(GoG Book 07) The Hatchling (15 page)

Then one morning, after the last goodlight lullaby had been sung in a nearby fir tree, and an owl chick of a Great Gray in an oak begged for “just one more story, Da,” Nyroc peered out of his hollow and blinked. There was the rabbit, standing on his hind legs almost near enough to reach out and grab. He seemed to be studying something very intently on a short branch of the fallen tree trunk. Ever so quietly, Nyroc moved out of his hollow. The rabbit was a talon’s reach away. He pounced and grabbed it. Then a most shocking thing occurred. The rabbit turned its head
and, looking at its would-be killer, said in a fierce voice, “Don’t! Remember the vole!”

“What?” Nyroc said. He had never had a prey argue with him. Usually, if his talons had not mortally punctured it, the creature went yeep from fright and simply froze. They rarely screeched or moaned in pain. But talking? Never!

“The vole—the one you let go.”

Nyroc was so astonished that he dropped the rabbit on the ground. How did this rabbit know about that vole he had left back in the fox’s den in the deep canyon when the posse had shown up?

The rabbit then gave himself a little shake. “Don’t worry, you didn’t hurt me. Barely a scratch.”

Nyroc was too stunned to speak. He felt dizzy and began to sway a bit. “Take it easy there, fellow.” The rabbit extended a paw toward Nyroc’s wing as if to steady him. “I don’t want you crashing into my web. It’s a good one. Lots of information.”

Nyroc blinked several times and stared at the rabbit. It was a soft brownish-gray color, but his feet were snowy white and on his forehead there was a small white crescent of fur. Nyroc stared at him.

“That’s it, fella. Take me in slowly. I am a real rabbit. But not simply dinner or tweener or breaklight, whatever you
owls call your meals. There is nothing simple about me, actually. See, I can do all those rabbity things. Wanna see a cute nose twitch?” Suddenly, the velvety pink skin of his nose began to wriggle about. “Tail twitch, as well. And I can flick my ears, too. Hopping? Want me to demonstrate a hop?” He paused and looked hard at Nyroc. “Well, for Lapin’s sake, say something!”

But Nyroc was speechless. Finally, he managed to say, “Who’s Lapin?”

“The Big Rabbit.” And he rolled his pink-rimmed eyes toward the sky. “You’ve got Glaux; we’ve got Lapin.”

“Oh,” Nyroc said. “But how did you know about the vole?”

“Aha! Now that’s a question!” He moved closer to Nyroc. “Feeling a little steadier now?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Well, come over here, then.” The rabbit began waddling toward the spiderweb hung between the trunk of the tree and the branch. It was a huge glittering affair, strung with jewels of morning dew.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Nyroc said, although he had never thought much about spiderwebs before. A slight breeze ruffled along and the web trembled.

The rabbit suddenly froze in front of the web. “Don’t
disturb me,” he said in a commanding voice. Nyroc wouldn’t think of it. A few minutes later, the rabbit broke out of his trance and turned to look at Nyroc.

“Just as I thought,” he said.

“What? Just as you thought what?”

The rabbit then gave a kind of guffaw and slapped his pouch cheek with one foot. “Oh, silly me. I haven’t explained, have I?”

“No, you haven’t,” Nyroc replied, his voice a little edgy. “Who are you? What are you?”

“Well, I’m a mystic of sorts,” the rabbit said. “I see certain things where others don’t.”

“In a spiderweb?” Nyroc was awash with confusion.

“Precisely. I’m a web reader. I read spiderwebs.” He tapped the crescent shape of white fur on his forehead. “This is the sign of a web reader. Only rabbits with this mark can do it. At least, as far as I know. Why do you think I’ve survived this long in these woods without getting eaten by something?”

“Because you’re a web reader.”

“That’s it!”

“So, what do you see in the webs?”

“Things…just things,” the rabbit replied elusively.

“Like me releasing the vole?” Nyroc asked.

“Yes, and other things.”

“What other things?”

“In some webs I see the past, in some the present, and in some the future. But it is never a whole picture, just pieces.”

“What is my future?” Nyroc said, suddenly excited. “Where am I going? What am I going to do? What will I be? Will I ever get to see my uncle Soren and the Guardians of Ga’Hoole? Will my da’s scroom follow me forever?” The questions poured out of Nyroc and he wondered how he ever could have considered eating this wondrous rabbit.

“Slow down! Slow down! Didn’t you hear me, lad? I said I can only see pieces of the future or the past or the present. And I don’t usually know what they mean. It is as much of a puzzle to me as it is to you.”

“But if you see it and tell me something, I might do it or not and that would cause things to be different,” argued Nyroc.

“Not at all. I saw you release the vole. It had already happened but I saw it in the web, a rather simple one at that, a tent web, not an orb weaver’s.”

“Tent? Orb weaver? What are you talking about?”

“Different spiders weave different kinds of webs. You got your dome web, your orb, your tube web, your tent, your basic radial.” The rabbit listed several more and then concluded, “But orb weavers are particularly rich in
revealing things past. And the webs are gorgeous! Oh, my Lapin, you’ve never seen anything like it. But knowledge of the past or the future does not cause things to happen.”

“But you said to me, ‘Remember the vole,’ and that made me drop you from my talons almost immediately. So it did cause something to happen.”

“I wouldn’t count on that.” The rabbit paused and reflected a moment. “However, I did feel that you must be a very compassionate owl. For it was a very kind act when you released the vole.”

“But it wasn’t kind at all! I dropped the vole because the posse was coming, and Phillip told me to drop it.”

“Aha! My point exactly,” the rabbit said. “I told you that I only see pieces of the past or the present or the future. Apparently, the logic behind my plea for you to drop me was erroneous.”

“What does that mean—erroneous?”

“Full of mistakes. Yes, the outcome was what I had hoped for, I have to admit. Sometimes it works out that way. Just pure dumb luck.”

Nyroc was confused. The rabbit was answering his questions, but he felt there was much more to what he was saying. Why, for example, would he have risked standing so close to an owl’s hollow, an owl who was not a dweller of this forest? And why should he have looked in
that orb weaver’s web and found information about Nyroc and not the many other creatures of the world?
Why me?
Nyroc wondered.
What is so special about me?
So he asked.

“Why me?”

“Why me what?” replied the rabbit.

“Why are there things about me in the webs and not other animals?”

The rabbit blinked and his pink-rimmed eyes grew sad. Nyroc saw his nose tremble a bit. He felt a tremor pass through his own gizzard. “Because your story is very important. And your story is unfinished.”

“But how am I to finish it?”

“I don’t know. I wish I could tell you more. But it wouldn’t really make a difference.”

“It might.”

“No, I told you I only see pieces, and sometimes I even see those wrongly, as with the vole. I had no idea that when you released the vole, it was an act of desperation and not mercy. So I could tell you something wrong. And besides…” The rabbit stopped midsentence.

“Besides what?”

“You have free will. And it is only by making your own choices that the story can be finished. You already know what you must do, Nyroc. You have known since the last snows of winter melted.”

Nyroc looked at him intently. “I should leave, shouldn’t I.” It was not really a question but a statement. The rabbit nodded silently. Several moments passed before either of them spoke. “I was thinking of going to Silverveil. It is supposed to be one of the loveliest places in the owl universe.”

“Perhaps,” replied the rabbit.

Nyroc had the feeling that the rabbit did not quite approve of his choice. The two animals were silent for a long time. Then Nyroc broke the silence. “How do you know my name?”

The rabbit gave a small shrug. “Oh, names are the easiest part of web reading. I get names all the time. Sometimes, however, it’s hard to match up the name with the creature.”

“Have you ever read the name Soren in your web?”

“Nope.”

Nyroc sighed. He was disappointed. “Maybe Uncle Soren?” he asked.

“No again. But a name did show up this morning in this web here.” The rabbit cocked his head toward the glistening strands that the spider had woven.

“What was it?” Nyroc asked excitedly.

“Fengo,” he replied.

“‘Fengo’? Is it an owl?”

The rabbit shrugged again, but this time it was an I-don’t-know kind of shrug. “Could be. Could be something else, something completely different. Could be something that you once saw.”

“Me?” Nyroc wasn’t quite sure what the rabbit was talking about.

“You see things in the fire, don’t you, Nyroc.” This also was a statement and not a question.

“You know that? No one else does.”

“Oh, I think there might be someone else who knows. But it’s sort of the same with you as it is with me. You see things in the fire and often they are not complete. Just like my pieces from the webs, eh?”

“Yes,” Nyroc replied in a barely audible whisper. Yes, he had seen things. He remembered his first vision in the flames of the fire at his father’s Marking ceremony. Beneath the hisses and snapping noises of the fire, he had heard low growling sounds and he had seen strange shapes rising in an unknown landscape with weird creatures loping across it. And then there was the odd flame with the lick of deep blue at its center and tinted at the edges with a color that he knew now was truly green. Just as he was thinking about the flame’s color, the rabbit said, “Did you see Silverveil in your fire?”

“I—I’m not sure,” Nyroc stammered. “Did you see it in your web?”

“Definitely not. Not even a leaf,” the rabbit replied emphatically. Nyroc dared not ask him if he had seen the same strange place with the odd shapes and creatures that he had seen in the flames of Gwyndor’s fires. He didn’t want to hear about it if he had. “You know, Nyroc, I did not learn how to read webs instantly. I had to practice—all those different webs after all.” The rabbit rattled off the names of a half dozen more kinds of webs. “As I said, it takes practice. I bet there are as many kinds of flames and coals as there are webs. You should find some fires to sharpen up your flame-reading skills. Might learn something of this future that so concerns you.”

“But how would I do that? I don’t know any Rogue smiths around here.”

“You don’t need a Rogue smith. Keep an eye out for the occasional forest fire. And, of course, there are always fires burning in Beyond the Beyond.”

Nyroc started. His eyes flew open at the mention of this place. “You’ve heard of it?” the rabbit asked.

“Yes. I heard some of the owls telling bedtime stories about it.”

“Ah, yes. From the Fire Cycle of the Ga’Hoolian legends.”

“But it’s just a legend, isn’t it?” Nyroc said. “Just a made-up place?”

“Hardly! No, it’s very real.”

“You think I should go there?”

“I can’t do your thinking for you, Nyroc. It’s your decision. But there are lots of fires there. Extraordinary fires. It’s where the first colliers came from. You want to learn about flame reading, that’s the place.”

“Yes, yes, I suppose so. But not quite yet. Maybe someday,” Nyroc said softly.

The rabbit looked at him quizzically. “Yes, someday,” he repeated, but the words sounded hollow to Nyroc, as if the rabbit did not really believe he would ever go there.

“Well, in any case, I think I should be getting along now,” Nyroc said.

“Yes, it will soon be evening.”

Nyroc was shocked. He had not realized that they had been talking for hours and hours and that the sun had swung low in the sky. Its long shafts of light were now piercing the branches of the trees near the ground. The pond was blazing with the violent oranges and deep pinks of a setting sun.
Yes,
Nyroc thought,
it is time for me to leave.

The rabbit waited with him in the gathering lavender shadows of the twilight. When those shadows deepened to purple, Nyroc hopped onto the trunk of the fallen tree
that had been his home for so long. He was about to say good-bye and to spread his wings but stopped.

“Rabbit, I don’t even know your name. What is your name?”

“Oh, just call me Rabbit, that’s good enough.”

“But you must have a name,” Nyroc protested.

“I do. But I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“If I tell you, I lose my powers.”

“But you said names were so easy.”

“Yes. The names of others. But not one’s own. Maybe you’ll find my name in your fires.”

Nyroc blinked.

“Good-bye, Nyroc.”

“Good-bye, Rabbit.”

N
yroc’s tree stump was in the most southern portion of the Shadow Forest. He bid it good-bye with one glance over his starboard wing. In order to reach Silverveil, he flew a northeasterly course, cutting across the very top of The Barrens, which, true to its name, had scarcely a tree to perch in. He was getting awfully tired because he had been battling headwinds for hours. It was still a long time until dawn, and he thought he might set down for a rest and get a bite to eat before going on, even if that rest had to be on a boulder. Still high above the ground, he heard the skitterings of small animals, most likely rodents scampering across that hard ground. He did think that it would be a long time before he could consider rabbit as proper prey again. No. Right now he would settle for a mouse, a scrawny chipmunk, whatever.

He began carving a turn. It felt great to have his tail feathers working so well again. He alighted gracefully on a
boulder and waited patiently, thinking something was bound to pass his way.