Book 12 - The Golden Tree (14 page)

this evil? May it stay in the tunnel forever, he thought.
In
166 178 the distance close to the ground, Coryn glimpsed a puff of white. He flew toward it. As he flew, he noticed beneath him a carnage of wolves, but so far no bodies of owls, and although he did not recognize the wolves as the ones who had come with them from the Beyond, they certainly did not look like vyrwolves. They were of normal size, their different colors ranging from gray to brown to cream. Was this like that desert battle of the hagsfiends he had read about in the legends when the hagsfiends, final y vanquished, looked no bigger than ordinary crows? As he drew closer, his gizzard stil ed. Something awful was ahead. His mind, his heart, his gizzard railed against it. No, not Twilight. Not Twilight...
167 CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Not Twilight
It wasn't Twilight. It was Cody. Gyl bane's sobs racked the night. The young wolf barely beyond

being pup lay atop The Book of Kreeth, his throat
slashed. "He saved the book;' Gyl bane sobbed. "He saved it, but for what?" She raised her head. Coryn's gizzard was wrenched. Here was a mother who truly loved her son.
Near Cody's body lay Twilight. Madame Plonk was hovering over him, fanning him with her large wings. The Band crowded in close. He had lost a great deal of blood. He seemed shrunken and his gaze wandered deliriously.
"How wil we ever get him back to the great tree?" Coryn asked.
"We won't," said Digger solemnly. Coryn blinked. Was Digger saying that Twilight would die here? He didn't understand. This wasn't like the Band. Not at al like the Band - and where was Soren? "Where's Soren? He isn't hurt, is he?" "No." Gylfie stepped forward. "Soren is on his way to
180 Ambala with Doc Finebeak. They wil fly

through the rest of the night and through the day."
"Why?" asked Coryn. But the rest of them real y weren't hearing Coryn's questions. They were al staring at his eyes as the last tel tale reflections of the Ember of Hoole faded from them. "Why?" demanded Coryn more forceful y. "Why, at a time like this, is he flying to Ambala?" Gylfie stepped forward closer now and looked up into the young king's eyes, stil searching for what she thought she had glimpsed. "He has gone to Ambala to seek Slynel a and Stingyl ." "Slynel a and Stingyl !" Coryn felt his gizzard stir with happiness because these were the two flying snakes, companions of Mist, who lived with her in the eagle's nest high in the mountaintops of Ambala. Their poisonous venom could also cure, if properly dispensed from the two prongs of their ivory-and-crimson forked tongues. The snakes had befriended Coryn after he had left his mother and the Pure Ones, when Coryn had been treated as an outcast and forced to flee nearly every forest in the Southern Kingdoms.

If only Twilight could live until they arrived. Soren
was a fast flier, and with Doc Finebeak's free pass through crow territory, perhaps there was a chance. Coryn crouched down on the ground near the Great Gray.
169 181 "Twilight," Coryn whispered. "Live. Please live." The other owls huddled in closer. They, too, began to speak encouraging words despite their worst fears. Gylfie and Digger were dazed. They had been the Band forever. They had been four. And now with Twilight on the brink of death, and Soren away, we feel.,, Gylfie thought, like an owl with one wing. Halved. Diminished.
For the rest of the night and through the next day they al spoke encouraging words to the Great Gray, and Madame Plonk continued to fan Twilight tirelessly with her enormous white wings. A vole was caught, kil ed, and its blood squeezed into Twilight's parched throat. Twilight had been thrashing and restless, but now as tween time approached, he grew quieter. Digger and Gylfie and Madame Plonk glanced nervously at one another. What did this mean? They al knew this was the hour that Twilight had been named for. It was that silvery edge of time

had been named for. It was that silvery edge of time
that truly was Twilight's hour. Fie was an owl who could see things that other birds could not when the boundaries between day and night became dim and shapes melted away, when the edges of time and space, of earth and sky, became uncertain. How often had they heard the Great Gray say, "I live on the edge and I love it"? But what edge was that dear, brash owl teetering on now?
170 182 Was it truly the edge between being and not being, between sky and glaumora, between life and death? For Twilight to die at twilight, for him to draw his last breath as the evening shadows gathered seemed so wrong. So very wrong, Gylfie thought.
"Look!" Hamish said. "Look to the east." Two glowing scrol s of green unfurled through a low-flying cloud.
"It's Slynel a!" Gylfie shrieked. "And Stingyl !" Digger gasped in relief. The two flying snakes were flanked by Soren and Doc Finebeak.
"Hang on!" Gylfie crouched close to Twilight's ear

slits. "Hang on! Remember how they saved Soren
that time, Twilight?"
The venomous green flying snakes of Ambala, elixirs for life and poisons for death in their forked tongues, could cure the most grievously wounded, but they could not bring back the dead. Gylfie glanced at Gyl bane, who had dragged herself to her feet and looked longingly as the snakes coiled themselves around the barely breathing body of Twilight. Gylfie flew back and lighted down in the ruff of Gyl bane's neck fur. "I am so sorry, Gyl bane. So very sorry."
"Can nothing be done?"
"I'm afraid not. The snakes are good but they cannot perform miracles."
Gyl bane shut her eyes tight. "Cody and I, we escaped
171 183 MacHeath and that was a miracle, and our time together seems like another sort of miracle. But it is over." The sky was growing darker. The stars were breaking out and Gyl bane looked

up as if searching for something. Then she rose and
walked awav. Gvlfie fluttered off her back, sensing that the wolf needed to be alone for a while, alone and apart. She went over to where the owls were stil clustered around Twilight. The snakes' jaws were stretched so wide open that they appeared to be unhinged. Their forked tongues were flickering in the night like strange pink lightning as they dabbed their venom in the stil -bleeding wounds of Twilight. Soren looked up. "I think they're stanching the flow of blood. He seems better. His breathing is more even. Rut the gash on his port wing is bad. I don't know how he'l fly with it ever again.'
A ragged voice cut through the evening air. "I'l teach myself. I'm from the Orphan School of Tough Learning. Flew when I was barely fledged. Nobody taught me then. Had to figure it out for myself. Lived with foxes in Kuneer. Learned how to dril a hole in a tree from woodpeckers in Ambala. I'l teach myself to fly with this wing, you can bet on it. Now, scram, al of you. I need my sleep. I'l be ready to fly by tomorrow's First Black." He paused and churred. "With a little help from my friends." 172 184 Twilight was ready not by First Black but

two days later, which was miracle enough. The
Band arranged themselves into a loose rectangle known as a krokenbot, which was a flight vacuum for transporting wounded owls. It was a formation they had learned from the owls of the Northern Kingdoms and it had proven as effective as the more traditional vine hammocks they often brought to the battlefield. The seven owls, the Band plus Doc Finebeak, Coryn, and Madame Plonk, rose now into the night with Twilight in the middle of the rectangle, who gingerly flapped his wings every few seconds. As they flew, Gylfie spun her head back to look for Gyl bane. The beautiful wolf had climbed to the very top of the rock formation known as the Great Horns, which were two peaks that rose like the tufts of a Great Horned Owl into the sky. The wolf had camped there for a night and a day and now into this night. Like a sentry of the night sky, she kept watch on a track of stars that the wolves cal ed the spirit trail, which led to a constel ation known to wolves as the cave of souls. She was waiting for the lochinmorrin, when Cody's spirit would begin to climb the spirit trail to find his peace in the cave of souls. Gyl bane would know it deep within her when

it final y happened and she would wait patiently until
that moment.
173 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Other-ish
Primrose!" Otulissa said, shocked as the tiny Pygmy Owl was shoved into the prison hol ow of the great tree. "What in the world are you doing here?" "Blasphemy." Primrose sighed.
"Blasphe ... W-w-w-w-what? What in the world does that mean?" Otulissa asked.
Primrose blinked. "You mean you don't know?" She was stunned. She thought Otulissa, the most learned owl in the tree, would know the meaning of this word. How could Elyan and Gemma know and not Otulissa? They weren't half as smart. "Wel . I am familiar with the word in certain contexts. It comes from the Others and has something to do with their gods and their churches,

but it is certainly not an owl word. I can't imagine it
being an owl anything.'"
"Wel , it is and I've done it." "What have you done?'
"Nothing that I am aware of. So I can't real y tel you."
174 186 "Primrose, Primrose." Otulissa sighed. "Does this have something to do with the ember?" "Yes, but I didn't cause it."
"I'm sure you didn't. Just begin at the beginning." "I was on watch. You know I'm" - she paused - "or was, an acolyte of the ashes. My duties were to remove the ashes from the chalice." "The chalice? What in hagsmire is that?" "You know, the container that Bubo made." "Since when are they cal ing it the chalice? We always just cal ed it the container or the pot - or the cask. Another one of those frinkin' Others' words. We're owls, for Glaux's sake, not Others. Wel , go

on."
"It was shortly after I removed the ashes that the ember started to grow dimmer, lose its glow. To make a long story short, they al got nervous. They were sure that somehow I hadn't done it right, hadn't said the right words."
"What words?"
"Just words. Gemma made them up, I think. She said I'd done something, said them wrong. Saying them wrong is blasphemy. But I swear I said them the way I always did when I remove the ashes. I didn't do anything differently. The ember just started to kind of fade. I didn't make bias-whatever." And with that, the little Pygmy Owl began to weep. 175 187 Otulissa hopped over and began running her beak through the feathers on Primrose's tiny wings. "Of course you didn't." She paused and pitched her voice low and very rough. "You want to hear blasphemy? I wish they'd chuck that frinking ember into the Sea of Hoolemere and I'd yarp a pel et on it for good measure!"

Primrose jerked up her head. "Don't speak that
way, Otulissa. You'l real y get in trouble." "Trouble? I'm in prison. It's the whole frinking tree that's in trouble."
Primrose blinked again. She'd never heard such language coming from Otulissa. She was swearing worse than a seagul .
The prison hol ow was not commodious and there had even been talk of putting bars in another hol ow as there were apparently more blasphemers. But on this particular morning as a weak winter sun trickled in, Otulissa, who could not sleep, got up to stretch her wings as best she could without disturbing Primrose. Normal y, she would have been happy to see this late-winter sun, for that would mean that spring could not be more than a moon cycle away, that the tree would be coming out of the season of the white rain and begin to turn silvery and then with summer golden and then in the final flush of 176 188 the yearly cycle, copper rose. But for moon cycle after moon cycle, it had not changed. It

was stil summer gold. How boring life is when
nothing changes, Otulissa thought as she peered out through the bars. Gold! I hate it Just then in the pale dawn sky that was streaked with a pink as delicate as the inside of seashel s, she saw a spot of white - two spots of white. Not clouds, she thought. Her thoughts came slowly but with a crispness, a clarity as she watched the two spots grow larger.
It can't be. She hasn't flown out from the island in years. But I swear I'd recognize that fat head anyplace. And Soren! Her gizzard leaped. In the next moment, a great triumphal chord sounded from the grass harp. The great tree throbbed with a fluttering of wings, and owls could be heard crying, "The Band is back! The king is returning." Hundreds of owls swarmed out of their hol ows. The air around the tree was laced with cries of "Hail Coryn, king of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree. The ember wil glow once more." Then the sound of things crashing, shattering.
"What was that? What is it?" Primrose awoke with a start.

"Coryn is back. The Band is back," Otulissa said
breathlessly,
"But that noise. Is it a fight? What is happening?" 177 189 "I don't know." Otulissa blinked. Fear threaded through her gizzard. "I can't imagine." And Otulissa real y couldn't have imagined what was going on in the Great Hol ow. The Band, Madame Plonk, Coryn, and Doc Finebeak swept through the immense hol ow where the owls shared many of their most solemn and most festive occasions. In their absence, the Great Hol ow had been rendered unrecognizable - draped with al sorts of embroidered cloth and tapestries made by the nest-maids' sewing guild. The ember itself had been placed on an altar that was strung with beads and pearls obviously acquired through Trader Mags.
"It looks like a church!" Gylfie squealed in dismay. "It's so OTHER!" Soren gasped. "It sure ain't owl!" Twilight raged. Twilight, who had

much of his strength back, now seemed suddenly to
regain the rest as he flew directly at the tapestry that hung behind the altar and, with his beak, tore it down.
"Blasphemy!" an owl cried. "Arrest that owl!" "Shut up!" Bubo roared. "Or I'l knock yer block off!'
"Bubo," Coryn commanded, "go immediately and release Otulissa and then take your strongest hammer and tongs and destroy those prison bars.' The Band and Coryn tore through the Great Hol ow,
178 190 ripping down tapestries, scattering ashes from smal cups and bowls. The Guardians of the Guardians of the Ember perched in a confused silence, wil ed, slender shadows of their former selves. They mumbled to one another, blinking and wondering. And when al the gilt and glittering ornamentation had been removed, the Great Hol ow stripped bare of its elaborate decoration, the acolytes and. the choirs told to shut their beaks and

stop the maddening songs and prayers of praise to
an ember, Coryn cal ed the owls of the great tree to order.
"The parliament!" the young king commanded. "I want the parliament perched directly before me." The owls of the parliament gathered on a perch. "Now this group, the ... the ..." Coryn resisted cal ing them a mob. "The Guardians of the Guardians of the Ember, please fly forth."
Six owls flew up and lighted down in front of Coryn: Elyan, Gemma, and Yeena; Penfold, a Northern Saw-whet; Humbert, a Spotted Owl; and a Great Gray cal ed Felix.
"Disgrace to the species!" Twilight muttered, eyeing Felix.
Elyan stepped forward. "We meant no harm. We only intended to protect."
"You did nothing of the sort," Coryn fumed. "You violated the very meaning, the essence of this tree. A prison!
179 191 What twisted gizzard came up with the