The River of Wind

by Kathryn Lasky

  It was only after years and years that the phonqua could be brought to a close that would result in a new life. He desperately wanted the phonqua fulfilled, the cycle to end, but he was impatient. It was this impatience that had driven him to escape the Panqua Palace. He felt that there must be another way. And now he was going to shorten that cycle. He was going to rescue this little owl. He would restore her to her parents, to this tree they called the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. The guards were asleep, gone to the spirit realm. He was sure he could do it. He had felt himself growing stronger.

  So lost in thought was he that he had not noticed that Bell had crept up the short tunnel to the opening in the burrow where the guards kept their watch. She returned now.

  “They’re asleep! Sound asleep. We can escape!”

  “Escape!” the blue owl said.

  “Yes, Striga, escape!”

  A few minutes later, they emerged from the desert burrow into the light of the newing moon. It had grown much fatter since they had first arrived in the Desert of Kuneer. It felt good to spread their wings after the tight confines of the tunnel spaces of the underground burrow. The breeze stirred their facial disk feathers, and Bell tipped hers toward the velvety darkness of the sky. “Stars, wind,” she whispered softly to herself, and wondered how one could bear to live underground.

  “I thought I was going to have to go in there and drag you out.” It was an Elf Owl, the same voice that they had heard offering the bingle juice to the guards. “Come on, follow me. Let’s get out of here. I have to get you to somewhere safe from these terrible owls.”

  “Are you sure it’s safe to go?” the blue owl asked.

  “Yes, the top command is gone. The other owls around here have no idea that you are prisoners. Follow me.”

  “He can’t fly too well,” Bell said.

  “No, no. I’ll be fine,” the blue owl assured them both. Cuffyn looked at him and wondered. What in the name of Glaux had this owl eaten or drunk to make him blue and weak of wing? No time to inquire. They had to get out—now.

  “Where will you take me?” Bell asked the Elf Owl. “I want to go home.”

  “First, let’s just get you to safety, and then we’ll figure out the rest,” the Elf Owl replied. “We don’t want this old sot of a snake to wake up before we’re out of here.”

  Bell looked down. She saw the fat old snake, the one she had heard called Gragg. She had to resist yarping a pellet on him for fear of waking him up. There was something about that snake she absolutely hated. He seemed so different from any nest-maid snake. He had given Bell a hard whack when she had first arrived. Apparently, she had not moved down the tunnel quickly enough. And he had called her a really disgusting name—seagull splat.

  Oh, Bell could hardly believe it. She was going home…home…home to the great tree! Home to see her mum, her da, her two sisters, her auntie Plonk and her auntie Ot, for that was what the three B’s called Otulissa. Then she remembered, Twilight had promised to give her her first battle claws lesson. And Bubo. Oh, my! How I have missed Bubo! What did she want to do first? Curl up in the hollow with Mum and Da and hear stories or go drink milkberry tea with Bubo? Oh, be with Mum and Da, of course. They flew on, hours passing like minutes while happy anticpation warmed Bell’s gizzard.

  Suddenly, she noticed how well the blue owl was flying. “Hey, you’re doing great. How did you learn so fast?”

  “I’m not sure…” the blue owl answered honestly.

  Then Bell saw something that made her gizzard tremble with joy. “The great tree! The great tree! I can see it from here!” she called out.

  “B-b-but…but what’s that?” Cuffyn asked, gesturing to dozens and dozens of owls flying toward them.

  “Strix Struma Strikers!” Bell gasped, then blinked. “And the Flame Squadron, the Bonk Brigade with Bubo in the lead—and there’s Doc Finebeak!”

  Doc Finebeak split off from the tracking unit he was commanding. “Take over, Sylvana.” He swiveled his head. “I’ll catch up.”

  “It’s little Bell!” A cheer from the Guardians roared up into the night.

  “What’s happening?” Cuffyn asked.

  “It’s war…” Doc Finebeak replied. “In the sixth kingdom.” Then he seemed to notice the blue owl. “You’re from there, aren’t you?” The blue owl staggered in his flight.

  “Yes,” he said softly, and turned to Bell. “I lied, letting you think I was from the Northern Kingdoms. I didn’t mean to.”

  “More important, you helped to save this little owl,” Doc said. “Her mother was gizzard-broken.”

  Something swelled within the blue owl. “I can help you. I will get you to what you call the sixth kingdom. I know the way of the Zong Phong and how to fly through the hole in the wind.”

  “We were to seek someone called Bess, in the Shadow Forest,” Doc Finebeak replied. “She was to tell us where this place is.”

  “No. I’ll save you time. I will lead you there. I know the moonfaced owl has gone there. She is terrible.”

  “You needn’t tell us!” Doc Finebeak said, then turned to Cuffyn. “Can you get this little one the rest of the way home?”

  “Certainly.”

  “You’re going, Striga?” Bell said, turning to the blue owl.

  “I’ll be back. I promise.”

  “How can I thank you?”

  “You don’t need to. I should thank you.” Yes, thought this owl, once called Orlando and now called Striga. I might have found the shortcut to the completion of my phonqua. It really does seem possible—at last.

  “But I want to do something for you,” Bell protested.

  The blue owl hovered and peered deeply into Bell’s dark eyes. The pale yellow light seem to flood through Bell’s hollow bones. “Just live purely and simply from the innermost part of your gizzard—the ‘ryth,’ as we owls of the Middle Kingdom, the kingdom of Jouzho, call it.”

  “You mean, no red berry decorations?”

  The blue owl churred. “That’s a start…that’s a start,” he said, and then began a steep banking turn to join the Guardian fighting units of the tree.

  He was intoxicated with this new feeling that flowed through him and powered his flight. He felt a new alertness in his gizzard. It felt trim—trim and ready for the completion, the moment when the cycle was at last broken and his life would be a real life, not a travesty. A zeal burned through him. Now the lessons of the Danyar would be his. It was all about control, self-control, and through that, one could indeed become the master of one’s fate.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Lessons of the Owlery

  It is all in the breath, Twilight. You must first master the zong qui,” the danyk said. She spoke decent Hoolian, but with a slight Krakish burr. This danyk was one of the five senior teachers of the Danyar—all of them female owls. “No move can be accomplished until you master the zong qui.”

  Twilight sighed. “This is the hardest battle trick I have ever tried. It’s harder than working with those frinking ice splinters of the Frost Beaks.”

  “It is not a trick!” the danyk screeched. “That is what is wrong with you.” She flew up and gave him a cuff that sent him flying across the hollow. “Why do you think we call this the Hollow of Extreme Concentration? We are not practitioners of cheap tricks. We fight bare-taloned with our minds and our gizzards. Why is the hollow of Danyar shaped like a gizzard? Now, before you can erect a zi field for combat, you must learn to breathe properly.”

  A small blue object whizzed by Twilight like the tail of a minuscule comet and slammed a much larger owl off its perch. It was a Pygmy Owl. Despite being blue, these owls did seem to be of a familiar species. The owl he had just knocked down seemed to be a Great Gray like Twilight—except he was blue. Twilight blinked. “What was that?” he asked.

  “That was Pinyon,” the danyk said, “executing a perfect third-degree Zi Kyan Mu.”

  Twilight had done this move before but wondered about the meaning of the words “third degree.�
�� “Third degree?” he asked.

  “It simply means that he performed it with his talons turned in, so as not to kill.”

  “Oh.” Twilight blinked. It was hard to imagine a Pygmy killing a Great Gray with nothing but his talons.

  “Now back to the zong qui,” the danyk ordered.

  At first, Twilight had been surprised that the five senior danyks and many of the other teachers were female owls, but he was beginning to understand. In most owl species, females were larger than males. This would give the females an expanded lung capacity and since this breath was crucial to all the Danyar moves, it made sense that so many of the teachers were female. Very few other things, however, were making sense to Twilight. Not the least confusing was why they refused to call this fighting, but “the way of noble gentleness.” The art of Danyar was every bit as lethal as any battle claws or firebrands he had ever fought with. Who’re they trying to kid? he thought. He was then knocked flat on his butt feathers. “You’re not concentrating!” the danyk screeched. “Look at Ruby! She is concentrating. Beautiful focus.” Ruby had just knocked an owl twice her size temporarily senseless.

  Meanwhile, in another part of the owlery in the Hollow of Mental Cultivation, Otulissa, Digger, Soren, Gylfie, and Coryn sat with Mrs. Plithiver, huddled with the H’ryth, an owl who, with his featherless legs, most closely resembled a Burrowing Owl. He scratched his ya ni ni, which was the single blue feather that stuck up from the crown of his otherwise featherless head. It seemed to help him think. It was said that the ya ni ni was the point from which the zi emanated and created that incredible field of concentration and energy not just for action but for perception of other birds’ zi fields. Every creature had such a field. A zi field, it was explained to the owls, radiates out from every animal. Some are good, some bad, some treacherous, but the pikyus of the owlery are trained to learn how to use their own and perceive others. The H’ryth was most impressed with Mrs. Plithiver’s zi field. He said he had never seen anything comparable in a creature who was not a schooled pikyu of the owlery. He now gave his ya ni ni a bit of a jiggle.

  “I have tried for so long to decipher the words of the eighth astrologer,” the H’ryth said. “The papers that he wrote are so valuable, yet very obscure in their meaning.”

  “Can you explain,” Otulissa asked, “why that astrologer left the Dragon Court?”

  “Again, such things are difficult to explain. Our notions and ways are so strange to you. It was during the time of the eighth court that the first H’ryth, Theo—or Theosang, as he became known—came to this kingdom. He was alarmed by the devastation and the futility of war, but he found the Dragon Court an utterly foolish and useless place as well. But, and this is the genius of our first H’ryth, he found a purpose for this very useless court. The Dragon Court, with all its ridiculous extravagance and luxury, offered its owls a semblance of power. It could distract those who might seek power for the wrong reasons. Don’t kill them with battle claws, kill them with luxury and splendor. It became a kind of prison, but one that was never called that by name. Theosang made it even more luxurious. He discouraged hunting by telling these owls that they were too fine for such lowly pursuits. Other owls would hunt for them. He provided servants to cater to their every whim. It was an incredibly clever way of distracting them and quelling the most dangerous elements that had begun to find their way into the Middle Kingdom after Theo had crossed the Sea of Vastness. The ancient evil ones, those who lusted for power—these were the ones Theosang committed to the Panqua Palace.”

  The ancient evil ones, Digger thought. Hagsfiends?

  The H’ryth continued, “When the court changed with the arrival of Theosang, the last astrologer, the eighth one and the best, was only too happy to leave the palace and go to serve in the owlery, where Theosang was becoming a profoundly respected leader. This astrologer was gifted beyond belief. And during the time of Theosang he made many predictions. However, those predictions are most difficult to interpret.”

  Otulissa was at that very moment hunched and squinting over one of these documents. Occasionally, she would jot down a note on a piece of parchment.

  Never had she concentrated so hard. In the sputtering light of the yak-butter lamp, she squinted at the letters. She could make out a few words. But they were like fragments of puzzles, and nothing seemed to fit. She raked through her memory for any old Krakish words that might relate. Otulissa prided herself on her skills of interpretation and logic, her great linguistical insights. But she felt as if she was up against a wall here, an impenetrable wall. Reading the Theo Papers had been easy next to this. But the H’ryth felt it was a matter of some urgency that these writings of the eighth astrologer be understood. He perceived a threat, a danger that was imminent.

  Otulissa bent closer to the paper. “And they will—” Her gizzard gave a twitch. At just that moment, Mrs. Plithiver coiled up and hissed. It was the nest-maid hiss of alarm. Two pikyus swooped into the Hollow of Mental Cultivation and announced something in rapid Jouzhen. The H’ryth turned to Coryn.

  “Two owls from the west, a Barn Owl and a Pygmy, are flying this way with the red banner.”

  “The red banner?”

  “The red banner from qui dong Tengshu. It can mean only one thing: We are about to be attacked!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Zong Qui

  Eglantine! Primrose!” Soren gasped as his sister swept down through the sky port into the library, the red streamer unfurled behind her. Primrose alighted near the parchment that Otulissa was attempting to decipher. They were both breathing heavily. Gasping and coughing, they gulped for air and tried to speak.

  “Slink melf…Nyra…” Eglantine choked out.

  Then Primrose took over. “They’re on their way. They got to the River of Wind somehow…not from Bess…”

  “Battle stations!” a pikyu commanded, and then the entire Mountain of Time reverberated with the sound of an immense gong.

  “This way,” the H’ryth shouted, and flew straight up to the port through which Eglantine and Primrose had just entered. The Chaw of Chaws was right behind him, and as they flew into the gusting winds they spied, surging over the last ranks of jagged peaks, twelve, perhaps fifteen owls, their battle claws glistening in the light of an almost fullshine moon.

  Coryn’s gizzard stilled. It can’t be. It can’t be! he thought. But it was. His mother, Nyra, her scarred moon face illuminated by the glare of the stars, flew through the slashing winds, her battle claws extended.

  Soren blinked and drew in his breath sharply. He saw the glaring face as well. But there was something different yet eerily familiar about her face. One side of it shone with a truly blinding brilliance.

  “It’s the mask of Kludd!” Gylfie said, her voice cold with shock. “She is wearing the mask of Kludd!” Kludd, Nyra’s mate and Coryn’s father, had worn this metal mask to cover his battle-mutilated face. Why would she wear it? Had she been terribly injured? Coryn’s memory reeled back in time to when he was a young owlet being raised by his widowed mother in the canyonlands. To a time when he was so young he did not know her evilness, to a time when he had believed that his uncle Soren had murdered his father. Coryn had attended the Final ceremonies in the cave where Kludd had been killed. He remembered it vividly. It was in the cave where they had burned his father’s bones that he had discovered his ability to read fire and experienced his first insight of the flames that began to reveal the lies—all the lies that he had been told.

  “It’s a slink melf,” Eglantine screed as she landed on a parapet of the owlery. “But we sent word to the great tree.”

  In the background, Coryn heard the almost tranquil voice of the H’ryth giving commands to his pikyus. Next to him, a member of the circle of the acolytes perched. These acolytes were the H’ryth’s closest advisors. This one, a Spotted Owl, turquoise with deep midnight blue spots, translated. “The H’ryth will give the signal for zong qui and then the first of our Danyks will advance.”
/>   “We have no battle claws,” Soren whispered.

  “Yak butter!” Otulissa said, and swooped down to pluck one of the flaming brush torches.

  “We use what we have,” the H’ryth said. “The breath of qui, the butter of yak, and our fields of zi will converge.”

  There was a sudden gusting sound that was not dissimilar from the wind bong they had experienced on their way to the owlery when the winds had exploded through the notch in the mountains.

  The senior danyk from the Danyar caught a glimpse of her stubborn pupil. He’s doing it, she thought. He’s actually doing it! Twilight had swelled to three times his size with the deep intake of one breath. He felt the zong qui flow through him. His gizzard seemed twice its normal size. He sensed a field of energy surrounding him. And did he feel a buzz or humming?

  “Extend coal claws,” Nyra screed.

  How have they gotten coal claws? Soren wondered. Coal claws were the most dangerous of all battle claws. In each tip, a bonk coal burned. The Pure Ones advanced upon them now, the claws glowing red with a tinge of blue—hot fangs in the night.

  Fight fire with fire, Soren thought, and inhaled deeply. He was no master of the zong qui but he did feel himself fly very fast. “Grip, split, and roll,” he shouted. It was a strategic maneuver to divide an attacking unit, particularly useful when that unit had superior weapons. The butter torches seemed made for this job.

  “Eeeyawk,” Twilight cried as he saw Nyra spin out. “I’m going to put that mask where it belongs!” he shrieked.

  “Do not waste breath of zong qui, young one,” said the danyk who, with a tail move, had severed a Pure One’s wing. A quick death. The glowing talon trailed a wake of sparks as the owl plummeted down into the icy gorge. Twilight, inspired, curled his own talon into the shape known as the deadly blossom. He was on the tail of a Grass Owl who was flying very fast. Concentrate, Twilight told himself. Concentrate! The Grass Owl suddenly wheeled about in midair. The glowing claws were coming straight toward him. Twilight dodged and heard a crash behind him. It was the danyk. The Grass Owl plunged toward the ground. “I could have gotten him! I could have!” Twilight shouted.