Capture (8 page)

young owls is going on here. I just sense it. Something very bad. Something that could destroy all the kingdoms of all the owls on all the earth." Gylfie paused. "Something deadly." The word seemed to hang in the air, and Gylfie stared ahead unblinkingly

"These owlets are the walking dead. I think it would be better to be dead than be like 47-2, but you said all the kingdoms of all the owls on all the earth?"

"Total destruction," Gylfie said. Her voice was like ice. "Look, Soren. I want to get out as much as you do.

I think Grimble might be helpful, but we'll have to be very careful, and that library with those books holds secrets, secrets I think that could help us escape and maybe help other owls -- other owls in your Kingdom of Tyto and mine in the Desert of Kuneer. Would you want any other owls to go through what we've been through?"

Soren suddenly thought of Eglantine. He loved Eglantine. The thought of her being snatched, of being moon blinked, was almost more than he could bear. There was a world of Eglantines out there. Did he really want them to become empty-eyed, hollow-voiced, destined-not-to-fly owls? A shudder ran through Soren. It was not good enough to just escape. In fact, their task was greater than he had ever imagined.

A shriek split the night in the glaucidium. The moon had risen and the alarm for the first sleep march sounded.

Soren and Gylfie felt the stir as thousands of owls began to move. The strange babble rose up as each owl repeated its old name over and over again. The two little owls looked at each other and moved their beaks, turning the sound of their numbers into something that might pass for a name - any name but their own. And now, tonight, they would try the second part of their strategy for the first time. The one that Gylfie had tested in the Big Crack. They would march in place giving the appearance of motion but never moving from the cast shadows. If it had worked for Gylfie in the Big Crack it should work here.

Almost immediately they felt the press of owls about them. They held their breath, fearful that their ruse would be discovered. But the throngs of owls simply parted, just as the waters of a stream split to flow around a rock. They were jostled a bit and they felt a terrible chill as a sleep correction monitor swept by, but the monitor did not look twice at them as they marched in place. No, the monitor seemed only concerned about a small Snowy Owl ahead who had apparently been caught sleeping last time with its head under its wing. "Wing alert on number 8S-2. Monitors in the fourth quadrant, please be advised."

Moon Scalding

There was an odd rhythm to the days and the nights at X St. Aggies, where owls were expected to sleep at night and work during the day. The moon dwenked, the world darkened, and then once more it was the time of the newing. It was not all dreadful at St. Aggie's. Both Soren and Gylfie were the recipients of extra-special treats, beyond the usual cricket fare, from their pit guardians, Auntie and Unk. Indeed, the time in the pits began to seem like an oasis, verdant and green in the stone world of St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls. Gylfie received extra rations of snake, the occasional nap was permitted, and Soren, too, was even taught by Auntie how to eat a vole with bones! One could hardly call it a First Bones ceremony. But, nonetheless, Auntie slipped Soren a nice plump vole, just the right length to be swallowed whole. And even though questions were discouraged, Auntie was able to guide Soren through the consuming of his first creature, bones and all. She complimented him lavishly on his first yarped

bone pellet. And Soren, of course, was struck by the bittersweet memory of his father complimenting Kludd after his First Bones ceremony.

But despite all the extras, the favors, the gentle coddling from Auntie, Soren could not forget Gylfie's icy voice: "Total destruction. All the kingdoms of all the owls on all the earth." Why? Soren had asked himself often, but then realized it didn't really matter why, if indeed it this was the purpose of St.

Aggie's. Even more disturbing was a newer idea of Soren's. Perhaps, he thought, these owls were not really owls at all but rather some kind of demon spirits in a feathered guise. This was why when Auntie came to him now with his favorite, a plump centipede, Soren stared deep into her yellow eyes as if trying to see the dark antic shadow of a demon. Are you really an owl, Auntie? he wanted to ask. Are you really a true Snowy Owl descended from Glaux, come from the North Kingdoms -- or are you a white demon?

It was the third night of the second full shine now. The full shines seemed to last forever. Soren and Gylfie emerged from these periods of full shines exhausted, but they had somehow managed to resist moon blinking so far. Their strategy for the sleep marches had worked.

Had worked up until this second night of second full shine.

"Right, left. Right, left." They clicked their talons in the precise beat that filled the two glaucidiums as they stood in the overhang of the shared arch.

"Hey, you two!" A hoot shredded the air around them, splitting right through the march. It wasn't Jatt nor was it Jutt. It was none other than Spoorn, Skench's dreadful second-in-command. "I saw you two here last round, and now this round. Lazy, no-good haggards!" Soren and Gylfie, caught in the fierce yellow glare of the Screech Owl's eyes, began to tremble. "Avoiding the moon, that's what I'd say! Well, we have remedies for that."

Oh, Glaux, Soren thought. If I get plucked again! And Gylfie. She'll never survive it. "March, you two, march to the moon blaze!"

"Don't say anything," Gylfie whispered. "We're together, that should count for something." For what?

Soren wondered. We'll get plucked together? We'll die together?

The two youngs owls were marched into a stone chamber off to one side of one of the glaucidiums. The walls of this chamber were made of pure white stone and slanted outward at peculiar angles. Indeed, the moonlight seemed to pour into the white stone cell and blaze off the walls in a fierce brightness.

"You shall remain here and be scalded by the moon's light until the moon goes. See how you like that!"

Spoorn blasted them with a screech to

punctuate her remarks, and the screech, as powerful as a wind, nearly toppled the little Elf Owl.

"And no head ducking. We'll be watching," added

Skench.

Gylfie managed to recover her balance and planted

her tiny talons firmly on the stone. "Well," she said, "at least we're not plucked." "Gylfie, are you yoicks?"

"In these situations, Soren, you have to look on the bright side -- no pun intended," Gylfie said as she looked around and saw moonlight bouncing off every surface.

"Gylfie, I don't think there is a bright side, pun or not. Plucked or moon scalded? You consider that a choice?"

"We're not going to be either!" A new fierceness had crept into Gylfie's voice.

"Well how do you think we can avoid it? You can stand in my shadow but it's not exactly as if I can stand in yours -- you're a midget."

"That is not fair, Soren, and you know it. Stature jokes are not appropriate. They are considered very bad form where I come from. Indeed, there is a society, the Small Owl Society -- SOS -- and its charter is to prevent cruel and tasteless remarks concerning size. My grandmother and a Pygmy Owl founded it."

Gylfie brimmed with indignation. She seemed far more upset about Soren's use of the word "midget" than being stuck in the white stone chamber for moon scalding.

"I'm sorry. But I still don't see how we're going to avoid the moonlight in here."

"We have to think."

"But that is just what it is impossible to do when one is moon blinked, Gylfie. I think this is it for us."

Soren looked down at Gylfie and, even as he said it, he felt a strange numbness stealing over him. And Gylfie's eyes began to blink in an odd manner.

In the blaze of the moon's light, the two young owls felt their essence departing. Soren's brain swam with confusion. His gizzard seemed to grow still. He looked at the moon-blasted walls of the stone cell and they appeared slippery, slippery as ice, and on this ice of the moon's light he felt his memories slip, slip, slipping away. He wanted to grab on to them with his talons, hold them, but he was simply too tired. He was about to fall asleep and when he awoke he knew he would be a changed owl. He would be unrecognizable to himself. He would truly have become 12-1 and Gylfie, too, would no longer be Gylfie but a number, 25-2 -- rhymes with Ga'Hoole!

There was a click inside Soren's head. The moment he had thought of the word Ga'Hoole something seemed to clear in his brain. His gizzard stirred. Ga'Hoole. The mere mention of the Ga'Hoole legends had made Auntie Finny faint, but the mere thought of the word crashed like thunder and seemed to wake Soren up.

"Gylfie! Gylfie!" He nudged the tiny owl with one of his talons. "Gylfie, have you ever heard of the legends of Ga'Hoole?" Gylfie, whose movements seemed thick and slow, suddenly twitched. Soren could almost see a pulse course through the little owl, jerking her into alertness.

"Ga'Hoole -- why, yes. My mother and father would often tell us tales. Tales of Yore we called them."

"We called them legends -- the Ga'Hoolian legends." With each mention of the word, the young owls seemed to grow slightly more alert, something within them quickening.

"I think," said Soren, "that we should tell those Tales of Yore until the moon goes down, and maybe these words will thin the full shine and be our shield against this scalding."

Gylfie looked at Soren in wonder. However did this Barn Owl come upon these ideas?!

And so Soren began ...

"Once upon a time, before there were kingdoms of owls, in a time of ever-raging wars, there was an owl born in the country of the Great North Waters and his name was Hoole. Some say there was an enchantment cast upon

him at the time of his hatching, that he was given natural gifts of extraordinary power. But what was known of this owl was that he inspired other owls to great and noble deeds and that, although he wore no crown of gold, the owls knew him as a king, for indeed his good grace and conscience anointed him and his spirit was his crown. In a wood of straight tall trees he had hatched, in a glimmering time when the seconds slow between the last minute of the old year and the first of the new, and the forest on this night was sheathed in ice."

Soren's voice was hushed and lovely as he told the tale of the first legend of Ga'Hoole, the "Coming of Hoole." The two little owls' hearts grew strong, their brains cleared, and their gizzards once again quickened.

Perfection!

I think it's working," the Screech Owl Spoorn said to the Ablah General, Skench. From their stone perches high above the moon blaze cell, Skench and Spoorn looked down on Soren and Gylfie. They could not hear the hushed tale that Soren was repeating and the two young owls were careful to stand very still. When the moon finally slipped down in the night sky, Skench and Spoorn alighted onto the floor of the moon blaze cell and peered into each of the owl's eyes.

"Perfect!" Spoorn declared.

"We are perfect," Gylfie replied. "We are so pleased to be perfect for our masters. Number 25-2 feels quite perfect and complete."

Soren picked up the cue. "Number 12-1 also feels perfect. We await your commands."

"Come along, little ones. I knew you could do it," Spoorn said. This was the most kindly tone either Soren or Gylfie had ever heard Spoorn use.

"Next thing you know, you'll be having your Specialness ceremony."

Racdrops! thought Gylfie.

"You know, Spoorn," Skench was saying, "these two were marked as haggards from the start, or at least the Barn Owl was, and sometimes I think that a haggard once scalded actually makes a better servant to our cause."

Dream on, you addle-brained idiot bird. The words roared silently in Soren's head.

"I am thinking of the little one for battle claw maintenance and the Barn Owl for the eggorium."

"Or maybe even the hatchery for the little one."

Hatchery! Eggorium! Battle claws! Soren and Gylfie were suddenly very alert. Yet they managed to walk in the dazed manner of the perfectly moon blinked.

"You know," Skench continued, "I think we need to put them in the same stone pit and the same glaucidium -- reinforced moon scalding. If they look into each other's eyes, I think it has been proven that it reinforces the effects of the scalding."

Ha! Gylfie nearly laughed out loud.

So the two young owls were returned to Soren's glaucidium, and Jatt and Jutt were duly informed that these two were to be together and periodically made to gaze into each other's eyes.

"All right, you two!" barked Jutt. "Face off!" And neither Jatt nor Jutt could see the twinkle deep within each of the young owl's eyes, nor did they hear Soren say, as they turned their backs, "We did it, Gylfie.

We did it."

So once more the days slipped into the nights, and the nights became dark links in the silver chain of the moon as it cycled through its dwenkings and full shines, sometimes appearing as an immense, throbbing, bright globe, at other times as thin as the finest thread of down filament from an owl's breast. Patiently, they waited for their flight feathers to grow in. Each day, Soren would do a quick inventory of what he had, what showed promise. His flight feathers were definitely advancing, perhaps not fully fledged, but definitely out there. When he flipped his head back, as owls could do, and rotated it, he could get a good view of his tail feathers, and when no one was looking, he would practice rotating and ruddering maneuvers. There would, of course, be no First Flight ceremonies. In fact, Soren lived in perpetual dread of being informed in a most unceremonious way that he was not "destined" for flight as, apparently, the Spotted Owl, 12-8, formerly Hortense, had been. This, she always said, was due to her top secret status that had something to do with being a broody.

"Think of all we've learned, Soren," Gylfie said one day, after having served in the battle claws chamber.

She seemed blithely confident that when the time came for them to fly they would, and that it was much more important to survey the entire range of canyons and gulches that composed St. Aggies, so that when they were ready they could escape, never be caught again, and warn others. "Let me tell you what I've learned today in the battle claws chamber...."