The Siege

by Kathryn Lasky

  Now it was Digger who stepped forward. “You,” he said simply. Otulissa breathed a sigh of relief. “And,” he paused, “I honestly don’t believe that one owl has more of a right than anyone else to know something. Isn’t that what our objection to this whole spronk thing is about—our right to know? We should all be able to know.” A stillness had fallen on the group. “Now, tell us, what do you think is spronk about higher magnetics, and why don’t they want us to know about it? What are they scared of?”

  “I don’t know really. I think it probably has something to do with,” she hesitated, “well, with what happened to Eglantine after the Great Downing—to her mind, to her gizzard.”

  “Was that different from what happened to Ezylryb?” Soren asked.

  “Yes, I think so. Ezylryb just lost his sense of direction. He couldn’t navigate, but Eglantine…” Otulissa turned to Eglantine.

  “I couldn’t feel. I was like stone—like the stone crypts they kept us in,” Eglantine said.

  “So why don’t they want us to know about this?” Soren asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe because they don’t know that much about it themselves,” said Otulissa.

  “So,” said Soren. “What do we do about all this?”

  “We need to confront them,” Twilight said. “I’m not much for book learning, but I don’t like the idea that someone can tell me I can’t learn something. Makes me want to learn it all the more.”

  “But if we confront them,” Gylfie said, “we’re back to that same old problem again.”

  “What’s that?” asked Otulissa.

  “The last time we listened in at the roots and found something out and wanted to say something about it, way back last summer, well, we couldn’t because then we would have had to admit that we had been eavesdropping, and we would get into really big trouble,” said Gylfie.

  “Hmmm,” Otulissa blinked her eyes shut and kept them that way while she thought a moment. “I see the problem.” Then suddenly she opened her eyes. The amber light in them flickered with a new brightness. “I have an idea. Remember that book they were talking about, that book that had to be removed from the shelves—Fleckasia and Other Disorders of the Gizzard?”

  “Yes,” Soren replied.

  “Well, what if I go to the library and ask the book matron to fetch it for me? Then we’ll see what happens. This will be a test case, so to speak,” said Otulissa.

  The other owls looked at one another. Otulissa was smart. And this was a very good idea.

  So it was planned that as tween time neared, when the last drop of the day’s sun began to vanish and the first shadows of twilight gathered, they would all go to the library and Otulissa would request the forbidden book. Of course, they would not go in all at once. Soren and Gylfie would already be there, and Otulissa would arrive with Eglantine and Digger. It was decided that Twilight would not be there at all because he seldom was in the library. Now Soren wondered if Ezylryb would be there, for he often was. What would he say when Otulissa requested the book?

  The whole idea of forbidden books sickened Soren. At St. Aggie’s, all books were forbidden. Entry into the library was not permitted for any owl except Skench and Spoorn, the brutal leaders of the academy. Academy! What a name. No one had learned anything there except how to become a slave and stop thinking.

  Soren and Gylfie could hardly concentrate on the weather charts they were studying in the Ga’Hoolian weather atlas. Ezylryb was in the library, his usual uncommunicative self, sitting at his special desk. The only sound that came from that desk was the crunching of the dried caterpillars that he munched while he read. He was the most inscrutable of owls and only rarely revealed anything that could be called emotion. Yet Soren was drawn to him. He loved the old Whiskered Screech because it was Ezylryb who had first looked upon him and seen him as more than a young orphaned Barn Owl, more than just an owl scarred by the horrors of St. Aggie’s. Ezylryb had seen Soren as a real, thinking owl who knew things not only through books and the information that the rybs taught, but through his gizzard. Gizzuition was, according to Ezylryb, a kind of mysterious thinking beyond normal reasoning, by which an owl immediately perceived the truth.

  Gylfie gave Soren a nudge. Soren looked up. Otulissa had just entered the library with Eglantine. And suddenly, Dewlap had appeared behind the circulation desk with the book matron. Soren felt his gizzard turn squishy. He saw Otulissa’s feathers droop as an owl’s feathers do when he or she feels fear. She seemed to shrink. But then Soren watched and saw a fierce glint in the amber of her eyes. Otulissa’s feathers seemed to puff up slightly and she flew the short distance between where she had stood and the desk. “Book Matron, would you be so kind as to look for a book that I can’t seem to find on the shelves?”

  “Certainly, dear. What is the title?”

  “Fleckasia and Other Disorders of the Gizzard.”

  Complete silence fell upon the library. It loomed up as thick as fog on a humid summer night. Soren lifted his eyes toward Ezylryb, who was staring directly at Dewlap. His gaze bore into her like two fierce points of golden light. The book matron stammered, “Let me go see if I can find it.”

  “Oh, no, Book Matron,” Dewlap said. “That is one of the books that has been temporarily removed from the shelves until certain decisions are made by the parliament.”

  “Removing books? Decisions? Since when are there decisions about books I want to read?” Otulissa drew herself up taller. Her feathers were now fully fluffed up. Otulissa’s plumage was puffed to a degree that was most often associated with a posture of attack. She looked huge.

  “There are plenty of other good books for you to read, my dear,” Dewlap said in a soft voice.

  “But I want to read that book,” Otulissa replied. She paused a second. “Strix Emerilla, one of my distinguished ancestors, the renowned weathertrix, who has written several books on atmospheric pressure and weather turbulations, mentioned it.”

  Dewlap interrupted her. “The book you have requested has nothing whatsoever to do with weather.”

  “That’s possible. But you see, Strix Emerilla had a wide-ranging mind, and I think that she mentioned this book as referring to a possible connection between gizzard disorders as related to atmospheric pressure variations.”

  “So?” Dewlap said.

  “So, I have a wide-ranging mind, too. Now, please, may I have the book?”

  Glaux bless Strix Emerilla, Soren thought. If anyone had ever told him that he would be blessing Strix Emerilla, whom Otulissa brought up whenever possible, he would have said they were completely yoicks.

  “I’m very sorry, my dear, but that is absolutely impossible. That book has been declared temporarily spronk,” Dewlap said primly and turned to the list she had been making.

  “SPRONK!” Otulissa gasped. There was such emotion in her voice that every owl in the library looked up in genuine alarm.

  “Yes, spronk.” A testy note had crept into Dewlap’s voice.

  “There is nothing more ordinary, less noble, more ignoble, less intelligent, more common, and completely vulgar than spronking the written word,” Otulissa sputtered. “It is completely lower class.”

  “Well, the book is spronk,” Dewlap growled.

  Then Otulissa swelled up to twice her normal size. “Well, SPRINK ON YOUR SPRONK!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A Mission Most Dreadful

  She fainted? Dewlap actually fainted?” Twilight said with stunned disbelief.

  “Yes, they rushed her to the infirmary,” Soren said.

  Soren, Gylfie, Twilight, Digger, and Eglantine swung their heads toward Otulissa, who stood very still except for her quivering beak. “I don’t regret a word. Not even the you-know-what word. I shall not apologize. Spronking is very lower class, and it is against everything that the Guardians of Ga’Hoole are and everything they stand for. I don’t care if I get a flint mop for this. I don’t care if I get chaw-chopped.”

  The other owls blinked in horro
r. To be chaw-chopped was not simply a flint mop, which was the owls’ form of punishment. It was the ultimate humiliation that could befall an owl of Ga’Hoole. It meant being dropped for an indefinite period of time from one’s chaw.

  The five owls had returned to their hollow after the episode in the library. Otulissa had come, too. They peered at her now in awe and wonder. This very prim and proper owl had not only said the worst curse word in the owl vocabulary, but she had spat it at a ryb. What would happen to her? They could only imagine.

  Suddenly, the parliament matron poked her head into the hollow.

  “The lot of you are required in parliament immediately!” She did not sound pleased. “Except for Eglantine—she can stay.”

  Oh, Glaux! they all thought.

  “Why don’t I get to go?” Eglantine asked in a quavering voice. “I want to be included.”

  “You want to be included in a flint mop?” Twilight asked. “The last flint mop we got, if you recall, was having to bury pellets for Dewlap for three days. You were excluded from that, too, and believe me, you were lucky.”

  As the owls made their way down to the parliament hollow, Gylfie muttered, “Good Glaux, we’re going to be burying pellets from now until summer.”

  “You didn’t say the word, I did,” Otulissa muttered. “It just sort of came out. I was amazed myself.” But then she quickly added, “But I’m still glad I said it!”

  Secretly, they were all glad she had said it. There was something terribly wrong with this whole idea of spronking. It did not fit in Soren’s mind with the values of Ga’Hoole. It is a sprinky kind of thing, Soren thought. Yes, good for Otulissa!

  When they were ushered into the parliament chamber, Dewlap was not there. Only Ezylryb and Boron and his mate, Barran, the two Snowy Owls who were the monarchs of the tree, were in attendance. And much to Soren’s surprise, two other members of the weather chaw, Ruby, a Short-eared Owl and the best flier in the chaw, and Soren’s flight partner Martin, a tiny Northern Saw-whet.

  What’s going on here? Why Ruby and Martin? Soren blinked at them in dismay, and they seemed equally puzzled as to why they had been called.

  Barran coughed several times to clear her throat and began to speak. “The seven of you have been called here for a reason.” Dread swam in all of their gizzards. What was it to be? Burying pellets? Or would they be chaw-chopped?

  Boron was now speaking. “The seven of you combine an interesting array of talents.” He paused. “As was proven in the extraordinary rescue of Ezylryb.” Ezylryb nodded and seemed to fix his gaze on Soren. “Some have come to refer to you as ‘the Chaw of Chaws.’” Soren almost gasped, and he felt his gizzard give a thrilled little twitch.

  “To get to the point,” Boron continued, “your special talents as the Chaw of Chaws are now needed.” One could have heard a blade of grass drop in the parliament hollow.

  Glaux, Soren thought, if Twilight pipes up about war and battle claws, I’ll smack him. That’s all the Great Gray ever thought about. But of course he was brilliant in battle.

  Then it was as if Barran had read Soren’s thoughts. She swung her head around and fixed Twilight with a piercing stare. The light from her yellow eyes was like sharp, bright golden needles. “In a sense, it is much more dangerous than war. Although the stakes are as high, for you could be killed.”

  Whether Soren and his friends drew a breath for the next several seconds was questionable.

  “Your mission is to penetrate the St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls.”

  What! Soren thought. Go back! He and Gylfie were horrified.

  The two owls almost fell off the parliament perches. They were being asked to go back to the place that had attempted to destroy their personalities and their wills through the brutal processes called moon blinking and moon scalding.

  “We have reason to believe that a dangerous group of owls, the ones that call themselves the Pure Ones, have possibly already infiltrated St. Aggie’s with the intention of capturing the immense stores of flecks. We have had intelligence reports from Ambala that suggest this,” said Boron.

  “Ambala?” Digger said. “Isn’t that where the slipgizzle was, the Barred Owl?”

  “Was is right,” Boron said. “As you know, he was killed. Over the last several months, we have been cultivating a new slipgizzle. She is rather frail and quite eccentric. They call her Mist, and she is perfectly suited for this work because through some odd accident, an almost terminal shock to her gizzard, she has lost all her coloration. Her feathers have turned a pale, almost foggy gray. Some might think she is a scroom. But she isn’t. She does not fly well, but she has incredible powers of observation. The reports she has been sending about the Pure Ones are most disturbing.”

  Soren blinked. “Why?”

  “They want flecks,” Barran said, “and St. Aggie’s has the largest repository of flecks in existence. But Mist thinks their interest extends beyond the flecks, and that is what we want you to find out. The two greatest threats to the owl kingdoms are St. Aggie’s and the Pure Ones. The very idea of their being brought together in some sort of grand mischief is…” Barran hesitated.” “…gizzard-chilling, to put it mildly.”

  Then Boron resumed. “So, you see how important the seven of you are. We have faith in you. Now the question is, will you accept this mission?”

  The owls were stunned. They had come in expecting a scolding or a flint mop and, instead, they had been charged with this important mission. Soren felt Ezylryb’s gaze upon him. And Boron began to speak. “Soren and Gylfie, we realize that going back to St. Aggie’s will be most difficult for you.”

  “Yes,” Soren said slowly. “But, Boron, won’t they recognize us?”

  “Never!” Barran said quickly. “You were an owlet when you were there before. Your flight feathers had not fledged, nor had your face fledged white, and you were half your size. Gylfie—you, too, looked quite different.”

  “And,” Ezylryb began to speak for the first time, “as you two well know, they are stupid, these owls of St. Aggie’s.” He paused. “But still, you’ll need a cover story.”

  “A cover story?” Martin asked.

  “Yes, where you came from, why you are there,” said Ezylryb.

  Otulissa raised her talon now to speak. “Can we say something like we got sick of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree? We didn’t trust the Guardians—something like that.”

  “No,” snapped Ezylryb. “They’ll never believe you. It will raise their suspicions if they think you have anything to do with the great tree. You need to come from a place that they know very little about.”

  Soren suddenly realized that Ezylryb had thought out this entire cover story.

  “A place like what?” Soren asked.

  “A place like the Northern Kingdoms,” said Ezylryb.

  “Hold on a second.” Digger had now raised a talon to speak. “Ezylryb, Gylfie and I are desert owls. The chances of our coming from the Northern Kingdoms are just about zero.”

  “I have it figured out,” Ezylryb replied. I thought so. Soren blinked.

  Ezylryb continued, but he did not stand still on the perch. He began sweeping through the air.

  “Last summer, before certain unfortunate incidents like the Great Downing and my own entrapment in the Devil’s Triangle, I had commenced a set of weather interpretation experiments. My original intention had been to pick up information on atmospheric particles and subpar-ticles as they related to the displays we call the Aurora Glaucora, those magnificent colors in the summer sky when the entire night seems to pulsate with glorious lights. There was one last summer, as I recall, just around the time of my entrapment. Well, as often happens with scientific inquiry, one sets out to solve one problem and, quite by accident and happy surprise, one finds the answer to something entirely different. What I stumbled across was a new method for detecting distant williwaws.”

  “Williwaws!” Soren, Gylfie, Twilight, and Digger blurted out together.

  “We
know williwaws!” Gylfie said.

  “Oh, you do, do you?” There was a churr, a kind of owl chuckle embedded in Ezylryb’s voice.

  “Yes, sir,” Gylfie continued. “On our journey to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, we thought we were right on course for the island when somehow we got sucked up into the Ice Narrows…” Gylfie’s voice began to dwindle off as the realization dawned.

  Now Ezylryb really did laugh. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “You’re getting the picture! Yes, you see, that’s how desert owls get to the Northern Kingdoms. They get sucked up there. For what is a williwaw but a sudden violent wind?”

  “He is so clever!” Otulissa said, her voice drenched in awe.

  “Winds become confused. It is essentially a thermal inversion anomaly. Or, to make a long story short: You got your cover. You were sucked up, all of you, to the Northern Kingdoms,” said Ezylryb.

  “And then what?” Soren said.

  Ezylryb stopped flying and lighted down beside Soren.

  “Yes, and then what? Perhaps Gylfie and Digger, due to your desert background, did not find this cold place comfortable. And you other five, you felt that there was too much clan warfare going on. One clan chief fighting against another. Very disorganized. Disorganized is a key word to use with the St. Aggie’s owls.”

  “Oh, yes!” Gylfie exclaimed. If there was one thing that St. Aggie’s prided itself on, it was organization and efficiency.

  Ezylryb continued. “You must say that you find clans an inefficient, cumbersome method of social and military organization.” The old Whiskered Screech paused. “But if you just mention the Northern Kingdoms, the land of the Great North Waters where I come from, every St. Aggie’s owl will be intrigued. It is the last frontier to be conquered. If an owl has been there, every other owl is consumed with curiosity about what they have seen or experienced. And if you suggest that the Northern Kingdoms might be vulnerable, you shall be welcomed.”