Book 12 - The Golden Tree (3 page)

the ember. Fear enslaves. Remember that. And I
command that the ancient legends, the ones that Ezylryb
22 34 directed me to read with Soren, now be placed in the library and read by al of you. If you read these legends, you wil learn respect and not fear. With knowledge comes freedom - freedom to think, freedom to reason. The ember and its magic have nothing to do with thinking and that is perhaps why it can be so dangerous."
No one said another word as the owls flew out of the hol ow.
23 CHAPTER FOUR
The Band Takes Flight
The Band had gathered in Coryn's hol ow to discuss the "security of the ember." "No! It's out of the question. I don't want to be on some council for guarding this thing." Otulissa tossed her head at the ember, which did seem to spit a few sparks in response to her disparaging tone. "I have too much to do. You know that new

bunch in training for col iering is a feisty group.
Great Glaux, Fritha is always just winging off, chasing embers that she has no business going after. She has no sense of playing her ground position, which is essential y what we rely on the Pygmy Owls for. And then, of course, there are my chores in the library. No, I wil not 'ember-sit' or whatever you cal it.'
"Wel , I'd appoint Eglantine, but she's my aunt and I'm afraid that wouldn't appear, wel ... quite proper," Coryn replied.
"What about Audrey? You could do without her for a bit, couldn't you, Otulissa?" Soren asked. 24 36 "Audrey? Wel , I suppose so. Audrey might even enjoy it. She might consider it an honor - bless her simple heart."
"Not so with Octavia," Gylfie said. "Oh, Great Glaux," Otulissa churred. "Octavia would think the whole thing total y yoicks." "Madame Plonk?" Digger offered.

"Now that's an interesting idea. It might appeal to
Madame Plonk." Madame Plonk was the great singer of the tree, quite vain about many things, and the group thought it might be just her thing to serve on this ember watch.
It did not take Coryn long to come up with his suggested list for the watch. Ultimately, it was composed of twenty owls, some members of parliament like Gemma, Elyan, and Yeena, a Barn Owl, a half dozen nest-maid snakes, and the rest pul ed from the various chaws. It was a wel - balanced group in everyone's estimation. There were no hurt feelings, and no one, aside from Otulissa, refused to serve.
And so at First Black, the young king and the Band rose in the night on a snappish wind that swirled down from the north, and headed out across the Sea of Hoolemere on a course toward Ambala. The shadows
25 37 of the five owls were printed against the almost ful -shine moon with Coryn flying in the lead position, flanked on one side by Soren and on the

other by Twilight. Gylfie flew just behind Twilight's
starboard wing, her favorite position as navigator, for she was sucked along effortlessly by the powerful Great Gray's forward thrust and could concentrate on the stars rather than flying. Digger brought up the rear.
"Two points south by southeast of the bottom star, port talon of the Golden Talons," Gylfie cal ed out. Soren felt his gizzard sing. How long ago it had been since he and Gylfie had flown as young'uns in those early navigation practices with Strix Struma? One of her favorite exercises was for them to trace with their wing tips the outline of the Golden Talons constel ation, which shone in the winter sky at its brightest just this time of year. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Now here was Gylfie, the head of the navigation chaw and regarded as one of the most bril iant celestial navigators in the kingdoms of owls. But in owl years they weren't that old. Yes, older than they were back then, but stil strong and fit. Soren knew they must show the rest of the owl world their wonderful king and bring with them the skil s and knowledge that they had learned at the great

tree. Coryn was right. Knowledge was freedom and
no one could be enslaved if
26 38 they dared to real y think. If good things came out of this flight through the owl kingdoms they would be to dispel the myth of the ember and to help owls believe in themselves and their own power of thought. They would learn what could be accomplished through the disciplines that had been so highly developed at the great tree: col iering, navigating by the stars, and the science of interpreting weather. Soren had a name for al of this knowledge and it had nothing to do with magic. He cal ed it the "glories of common sense." A seagul flew up to them. "Hey, Twilight!" Sammy!" Twilight exclaimed. '"Haven't seen you in an age."
"Gotta great wet poop joke for you," the seagul said.
' Oh, dear! Should I close my ear slits?" Gylfie asked.
"Oh, sure!" Twilight flicked his head toward the

little Elf Owl. "We know how delicate you are! Who
told that joke to that snooty great blue heron back in Silverveil and nearly got a fish thrown in her face?" Twilight turned his head to the seagul . "So what's the joke, Sammy?"
"What's the difference between a wet pooper and a pel et yarper?"
The Band looked at one another and exchanged glances. "I don't know. I give up," Twilight said. The seagul had already started to laugh at his own
27 39 joke and could hardly finish it." "It's a matter of splatter!" the seagul screamed. He was now completely convulsed with laughter and ricocheted off the edge of a thermal draft into a cold trough and was gone
"Glaux, he barely made it to the punch line!"Gylfie exclaimed.
They were al laughing now. Luckly Otulissa isn't here, Soren thought. She did not like what she termed "elimination humor." She always became

very upset when they were out on weather-
interpretation chaws and encountered seagul s, who were the coarsest of birds. But this rough humor was just what coryn needed. He needed to good company of the band he would relax, join in their easy, joyful camaraderie, and those terrible thoughts that haunted him would pass. If they had never read the legends, soren had wondered lately, would Coryn have become so fixated on his past? Perhaps even more interesting, soren wondered if coryn had ever had any carefree days when he was being raised by Nyra, Did he ever have a friend as a youn'un? Coryn had once mentioned an owl - a Sooty named Phil ip But he never wanted to talk about Phil ip. It seeined to make him extremely sad. The Pure Ones were known to discriminate against any owl
40 who was not a tyro alba. sooties-although a kind of Barn Owl-occupied the lowest perch in the world of the Pure Ones. so this phil ip's life was bound to have been a hard one.
Soren's life had not been an easy one, either, alter his fal from the family hol ow in the forest of Tyto.

But it would have been unspeakably worse if he had
not met up with Gylfie, Twilight, and Digger, The Band had become his family when he had none. They had become one another's reasons for living, flying on through obstacle after obstacle to reach the tree so long ago. In truth, Soren had learned as much from Digger, Gylfie, and Twilight as from any book. And he must not forget 'Ezylryb. just as there was a Chaw of Chaws - the Band, plus Otulissa, Martin, Ruby, and Eglantine- there was also a ryb of
rybs: Ezylryb.
29 CHAPTER FIVE
Tel it! Tel it!
A contrary wind had risen, and holding the course for Ambala was tiring after their crossing of the Hoolemere Sea. Dawn was approaching and so the five owls decided to head for Silverveil, one of the most delightful forests in al the owl kingdoms, with its lush meadows sprinkled with wildflowers in

the summer and its forests of old and stately trees.
Silverveil was the place where Coryn had first begun to understand what the color green real y was. His entire childhood until the time he had escaped from Nyra and the Pure Ones had been spent in the barren, rocky scrub landscape of the canyonlands, which were bereft of anything resembling a tree, let alone green leaves or spruce or pine needles.
Within the forest of Silverveil, there was a pocket of green splendor cal ed Blythewold that was as pretty as any place on Earth. Soren and Pel i had named one of their daughters Blythe after this place. And it was here that Coryn had lived for a long time before summoning his
30 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 tel ing 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 final y 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 hol ow of the fir tree in the forest of Tyto where he had first heard his father tel 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 real y was an island 31 43 cal ed 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 cal ed the Pure Ones? Soren shook the past from his mind.
It had begun to snow. "If I know fir trees, there wil be a nice roomy hol ow, dry and sweet-smel ing," 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 al smacked their beaks in anticipation. Gylfie turned to Coryn. "Not up for a rabbit?" she asked. "Wel , 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 hol ow.
32 44 "Not on an empty gizzard, it isn't!" Twilight boomed. "Let's get hunting."
"I'l 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 al owed 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 kil 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 smal 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.
33 45 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.'
"Wel , as you said, there are lots of rabbits around here."
"Yeah, they can't al 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 al happened long ago, in the Shadow Forest. Not here. I'm just always real y careful when I go out rabbit hunting to check to see if my prey has that mark. He cal ed 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. Wel , this rabbit could read things in spiderwebs." "You gotta be kidding!" Twilight exclaimed. "No, not at al ." 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
34 about to explain what the rabbit actual y 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 kil ed. No matter what the wind direction was, it never offset his kil 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 hol ow. It was customary among owls that whoever made the kil got the first choice of meat, or "firsts" as it was often cal ed. Undoubtedly, Twilight would go for a haunch, for that was usual y 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." 35 47 "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 hol ow.'
"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 unusual y 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?