The Rescue (Guardians of Ga'hoole) (10 page)

“Did she say anything else?”

Twilight sighed as if he was extremely bored with this conversation, but Soren felt that answering Eglantine’s interminable questions was the least he could do for his little sister after making her stay back at the tree.

“What do you mean by anything else?”

“Did she say what it might have been other than a garden?”

“Well, now that I remember she actually did say that it could have been a walled garden that was part of a castle.”

“A castle!” Eglantine’s eyes blinked.

“You know, one of those things that the Others built.”

“Yes, I know…” Eglantine responded in a tremulous voice.

She suddenly seemed very agitated. “What’s wrong, Eglantine?” Soren asked.

“I’m not sure. It’s just that the way you described those stones, those walls remind me of something.”

Soren suddenly remembered that when Eglantine was still in her state of shock after her rescue and could not even recognize him, her own brother, that it was a colorful
piece of isinglass, or mica, as it was also called, that had jolted Eglantine out of her numbed state. Mags, the magpie trader who sometimes came to the tree with her odd bits scavenged from various journeys, had brought the fragment. When someone had held the isinglass up to the moon, the thin, nearly translucent piece of stone had shimmered and, suddenly, Eglantine had started shaking and screaming, “The Place! The Place!” But no one could ever figure out quite what place she was talking about, and until now Soren hadn’t really thought about it that much. At the time, he hadn’t thought it really mattered. After all, his sister had recognized him and had quickly come around to her old self. But now, Soren wondered why his description of these walls reminded her of something. He hadn’t the slightest idea. He sent Gylfie down for some milkberry tea, thinking that it might calm Eglantine enough for her to get to sleep. He hated to see his sister so distraught.

But it was Gylfie, returning with a small flask of milkberry tea in her talons, who was truly distraught.

“We’ve been discovered!”

“What?” Soren almost shrieked. “What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t tell, I swear!” Eglantine spoke in a desperate whisper.

“Of course you didn’t. I trust you, Eglantine. I know you’d never tell.” Eglantine seemed to almost melt, not just in relief but with the simple knowledge of her brother’s trust in her. She had felt she was just about useless, good for nothing of importance. But that Soren trusted her meant everything.

At that very moment, Primrose flew into their hollow. “It wasn’t Eglantine, and it wasn’t me.”

“Otulissa!” Twilight hissed.

“No, not Otulissa. Dewlap.”

“Dewlap!” They all gasped. Dewlap was the Burrowing Owl who was head of the Ga’Hoolology chaw, generally thought to be the most boring chaw in the entire tree. It was devoted to understanding the physiology and natural processes of the great tree where they lived, which sustained their lives. And even if you were not in a particular chaw, you were still required to take classes in that subject.

“Oh, racdrops!” Twilight slapped the air with his feathers, causing a hearty gust to sweep through the hollow. “Dewlap gave me a flint mop for acting up in class the other day. I completely forgot.” Twilight was always getting into trouble in Ga’Hoolology. It was easy as it was so boring. In fact, the other owls lived for Twilight’s antics during that class. He was the only source of relief from boredom. “I was supposed to go help her bury pellets at tween time.”
Tween time was the time between the last drop of sun and the first shadows of the evening.

“Well, she started snooping around and found all of you gone,” Primrose said.

“Do they know where we were?” Soren asked.

Gylfie shrugged. “I don’t know. But the four of us are to report immediately to Boron and Barran.” Gylfie paused. “In the parliament.”

“Oh, Glaux! In front of everyone?” Digger said. There were in all eleven owls who made up the governing body of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree known as the parliament. They decided to which chaws the new owls, after a period of general training and education, would be assigned. They planned the precise dates on which the milkberries would be harvested. They were in charge of all missions of diplomacy, war, and, most important, support to owls or groups of owls in need. They supervised all the many ceremonies and festivals of the great tree and settled all arguments. They also decided on appropriate “flint mops,” as they were called, since there was no real word for “punish” or “punishment” in the language of the owls of Ga’Hoole. Owls were never struck, hit, bitten, locked up, or given less food. They did not even believe in taking away privileges such as attending parties or festivities or banquets. What they did believe in was the flint mop. Flint stone was
the most valuable tool the owls of Ga’Hoole had. It was with their flint stones that they ignited their fires. The word flint had, over the years, become a synonym for anything of great value. To say something was flinty or had flint meant it had real worth. Therefore to be a flint mopper was to be someone who scorned the value of something. And if you scorned the value of something, you were required to pay back what you had taken away. Thus, the term for the payback came to be known as a “flint mop” as well. A flint mop was as close as owls came to the word punishment. And the flint mop in Twilight’s case was helping Dewlap, the Ga’Hoolology ryb, bury pellets which nourished the roots of the tree.

“So we have to go to the parliament right now?” Soren asked.

“Right now.” Gylfie nodded. “And I don’t think we should be late.”

“Enter!” It was the loud resonant hoot of Boron through the bark doors of the parliament hollow. This hollow was one of the few that had actual doors, for the business of the parliament was often top secret. Although Twilight, Soren, Gylfie, and Digger had, in fact, discovered a place deep within the tangled roots of the tree where something strange happened to the timber of the trunk
just above and the voices of the parliament owls could be heard. Sometimes the four owls listened in. Had this been found out it might be considered worse than what they had done now. Although Soren was still not sure what they had done that was so bad. Yes, they had gone away during the harvest festival—but was that really all that bad? It was bad if it had been found out where they had gone perhaps, but the only one who could really be considered a flint mopper was Twilight, who had completely forgotten to do his flint mop.

Only three owls of the parliament were perched on the white birch branch that had been bent into a half circle. There was Boron, his mate, Barran, and Dewlap. He supposed he should be relieved that there were just three and not the entire parliament. And, insofar that the only other owl present besides the monarchs was Dewlap, this might mean that indeed the worst error was Twilight’s forgetting his flint mop.

“Young’uns,” Barran began. “It was brought to our attention by the good ryb Dewlap that Twilight was absent from his flint-mopping tasks of burying pellets, which nourishes our great tree. Upon further investigation, it was found out that all four of you, the entire ‘band’ as you are known, had left the tree on the night of the festivities. So not only was Twilight unavailable for flint mopping but
the rest of you could not participate in the sorting and grading of milkberries, as is customary after the harvest festivities, not to mention the award ceremonies, which follow the sorting, for those who have distinugished themselves at the harvest through their diligence.”

Sorting, grading awards?
Soren had never heard about all this. He stole a look at Gylfie who appeared equally bewildered.

Then Barran, as if reading their minds, continued, “Yes, young’uns, there are things you do not yet know about—practices and ceremonies that we have here at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. For example, Soren, it was while you were gone that we had a First-Meat-on-Bones ceremony for your sister, Eglantine, and other young’uns from the Great Downing who had missed that owl stone event.” An owl stone event was one that was considered of great significance in the development of a young owl. The First-Meat-on-Bones ceremony was one of the most important of all the ceremonies that marked a young owl’s passage through life from hatchling to fully fledged flier to adept hunter. Boron and Barran felt that even though owls like Eglantine had long been eating Meat on Bones because they had been orphaned early on and missed this ceremony with their parents, it was still important to have these moments recognized. “Better late than never,” Barran always said.

“I missed Eglantine’s Meat-on-Bones!” A sob seemed to swell in Soren’s gizzard. “Why…why…” he stammered.

“Why didn’t she tell you about it?” Barran asked. Then she proceeded to answer her own question. “Because isn’t it always a surprise when your parents come home with that first whole vole or ground squirrel and say ‘Beak up! Down the gullet!’? No more of their stripping out the bones like when you were a baby. So why shouldn’t it be a surprise here?”

Soren merely blinked. Tears filled his eyes, and the big old Snowy blurred like a cloud. “But she didn’t even tell me about it when I got back.”

“Eglantine is a sensitive young owl. I’m sure she knew that you would have felt awful for missing her First-Meat-on-Bones ceremony, and the last thing your sister would want is for you to feel bad. She loves you too much, Soren.”

Soren’s wings hung limply by his side. He felt positively horrible.

“Now, young’uns,” Boron had begun to speak for the first time since saying enter.

Oh, Glaux. He’s going to ask us where we’ve been,
Soren thought.

“You were off looking for Ezylryb, I’d wager?” Soren nodded. “Well, that’s to be expected.”

Dewlap suddenly swelled up in a puff of indignation. “I beg to differ, Boron, but duty is what is expected.”

“Oh, you’re right. You’re right, of course.” But Soren sensed that Boron did not think that the boring Burrowing Owl was
exactly
right. Maybe they’d get off with just a light flint mop but, more important, maybe Boron would not ask them where they had been.

“Where have you been?” squawked Dewlap.

“It doesn’t really matter where,” Boron spoke now. “What matters is that in going away, the band missed the sorting and grading of the milkberries. Soren missed his sister’s First-Meat-on-Bones ceremony, and Twilight missed his flint mop for you. Thus, the tree suffered as a whole.”

“I would say,” Dewlap’s voice thundered, “it’s payback time! The four of you are on pellet-burying detail for the next three days, twice a day.”

As they flew back to their hollow from the parliament, Soren muttered under his breath to the others, “We can’t complain…We can’t complain…We got off light.”

“Light? You call having to bury pellets a ‘light’ flint mop?” Twilight hissed.

“Look,” Gylfie said, “it was because you forgot your
flint mop that we were discovered in the first place. So just shut your beak.”

“You know,” Digger was saying, “in spite of my being a Burrowing Owl and Dewlap being a Burrowing Owl, I feel I have nothing in common with that old hoot.”

“How could you?” Gylfie asked. “She is so boring.”

“And mean,” Soren added.

The others blinked. They had never thought of Dewlap as mean, just boring. So had Soren until Dewlap had squawked, and he had seen a weird greenish glimmer in her yellow eyes that seemed to mask a stingy gizzard. Soren’s mother had always told him that it was a stingy and envious gizzard that made owls mean. His mother had said that envy and stinginess were the worst faults an owl could have. Her words came back to him:
There is never any call for envy or stinginess in owls, Soren. We have the sky, we have the great forests and the trees. We are the most beautiful fliers on earth. Why would we envy any other bird or animal?

B
y the time the four owls had returned to their hollow, Eglantine had fallen sound asleep. And soon the rest were also sleeping. Eglantine was twitching nervously in her sleep. She had seemed upset ever since they had told her about the walled garden of the forge.

Soren couldn’t think about any of that now. There was still this dreadful unfinished business of Metal Beak and the “you only wish.” A horrid image if there ever was one—a half-faceless owl flying around slaughtering creatures. Then again, there was just getting through the flint mop for Dewlap. Gylfie stirred and Soren saw that she was awake, too.

“Gylfie, why do you think Boron and Barran didn’t ask us where we had been?”

“They knew that it had something to do with Ezylryb. They know how you feel about him. They didn’t have to know exactly where you went.”

“You know,” Soren said slowly, “I have the feeling that
in some way Octavia might be important to all that stuff the rogue smith of Silverveil told us.”

“How?” Gylfie asked in her usual practical way. “What’s the link?”

“I feel it in my gizzard,” Soren continued, thinking aloud, “that she somehow is connected to Ezylryb’s past when perhaps he was a different kind of owl.”

“Different?” Gylfie asked.

“Remember how the Snowy told us that she met Octavia before she was blind?” Gylfie nodded. “And it was Octavia who told her about the Dark Fowl Island where the master blacksmith nested. There’s a connection there, a link with Ezylryb. Did Ezylryb know her then, too, before she was blind? And the rogue smith said they came here together years and years ago. She was blind then, but what was she really before that? What did she do for Ezylryb? How does a snake know about a forge on an island that makes battle claws?”

“What are you suggesting we do, Soren?” Gylfie asked.

He turned and looked at his best friend in all the world, the little Elf Owl with whom he had already endured so much. Could he ask her to do this? He knew it would shock her. He took a deep breath and then told her what he wanted to do. “I am suggesting that we get into Ezylryb’s hollow when Octavia is not around.”

Gylfie gasped so loud that she almost woke Twilight. “Soren, I can’t believe it. That’s trespassing, snooping, spying, and Ezylryb is your favorite teacher. It’s so…so…”