To Be a King Read online

  “Yes, Your Majesty. That will be most helpful.”

  Hoole tapped his head with a single talon. “And why not use polar bears as slipgizzles, too?” Hoole blinked at his own question.

  “A wonderful idea!” Joss exclaimed. “I know several.”

  “With your contacts up there, Joss, we’ll at least have a chance of keeping track of the new alliances.”

  “If I may offer a suggestion, Your Grace?” Strix Strumajen stepped forward.

  “Certainly, ma’am.”

  “Perhaps gadfeathers might make good slipgizzles because of their wandering ways.”

  “Brilliant! The Snow Rose might help us find them!” Hoole exclaimed, and then continued quietly as if thinking aloud, “By Glaux—gadfeathers, polar bears, monks, who knows? Maybe even wolves!—we will bring the battle to them with alliances of our own, alliances beyond anything they ever dreamed of.”

  As soon as Strix Strumajen left, Hoole sent for Phineas and Theo. He was fluttering around in great agitation when the two young owls arrived. Hoole briefly explained his idea for a network of slipgizzles, some of whom might be gadfeathers and polar bears, spread throughout the owl kingdoms. He finished by telling them the sad story of Strix Strumajen’s daughter, Emerilla, who had fought so bravely in the skirmish at the Ice Fangs. Hoole glanced at the ember. “It will take strategy, planning, and cunning to bring war to the enemy—not mere magic.”

  “But Hoole,” Grank interrupted. “You should not go to the Northern Kingdoms. It is still too dangerous for you there. But you’re certainly right about the Snow Rose. She might be useful.”

  Grank seemed unduly agitated to Hoole. He was perched near the ember and, instead of draining the Spotted Owl’s energy as it had done long ago, it seemed to be infusing him with a nervous excitement.

  “Nobody will want the Snow Rose to leave the tree,” said Theo. “They love her voice too much.”

  “A small sacrifice for a great cause. This is what we are about here. Phineas, you could accompany her. You are not known in the Northern Kingdoms. And perhaps Theo could go to the Southern Kingdoms.” Grank spoke rapidly.

  “And I, as well—to the Southern Kingdoms,” Hoole said firmly. He observed how Grank with this new nervous energy was taking over the planning and could not help but wonder if the ember was somehow influencing him. As he began to speak again, he watched the others to see if there were any noticeable differences in their behavior. “Also, I feel that it would be better if Phineas came with me to the Southern Kingdoms. He is, after all, from the Shadow Forest there. He knows the territory.”

  “Yes, you are right,” Grank said immediately.

  “And owls in the Northern Kingdoms really don’t know me that well,” Theo said. Theo’s background was somewhat shrouded in mystery. He came from a remote firth, the Firth of Grundenspyrr off the Firth of Fangs, and only rarely mentioned his family.

  Grank, appearing somewhat calmer, began to speak again. “If you are to be gone all that time, we will need to set up a system so I can get messages to you.”

  “How would that work?” Phineas said. “You won’t know where we are.”

  “Dead drops,” Grank answered.

  Hoole and Joss blinked. Neither of them had even heard the words before.

  “Dead drops?” Phineas asked in almost a whisper. “Aren’t they dangerous? Haunted, some say.”

  “Nonsense! Just old owl tales. Dead drops”—Grank turned to Hoole and Joss to explain—“are seemingly healthy trees that fall in the prime of their life for no particular reason. Many owls are very suspicious of them—nachtmagen, they think. It is no such thing. I have made a study of dead drops, which I shall not bore you with now, but there are structural reasons for them to crash. In any case, they are the perfect spot for coded messages to be left. I will make up a map of the ones that I know throughout the various forests of the S’yrthghar. You must check them regularly. Cuthbert and Gemma on the watch branch are strong fliers. We can use them as messengers in addition to Joss.”

  “Excellent ideas, Grank. Thank you so much.” Hoole was relieved that his old friend seemed to be himself once again. But when he regarded the others, they seemed to have a somewhat distant look in their eyes. Were they daunted by the task he had set for them? They appeared to be not quite focused. They needed to pay attention to what he was about to say. It was of vital importance. Hoole inhaled sharply, then began to speak slowly and most gravely. “But there is one thing.”

  “What is that?” Grank asked.

  “Time is not on our side. We must strike first, and by Short Light at the very latest. The Long Night will be our best ally.” Long Night was the longest night of the year and it was preceded by the shortest day, Short Light. During the time surrounding these two days, the sun never rose more than a sliver above the horizon.

  “But Short Light is hardly three moon cycles away,” Joss said.

  “I know,” replied Hoole. “There is much to be done. And it will be done.”

  “By Short Light, then.” Grank nodded.

  “By Short Light,” the other owls echoed.

  They echo my thoughts but do they really agree? Hoole wondered. There was something mechanical in their response. Was this how subjects of an absolute ruler conducted themselves? He needed thinking owls, not owlipoppen, the little doll owls that parents gave their chicks to play with. Was the ember destroying their ability to think like individual owls, to question, to challenge? This was frightening. Perhaps, Hoole thought, I should tuck the ember away. He remembered the first night they had come to the island after the Battle in the Beyond and how the entire island and the tree seemed enveloped in a luminous light. He had wondered then if it was the moon or the ember that had cast that light and had questioned the limits, the reach of the ember’s power. But there was no time for pondering right now—no time at all if they were to invade by Short Light.

  So it was settled. They would depart on their missions the following evening. Grank would stay behind to act as Hoole’s regent in his absence. He would inform the parliament of the plan and, while Hoole was gone, he would work on the secret chamber he was constructing with a Burrowing Owl in Grank’s hollow. For it was there that Hoole had decided to hide the ember. Not in his own hollow, but in Grank’s. Whom can I trust if not Grank—Grank my mentor, Grank my foster father, Grank my guardian.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A Mission for Half-hags

  The katabats were just beginning to blow, and for Theo they were a robust, windy welcome to the kingdom that had once been his home. Some said that these tricky and tumultuous drafts from the north were the invisible wall that discouraged owls of the S’yrthghar Kingdoms from venturing to the N’yrthghar. Theo, however, found the winds bracing and enjoyed the sport they offered. Grank had provided him with the names of the polar bears to contact who might make good slipgizzles. Of special importance was one named Svenka who had been a close friend of the late Queen Siv. She was said at this time of year—autumn—to be making her way from her summer lodge on Dark Fowl Island to a remote firthkin not that far from Theo’s former home in the Firth of Grundenspyrr. His gizzard pinched at the thought of his family. It had not been a happy hollow. His father was so strict. His mum a meek little thing and not that bright. Until his little brother, Shadyk, came along, Theo had borne the brunt of his father’s rages. His father was a retired H’rathian Guardsman. Although he had never risen to the rank of officer himself, he dreamed that Theo would join the Guard and accomplish what he had not.

  But Theo had had no taste for battle or a soldier’s life. Quiet and studious, he had learned to read by visiting a Glauxian Brother. When his father discovered this, he was furious.

  “They’re cowards, moon calves, the lot of them! Lazy, good-for-nothing owls. Don’t know an ice scimitar from a pile of yarped pellets.”

  “They’re good owls. They just don’t believe in violence,” Theo had argued. “Their nature is that of restraint. Their passion is pea
ce. Their heroism comes from their mercy. Their honor is found in resistance, their dignity in their humility.”

  “Oh, shut up, for Glaux’s sake!” His father had raised a talon and swatted Theo across the hollow.

  There had not been a word of protest from his mum, just a mournful sigh.

  His older sister, Pye, had escaped the hollow as soon as she could and, much to her family’s horror, they discovered that she had joined a troop of gadfeathers. Pye could take care of herself. It was his little brother, Shadyk, that Theo worried about. Undersized, rather clumsy, and with all the meekness of his mum, he had become the favorite target of his da’s anger, who humiliated him in front of others, often beating him. Theo tried to protect the little fellow as best he could. But one night Theo and his da had a terrible row. Theo decided he could take it no longer and so he flew off.

  When Theo had come to the island in the Bitter Sea and met Grank, he had found the father he had always yearned for. Then a few short weeks after his arrival, the egg Grank had kept so carefully sequestered in his hollow hatched and Hoole came into the world. Theo simply could not believe his luck. For him, it was as if he had found a new little brother, indeed almost a whole new family.

  But for all this time, Theo had been haunted with guilt for abandoning his little brother to endure the cruelties of their father all by himself. Then he realized with a start that Shadyk would now be old enough to go off on his own. He must have done so by this time.

  Theo was concentrating so hard that he did not pick up the haggish stench of crow that was but a whiff on the edges of the tearing winds.

  But the hagsfiend of the Ice Narrows rarely missed a creature who passed her way. Kreeth backed quickly into her cave as she saw Theo rounding a bend in the channel.

  “Lutta, get out there. Remember the camouflage lessons I’ve taught you?”

  “Yes, Auntie.” Kreeth had settled upon “Auntie” as the term of endearment Lutta should use when addressing her.

  “Code S-S-S.”

  “Snowy-Slender-Still,” Lutta confirmed.

  “Get out there and do it. Keep one eye closed, the other a slit, and alert your half-hags. Then report back to me.”

  “Yes, Auntie.”

  “Be quick about it. He’s almost here.”

  Lutta didn’t pause to ask who Kreeth wanted her to watch. She immediately turned as white as a Snowy Owl, then stepped outside the cave and arranged herself on the ice shelf. Intentionally wilfing, she narrowed her body by pressing her feathers close to her sides and stood as tall as possible. She appeared to be just another icicle among the many that hung like a fringed ice curtain in front of the cave. Within seconds, she spied the Great Horned. A strong flier, she noticed. He seemed to be accustomed to the north winds. When he had disappeared around another bend, she lifted her wings slightly and dispatched her half-hags to track him. “No poison,” she ordered. A small swarm of them flew forth.

  Half-hags possessed the uncanniest abilities to interpret and detect the faintest changes or traces in an air current disturbed by the wings of a passing owl. A tiny filament of down still spinning in the eddies, the musty odor of a pellet yarped in flight, nothing was too minuscule, too insignificant for the half-hags to detect.

  “So what did you find out?” Kreeth asked when Lutta returned.

  “Excellent flier. Appears to be used to the katabats. Heading on a course that will take him over the Ice Dagger.”

  Kreeth nodded.

  “Appears to have come from the south.”

  “That’s obvious,” Kreeth said scathingly.

  “But wait! The half-hags report that they picked up traces of a very strange sort of tree, one they have never detected from any bird coming out of the S’yrthghar.”

  Kreeth’s dark, crowish eyes became little pinpricks of blackness that had the intensity of the brightest light. Excitement stirred within Lutta at the sight of her mistress’s eyes. She knew that Kreeth was impressed. Her half-hags had performed brilliantly. “Very interesting!” Kreeth said in a raw whisper. “You must continue to follow him—discreetly. Send out your half-hags. I want to know everything.” She paused. “I repeat, everything.”

  “Yes, Auntie,” Lutta replied.

  “And, dearie?”

  “Yes, Auntie?”

  “Your mother was renowned for the excellence of her half-hags. I wager that yours will be twice as good.”

  There was a slight rustle deep within Lutta’s feathers. It was the murmur of the half-hags stirring in poisonous pleasure.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Theo Meets Svenka

  “She’s dead? Siv is really dead?” The polar bear swung her massive head from side to side as if trying to make sense out of these words.

  Theo nodded. “I am sorry to bring you this sad news.” He had found the polar bear Svenka in an inlet off the Firth of Fangs. Just before Theo left, Hoole had visited his forge at the great tree and seen in the flames of the forge’s fires what he felt was surely Svenka and her cubs swimming north by northwest.

  “Mum, did Auntie Siv die?” Rolf asked. Svenka’s cubs, Rolf and Anka, were now almost half as big as their mother. Siv nodded and both the cubs began crying.

  “We’ll never see her again,” Anka gasped in disbelief.

  Theo knew he must give the kind bear her time to grieve, but the urgency of his mission pressed upon him. His gizzard began to twitch nervously. He must set up the slipgizzling system. Every moment was precious. Information was desperately needed to plan the invasion.

  “But you say that they finally did meet as mother and son?” Svenka asked.

  “Yes. She died folded in his wings.” Theo was beginning to feel desperate. He could sense the minutes slipping through his talons. But Svenka and her cubs were there before him, awash in grief. He turned to the twin cubs and, remembering what Grank had said to comfort Hoole at his mother’s death, repeated it to Rolf and Anka. “Siv and her son will meet again in glaumora,” he said, “—in owl heaven.”

  The cubs instantly looked toward their mother. “But…” Anka blinked with confusion. “If Siv is in owl heaven and we are in bear heaven, we won’t see her there, either.”

  “Don’t worry, child,” Theo said. “There are no separate heavens. All creatures are together. We just call them by different names.”

  “But you have not come merely to tell me of the death of my dear friend,” Svenka said.

  A feeling of great relief swept through Theo. “No. I have been sent by Hoole. Are you familiar with the term ‘slipgizzle’?”

  “Spy,” Svenka said with more than a hint of unpleasantness in her voice.

  “Yes.” Theo paused. “I’m not asking that you go out and spy, but just to keep your ears open.” And, Theo thought, those are rather large ears. “There is not much time, Svenka. The last of the H’rathian troops were forced out of the palace by Lord Arrin. And now rumors abound that hagsfiends have formed an entire division—of just hagsfiends.”

  “A division of hagsfiends!” There was a flash of alarm in Svenka’s dark eyes.

  Theo nodded. The notion of King H’rath’s Ice Palace falling to hagsfiends was as unthinkable to a polar bear as it was to any decent owl in the N’yrthghar. “Winter is setting in. The more water that freezes, the safer the hags-fiends are and the more vulnerable we are. Hoole is planning an invasion, a massive one. It has to happen on or before the Long Night. And we need all the information we can get, as fast as we can get it.”

  Svenka shook her head heavily as if despairing. “But we bears are solitary creatures. We do not hear much news.”

  “Oh, Mum,” Rolf said, almost dancing off the iceberg with excitement. “I heard that a school of blueskins had been swimming out of the firthkin.” He turned to Theo.

  “And I heard a seal talking about anchovies in the ice gut that connects this firthkin to the big firth,” Anka said.

  “Cubs! Cubs!” Svenka interrupted. “I don’t think schooling fish is the information t
hat our friend Theo has in mind.”

  “Well, that is all very interesting,” Theo said politely, thinking that such information could be quite helpful in tracking other polar bears who might agree to become part of the slipgizzle network.

  “What exactly do you want to find out?” Svenka said.

  “There is an owl with King Hoole, a very brave owl and good fighter—Strix Strumajen of the Ice Regiment. Her daughter, although very young, decided to fight, as well, but was lost in a skirmish off the Ice Fangs. We want to know if she is still alive.”

  Svenka shuddered. She was all too familiar with hagsfiends’ habits. Just before her cubs were born, she had witnessed the murder of Myrrthe, Siv’s beloved servant. Never would she forget the image of that hagsfiend flying off with the huge white Snowy’s head impaled on the ice pike, still bleeding, leaving a trail like that of a bloody comet.

  “And,” Theo interrupted her grim recollections, “we need to learn all we can about the movements of hagsfiends and Lord Arrin.” Theo went on to tell Svenka about the great tree and how Hoole was starting a new order. “You see, Svenka,” Theo continued, “King Hoole is a very different sort of king. He does not want to be an absolute ruler. Despite the fact that he now possesses the greatest of all powers—the ember—he does not want to rule by any kind of magic—nachtmagen or otherwise. Hoole says that the true roots of power must be the ideals of goodness, equality, and nobility.”

  Svenka pondered the ways of hagsfiends and this young king. “I will find out what I can,” she told Theo.

  A deep quietness descended upon them and if the wind had not picked up, they might have heard the soft whispers of the half-hags’ wings.

  “What!” Kreeth screeched. “He wants to rid the world of magic? What an idiot!” She began to croak madly with laughter, then she turned serious. “But that ember! That ember! I must have it. It is wasted on this stupid king. It will be wasted on any creature, save myself.” Her eyes became dark pinpricks as the old hagsfiend began to dream of spells never imagined, of curses and enchantments never conceived. “Well, my dear, we have our work cut out for us. Now, tell me, have you practiced your Spotted Owl transformation lately?”