Guardians of Ga'Hoole: To Be A King
Read Guardians of Ga'Hoole: To Be A King Online
Authors: Kathryn Lasky
GUARDIANS OF GA’HOOLE
THE LEGENDS
By
SCHOLASTIC INC.
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“Where there are legends, there can be hope. Where there are legends, there can be dreams of knightly owls, from a kingdom called Ga’Hoole, who will rise each night into the blackness and perform noble deeds. Owls who speak no words but true ones. Owls whose only purpose is to right all wrongs, to make strong the weak, mend the broken, vanquish the proud, and make powerless those who abuse the frail. With hearts sublime, they take flight…”
CHAPTER THREE Meditations on an Ember
CHAPTER FIVE The Hagsfiend of the Ice Narrows
CHAPTER SIX The Education of Lutta
CHAPTER SEVEN Strix Strumajen Yearning
CHAPTER EIGHT A Mission for Half-hags
CHAPTER NINE Theo Meets Svenka
CHAPTER TEN Into the S’yrthghar
CHAPTER FOURTEEN A Stench Most Foul
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Black Feathers in the Desert
CHAPTER SIXTEEN In Search of a Feather
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Ice Palace of the H’rathghar
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN To Be Emerilla
CHAPTER NINETEEN An Old Friend
CHAPTER TWENTY A Rotting Palace
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Desert Hags
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Night of the Green Light
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Emerilla?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR An Assassination Attempt
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE “Who Am I? What Am I?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Not the Ember!
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Into the Short Light
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Into the Long Night
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE The Ice Palace
OWLS and others from the GUARDIANS OF GA’HOOLE SERIES
A peek at THE GUARDIANS of GA’HOOLE Book Twelve: The Golden Tree
“Nachtmagen!” The word hung in the air treacherous, insidious.
“Do you really think so, Coryn?” Gylfie asked. “Do you think that nachtmagen has seeped back into our world with the ember?”
The six owls peered down at the latticed iron box that contained the glowing Ember of Hoole. It was less than the cycle of one moon since Coryn had retrieved the ember from the fires of the volcano Dunmore in Beyond the Beyond to become the rightful heir to the throne of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. Good Coryn, noble Coryn. But now the owls were shocked as Coryn spoke of this bad magic, this nachtmagen from the ancient times that threatened to destroy the owl world. Through the latticework of the box, they could see the ember’s orange glow with the lick of blue in its center ringed in green. It seemed to pulsate, to breathe.
For several long nights and days the six knightly owls of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree had been reading the ancient volumes that contained the legends of Ga’Hoole. On his deathbed, Ezylryb, their beloved teacher, had instructed them to read these secret books that he had hidden away in his hollow.
“Ezylryb meant to warn us,” Digger said.
“But I don’t understand,” Gylfie protested. She was perched on the shoulder of the Great Gray, Twilight. “We were just getting to the good part. The Great Ga’Hoole Tree and the good magic that made it grow.”
Soren sighed and felt a bit of a tremor in his gizzard. “I am sure the ember brings much good. But we know that good and evil can exist side by side.”
“Soren is right,” Otulissa said. “Evil may cloak itself as good, and good can sometimes appear to be evil. They know each other’s ways.”
Coryn looked closely at Otulissa. The Spotted Owl had been his mentor in the Beyond. He trusted her greatly, but even he was surprised at how fairly she had described what he sensed were the dangers of the ember.
Had King Hoole himself been aware of the perils of the ember? Had he been able to vanquish the evil? The nachtmagen?
Perhaps they would learn from this last book of the legends. He turned to Soren. “Uncle Soren, let us begin the third legend.”
Soren swept one wing over the mouse-leather cover of the ancient volume. A puff of dust swirled into the air. The tarnished gold letters seemed to shine in the glow of the coal that was set nearby. In large letters were the words:
THE LEGENDS OF GA’HOOLE.
And then written smaller were four words
—
TO BE A KING.
A Great Tree
I
t matters not who I am, only that I tell the rest of the tale…
Hoole flew on, a simple knight among knights. No crown, no kingly trappings. He wore only his battle claws and, from his starboard claw, hung a crude metal container. In it glowed the mysterious coal that he had retrieved from the boiling lava of the volcano Dunmore in the Beyond. The heat from that ember, though strong, was not as intense as another, more illusive power that seemed to emanate from its depths.
How odd,
Hoole thought. The ember had drained Grank of energy and caused the powerful old owl to succumb to an overwhelming lethargy of mind and body. But this was not the case for Hoole. Indeed, it was quite the opposite. He felt a new strength that almost frightened him and with it came a taste for vengeance. Vengeance for his mother’s death, for his father’s murder, vengeance for all the ruin and desecration that Lord Arrin and his
hagsfiends had brought to a once-great kingdom. Hoole felt a deep unwelcome movement in his gizzard. Vengeance could be a distraction. And worse, vengeance was the elixir of tyrants. Creatures had been driven mad by vengeance.
On his port wing, Hoole was flanked by Grank, his mentor and foster father, and, on his starboard wing, by his two best friends: tiny Phineas, a Pygmy Owl, and Theo, a Great Horned. Behind them flew scores of owls and beneath them boiled a tempestuous sea. Through the sea’s cresting waves an island broke and on that island a great tree loomed. It was the most immense tree any of the owls had ever seen. It soared out of the clouds as if to scrape the moon and fling some of its silver to make a path for the owls to follow, for a thickening fog began to swirl that obscured the sea itself. But the mist turned pearly and a luminous glow surrounded the island. Did this light come from the moon? The stars? Or the glowing ember the young king named Hoole clutched in his battle-clawed talons? Once again, the power of this ember gave Hoole pause. What were its limits? What was the reach of its light?
Hoole came fresh from the great Battle in the Beyond against the forces of Lord Arrin and his hagsfiends. Lord Arrin was the usurper of the N’yrthghar, and slayer of King H’rath, Hoole’s father. Then in the Battle in the Beyond, Hoole’s mother, Queen Siv, had been slain as
well. Though Hoole and the H’rathian Guard had won this last battle, Hoole’s gizzard twisted in the agony of loss that shadowed their triumph.
But now was not the time for mourning. A new order was to begin on this night. Now more than ever, Hoole had to reclaim his father’s kingdom, oust the rebellious lords and their hideous hagsfiends. Even more important than this, he must rid the owl world of the poisonous nachtmagen that had begun to spread like some terrible disease. Until this time the cunning magic of the hagsfiends had been confined to the N’yrthghar. But for the first time hagsfiends had ventured into the S’yrthghar. Hoole dared not think what would happen if they stayed and increased. The magic they practiced was of the vilest sort.
Hoole knew the ember had great powers, but would it help him think? Would it help him lead? For that, Hoole felt he must use his firesight; there were flames to be studied. There would be new plots, ominous alliances. Lord Arrin had been beaten into retreat but not yet destroyed, and the hagsfiends were roaming the world of owls. Suddenly, Hoole’s dire thoughts were interrupted by an excited shout.
“The tree! The tree!” dozens of owls hooted. The branches seemed to reach out to embrace them, and from each branch slender vines hung down, stirred by a gentle
breeze. On the vines were berries the color of gold with just a touch of rose.
Grank, battle weary and thinking that indeed he had grown old, suddenly felt a tingle in his gizzard. He blinked in amazement at the sight of this huge tree. How well he remembered when they passed over the island not even a moon cycle before on their way from the N’yrthghar to the Beyond and had lighted down for a rest. The island had been barren then, with nothing but scrub and rocks.
Grank recalled how Hoole had stood apart, weeping for his mother, and how his tears had fallen on one tiny seedling just then sprouting from the barren soil. And how the tree began to grow at a miraculous rate.
How odd,
he thought now as he approached the tree.
Its berries appear to be shaped like teardrops.
The old Spotted Owl blinked again to clear his eyes.
Hoole’s words flooded back to Grank as they flew through the gently swaying curtains of teardrop berries. “This is a good tree. It has…Ga’, Uncle Grank. Yes, Ga’!”
Ga’ was that most elusive of all owl qualities. It literally meant “great spirit”; a spirit that somehow did not contain only all that is noble but all that is humble, as well.
Hoole had been right in bringing them back to this tree and not directly to the N’yrthghar. It was not yet time to go north.
All in due course…all in due course,
thought Grank.
Suddenly, there was a great din in Grank’s ear slits, a surging up of hoots and chimes, of hoo-hoos, woo-woos, and whoops. Every species of owl had its own particular way of hooting, but they were all crying out the same words: “The Great Ga’Hoole Tree! The Great Ga’Hoole Tree!”
The young king swiveled his head and blinked in confusion at his mentor. “What is this?”
Grank churred softly and replied, “They have named the tree Hoole.”
“But—” Hoole started to say.
“Yes, Great Spirit of Hoole. It is named for you, Hoole, and rightfully so.”