Guardians of Ga'Hoole: To Be A King (2 page)

O
utside the Great Ga’Hoole tree, a late summer storm raged and lightning peeled back the sky. But inside the tree, which still continued to grow but more slowly, all was dry and cozy. Even with the loudest claps of thunder, the immense tree hardly shuddered. Hoole was in the loveliest hollow he could ever imagine, gazing at the ember glowing through the piercings in a small metal container. Grank flew into the hollow.

“Ah, a lovely new box, Your Grace.”

Hoole looked up at his mentor in dismay. “Not you, too!”

“Me, too, what, Your Majesty?”

“We’ve been here barely three nights, and everywhere I turn it’s ‘Your Grace,’ ‘Your Highness,’ ‘Your Majesty.’ I can’t stand it. If you start, too, Uncle Grank, I’ll feel I have lost my oldest friend.”

“You must understand, Hoole, these titles are a form
of respect. It is important that respect be maintained if you are to lead.”

“But it is action and words that earns one respect, isn’t it?”

“Yes, a title is worthless without the gallgrot to back it up. But it is protocol, after all.”

This word confused Hoole. He guessed it had to do with how a king’s or queen’s retinue paid homage to their monarch; very much about ritual and manners. It sounded incredibly boring to Hoole, and very restrictive.

Grank, for his part, had to remind himself continually that Hoole was a different kind of monarch. He had been raised about as far as one could be from the elaborate rituals of court behavior. So why bog him down with rigid procedures and detailed codes of manners and ritual?

Grank looked at the new container for the ember. “The new box is lovely. Very different shape—not square as before. Almost a…” Grank hesitated. He had been about to say “teardrop,” but instead said “berry.”

“Yes,” Hoole whispered. “Theo took the old one and reshaped it.” Hoole also resisted saying the word “teardrop.” Theo had not known about Hoole’s tears. The Great Horned blacksmith had merely thought the shape of the berries lovely.

“You know, they say the berries taste like what some
creatures call milk,” Grank added. “Some owls call them milkberries now,” Grank said.

“Oh, really?”
Thank Glaux they’re not Hoole berries or some such nonsense!
Hoole thought.

“Well,” Grank said, “Theo has done wonders with his forge. So lucky he found that cave. He’s got his fires going. And, he has come around to making battle claws.”

“I know it must have been a hard decision, Theo being a gizzard-resister and all,” Hoole said.

“It was the battle that changed him,” Grank offered. “And, of course, the idea of hagsfiends and nachtmagen let loose in the world.” He paused. “Well, I think I shall turn in for the day, Your—” He stopped himself. “Hoole, I’ll tell you what: I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll not call you Your Grace or any of those titles that you seem to loathe if you’ll not call me Uncle.”

“You don’t like being called Uncle?” Hoole blinked in surprise.

Grank’s yellow eyes softened. “I love it. It stirs my gizzard like no other word, I think. But if you are to be king, it does not suit to call your chief advisor Uncle.”

“I see,” Hoole replied. “All right, Grank. You shall be Grank and I shall be just plain Hoole.”

Hardly,
Grank thought as he left the hollow.
Hardly “just plain Hoole”!

H
oole resumed his study of the ember in the iron teardrop. “I am king because of you, ember,” he whispered. It startled him that he had addressed the ember as if it were a living creature. But in a curious way it felt right. The ember was said to have great powers. He had heard in great detail from the wolf Fengo that its powers nearly overcame Grank when he first retrieved it years ago. Hoole thought about magic and why even good magic might not truly be the way to rule. It was disturbing to him that some of the owls of the tree were thinking of him as not only a king but a mage. He disliked the title “mage” even more than that of “king.”

“How dangerous you can be!” he spoke in that same hushed voice to the ember. It seemed to pulse and the blue glow at its center darkened. “So many want you. Would kill for you. So many think that your magic will grant them all powers, perhaps even immortality, eh?” The ember gave a little hiss and a bit of fiery spittle escaped
the iron teardrop.
So,
thought Hoole,
this ember forces us to balance on a blade’s edge between a kingship and tyranny, between principles of justice and magic.
“Somehow I must make all owls of the Great Tree understand this danger.”

The lovely voice of the Snow Rose, the gadfeather who had fought with them in the Beyond, began to filter through the tree. She had taken to singing ballads toward First Light as the owls nestled in for the day.

Where go the stars,

where goes the dark,

the night so black and clear?

Worry not, worry not,

night will come again soon.

Dark, dark, fold me in your wings.

Dark, dark, let my gizzard sing.

But now is the time for light
—

let it come, let it come.

Bring the sun so bright,

then the shadows beyond the noon

grow long as day grows old.

Worry not, my owls,

the dark will wait for you.

Worry not, the night steals away the day.

Worry not, twilight turns to gray.

Here comes the night,

here comes the night.

Hoole had been so glad that the Snow Rose had decided to stay at least temporarily. But Grank had warned him that gadfeathers rarely remained in any place for long. “Remember, Hoole, she’s already tried being a Glauxian Sister. And she left that after a very short time. Once a gadfeather, always a gadfeather,” Grank had cautioned.

Hoole thought about this now. For the past three nights she had sung to them at daybreak. Daybreak could be a hard time for owls. The night was gone and everything seemed too bright. But she had made it a more comfortable, friendlier time.
Perhaps that was it!
Hoole suddenly realized a thing of great importance. The Snow Rose might stay because she had a unique role to play here. If each owl thought he or she was special and vital to the tree, it would not only make them loyal but also perhaps distract them from notions of magic and mages. More than that, it could make this tree truly great if each owl used their special talents. The Snow Rose was much more than a gadfeather. She was an artist and a warrior. Just as Theo was much more than a blacksmith who forged weapons. He must learn to make many useful things beyond battle claws and containers for embers. Hoole looked at the iron teardrop now.
Suppose,
thought Hoole,
Theo might be able to make many similar containers, and we could put coals in them to light the many hollows in the tree.
If certain hollows were always illuminated, learning could go on all the time.

And Grank himself was a collier. He must teach others if the skill was not to be lost eventually. There were so many things to be taught, to be learned. The Great Ga’Hoole Tree could become great beyond its mere size. It would be the beginning of a new era that would be Glaux blessed and free of magic or nachtmagen.
Now how to explain all of this to the parliament?

He poked his beak out of the hollow and summoned a young lieutenant from the Ice Regiment of H’rath, who had been perched as a lookout.

“Yes, Your Majesty?” The Barn Owl swept down from his high perch.

“No sign of Joss?” Hoole asked.

“No sign, Your Majesty.”

“Thank you, Cuthmore. Alert me at the first sign of him.”

“Certainly, Your Majesty.”

This was deeply troubling. Joss was their most reliable messenger. He had served Hoole’s father, King H’rath, and had kept Grank himself informed during Grank’s long absences from his court. They were dependent on Joss, a
tough Whiskered Screech, for any and all news from the Northern Kingdoms. It was urgent that they know how much damage Lord Arrin had sustained. Was he rebuilding his army? And what about the hagsfiends? Had any been killed? Hoole was furious with himself that he had not thought to dispatch Joss first to the Southern Kingdoms to see if any were lingering there. Hagsfiends in the S’yrthghar would prove disastrous.
Why did I not do this?
Hoole demanded of himself for what felt like the tenth time.

I must learn to think like a commander, to think like a king. No,
Hoole corrected himself.
I must learn to
be
a king.

I
t was a strange word, “parliament.” Hoole had never heard it before. But Grank had explained to him that a parliament was a group of owls that gather together for discussion and decision making. Hoole had decided that a hollow near the base of the tree was the perfect place for the parliament.

So eleven owls, including Hoole, now perched in a half circle of niches and notches that were scattered around the walls of a hollow in the great tree. Hoole was in the center. He swiveled his head to one side and then the other, taking in each owl. Some, like Phineas, Theo, and Grank, were his old friends. Some he had only recently met. They had been rallied from the remnants of the old H’rathian Guard to fight in the Beyond. He studied these new ones now. There was Lord Rathnik, one of his father’s closest advisors, who had led the Ice Regiment of H’rath in the battle and fought brilliantly. The officers of the Ice
Regiment had all been knights, and it was Lord Rathnik who had knighted Hoole.

For Hoole, this conferring of knighthood was more important than being anointed as king. He had already decided that he would wear no crown. And if Hoole had his way, the tree would not be called the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, but simply the great tree.

To one side of Hoole, Grank perched. Next to him was Theo, then Phineas. On the other side of Hoole was Lord Rathnik, and beside Lord Rathnik, Sir Garthnore, a Snowy Owl, and his mate, Lady Helling; a Northern Hawk Owl, Sir Tobyfyor (or Toby); Lord Vladkyn, who was a Screech; Sir Bors, a Barn Owl; and finally, a Spotted Owl named Strix Strumajen.

Hoole blinked at the assembled group. He knew what they were thinking:
Where is the ember?
This, after all, was the symbol of his power. The owls, perched in their niches, tried not to appear anxious, but there was an undeniable agitation in the parliament hollow as the birds discreetly swiveled their heads, searching for the ember.

Finally, Sir Garthnore nervously clacked his beak and began, “Er…Your Grace, is something amiss with the ember?”

“No, no, it is safely tucked away,” Hoole said. “I have set two guards upon it.”

“Is that wise, Your Grace?” asked Lord Vladkyn.

“Why would it be unwise, Lord Vladkyn? Are you fearful someone might steal it?”

“No, Your Grace. But we have sworn allegiance to you because you are the one who retrieved the ember.” A murmur of assent rippled through the parliament as the owls turned to one another and nodded in agreement. “It seems only fitting.”

“Why?” Hoole asked.

The Lord Rathnik spoke. “We wish to invest Your Majesty with absolute power. That is what we thought was the point of this gathering. It seems only fitting, therefore, to elevate you—you who hold the ember.”

Grank was watching Hoole carefully.
This would be the test,
Grank thought.

“This is difficult to explain,” Hoole began, “but I have come to you today to tell you that I do not want absolute power.” There was a great stirring and grumbling in the hollow. “Quiet! Quiet!” Hoole seized a stick of wood and rapped on the hollow’s walls. “Listen to me. The time has come for a new order. I shall be your king. But you cannot simply hand over power. True, part of my power comes from the ember. But another part does not.”

“Your Highness, from whence does it come?” Sir Garthnore bellowed in the great booming tones of a Snowy.

A surge of voices now called out: “From where does this power come, if not the ember?” “Tell us, sir.”

“Let him speak!” It was Strix Strumajen. Hoole had noticed that she had not joined in the hue and cry with the others but had remained quite still, with her eyes settled on him.

“The ember does have powers,” Hoole answered, “and should it fall into the wrong talons, it would be disastrous. I shall do all I can to prevent that. But the powers of the ember come from magen—magic. Magic is not a justifiable reason for power.”

“Magic is not reason, Your Grace. So why question it with reason?” Lady Helling asked. There was a murmur of approval that passed through the hollow.

“I do not question magic. But I question your willingness to let it, through the ember, rule over you. You must think of power as a tree. The roots of a tree are what anchor it to the earth and let it soar, like this tree, into the sky. They are the reasons a tree grows. And I tell you now that the roots of power for
us
who live in this great tree must be the ideals of goodness, equality, and nobility. I have chosen to have our parliamentary hollow here, near the roots of the
tree, as a constant reminder of the true sources of power. Do not give me power that I have not earned. Do not make me an absolute ruler. I am your king, but we must come together as equals to discuss and decide our course. It is not birth or magic that makes one noble. We are only as noble as our actions prove us to be. I hope to rid the owl world not just of nachtmagen, but of all magen—both good and bad. I am an owl first, a king second, but never a mage. Never.”

The owls had quieted. Grank looked at the young king with wonder and thought,
I am in the presence of great Ga’.

“Now, let me tell you my plan…” And so Hoole began to explain his vision to the knights of the great tree. “When I was very young on that island in the Bitter Sea, Grank told me stories of owls in the early part of my grandfather King H’rathmore’s reign, tales of owls who came together for sport to display their skills and learn in small groups called chaws. So, what I propose is that we divide the members of the tree into different chaws that will come together to learn new things.”

“New things? What new things?” Sir Bors asked.

“We have many great talents here among us. Sir Bors, I have heard that you understand how the stars move across the night sky, and that your knowledge is far beyond the navigational abilities of most owls. Could you not teach this better way of navigating?”

“S’pose I could… Yes, s’pose I could, Your Grace.”

“And Strix Strumajen, I heard that you are particularly sensitive, like many Spotted Owls, to changes in the weight of air, and that you can interpret these changes in pressure to guess what weather might be coming in.”

“It is not a guess, sir. It is a type of reasoning that has proven very accurate for forecasting and interpreting weather patterns.”

“Could you not lead a chaw that would train other owls to interpret the weather?”

“Well, yes, Your Grace, I could. I would be most happy to. But should it be just Spotted Owls?”

“I think not. I think any owl should be able to learn about this if he or she is truly interested. We shouldn’t let our kind, how we were born, limit us.”

There was real excitement in the hollow now as the young king shared his vision for the new things owls would be learning. Grank would lead a colliering chaw, and Theo would teach owls the secrets of shaping metal. Best of all, none of this was magic. None of it depended on anything but an individual owl’s own skills and effort.

The meeting of the parliament was drawing to a close. It was time for Hoole’s last stroke, his finishing touch to the new order. “We have come together as knights in battle,
and we shall come together again in battle to vanquish the hagsfiends and the legions of Lord Arrin, the usurper. But now, here, we have come together in a new way.” Hoole paused and regarded each of the ten other members of the parliament. “You have already taken your oaths as knights and now I am going to ask you to take yet another oath.” There was a look of keen expectation in the eyes of the owls.
What kind of oath would this be?
they wondered.

“Fear
not,”
Hoole said. “We shall guard the ember ferociously, but I have told you that the ember is but one source of power. The deeper and stronger power is the one we have established here today. It, too, must be guarded and tended like the roots of a tree that burgeons from the earth and soars into the sky. And those roots are nurtured by goodness, equality, and nobility. We must become the Guardians of Ga’Hoole. I am asking you to take this oath along with me.”

There was a great stillness in the hollow. And then ten voices began to repeat the words their young king spoke: “I am a Guardian of Ga’Hoole. From this night on, I dedicate my life to the protection of owlkind. I shall not swerve in my duty. I shall support my brother and sister Guardians in times of battle, as well as in times of peace. I am the eyes in the night, the silence within the wind. I am
the talons through the fire, the shield that guards the innocent. I shall seek to wear no crown, nor win any glory. And all these things I do swear upon my honor as a Guardian of Ga’Hoole until my days on this earth cease to be. This be my vow. This be my life. By Glaux, I do swear.”