P
leek regarded his mate, Ygryk, who flew a good distance ahead of him, her head sweeping in a wide arc as she sniffed the air. How stunned his family had been when he had chosen a hagsfiend for his mate. “A disgrace,” they had hooted. “Outrageous!” screeched an elderly aunt. But where they saw filth, he saw a dark purity. Where they smelled the stench of crow, he experienced only the heady scent of nachtmagen. She was magnificent and powerful. The half-hags that flew in the fringes of her primaries served her well because she commanded them so expertly. And it was for this reason she was one of the finest trackers in the N’yrthghar. These tiny poisonous half-hags darted out from beneath the edges of her flight wings on short forays to detect clues from the long-vanished flight paths of owls. It might have been hours since an owl had passed through a patch of sky but a half-hag could sense the most minute vestiges in an air current disturbed by the wings of a particular owl. It might be anything—a
tiny filament of down still spinning in a swirling eddy, the scent of a pellet yarped in flight. Nothing was too small, too insignificant, for these tiny poisonous creatures to detect. And their obedience to Ygryk was unparalleled, unequivocal, and beyond that of any other half-hags. This made Ygryk the best tracker.
They knew exactly what they were looking for. As soon as Lord Arrin had given them their flight orders, Pleek had returned to the iceberg where Siv had nested. They waited until Svenka and her cubs were off fishing and picked up a feather Siv had shed. This was enough to provide the half-hags with her scent. Furthermore, Ygryk had explained to them, in that odd language that was used only by hagsfiends to communicate with their half-hags, how Siv’s flight marks would differ; because of her damaged port wing, she would be favoring her starboard wing. Therefore the air she passed through would be unevenly disturbed.
The half-hags’ first clue had been picked up in a maverick eddy that had spun off an air stream coming off the island of Dark Fowl.
“Two points north of east,” Ygryk called to her mate. She flipped her head back to make sure he was following. How incredible it seemed to her that a true owl had chosen her for his mate. How seldom this happened. She felt
so proud. And Ygryk’s family was as proud as Pleek’s was ashamed. The only problem was that they had been unable to have offspring. Only a few of these rare unions provided offspring, and for most hagsfiends it was not a problem. But for Ygryk it was. Deep within her she had a longing that was different from anything she had ever known. She adored anything young and vulnerable. Now, many hagsfiends were fascinated by the innocence of chicks or cubs or pups, but it was not a loving fascination. Quite the reverse. They enjoyed killing the defenseless and the innocent. The blood of innocents was a tonic on which they thrived. They had even been known to eat their own young. Ygryk, too, had bloodied her beak countless times on young polar bear cubs left while their mothers went hunting. She had swooped down on a fox’s kit that had scampered from its den. And nothing was more delightful than a nest full of soft newborn bunnies. The pathetic mewlings of the mother before Ygryk would rip out its throat, the wide-eyed disbelief of those babies as she slowly ate them one by one, too stupefied even to run. But this fascination and thrill of power over the innocent had turned to something else when she had met Pleek and had thought of a chick of her own—half-owl, half-hagsfiend—a dear little creature. She had imagined it for so long. The chick would have, of course, two dark
brown tufts that rose on top of its head, just like Pleek’s. And she pictured its plumage mostly black but shot through with some of the grays and tans of a Great Horned. Its eyes would be the lovely amber of Pleek’s. When she’d begun to realize that this was not going to happen, that there would be no chick, she tried to remember some old nachtmagen spells that she had heard about from an ancient crone of a hag who lived deep in the Ice Narrows. She had visited the hag. Kreeth was her name, and Ygyrk had looked at some of the peculiar birds Kreeth had produced from her experiments with puffins, which were prevalent in the region. Some had called the resulting birds monstrosities, but Ygryk found them quite charming.
“It can de done,” Kreeth had told her. “Better not to get an egg though. Better to get a hatchling or even a young owlet just learning to fly. Then if you set your half-hags around it and say the first spell, it will make the chick resistant to the poison. After that you must move on to the second spell.”
“And what is that?” Ygryk asked.
Kreeth waited to reply, then spoke. “You won’t like it, but it must be done. You must trust the spell. It is called the nacht blucken.”
“What is it? I’ll do anything.”
Kreeth had looked at her carefully. Yes, she believed this desperate hagsfiend would do anything. The passion was there. “You must pluck out one of its eyes,” Kreeth said.
“What?”
“You heard me. You must pluck out one of its eyes.”
“But how will it see to fly?”
“Fear not. It will grow another eye very quickly but where the eye was, the powers of the fyngrot will enter.”
“It will have fyngrot even though it started as a simple owl?” Ygyrk was stunned.
“There is nothing simple about an owl. Nothing at all. And if you get a special owl, one of great lineage and powerful ancestors, you will have created a most magnificent creature.”
When Ygyrk had told Pleek about this, their desire to find a chick that they could make their own became an obsession for both of them. And then when they had heard that Siv had laid an egg, the obsession became an all-encompassing passion. To steal the egg of King H’rath and Queen Siv, and when it hatched to ensnare that chick into the web of spells she had learned from Kreeth—why they dared not even imagine the possibilities! Their powers would exceed those of any living thing not just in the N’yrthghar but in the entire universe of owls, no, of all creatures.
A half-hag flew up to Ygryk and reported that a thread of down from the target owl had been detected amidst uneven air currents leading to the region just south of the Bitter Sea, near the Ice Dagger.
Ice Dagger! Bitter Sea!
thought Ygryk. Open water! But nothing would stop her. Her passion, a mere spark in the beginning, was now raging inside her like a fire. She would fly through any wind, any storm, over any sea! The heat of her passion would keep her dry. She would become as impervious to seawater as hagsfiends were to the poison of their half-hags. She would get this chick. She would be a mother. A
mother
! The word screamed in her head. And if she had had a true gizzard it might have shattered from the tumult of her feelings.
Some time earlier, Siv had lifted off from the Ice Dagger where she had taken a good long rest. Her wing felt much restored and, with the wind dying, she hoped to reach the Bitter Sea by moonrise. If, indeed, she would even see the moon tonight. There was a thick cloud cover, which she blessed. Her disguise was good but still, as she flew, she took care to bury herself deep within any clouds. She tried to imagine what her chick might look like. Would he have her eyes or maybe H’rath’s, the amber sparkling with bright glints of gold? Would he have
inherited her gift for verse? There were so many things to imagine with this chick. The hardest, of course, was to picture herself holding back, not rushing up to preen him, but concealing her own identity. But conceal she would. She was firm in her gizzard on this point. She would do nothing to endanger his life. When she found him—if she found him—she would observe him from afar and she would only approach him if Grank was not around, if he was alone. Grank knew her too well. He would recognize her instantly and although he would not betray who she was, it would make life more difficult for him and the last thing she wanted was to make anything difficult for Grank. She owed Grank if not her own life then that of her son. It suddenly struck Siv that for her there was no distinction between the two of them: Her life was inextricably entwined with that of her chick. There was, from her point of view, no separation. If he died, she would die. She knew this as well as she had ever known anything. But if she died, she felt deep within her gizzard that he would go on. And that was really all that mattered.
Through a sudden patchy thinness in the clouds, the retreat of the Glauxian Sisters came into view. Her cousin Rorkna was the abbess of the sisters. How she would love to light down there for a visit. It had been so long since she had seen her. But it would not do. There must not be
a whisper of her presence in this region even if she was disguised as a gadfeather.
She thought now about her visit at the gathering of gadfeathers. She had actually found it rather pleasant. When she was young, she remembered her mother and aunts talking disdainfully of their slovenly undisciplined lives, their refusal to settle in with the rest of the owl communities, their desertion of their families, their rowdy ways and, of course, their reputations for stealing anything that wasn’t embedded in strong ice. But she had found in them a certain gentleness and she had never heard anyone sing as beautifully as the Snow Rose. If she were still the reigning queen in the Glacier Palace she would have invited the Snow Rose to come and sing there. She thought of all that now. She thought of what lovely times there could have been. She would have grown old in the palace along with King H’rath. Perhaps they would have had more than one chick, and they might have watched them grow up and grow strong and become knights of the H’rathghar like their father and grandfathers. And there would have been evenings of song and feasting. And yet she was ready to trade all that now for just one glimpse of her son.
H
oole had become fascinated with the fire in the forge and the image that he had spied at the edge of its flames. It made his gizzard clinch every time he saw it. Lately the image had moved from the edge of the flame to the center and had become larger. It appeared to be some sort of bird, but it was not flying like an owl. It seemed to limp through the air. And yet his gizzard yearned for it, yearned for something he could not quite see or know.
It was about this time that many questions began to fill Hoole’s mind. And as close as he felt to both Grank and Theo, for some reason he hesitated asking them. Somehow he sensed that these questions might disturb them, especially Grank. Oftentimes, he had been on the brink of asking, and then would quickly decide against it. In many ways the questions were like the image that he saw in the fire. He knew something was there, but he did not recognize it. He did not know the words for it. And it
was the same with the questions. They hovered at the edge of his mind and yet he did not have the words for them.
Brother Berwyck came to visit them often and although he frequently invited them to the retreat, Grank always found a reason to refuse. Grank did, however, permit Hoole to spend time with Berwyck. He knew that if Hoole were to rule he must be familiar with all kinds of owls, all species, and Boreal Owls were known for their tolerant and giving natures. He also knew that Brother Berwyck, like all of the Glauxian Brothers, was a scholarly owl. So there would be much Hoole could learn from him. Brother Berwyck himself seemed to understand that Grank was somewhat of a loner and respected his desire to remain aloof. Grank had never asked Berwyck not to tell his fellow Glauxian Brothers about them, but somehow Berwyck sensed that Grank would prefer it if he kept the knowledge of the two owls and their young charge to himself. Still he was made to feel welcome whenever he came to visit. Brother Berwyck had shown Hoole a cove that furrowed in from the Bitter Sea, which, in the springtime when the ice melted, was his favorite hunting ground. Oddly enough, the brother had a taste for fish even though he was not a Fish Owl. He had promised to teach Hoole how to fish, and although the young
prince did not much care for the taste of fish, the sport of fishing seemed like it might be great fun.
It was a wonderful time now in the N’yrthghar, particularly in the region of the Bitter Sea. Grank often said it should be called the Sweet Sea at this time of year, for the earth unlocked, much of the snow melted, and even where it did not, wildflowers sprang up at the edge of drifts. There were bright little yellow stars called avalanche lilies and tiny pink blossoms named teardrops of Glaux. Fragrant herbs and wonderfully soft mosses grew everywhere. Game was plentiful, though a bit scrawny after moon cycle upon moon cycle of deep winter.
One lovely spring evening at the cove, Hoole was having his first fishing lesson as Berwyck coached him from an overhanging limb of an alder. “That’s it, Hoole. You know when you do that downward spiral to break through the water, really lay those wings back close to your body. You want to be as a sleek and narrow as possible, like an ice blade slicing through the water.”
Hoole felt the water divide as he hit it. Silvery bubbles streamed back from his head. It was as if he were racing through a starry liquid night. His third eyelids slipped into place to protect his eyes from the water and any debris, just as they did in foul-weather flying. A grummy
swam by. It was strange but he knew exactly what that fish would do. Indeed, he almost felt like a fish himself. Observing how the creature swam, he realized that in many ways swimming was like flying, and water was like air. There were waves of water just as there were drafts of air one could ride. To turn, the fish had to rudder its tail just as Hoole had to do when flying, and was doing right now underwater while tracking the fish. Then he started backstroking with his wings, which were almost like the grummy’s fins. At this particular moment, he felt himself become more fish than owl. Yet he still had his feathers, his talons. Suddenly, he knew this was the moment to snatch out with both talons. The fish was his! He burst through the surface of the water, the silver-blue grummy flopping about but firmly gripped in his talons. He deposited it at Berwyck’s feet and looked up.
“Good job. You’re a natural!”
Hoole hesitated.
“You know the rule, lad,” Berwyck said. “You catch it, you eat it! We don’t hunt for amusement!”
“Yes, Brother Berwyck.”
“Give it a good thwack and put it out of its misery, or its misery will shortly become your misery. You don’t want that critter flopping around inside you. They’re scratchy, especially the tail when you swallow them alive.”
Hoole gave it a good thwack, and the fish was instantly dead. He looked at it for a few seconds.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Berwyck said.
It was. In death, grummies turned all the colors of the rainbow. The silver and blue flushed into tints of rose and gold and purple and green. It was odd to think that death could have such beauty. Hoole blinked and gulped down the fish.
Somehow thinking about that question of death unleashed within him the other questions he had been wondering about for so long: questions not about death but about life.
“Berwyck,” Hoole began slowly.
Berwyck looked at him intently. He sensed that something of great import was about to happen, that this incredibly bright young owl wanted to know something vital.
“Berwyck,” Hoole began again. “How did I come to be?”
“To be?” Berwyck replied in a stunned voice. Although he had expected to be asked something important, he was astonished by the way Hoole put it.
“You were hatched, Hoole. You hatched out of the egg.”
“But what was there before the egg? Who made the egg? Uncle Grank?”
“No, no. It’s…er…well…it takes two owls to make an egg.”
“Two. Well, who were the two?”
“Well, a male and a female.”
“Male? Female?” Hoole had never heard these words.
“Yes, you’re a male,” Berwyck said.
“Are you?”
“Yes, and so is your uncle Grank and so is Theo.”
“Have I ever met a female?” Hoole asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“No,” Hoole said firmly. “I
do
think so.”
“You have? Where? When?”
“I can’t explain it. But I have.” Hoole thought of the image in the flames. “I have met her, and I think she might be near.”
She, her?
How did he even know these terms? Berwyck wondered. And then it just slipped out of Berwyck’s beak. He had not meant to say it at all. “I think maybe your mum is dead and you’re an orphan.”
Hoole’s eyes blazed. “Dead like that fish! No, NEVER! She is not dead. I have a mum. Somewhere, someplace. I HAVE A MUM!”
Oh, Great Glaux, what have I started?
thought Berwyck. Hoole was almost reeling. He staggered a bit and began to tip over, then pulled himself up tall and straight and, in a
quavering voice, now said, “I have a mum and I love her, Berwyck.” He blinked. “I mean, I love Uncle Grank. And I love Theo. But I really love my mum. Don’t tell them. Please, please, don’t tell them that I might love her more.”
“Of course, lad, of course. And, Hoole…” He paused and fixed him in his amber gaze before continuing. “The world is big enough for all of your love, Hoole. All your love.”
Hoole would say nothing of any of this to Grank or Theo. And Berwyck said nothing, either. He had often wondered about Hoole’s origins but had never dared to ask. He had, however, assumed that Hoole was of very high birth; one could tell that by his bearing, the way he flew, something in his eyes. But Hoole was profoundly changed from that day on. He became quieter, reflective but not morose. Grank and Theo noticed this but they did not pry. Grank had planned to leave before the end of summer for the Beyond. It would be an ideal time to fly—between the time the katabats finished blowing and before the N’yrthnookah would begin. And Hoole would then be strong enough.
Hoole continued his fishing lessons with Berwyck and even started to acquire a taste for fish. Anchovies were his
favorite. But they were very easy to catch as they swam close to the surface and hardly presented a sporting challenge.
One day as they were fishing, Berwyck seemed unusually quiet.
“Anything wrong, Berwyck?”
“No, not really. But I do need to tell you something. Something that might be a little difficult for you to understand.”
“Like the male-female thing?”
Berwyck churred. “No, and I think you understood that pretty quickly, lad.”
“Sort of,” Hoole said. He still had a lot of questions.
“Hoole, I have to go away for a while.”
“Where to? Why?”
“It is part of my duty as a Glauxian Brother. We all do this at some time and often more than once. We make what is called a ‘pilgrimage.’ We become pilgrims.”
“Is that like being male or female?”
“Oh, great Glaux in glaumora, no. It is one who takes a journey. When Glauxian Brothers go on a pilgrimage it is to help others.”
“Who needs help?”
“I’m not sure right now. But I am certain I shall find someone, some creature.”
“Oh.” Hoole was confused. “But will you come back? Will I ever see you again?”
“Oh, yes, I’ll come back. And yes, if you’re still here, I shall see you again.”
“I shall miss you terribly, Brother Berwyck. Whom will I fish with?”
“You could teach Theo.”
“Yes, but it won’t be the same.”
“Nothing is ever the same, Hoole. That’s what makes life life.”