The River of Wind

by Kathryn Lasky

  “I committed the letter to memory,” she said, “so I will just recite it.” Otulissa felt the tension in the hollow mounting, and then she arrived at those astounding three sentences:

  “But such is not the case. These star maps were not created by the Others, but by owls. There is in fact a sixth kingdom of owls. It is called the Middle Kingdom, and I believe it is within wingreach.”

  One could have heard a feather drop, or a thread of down from a plummel for that matter. There was complete and utter silence. And then everyone started talking at once. “A sixth kingdom?” “So far?” “How do we get there?” “When do we go?” “Do we tell the rest of the tree?” “What do we tell them?”

  “Quiet!” Coryn ordered. They all turned to him. “We have to take things in an orderly fashion.” Despite his measured tone and careful words, they all could see that Coryn was as excited as they were. He had never been to the Palace of Mists. He had heard about it from the Band and longed to go there and meet the mysterious Bess. And now perhaps to travel to this sixth kingdom—but who would be in charge of the tree? The last time they had left, near disaster had ensued. “Right now, it’s not so much a question of when we leave, but how.”

  Ruby blinked and thought, How? Fly! How else?

  “Do we tell the parliament right now?” Coryn asked.

  Digger stepped forward. “First, I think we have to go to the Palace of Mists. Second, we must review the fragments and discuss all this with Bess. Finally, if indeed we decide to go on and seek the sixth kingdom across the Unnamed Sea—which in itself is a staggering thought—I think someone must know where we have gone. We also must tell that someone of Bess and the Palace of Mists—in case we do not return within one moon cycle.”

  Soren interjected, “If we do not return within a moon’s cycle, there should be arrangements to send a contingent to the Palace of Mists.” He paused. “And I think Eglantine would be a good choice. Eglantine along with Primrose. I will speak with them about it.”

  “All right, I think we’ve got the beginning of a plan. Tweener will be soon,” Coryn said. “I know we’re all very excited but, please, not a word about this in the dining hollow. No one must know anything yet.”

  “Yes, Coryn is right.” Soren nodded solemnly. “Not a word to anyone.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mrs. Plithiver Perceives

  For some, however, words did not have to be spoken. Despite the reputation of reptiles as dull-witted, less evolved, primitive creatures, it was well known that the blind nest-maid snakes of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree—indeed blind snakes serving anywhere as domestic servants in the hollows of owls—had superb sensibilities. It was as if with the loss of their sight, the other senses of these snakes had been honed like the edge of a blade to an extraordinary keenness. Mrs. Plithiver, the nest-maid snake who had served Soren since his hatching, was no exception. Of all the nest-maid snakes in the tree, she perhaps had the most finely tuned sensibilities.

  A pale lavender light began to suffuse the dining hall, and as the nest-maid snakes slithered in with the tweener food on their backs—the nut cups of milkberry tea and boneless roasted late-winter mice stuffed with dried caterpillars—Mrs. Plithiver immediately sensed an agitation among the Band, indeed the entire Chaw of Chaws, as they had gathered around her. She served at the table for the Chaw of Chaws, and she knew that something was up. She tensed the muscles behind the slight depressions where her eyes would have been and she began to get glimmerings. The muscles that sheathed the stem glands of nest-maid snakes were the source of the snakes’ delicate perceptions, according to Otulissa, who had studied the physiology of blind snakes. She had even written a treatise objecting to the lumping together of blind snakes with other reptiles, who were so often characterized as being animals with “primitive systems.”

  Even before the owls gathered around her, Mrs. P. had a very clear sense that they had once again received a message of some sort from that place, as she thought of it. She could almost smell it. She remembered the first time the Band had come back from it, when they were youngsters: the damp mossy smell, and the mineral tang of stone—stone that never dried or felt the heat of the sun. Over the years, the Band had made many furtive visits and when they returned there was always this wet-moss scent mixed with ever-wet stone. Then, just the day before, when she had gone into Otulissa’s hollow, she detected the same smell despite the rather robust fire in Otulissa’s grate. Something had come from that place—a letter perhaps. Or maybe a visitor had just been there. No matter, the scent lingered on.

  There were, of course, many strange places within the kingdoms of owls, ranging from the volcanic lands of Beyond the Beyond to the glaciers of the Northern Kingdoms. But this place was of neither ice nor of fire. It seemed to Mrs. P. that there was something more telling than a mere scent. There was a feeling, like relic vibrations of a deep thrumming, which still reverberated when she had entered Otulissa’s hollow that day with some milkberry tea. And that place seemed to have a tinge about it, a tincture of something she didn’t know or quite understand. Could it be something to do with the Others? Was it somehow akin to the vague Other-ish tingle she felt around the oddments that Trader Mags brought to the tree? Mrs. Plithiver, completely absorbed in her own thoughts, was paying very little attention to the silly blather at the table, which she had decided early on was a cover for what these owls really wanted to talk about. It was this unspoken conversation that was the source of a new agitation, an intense excitement that she sensed among the owls. It was so obvious they had something else on their minds.

  “Fancy. Cook’s getting too fancy,” Twilight was saying. “Stuffed mouse? Why does a mouse have to be stuffed, and the bones served on the side with this honey dipping sauce?”

  “Yeah, I agree,” said Digger. “Imagine what Ezylryb would say about this fancy fare.”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t permit it,” Otulissa replied. “We always had to eat our meat raw on the night of weather-interpretation or colliering flights.”

  “What do you mean, ‘had to’?” Soren protested. “I still insist on it.” Soren was now the leader of both the colliering chaw and the weather-interpretation chaw.

  “Well, we better get back to raw mice if we’re going to go to this—” Twilight started and stopped suddenly.

  Otulissa delivered a swift kick to the Great Gray’s foot. “You are so indiscreet,” she hissed.

  “Indiscreet is my middle name,” Twilight replied blithely.

  It was the vibrations from the kick that set off sparks that burst like a supernova throughout Mrs. P.’s so-called primitive reptilian system. I’ve got it!

  “I want to go, Soren,” Mrs. P. said in her direct manner.

  Soren was simply stupefied. Mrs. P. was suspended from the empty perch usually occupied by the three B’s.

  “I’ve known about that place for a long time,” she went on.

  For a split second he was not sure what place she was referring to.

  “That place with the damp moss and the ever-wet stone and the thrumming roar of…of water, and I think mist. The mist that clings to your feathers when you come back. The mist that carries the mossy smell.”

  Soren shook his head in disbelief. “You know all this—but how, Mrs. P.?”

  “Soren.” She slithered off the perch and wound herself up into a neat coil on the floor of his hollow. She cocked her head and regarded him. It was as if those sightless dents bore directly into his own eyes. “Really, Soren. You know better than to ask how or why. I was with your family before you hatched, and I’ve been with you ever since—except for that unfortunate time.” The “unfortunate time” was when Soren, a mere pre-fledged hatchling, had been captured by a St. Aggie’s gang that roamed the forest skies searching for owl chicks who had fallen from their nests. Of course, in Soren’s case, he had been shoved out of the nest by his older brother, Kludd. She always referred to Soren’s capture and imprisonment in St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls as “
that unfortunate time.” Mrs. P. was given to understatement.

  Soren coughed slightly. “Yes, foolish of me.”

  “Not foolish, Soren. You just don’t want me to go.”

  “No, no. You know I have no trouble flying with you. Nearly every member of the Chaw of Chaws has transported you at one time or another.”

  “Then what is it?” Mrs. P. persisted.

  “Well, what would be the point of your coming?”

  Let’s see…Mrs. P. thought. How to say this diplomatically? “Well, Soren. I think if I could accompany you to this place of the mists—”

  “It’s called Palace of Mists, but close enough,” Soren said, astonishment just on the edge of his voice. How in the world does she figure this stuff out?

  “Yes, Palace of Mists. I think I might be able to help you understand these fragments of documents.” Soren’s beak hung open in amazement. There was no use trying to disguise his wonder now.

  Mrs. P. continued. “You know, get a feel for what this new kingdom, this distant land is. What do you call it?”

  “You know about the sixth kingdom, too?”

  “Oh, yes, dear. The whole thing came together for me when Otulissa kicked Twilight at tweener. The vibrations were quite overpowering. I thought I might collapse. Although it’s hard for a snake to collapse. You know that offensive expression ‘lower than a snake’?” Soren merely blinked. “You see, Soren, if you do decide to go on to this sixth kingdom, after you visit the Palace of Mists…”

  “You mean you don’t know what we’ve decided?” he said with mock wonder.

  “Now Soren, don’t get sarcastic with me. It does not become you at all.”

  “Sorry,” he replied, immediately contrite.

  “As I was saying, I thought that if you go to this Palace of Mists place and then on to…”

  “And then on to what?” Soren blinked.

  “Well, I don’t quite know what to call it. ‘Sixth kingdom’ doesn’t seem to be a proper name, really.” The space between the indentations for her eyes furrowed. “It’s rather nameless, I suppose, like the Unnamed Sea.” She gasped. “Oh dear. That’s it. The Unnamed Sea—you want to cross it!!!”

  “Mrs. Plithiver.” Soren shook his head in wonder. “You are incredible.”

  “No, no, not at all. I just want to go with you, accompany you, and…” She hesitated and then waggled her head slightly as if considering her next thought before she spoke it aloud. “I think, Soren, I might be of help. I mean, this could be a new world for you. If there are owls, they are going to be different owls, with different sensibilities…” She let the last word linger as she stretched herself up. Then, slinging herself over a lower perch, she let herself hang in a configuration that seemed halfway between a question mark and an exclamation point. Mrs. P. was a subtle manipulator of punctuation—bodily punctuation—in service to her discourse.

  Soren knew she was absolutely right. She had not exactly called the owls oafish creatures or dunderheads, but she had elegantly made her point about the benefits, the advantages, that her rare sensibilities could confer on this undertaking.

  “All right. But I’ll have to discuss this with the others first.”

  “Of course, dear, of course.”

  “Mrs. P.? You’ve got to be kidding. Are you yoicks?” Twilight asked.

  “She knew all about it?” Otulissa asked, more than dismayed.

  “Actually, she said,” Soren replied, “that when you kicked Twilight, it all came together for her.”

  “That’ll show you, Otulissa. You shouldn’t have kicked me,” Twilight muttered.

  “I wouldn’t have kicked you if you hadn’t nearly blurted the whole thing out.”

  “Quit arguing,” Coryn said. Sometimes the Band, who were all older and supposedly more mature than himself, sounded like a bunch of squabbling children. He turned to Digger, the Burrowing Owl. “Digger, I want to hear what you have to say.”

  Digger shut his eyes for a long time. “Well, there are two parts to this. Will she go with us to the Palace of Mists? And then if we go on, will she accompany us to the Middle Kingdom, as it is called?”

  “I don’t mind her going to the Palace of Mists, but all the way to the Middle Kingdom?” Gylfie scratched her head with her minuscule talon and began to equivocate. “I mean, it just seems a bit much.”

  Digger continued. “It’s an interesting proposition. Think of it this way, Gylfie: When we fly on an expedition, especially one that involves something unknown or risky, we take you as navigator, Twilight for his fighting skills, and Soren and Otulissa for weather interpretation and coal harvesting. We take our battle claws just in case. In other words, we fly well equipped. We have already decided to include the Chaw of Chaws.” He looked at Martin and Ruby. “This was suggested by Bess herself.”

  “What are you getting at?” Twilight said.

  “I am merely saying that Mrs. P. would be a terrific addition to our—how shall I put it—arsenal? Tool kit? Call it what you may,” Digger concluded.

  All the owls blinked. This was a peculiar notion. A nest-maid as part of the Chaw of Chaws. But then again, hadn’t Mrs. P. flown with the Band long ago when they first came to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree? Hadn’t she been the one to perceive the deadly enchantment that the Mirror Lakes in The Beaks could cast on young owls?

  “I think it’s a very good idea,” Coryn said. “I can’t tell you what to do. After all, I am…” he churred, “merely a king and not an official member of the Chaw of Chaws, but I think we would be foolish to leave Mrs. Plithiver behind for any part of this mission.”

  And so it was decided the nest-maid snake would accompany them to the Palace of Mists and beyond, if indeed they decided to journey to this sixth kingdom.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Chawlets in Training

  The chawlets were assembled, but rowdy. Eglantine and Primrose were waiting for them to settle down. The two friends were discussing the revelation from Soren of the Palace of Mists, and the even greater revelation of a sixth owl kingdom. They were pleased that Soren had entrusted them with this information. Eglantine turned and addressed the restless chawlets: “Now, you have all heard of the Chaw of Chaws,” Eglantine said as she perched on a limb in front of the young owls who had only been flying for a little more than a moon cycle.

  “Of course!” they all cried.

  “Our da is in it,” Bash, one of Soren and Pelli’s triplet daughters, yelled out.

  “Yeah, he’s a collier,” said Blythe.

  “But he does weather, too,” Bell, the littlest of the three B’s, said very seriously.

  “Yes, but Soren is not the only owl in the Chaw of Chaws,” Eglantine, who was the three B’s’ aunt, said. “Who can tell me the other members of this distinguished chaw?”

  Talons from a half dozen little owls rose in the air. “My auntie almost made it,” said one little Pygmy Owl. “My auntie had the yarpie barbies the other night and couldn’t go colliering and missed a really good forest fire.”

  “My auntie’s friend got arrested and put in prison during the bad times,” said another. Eglantine shot Pelli a frantic glance. She was perched nearby. Eglantine had forgotten how distractible young’uns could be.

  Pelli stepped forward. “I have an accomplished aunt, too, but now is not the time for me to tell you about her. This is training time. We have come here to Silverveil, where there has been a small forest fire that we can learn from. Now, who knows what kind of coal this is and where you can find it in the coal beds?” She held up a glowing orange ember pinched between the two front talons of her right foot.

  “Orange is my favorite color,” Matty, a young Snowy Owl, said.

  “Mine’s pink,” said another. “For my hatchday, Cook says she’s going to make me a pink Ga’Hoole nut cake.”

  “Oh, great Glaux!” Eglantine muttered. “If they start talking about hatchdays…”

  “Now, young’uns!” Pelli said sharply. “This isn’t about favor
ite colors. It’s about coals. All eyes on me, please!”

  Finally, the young owlets settled down. They were then divided into three chawlets for evening exercises: ember hunting, weather interpretation, and navigation. Pelli saw to it that the three B’s were separated because when they talked and giggled together, they could be quite disruptive. So Blythe was sent with the weather-interpretation chawlet to fly the squally front passing through. Bash was dispatched to some coal beds that still smoldered on the edges of the forest fire, and Bell flew with the navigation chawlet under the direction of Fritha, an up-and-coming young Pygmy Owl who often assisted Gylfie, the navigation chaw’s ryb.

  “She’s not as good as Gylfie,” Heggety, a Short-eared Owl, whispered. They were engaged in a very basic exercise of tracing the constellation of the Golden Talons, which had ascended a few nights before and would now be visible through spring and summer and well into autumn.

  “I know,” Bell replied. “And she’s not that much older than we are.”

  “She’s a preenie weenie,” said another. Preenie weenie was one of the worst things a young owl could call another.

  “Yes, she’s always combing Otulissa’s primaries,” Heggety whispered.

  “No whispering, please,” Fritha called back. “The best way to learn these configurations is to fly them. Heggety, right behind me now, on my tail. Bell, you fly behind Heggety. Matty, to my port wing, and Max, you to my starboard.” Max and Matty had a near midair collision as they became confused about which side was port and which was starboard. “Port here!” Fritha waggled her left wing in an exaggerated manner. “Starboard here.” She waggled the other. “I knew this by the time I was your age.”

  “Oh, go on! Stuck-up Pygmy!” Max muttered.