The War of the Ember (7 page)

F
ar away, in the Middle Kingdom of Jouzhenkyn, Taya, a blue owl who served as a page in the Dragon Court of the Panqua Palace, was troubled. She had been a page for perhaps one hundred years and recently had detected currents of—for lack of a better word—energy among the court owls. She had never before felt such currents there. Was it restlessness? Such disquiet was almost unimaginable amid the thick lethargy of the Dragon Court owls. Their vanity linked with their dullness of wit had kept them subdued. The excessive pride they took in their plumage had led them to grow their feathers to such extravagant lengths that they could hardly fly, and for the most part were towed about the jeweled interior of the palace by bearers. There had been the unfortunate incident of Orlando, who had managed to pluck his feathers secretly until
they were a reasonable length for flight and then escaped. How he had ever managed to learn how to fly was still a mystery. But as far as Taya knew, the other owls of the Dragon Court were too listless to have even noticed.

Taya had detected this strange energy perhaps two or three moon cycles previously. At first, she thought it was her imagination. But now she began to wonder again when she saw two azure-colored owls whispering with a new brightness in their eyes. She watched carefully as they were towed side by side through the Hollow of Benevolence and Forgiveness in the wake of the Empress Dowager. The empress seemed as dull-eyed as ever. Taya sensed an impatience in the two azure owls, as if they wanted to move faster. This was unheard of. Taya also observed that their feathers seemed somehow different. She decided she had to discuss her concerns with the steward. A pompous old owl, he was only the third steward since the creation of the Panqua Palace nearly one thousand years before by Theosang, the first H’ryth. Taya was not looking forward to this meeting but it needed to be done. She proceeded toward his office, the Jasper Chamber directly off the Hollow of Perpetual Beauty, where the dragon owls indulged in endless preening.

“Permission to see the steward.” Taya addressed a tiny cerulean-blue owl, who resembled an Elf Owl except for his color.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No, but this is important.”

“That’s what they all say.” He had mastered the cultivated weariness of the steward’s many sycophants. They all tried to lord their position over the other owls who served in the Panqua Palace. One had to play their game, had to toady up to them the way they toadied to the steward. The cerulean owl named Pingong would take a bit of work.

“Come on, Ping. You know I hardly ever ask for an audience with the steward,” Taya said. Pingong gave Taya a look of disdain which was not easy since she towered over him.
How does an owl who is one-third my height manage to look down at me?
Taya wondered. She was becoming tired of this game. What she had to talk to the steward about was important and she was getting very irritated. “Look,” Taya said. “The last secretary to the steward was let go because the head page complained. That was maybe fifty years ago, and guess what? I’m the head page now. If you consult the Panqua Scroll of Peerage, in the staffing section for the palace, you will find that I
actually outrank you.” The little owl wilfed a bit and became slightly smaller. “So let’s be reasonable.”

“Oh, all right. He’s in there now, going over the menus.”

The steward was a jade-blue with dashes of a softer blue in his coverts. He was bent over some charts. “Yes,” he said, but did not look up.

“High Steward,” Taya began. No one was ever allowed to address the steward by anything but his title, never his name. “I have recently become aware of a stirring, a suspicious energy in the palace.”

The steward still did not look up. This was part of his game. It did not disturb Taya in the least. She was about to go on when he said, “Are you aware, Taya, that this new source of yak butter I found for the preening has not only increased the dragon owls’ feather growth, but since we have incorporated it into their diet, it seems to be making them even fatter and slower. They delight in it.”

Yak butter was the fuel used for fire in the Middle Kingdom. Every hollow had its yak butter lamps. It was rarely used for feather conditioner.
And,
thought Taya,
I am sure you’re getting a kickback.

The high steward could be absolutely maddening.
“Look,” Taya said impatiently. “With all due respect, I did not come here to talk about yak butter.”

Now the jade-blue owl looked up from his scroll. “I don’t care for your tone, Taya,” he said slowly.

Taya ignored the comment and barged ahead. “I’m worried. I am detecting unrest.”

“You have a very active imagination.”

“Before Orlando left…”

The high steward cut her off immediately. “We don’t speak of that. It was a freakish anomaly.”

“Indeed!” Taya said pointedly, and glared at the high steward, her contempt barely concealed. “When was the last time we took a census?”

“A census? You mean, actually counting all the owls in the Panqua Palace?”

“Yes, this used to be done on a regular basis.”

“It was found to be a waste of time and effort. There are more than a thousand owls here.”

“Are there?” Taya said softly. The jade-blue owl puffed up his feathers. He narrowed his eyes. As if to say,
You dare challenge me?
But instead, he returned to his study of the fat content in yak milk. “You are dismissed, Taya. Do not bother me again with your imaginative ramblings.”

Taya whirled and flew out of the Jasper Chamber. She was absolutely furious. Tearing through the Hollow of Extended Preening and then taking a sharp turn, she swept down the Hollow of Supreme Contentment where the Empress Dowager was being towed by her servants. The wafting extravagance of her feathers created a soft weather of their own that actually generated thermals on which servants could often soar without stirring a wing. The empress tipped her head up. “Why the rush, dear Taya? Enjoy my thermal drafts.”

“Yes, they are lovely, glorious. They wrap me in your eternal beauty and warmth.”

It was part of court etiquette to answer almost any remark from one of the dragon owls with lavish praise. Taya knew that she must slow her flight or she would be in for yet another reprimand from the minister of protocol. Perhaps slowing down was good. It would give her time to think. Her emotions had gotten the better of her during the disastrous interview with the high steward. She would coast along for a bit and then discreetly leave the Empress Dowager’s thermal wake at the Amethyst Gate.

Despite the spaciousness of the Panqua Palace’s hollows and the dazzling beauty of its jeweled walls and
pillars, there was not a servant who did not welcome a break from its splendor when they could fly freely outside, encountering the real wind and the tumultuous drafts that blew off the snowy peaks of the Middle Kingdom. Each servant earned a leave of absence, usually once a moon cycle, when they would return and visit their families. And although it was an honor to serve in the Panqua Palace, it was an even greater one to serve as pikyus, the spiritual teachers who resided in the owlery at the Mountain of Time. But few were qualified and even fewer were chosen for the long arduous course of study.

After leaving the dowager’s procession, Taya had been riding some crisp drafts not far from the opening split of the enormous geode that formed the structure of the Panqua Palace, when she spied a small blue cyclonic swirl rising up as if directly through the walls of the geode. She immediately went into a steep, banking turn to investigate closer.
It must be from one of the vents,
she thought. There were a series of natural vents penetrating the geode that brought in thin rivulets of fresh air to the outermost walls and chambers of the palace. These chambers were used mostly for storage of yak butter and as servants’ quarters. She alighted on a cornice just by the vent and poked her beak through.
She blinked and felt a stab deep in her gizzard. There was an enormous pile of blue feathers in the chamber. Many of them had broken and bloodied shafts. These had not been naturally molted at all, but unnaturally plucked. This was precisely how Orlando had succeeded in arresting the extreme growth of his feathers before making his escape. Plucking the feathers when they were at the proper stage encouraged vigorous growth, and kept the vain dragon owls earthbound, but plucking when they were freen inhibited this growth, which was exactly what Orlando did to get himself flight-ready.
How many Dragon Court owls are flight-ready right now?
Taya wondered.

She peered down at the pile of blood-streaked feathers. It seemed immense. Was a rebellion brewing? How many had already flown away, and where had they gone? She raged now when she thought of her curt dismissal by the high steward. He had nearly laughed at her when she had suggested a census. Then a maverick thought shot through her brain and she felt her gizzard freeze. Forget the dragon owl census. What about the sterile eggs that the dragon owls of the Panqua Palace routinely produced? Unlike most sterile eggs, these were not allowed to remain in a nest for five minutes but were immediately removed by servants and destroyed. They
were smashed to bits for reasons never quite clear to Taya but in strict accordance with instructions explicitly laid down in the Theo Papers. Hadn’t she noticed that the mound of broken eggshells that she often flew over seemed smaller of late?

Taya now flew to the far side of the cliffs, where the refuse heaps were. There were mounds of yarped pellets and knolls made from the smashed shells of the infertile eggs. She was about to fly closer to the eggshell mound when she noticed one of the lower-echelon owls of the preening unit. His beak was slick with yak butter and he was poking into the yarped pellet heap. Why would a preener be sticking his nose into yarped pellets? Were there ingredients for some kind of beauty treatment to be found? Hardly! The notion was disgusting and would certainly offend the vanity of any dragon owl worth its fancy plumage. Taya watched closely. Her eyes widened. She felt her gizzard clutch. He was arranging pellets carefully around something. What was it?
Why doesn’t he leave?
She was desperate to see why a preener would be hanging around this offal. Finally, he left.

As soon as he was out of sight, Taya flew down. She looked about, then began to poke her beak into the area where she had seen the preener. Her beak struck something! With her talons, she began carefully picking
off the top layer of pellets. When she got to the bottom of the pile of pellets, she noticed the ground had been recently disturbed. So she began scratching at the loose gravelly debris. Within half a minute she saw something all too familiar—the gleaming dark shell of a sterile dragon owl’s egg. At that moment, Taya thought she might faint dead away. Her first instinct was to destroy it. But this had to be part of some terrible plot, a heinous conspiracy, and if the conspirators knew she was on to them, it would make it more difficult to catch them. She first had to tell someone. Not the steward, obviously. For all she knew, he was the owl behind the plot. No, there was only one thing to do.

She turned, spread her wings, and took off into a blast of cold air. Climbing over the blast with a fury, she began flying as fast as she had ever flown to the one place where she would be listened to: the owlery at the Mountain of Time. The H’ryth would hear her out. The H’ryth was the opposite of the high steward. Humble, meek, with a deep wisdom of the ages that sparkled like green glints in his pale yellow eyes. He was, after all, the direct spiritual descendant of the first H’ryth, Theosang.

T
he rain was soft, slanting down from the clouds. Six owls had flown out of the great tree on a course due west across the Sea of Hoolemere. It was the Band, plus two Barn Owls, Soren’s sister, Eglantine, and the young Fiona. They were flying high in the uppermost stria of clouds. The sharp tang of the Hoolemere Sea cut through the rain. “It must be wild down there,” Twilight said.

It was beyond wild, Soren thought. He had never seen such weather. The dark, roiling clouds were perfect for their purposes and yet the tumult of the storm winds, which always thrilled him in the same way as they had his mentor Ezylryb, now seemed disturbing. He looked up at the nearly black clouds and imagined that they reflected an even greater storm to come.

Gylfie was navigating as usual. She now flew with a tiny device—a clock that was called a chronometer, which was based on an ancient instrument from the time of the Others, and consulted it often. She now gave
a position report: “We are, to the best of my knowledge, over the Shadow Forest.”

“The Shadow Forest must be getting hammered,” Twilight said.

“Not many other owls would come out in this,” Digger said.

“Let alone bury themselves in the upper cloud layer while three owls took care of business,” Gylfie added with a churr. For that, indeed, was the plan that had been worked out in much greater detail since the first strategy session.

The Band, along with Eglantine and Fiona, were following Ruby, Wensel, and Fritha to the Palace of Mists. They would bury themselves in the stria just above the palace while the three owls collected the embers. When the three ember carriers departed the palace, they would take off in different directions and each would be covered by a pair of owls flying useen above them. One of each pair would be a Barn Owl who could track them, using its exceptional auditory skills, no matter what the weather. Each of the three ember carriers would ultimately arrive at the Wolf’s Fang. The Wolf’s Fang was a rock formation in the Sea of Vastness, which was a stopping point to the River of Wind that carried one to the Middle Kingdom. It was on this desolate
sea-torn outpost that the ember carriers and their detail of trackers would rendezvous to await word from Tengshu to learn whether or not the H’ryth had given permission to transport the ember to the Middle Kingdom. At least that was the plan.

I usually love flying this weather but this time it’s not for fun,
Soren thought.
It’s for the ember.
But then again, this weather was so Ezylryb! Below them the perfect storm was just getting organized. There was a kink in the usual weather patterns for this season. The katabats had begun to blow earlier than normal and an immense eddy from the River of Wind was billowing up in the far west. It blew at a high speed between the Hoolian world and that of the Middle Kingdom. Since Otulissa’s injuries, Soren had been the primary researcher picking through the data they were gathering from the scores of feather buoys they had set out. Nights before, he had begun to get unusual readings. The calm sea was building into mountainous waves. They all heard an ominous whining periodically as the wind spiked to a new force. The keening wind was punctuated by the crashing of the towering waves onto the land below, uprooting entire sections of coastal forests.

As devastating as conditions were, they all added up to a perfect storm and, under its cover, the three owls, Fritha, Wensel, and Ruby, could take the ember out of
the Palace of Mists and fly it as quickly as possible to the Middle Kingdom—if permission had been granted by the H’ryth.

Now in the dim light of the crypt at the Palace of Mists, Fritha, Ruby, and Wensel watched as Bess, with a set of pincers, drew out the teardrop-shaped cask that contained the ember. There was a prescribed manner in which the ember was to be deposited in one of the three botkins. Fritha, Ruby, and Wensel were to turn their tails so that they could not see which botkin Bess emptied the cask into. Each of the three botkins contained other bonk coals, which served two purposes: first to insulate the owls from the powerful effects of the ember, and second to camouflage the ember, which, to most, looked like any other bonk coal.

“All right, turn tail,” Bess said quietly. The three owls turned around. There was no temptation to peek, although each owl did wonder if he or she would feel the presence of the true ember in the botkin. Fritha and Wensel were comparatively young owls and this was by far the most important mission they had been sent on since taking their oaths as Guardians. Fritha possessed a ferocity that belied her size. Wensel’s personality was marked by the eccentricities and quirkiness
associated with artists, for he was a gifted illustrator. He had an amazing capacity for coming up with creative solutions to almost any problem. Soren and Otulissa knew both of these owls well and felt they were perfect for the job. Ruby, of course, was Ruby. More experienced than either one of the others, she was arguably the finest flier in the entire tree. This was the best team for this mission.

Bess closed her own eyes and dropped the ember into one of the three botkins. It would be Bubo who would determine for sure which botkin had the ember when he met them at the Wolf’s Fang with the other owls. And if the H’ryth agreed, it would be Tengshu who would carry the ember across the River of Wind to the Middle Kingdom.

With eyes still shut Bess then commenced to shuffle the containers around on the stone floor and then reshuffled them two more times. Opening her eyes, she said, “All right, go back to the position where your original botkin was.” The owls did as they were told. She sighed deeply. “I guess that’s it.” They could hear the wind howling. It was so loud it nearly obliterated the crash of the waterfalls outside. It was an ominous, wild, keening sound. A shiver went through all of them.

“Sound of that wind gives me the creelies,” Wensel said, and wrapped his wings around his chest as if to protect himself.

“Don’t worry. That’s the sound of a great wind for flying,” Ruby said. “You’ll get the ride of your life.” Bess stole a glance a Ruby. No wonder Soren had sent Ruby. She was perfect for these young owls. She bolstered their spirits, supported them, encouraged them, and looked out for them. Ruby did, however, look different. After three dippings in the bingle juice mixture, Ruby’s ruddy feathers were now a tawny blondish hue. No one would recognize her. Indeed, the only thing that might give her away was her skillful flying. But they hoped no owls would be out in this weather to see it.

“All right,” Ruby said, taking a step closer to the others. “You’ve studied the charts. You each know your individual flight plan.”

“Yes,” Fritha answered. “I am to go due east from here into the canyonlands, then circle back west and head for Beyond the Beyond, and head straight out toward the Wolf’s Fang.”

“And you, Wensel?”

“Yes ma’am.” Wensel then repeated the details of his route.

“Excellent!” Bess replied after they had recited their individual flight plans. She accompanied them to the turret opposite the bell tower and watched them take off into the wildness of the storm. She had to wedge herself into one of the stone turret notches to keep from being swept off. The raging wind blew the cascading water of the falls in horizontal sheets across the night. Trees shuddered, the noise of their branches a drumbeat beneath the wind. Flashes of lightning illuminated the undersides of rolling clouds, giving them a harsh metallic glow, and always that odd whining that sliced through the wind’s roar, splitting it like a talon through tender flesh.

But the three owls were amazing fliers. Bess watched as they lifted off into the teeth of the storm. Catching every favorable draft, they manipulated their wings constantly to adjust to the confusing air currents. There were alarming shifts and abrupt shears where a wind could accelerate or decelerate dramatically, change its direction completely, pocking the air with deadfalls and suck-down vents, which could spell disaster for the average flier. But these were no average fliers. “Glaux speed,” she murmured softly as she saw them dissolve into a thick dark cloud bank. “Glaux speed!”