knew nothing about the strategies of talon-to-talon combat, or of fighting defensively. Her gizzard pulsed wildly. She was definitely out of her element. And she could tell that this Boreal Owl was a seasoned combat soldier.

  “Where is it?” the owl demanded.

  “Where is what?” she parried.

  “The Ember of Hoole.”

  “I know nothing of any ember.”

  “You don’t expect me to believe that!”

  Still they circled. It was as if Bess’s brain was operating on two levels. On one, she was trying to fight, on the other, she was trying to parry with words, upset this owl’s equilibrium as she had done with the jab to the wingpit, but mentally, gizzardly.

  “I never expected a Boreal Owl to abuse the tolling ritual. What you did was a profanity.” Did she detect a slight flinching of plumage, as if the owl was about to wilf? “Forget glaumora,” she added. “You’ll rot in hagsmire.”

  “Never!” the owl spat vehemently. “We shall control hagsmire and all its fiends.”

  Now it was Bess who flinched. What was this owl talking about? The Boreal Owl saw his opening in the fraction of time Bess had let her mind wander. The owl rushed in and struck her to the stone floor. The wind was knocked from her and she heard the clink once more of a stone point as it fell to the floor. She still held one in her talon. She saw a flash as the Boreal Owl flew for the spiraling stairs. The crypt! She banished all thoughts from her brain and in that utterly mindless moment, Bess of the Chimes, Bess the Knower, became a warrior. She would not think. She would not feel. She would only kill. She blasted through the air like a missile. Down, down, down into the crypt, she spiraled on the tail of the other Boreal. They zigzagged through the maze of stone. Bess heard the clank of the battle claws as the owl skimmed a corner. This owl was not a precision flier. I am better at this, Bess thought. He couldn’t even pick up the arrowhead when he had knocked it from her talons. A clear shot, that’s all I need. One clear shot. Bess began to drive the owl out from the narrow alleys between the stone coffins. There was a bay at the back of the crypt. If she could get him to fly there, he would be trapped. She must make him think the ember was in that bay. That was it! She stopped her flight and reversed her direction suddenly, and began to carve a turn toward the bay. The owl took the bait. He thought she was flying back to defend the ember.

  And now an odd thing transpired. Bess felt as if she were actually becoming two owls. There was Bess the warrior, the strategist who swiveled her head back and tried to muster a fearsome look in her eyes, and then there was Bess the observer. The Bess she knew. Bess now pretended to dart from her course, but gave her opponent ample berth to block the move. It’s working! It’s working! They were almost in the bay. There were a few niches in the walls where candles had once burned to light the crypt. She flew directly toward one, then did an inside-out loop and hovered against the niche with her wings spread wide as if she were protecting something—something precious.

  “Let me at it or I’ll tear you to pieces,” the intruder screeched.

  Bess said nothing. She continued to hover against the stone wall. Now she did not have to feign fear. She was frightened. Her gizzard twitched in spasms of pure terror. But she must hold steady and draw him closer. She heard the click of the battle claws as he extended them. The serrated edges gleamed and then blurred as the Boreal charged. Bess bunched her shoulder and raised her talon, and the air glinted as bits of mica embedded in the arrowhead flashed like shooting stars.

  And then it was over.

  Bess blinked. Beneath her, the Boreal Owl had fallen. From its breast, an arrowhead protruded. And now the owl was truly gasping its last breath on earth. Bess bent over the dying owl.

  “I suppose now you expect me to toll you to glaumora.”

  The amber eyes growing tarnished as l
ife seeped from him suddenly brightened with a horrifying glint. “I am in hag’s cradle now. Hagsmire is my glaumora. You will see. Just wait…just…” But the words evaporated as the owl met death.

  “Death profane,” Bess whispered. She was no longer Bess the warrior. She had stepped back inside her own body and only now realized that she was shaking uncontrollably.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A Wolf and a Bear

  Sveep trundled along the overland route. She had never been out of the Northern Kingdoms before. And perhaps it was insane not to be swimming. But the katabats had begun to blow earlier, as Svarr had predicted, and the pack ice was being driven down faster than she had anticipated. She was not sure that the puffin would get up his nerve to go to the owls. She had told him to go, but would he? She felt she had to do something despite the weariness, the lethargy that afflicted all polar bears with the coming of winter. A backup plan was needed. The backup plan was the she-wolf, Gyllbane, her old friend. She would go to her and tell her what the puffin had seen.

  There was one thing of which she was certain. She was not carrying babies this season. It was nice to have a rest. Beneath the call of winter’s long sleep, she felt a new energy. And who would want to bring young cubs into such a world, anyway, if what she could piece together from the puffin’s jumbled narrative was true?

  She had made Gyllbane’s acquaintance perhaps three summers ago. The wolf was racked with grief over the loss of her son and, as she said, needed to get away. Sveep had just given birth to her second set of cubs, and Gyllbane proved herself remarkably helpful with them. Auntie Gyll, the cubs had begun to call her almost as soon as they could speak. Sveep knew that Gyllbane had been very close to Coryn, the monarch of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. She had shared so much with Gyllbane, and Gyllbane with her. And she knew she must share this, too.

  Sveep had been traveling two days and was now approaching Broken Talon Point. The landscape had begun to change contrasting sharply with the treeless world from which Sveep had come. There was not a trace of snow, and what had been a sprinkling of trees soon thickened into groves of tall firs and spruce. Sveep had little use for trees but she could appreciate the quiet grandeur with which they rose from this otherwise barren landscape. She knew that farther into the Beyond, the trees became fewer again. As Gyllbane had explained, it was a harsh, stark landscape.

  It was not far from here that she knew Gyllbane made her summer camp. She would be closing in on it soon. She had to remember not to call the wolf by her old name. She was no longer Gyllbane, but Namara. Since Sveep had last seen her, the wolf had become the chieftain of the MacNamaras—a clan distinguished by both extreme intelligence and toughness.

  In the country known as the Beyond, each wolf clan had its own territory but the MacNamara territory was at some remove from the rest. They joined the other clans on the seasonal byrrgis, the formations for hunting, and came for the various all-clan gatherings at the Sacred Ring. But the MacNamara clan preferred to keep its distance from the others.

  Suddenly, from behind a fir tree, a small wolf pup scampered out. The pup could not have been more than six moons old. It looked plump, and Sveep realized for the first time that she was hungry. Of course, it wouldn’t do to eat a wolf pup. But she wondered now what she would do for food. She was far from the sea. The salt tang had faded and with it her customary food choices—fish, the occasional seal, otter. All the delicious choices of the Northern Kingdoms. What in the name of Ursa did one eat around here? Trees? She plodded on, hoping the pup would keep its distance. She didn’t want to deal with the temptation. It was a curious little critter, all fluff, and yapping now.

  “Are you real? I mean really real?” the pup asked Sveep.

  Sveep kept going and tried not to look at the pup. “Of course I’m real. Aren’t you?”

  “Oh, yes. You bet. Almost six moons old. Another moon and I get to go on my first byrrgis. You’re a polar bear, aren’t you?”

  “Indeed.” Sveep said as little as possible.

  “You’re bigger than a grizzly. We’d have a hard time taking you down to eat. I think we’d need two clans to do it. So don’t worry.”

  Me, worry? Sveep thought.

  “Crannog!” A beautiful silver she-wolf exploded from some brush. It ran straight toward Sveep then immediately lowered her body. Pressing her belly to the ground, she flattened her ears and flashed the whites of her eyes. “Show some manners, Crannog,” she growled to her pup. The little pup immediately crouched down.

  Sveep stopped short. She had heard that the dire wolves of the Beyond had strange ways, but this beat all. They were scraping on their bellies toward Sveep. What in the name of Ursa was going on? “We have heard of your kind from Namara,” the she-wolf said.

  “Yes, yes, I am an old friend of Gyll…Namara. I have important news for her. I must see her right away. Point me in the right direction.”

  The she-wolf stopped groveling. “Point you in right direction!” she almost shrieked. “You think ye can just barge into her den?” The wolf had an odd accent, a sing-songy voice that Sveep now remembered was similar to that of Gyllbane.

  “Well…well, let her know I’m here. But I’ve got to see her immediately.”

  The wolf now drew herself up to her full height. The sun was setting, washing the land with a soft pink-orange light. Her silvery fur seemed to shimmer. “My name is Blair. How do ye call yourself?”

  “Sveep.”

  “Ah!” she replied. She nodded her head slightly.

  “You know me?”

  “I know of ye. I know that you are the bear that Namara, when she was still Gyllbane, shared a cave with somewhere far north of here. It was the time when she be sick with grief for her son, Cody. I know you were a great comfort to her and that she done poured out her grief until she was left so weak she could not eat and that you fed her some of the milk from your own teats. Milk that was for your cubs.”

  “Oh, my cubs were fat. I had milk to spare.”

  “She might have died had you not.” She sighed. “But she did not tell you of our peculiar ways, I suppose. You saw what I did—” She paused. “—And what my son did not do—when I first came up to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I made the gestures a wolf would make to one of higher rank.” She then turned to her pup, who was still groveling on the ground. “And until this young’un learns, he shall not go on any byrrgis.” A little whine came from the pile of fur. The pup had hidden his eyes behind his paws in shame. Only the pink of his nose could be seen. Blair continued in her lilting voice. “We have our codes of conduct. The Gaddernock we call it; the way of the dire wolf clans. Now follow me and I will take you to the Gadderheal, our ceremonial cave.”

  “But I just want to see Gyll…I mean, Namara, in her own den. This need not be so…so formal.”

  “Oh, it’s not a matter of formality.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “It’s the only place you’ll fit.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Namara Howls

  You say the puffin said something about hagsfiends.” Namara’s eyes glistened like resplendent twin emeralds in the dark gloom of the cave. Outside, tree limbs creaked in a sudden wind. Sveep nodded. “And then you say the other owl, the blue one, said something about the Ember of Hoole?”

  “Not exactly in that order,” Sveep replied. “First, the blue owl said that he knew all about the ember. And then the other owl said something about hagsfiends.”

  Namara’s eyes became green slits. Her hackles rose stiffly, and her ears stood up straight. She began padding about the cave in a tight circle. “This is bad…very bad.”

  “I know nothing about the ember or hagsfiends,” Sveep said. “This is all owl business, isn’t it?”

  “Yes…” Then Namara stopped and peered at her old friend, who had been so helpful to her in the time of her overwhelming grief. “But it is our business, as well. All of us.” She paused again. “Cody.” Her voice broke a
s she spoke her son’s name, remembering that last image of him dead atop the Book of Kreeth, his throat slashed. “Cody died trying to save the world from hagsfiends.”

  “But I thought they were just creatures of legends, very old legends, and as the owl said, have been gone for a thousand years.” There was a desperate note in Sveep’s voice as if she were grasping for some small thread of hope.

  “I thought that, too, but Coryn told me that the legends, are not mere legends. This book, the one they called the Book of Kreeth, was an ancient tome that had belonged to an arch hagsfiend. It was thought to have formulas and designs for all sorts of haggish inventions and creations. That is why the Guardians fought so hard in the Beyond, to keep it from Nyra and the Pure Ones, and why we helped them.”

  Sveep knew that Gyllbane and Coryn were about as close as a wolf and an owl could be. It was Gyllbane who had been there when Coryn had retrieved the Ember of Hoole. “And tell me, Sveep,” the wolf continued, “the other owl—what did the puffin say it looked like?”

  “Terrible. The puffin said he wasn’t sure if it was a Great Horned, a Barn Owl, or what. He thought maybe a Barn Owl, but its feathers were dark and raggedy at the ends. Almost black like a crow’s and when it turned its face, it was terribly scarred.”

  Namara lowered her head and shook it back and forth mournfully. “How has this happened? Cody can’t have died in vain. It can’t be true.” But she knew it was. Somehow an evil had started to seep back into their peaceful universe. What was the word owls used? Nachtmagen? Yes, nachtmagen was…The wolf could not finish the thought. She trotted out of the Gadderheal. A full moon blazed in the sky. She stood in a silver column of its light and, throwing her head back, began to howl the strange mad music of wolves. These were not the cries of mourning. Of this much even Sveep could tell. Savage and untamed, this was a howl of rage.

  Namara’s wolves stirred in their dens, and the wind carried her howls to those more distant clans. No other creatures knew the meaning of the wolves’ howling. They only knew that once it started, it did not end for hours. The grizzly bear, the moose, the caribou, the jack-rabbits, the birds that flew overhead, felt the song drill into every part of their beings. But what did it mean, this wild song? For that is what the other creatures of the Beyond called it. They would whisper to one another in their dens or burrows, “They are wild singing again.” “It’s the moon,” one would say. Then another would argue, “No, it’s not the moon. It can be moonless and still they sing.” “They’re crazy!” another might say.