The River of Wind
Authors: Kathryn Lasky
Guardians of Ga’Hoole
The Legends
By
CHAPTER ONE Astonishing—Absolutely Astonishing
CHAPTER TWO Otulissa Breaks the News
CHAPTER THREE Mrs. Plithiver Perceives
CHAPTER FOUR Chawlets in Training
CHAPTER FIVE The Palace of Mists
CHAPTER SEVEN The Tomorrow Line
CHAPTER EIGHT Blue in the Night
CHAPTER NINE The River of Wind
CHAPTER TEN Conversations with a Blue Owl
CHAPTER ELEVEN The Sage at the River’s End
CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Ember, the King, and an Owlet!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Dragon Court
CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Butterfly that Disturbs
CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Desert Healer
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Owlery at the Mountain of Time
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN A Feather in the Wind
CHAPTER NINETEEN A Cycle Broken?
CHAPTER TWENTY Lessons of the Owlery
OWLS and others from the GUARDIANS OF GA’HOOLE SERIES
She set the glass down on the torn piece of parchment. “Now tell me, what do you see?”
Threading through the roar of the waterfall, the scratch of a pen on parchment could be heard. Heard, that is, if there was anyone to listen except for the writer. But there wasn’t. Most couldn’t stand the fall’s noise. Some said it made them deaf. But Bess, a Boreal Owl, was apparently immune. Her hearing was as sharp as the night she had arrived at the waterfall some years before to lay the bones of her father, Grimble, under the hood of the bell in the tower. Among Boreal Owls it was thought that if such an owl died beneath the clapper of a bell, or if its bones could be put to rest there, then its scroom would go straight to glaumora. Was it a myth? An old story half-believed, half-scoffed at? A superstition? Who was to judge? The Boreals believed it.
Bess wrote:
My Dearest Otulissa,
It has been a long time since we have communicated or you have visited me here in the Palace of Mists. I have
been in a deep study of—or should I say “lost in”?—what we call “The Elsewhere.” But now I am found, or rather I have found some astonishing documents pertaining to this region where the stars configure themselves into constellations we have never seen in the Five Kingdoms. As you know, until this time I had uncovered precious little documentation of The Elsewhere. Only star maps. I had always assumed that these were the creations of the Others—their astronomers and cartographers. But such is not the case…
Astonishing—Absolutely Astonishing
O
tulissa inhaled sharply, and reread the sentence.
But such is not the case. These star maps were not created by the Others, but by owls. There is in fact a sixth kingdom of owls. It is called the Middle Kingdom, and I believe it is within wingreach.
The parchment trembled as Otulissa read. She could not keep her talons still. “This is absolutely incredible,” she whispered to herself. “Another kingdom of owls—but where? How?” For centuries—millennia—it was thought there were only five owl kingdoms. Six! Since when? Why had no one heard of it before now? And it was within wingreach! One could fly there!
How could that be? The Elsewhere was across the vastest of oceans. She read on:
About a year ago, I discovered a deep recess in the library here that I had not even known existed. It had been concealed purposely behind a false wall, it turned out, constructed with some sort of clay and wattle at the back of an
almost empty section of the library. The wall looked more like an ill-made bird’s nest, a seagull-type of construction, or perhaps even a pack rat’s cache. It wasn’t.
Do you remember the slight earthquake we had many moon cycles ago? Well, apparently it loosened the wattle and stones. For it was after the quake that I discovered the recess and in it what appeared to be fragments of parchment and scraped skins—perhaps mole or even lemming, the kind of coverings that the ancient owls often used to protect writings. They were not books such as the Others had left here in this library. These were fragments of writings, badly damaged and barely decipherable, but nonetheless, I could tell immediately that they were not the writings of the Others. It was not handwriting, but bore the distinct marks of a talon, perhaps more than one talon. I cannot even begin to describe to you the tumult in my gizzard. I suspect you might be feeling something of this now as you read this letter
…
“To put it mildly,” Otulissa muttered to herself.
I am not sure how these fragments got here. From studying the talon writing, I sense there was more than one writer, but not many. Perhaps there were traveling scholars in those days who flew here from this distant kingdom to exchange information—but with whom? I know you must wonder why I have waited so long to write you about this discovery. First, I was not exactly sure what I had discovered. I kept hoping that I might find more. I found very little.
And then, quite honestly, I was not sure what the existence of another kingdom, the sixth kingdom, would mean for our world. We have, after all, just come through a bad time—the Guardians in particular—with that dark period of the Golden Tree, the terrible arrests, and then the Battle in the Beyond with Nyra. We all hope she is gone, but do we know with any real certainty? What would she make of the news of yet another kingdom? I felt that it was best to wait. But I have waited long enough.
Otulissa shook her head violently. It seemed suddenly that her brain was too small to accommodate this bizarre idea. A sixth kingdom? But she was compelled to read on.
I feel that it is imperative that you and the Band and, yes, possibly even the Chaw of Chaws, come immediately to the Palace of Mists. I do not want to elaborate any further about what I have learned is called the Middle Kingdom. Because of the uncertainty surrounding Nyra and the condition of her troops, I feel that news of this kingdom must be kept absolutely secret. The rest must know nothing until we decide what to do. Destroy this letter immediately upon reading it.
Your dear friend, Bess
Otulissa read the letter once more, committing it to memory, and then held it over the flame of the small fire in the grate of her hollow. She watched, transfixed, as the edges of the parchment singed a tawny amber, then began
to curl. There was a crackling, followed by a small burst of devouring flames. The parchment blackened and then there were only ashes. She took a small metal rod and poked at them, making sure that no legible pieces had survived. Satisfied, she went to her cupboard and poured a small drop of bingle juice into a nut cup—a rare act for Otulissa—then did a short hop to the window ledge of her hollow and peered into the day. While the rest of the tree slept peacefully, outside it was wild and blustery. It was that cusp between winter and spring that could bring any kind of weather.
But thank Glaux,
Otulissa thought as she looked out,
the Great Ga’Hoole Tree looks normal.
“Normal” meant that its branches were bare of leaves, and the vines of milkberries were white, as they should be in these, the last stages of winter, the season of the White Rain. There was the faintest glimmer of silver in the berries, indicating that spring would be coming soon.
Recently, the tree had been strangely afflicted, and although the seasons changed, the tree did not. The milkberries had remained the same bright golden hue of summer—through autumn, winter, and spring. It had not only been the tree that had been affected, but most of its inhabitants as well. The Band, with young King Coryn, had been away on a long journey. In their absence, the
ember, which Coryn had retrieved, became an object of worship for many in the tree. The Guardians of Ga’Hoole had forgotten their owl ways and become quite…quite Other-ish. It sent a tremor through Otulissa’s gizzard to remember it. She herself had been imprisoned for “blaspheming the ember.”
Glaux!
she thought. The brainpower that had been wasted—absolutely squandered—on contriving countless silly rituals surrounding the ember. Anyone who dared to question the rituals was immediately arrested. A prison—an actual prison!—had been constructed in one of the hollows, and Bubo had been fooled into making bars for it in his forge. Was there anything more un-Ga’Hoolian than prison bars! The true bars were on the minds of the Guardians who had conceived such a thing! Those owls were gone now. Not imprisoned, but “retired” to various Glauxian retreats in the Northern Kingdoms. The tree had been restored to rights, and the ember had been sequestered away where it would never again become an object of such outrageous idolatry. Its peculiar powers, if not exactly lessened, were at least better understood: It was now realized that the ember was neither purely good nor purely evil.
Otulissa took a tiny sip from the nut cup and felt her
gizzard calm as she looked out into the sleet-slashed day. The branches tossed wildly and the entire tree gave an occasional moan. The milkberry vines tangled in the wind.
Dirty weather.
The kind that old Ezylryb liked to take the weather-interpretation chaw out in—supposedly for instructional purposes, but really just for a great ride. There were always seagulls out on this kind of a day, full of foul language and dirty jokes to match the weather. And no one had enjoyed a dirty joke more than the legendary old ryb Ezylryb.
But her mind was wandering. She had to inform the Band.
A sixth kingdom!
Astonishing—absolutely astonishing. She had better go and wake them up. But should she wake the king? No one except the Band, herself, and the late Ezylryb knew about the Palace of Mists. But Bess was now suggesting that the Chaw of Chaws—which included Martin and Ruby, who knew nothing of Bess or the Palace—should come to this secret place. The Chaw of Chaws was probably the most efficient combat unit in the history of owls. Their combination of talents, which ranged from superb flying abilities to colliering skills and deftness with battle claws, made them a formidable fighting force. But their real power did not come from any one specific weapon or skill but rather from their uncanny ability to work together.
“Chaw of Chaws,” Otulissa whispered to herself. She would ask Soren who should be informed and when. Despite her resolve to stay calm, her gizzard was seized by a sudden swirling agitation at the very thought of a new kingdom—a new world!