Sword Mountain

by Nancy Yi Fan

  “What ails you?” said the owl.

  “While you were on the mountaintop, enjoying playing teacher, I went off to recruit other archaeopteryxes. It was hard enough for me to sneak a band into Sword Mountain unnoticed. When I brought my recruits to your door, your underlings refused to let them in! What’s the meaning of this?”

  “Did they? It must have been a misunderstanding,” Tranglarhad replied, although it was he who had given this order. The owl had worried that while he was away Kawaka would gather forces to usurp his Castle of Earth.

  “There isn’t anyplace else to hide such a large group of soldiers,” continued Kawaka. “I had to remove them and house them just outside the mountain range. Many of them got fed up and deserted. Now only a few dozen remain.” Kawaka pounded the table. “And you stand there nodding your big head, doing nothing.”

  “Excuse me?” Tranglarhad shouted, incensed. “I have accomplished what I said I would do; I have the gemstone right now, and have snapped the wings of the eagle kingdom!” The owl wrenched the Leasorn gem out of his pocket and flashed its purple light into Kawaka’s eyes.

  Surprised, Kawaka forgot his anger. “I cannot believe it! No army’s chased you down?”

  “That’s because the king is dead.”

  “Such great timing!” the archaeopteryx exclaimed admiringly.

  “Why, thank you. I wish I could have stayed to watch, indeed.”

  “I have never met a bird like you.” Kawaka shook his head. He extended a claw. “Since that’s all finished, give me back the Book of Heresy!”

  “Not so fast,” said Tranglarhad.

  “I have to have it! It bears my former emperor Maldeor’s script. It will help me recruit more soldiers, in the name of the empire.”

  “I need it for tonight,” said Tranglarhad.

  “I need it more! If what you said about the eagle king is all true, then now is the time to attack them. They are at their most vulnerable. Why do you delay?”

  “Upon my pellet, have I not already expressed to you my profound indifference to the blood and guts of battle?” the owl said calmly. “I have gotten what I wanted—the Leasorn gemstone. And I need the Book of Heresy for a little longer.”

  “What for?” Kawaka’s face darkened.

  “Your emperor was very interested in this type of gem and I intend to use the Leasorn to make sunglass lenses,” said Tranglarhad. “In owl legend, if an owl wears sunglasses made of a magical stone, he will gain the sight of day. And when he takes them off, he retains it forever. The Book of Heresy will verify whether the Leasorn is the stone that I need. Then, I will be as powerful as the eagles; no, more so. I will be a bird of both worlds, of both night and day!”

  “You can keep the book a little longer,” consented Kawaka. “But I will bring my recruits here, and this time you will let them in.” And you will give the gemstone, too, I’ll see to that! he added silently.

  Tranglarhad started to fill his alchemists’ furnace with coals. “Leave, then,” he said. But as soon as Kawaka departed, he motioned to one of his owls. “Some effort it took to pry the archaeopteryx from this book! Hide it in a cliff for safekeeping till this evening’s work is done.”

  As the other owl flew off, Tranglarhad coaxed the flames inside the furnace. He trod up and down on the bellows pedals. “It will take a while to reach the desired heat,” he said to his owls. “Meanwhile, let the party begin!”

  Never had Dandelion left Sword Mountain and flown so far.

  She beat against the wind through snow, hoping she would be able to find Cloud-wing at Double Pain Peak. As she kept low to escape the worst of the wind, the snowfall intensified, whole chunks hitting her in the face and clattering on her wings.

  She glanced about for stars to get her bearings, but the eyes of the sky were closed to her. Her face upturned, Dandelion was caught unawares by a strong gust of wind. Her wings buckled. The next thing she knew, tree branches cut her cheek and she was tossed into a snowdrift. She could not see anything.

  Dandelion waited to catch her breath. She was snugly curled within the snow as if within an eggshell.

  The raging of the wind outside was muted. A voice in her mind said to her, You should have planned better.

  Dandelion tried to move, but the voice told her, Just rest now. See, it’s so calm here. It’ll soon get comfortable. And you won’t have to worry anymore about the world outside.

  Dandelion shook the words from her mind. She raised her talons and pounded the snow, trying to find a place to break free.

  Why don’t you stay here? the voice said, louder. You’ve lost your crown. You are an orphan again. You’re released from responsibility.

  Angered by the words, Dandelion clawed to break free of the ice shell. As she emerged, she stood wobbling on her feet, panting.

  She didn’t have a crown anymore, but that did not mean she hadn’t learned a thing or two about the responsibilities of a princess. Princess or not, she would stand up for those around her. Princess or not, she would not perch aside, watching injustice slip past, without doing everything in her power to right it. And princess or not, she would not be afraid to do what it takes to stand against it.

  The wind lessened, and Dandelion spied the stars again. She continued on her flight. A grim shape soon loomed on the horizon, a fort built of stone over a steep drop. When she folded her wings to land outside the front door, something jabbed like daggers into her sides. Icicles had formed along her feathers.

  “Young lass, what are you doing here? Go back to your fireplace!” said the school’s gatekeeper. He muttered further when he heard that she needed to see Cloud-wing. Dandelion wanted to shout with exasperation.

  “Prince Fleydur has been arrested for a crime he did not commit. I think Cloud-wing can help me prove Fleydur’s innocence,” she said.

  Dandelion was allowed in. She waited in the corridor, shaking the ice from her wings.

  “Dandelion?” Cloud-wing said, astounded, as he flew over.

  Dandelion jumped right into her news. “Fleydur’s in trouble! He’s been accused of killing King Morgan and stealing the Leasorn gem.”

  “Great Spirit!” shouted Cloud-wing. Other eagles crept from their dormitory, listening. “He couldn’t have done that.”

  Dandelion lowered her voice. “The tutor is the thief. That owl, Tranglarhad. He’s fled.”

  “He called himself an expert on stones,” Cloud-wing said, remembering Pudding describing his father’s conference with the owl. “Do you know where he’s gone?”

  “Well, he warned about poisonous fumes, too,” reminded Dandelion. “He warned birds away from the mine.”

  “It makes sense if he lives there,” Cloud-wing said, his eyes lighting up.

  “Tranglarhad talked about living below here. Not in the valley, he said. Birds thought he meant below the summit, but I think he means beneath the mountain rock itself. Cloud-wing, haven’t you visited the old mine? Do you remember where the entrance is?”

  Cloud-wing nodded. He understood at once what Dandelion was proposing. He quickly assembled four birds to accompany them.

  Isobello was a small peregrine falcon, with the quickness and agility to slip through holes and cracks and scout ahead. With Pandey the osprey’s strong sense of direction, they would not get easily lost. Blitz and Blaze, golden eagle twins, had a sense of humor but were also serious fighters.

  They gathered matches and a lantern, and tip-clawed to the armory. By the light of the lantern, they donned leather armor and armed themselves thoroughly. Dandelion kept the sword that Fleydur had given her. Cloud-wing found his claymore, Pandey selected a spear, Isobello a sling, and Blitz and Blaze, broadswords.

  “This is our test, Rockbottom raptors,” said Cloud-wing, with a nod at Dandelion to include her as well.

  “Wheeeeee. Ka-boom!” they exclaimed in unison.

  “Follow me,” said Cloud-wing. “There are fewer guards at the back of the school. We’ll be able to sneak out from there.�
� Soon Double Pain Peak was a blur in the night sky behind them.

  The bowels of the mountain rumble—the truth shall emerge!

  —FROM THE BOOK OF HERESY

  23

  THE CASTLE OF EARTH

  The six young raptors banked and descended toward the foothills of Sword Mountain, Cloud-wing guiding them toward the sinister-looking gray boulders that hid the entrance of the mine.

  There appeared to be no signs of life, no wink of light anywhere. But Cloud-wing laid his talons against one side of the hollow, moving slowly into a narrow cave. “Here’s a gap,” said Cloud-wing, gesturing at a crack in the wall. “I don’t think the boulders are packed so tightly beyond this part.” They all paused, unsure. Then, with a reckless abandon, they raced forward, squeezed in their bellies, and flattened their wings tight to their sides. An adult eagle would not have fit into this hole.

  “Good thing none of us were at the king’s feast to stuff ourselves,” Blaze joked.

  “Or we’d be stuck here for sure,” Blitz said.

  As they helped one another slip through to the other side, Dandelion struck a match and lit their lantern. It illumined how precariously the boulders were balanced around them. A fist-sized rock suddenly fell onto the ground. A shower of pebbles and dust followed. They heard other parts of the cave awakening.

  “Let’s hurry,” she said, feeling caged.

  Cloud-wing was right; there was more room here. As if they were picking a path in a maze, they stepped gingerly. Dandelion was afraid that they might not be able to find their way back, so she paused, unpinned one of the five gold acorns on her collar, and dropped it behind her to mark the right path. After they came across a place where the cave branched off in several directions, she dropped another one.

  The air was filled with stone dust motes. Creatures scurried away underfoot. At length, they made out the gaping black mouth of the ancient mine. Though they had worried that they would not find it, the sight of its crumbling green-tinged bricks brought hesitation, not joy.

  “Tranglarhad and his bunch—they’re really down there, aren’t they?” Isobello asked Cloud-wing. All of them shuddered.

  “Since this side’s pretty much blocked off, I don’t believe the owls would stay close to the entrance,” ventured Cloud-wing, and so they stepped into the mine. Preferring to have the certainty of ground under their talons, they started out on foot.

  The darkness swirled around them in unseen fantastical shapes, but by the feeble glow of the lantern hanging from Dandelion’s beak, they discovered a direct path to the mine’s main tunnel. They trudged on, stepping on fragile stone chips. As the birds went deeper, the chips piled up higher. They were very small elongated or angular shapes, and gleamed pale yellow under the lantern light.

  “I’ve a feeling these bits will reach up and block off the tunnel,” said Pandey. “Should we turn back? Maybe there’s a side shaft.”

  “Do you hear something?” said Dandelion through a clenched beak.

  They heard a rumbling behind them, and dull thuds on the ground as if there was a herd of stampeding animals chasing them.

  “The mine’s blocked,” said Pandey, his voice choked with panic. “Our entryway’s been sealed!” Their breath caught in their throats, and they stopped moving.

  “Then our only way is to go on,” said Cloud-wing.

  The low ceiling ruled out any possibility of flight. They pushed on, trying to focus on what was ahead of them. Soon they found themselves wading chest deep in the jumble of fine white chips. They struggled to lift each talon through the shifting fragments, moving in slow motion. Each centimeter forward was a victory. The smaller bits found their way into the birds’ feathers, digging sharply against their bare skin.

  The farther they went, the more evident it became that not all of the chips were dry, smooth, and light. The ones buried down around their feet felt hairy, even squishy.

  “What is this stuff, anyway?” said Isobello at last in a trembling voice, asking the question that all of them had been thinking for some time.

  Dandelion scooped up the top layer of it with a wing. There was a fine dust mingled with the chips. She looked about. They were piled in gentle dunes, as far as the lantern light could show her.

  “Does it give off poisonous gas? It doesn’t smell right,” said Pandey. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s not chalk or any sort of rock,” said Cloud-wing.

  Dandelion nearly gagged when she realized the truth. “Owl pellets!” she croaked as she set the lantern on the ground. “Thousands and thousands of owl pellets!”

  They were wading through an ocean of shattered bones. The revelation made them all quake. Rodent bones, that was what those white chips were: little fractured skulls and ribs and limbs. The squishy hairy masses were pellets that had not yet decomposed. How many owls must live in the bowels of the mines to regurgitate all these?

  “Great Spirit!” groaned Pandey while the twins, Blitz and Blaze, made retching sounds.

  The owls don’t live near here, of course, thought Dandelion. But that doesn’t mean they don’t use the place—the garbage is a sure line of defense against unwelcome intruders.

  Isobello, the smallest and shortest among them, struggled as the bones gradually rose to the level of his neck. “I’m going to be buried!” he said, gasping for breath. “What if we get stuck here and become part of these bones?” Cloud-wing made his way to the falcon and helped him along. “You lead with the lantern,” he said to Dandelion. They struggled on, deeply shaken, without speaking another word, until Cloud-wing cried, “Do you hear voices?”

  They cocked their heads. Frenzied, off-key chants echoed in the tunnel. “Look!” Dandelion said. “There’s a patch of light over there!”

  Turning to a widened tunnel to their left, they saw a huge patch of eerie, shifting light.

  After a moment of hesitation, they changed their direction and moved slowly toward it. They worked through the tallest dune yet, emerging on the other side with a shower of the garbage, and the discovery that the drifts of pellets diminished here. Soon they were on a stretch of rock again.

  A part of the tunnel floor had collapsed into a natural cavern below, and it was from this cavern that the firelight and the singing came. Smoke rose to sting their nostrils.

  Silently the young raptors crept toward the jagged edge of the hole, flattened themselves on the cold stone, and peered down.

  It was an underground celebration, twenty feet below. A crackling fire dominated the scene, roasting kabobs of meat. Around its flames danced a dozen eagle owls, kicking and prancing in a conga line. They flung out their wings toward the fire in time to a drum, sidling up close to the bright flames and skipping back. All of them wore dark glasses. Their beaks were curled in maniacal glee as they chanted:

  To a proper owl

  No accessory surpasses

  Two glinting shields of crystal—

  A pair of sunglasses!

  They tone down all that’s bright

  So we’ll fly out in the day.

  All shines as clear as night—

  No more limits in our way!

  One for you, and one for me.

  Remember, keep your cool!

  They’ll see how wise are we.

  And after all, who’d dare to call—

  A bespectacled owl a fool?

  Other owls swaying in the shadows hooted in pleasure, raising wineglasses the size of fruit bowls in toasts at each stanza.

  “Here you have it, the ultimate masterpiece of cunning: The king dead, the gem filched, the kingdom split, and still enough time for some jolly partying at day’s end. To the folly of the hookbeaks upstairs! May it last indefinitely,” declared one owl as he burped loudly. The others cheered.

  “Show us the prize. Show us the gemstone!” they shouted. They were calling to an unseen figure in an adjacent cavern.

  “It’s Tranglarhad!” Dandelion whispered.

  Indeed, the former tutor appe
ared below the eagles, making modest gestures to calm the cheering crowd. “Since my friend Kawaka has departed from our castle, I have examined the stone carefully under a magnifying glass, and I must declare that it is what we have sought—the material to craft the best of sunglasses.” He displayed a deep purple stone to the onlookers. “It is as our ‘Chant of Sunglasses’ says: ‘We’ll fly out in the day!’”

  Where was the scholarly dress of the tutor now? The true appearance of their teacher was revealed: twisted face mounted by dark glasses to keep off the glare of the fire, studded belt cinching a dirty coat, two gleaming square cleavers tucked one on each side.

  Directly above, the young birds looked anxiously at one another.

  “How many glasses will the stone yield?” asked one owl.

  “Used sparingly, five pairs,” mused Tranglarhad. “And maybe some left over for a monocle. By the time the party is over, the furnace will have reached the correct heat for the final melting to begin!”

  Dandelion realized that to retrieve the gem, and to find another way out, they would have to defeat the gathered mass below. Most of the owls did not appear to have weapons, yet they looked tough and dangerous, even with only wineglasses in their talons.

  Tranglarhad clasped the gemstone with a pair of tongs. “See how it reveals the dark side of light!” he exclaimed as he lifted it skyward. His gaze rose with the gem.

  And Cloud-wing dived, thrusting his claymore, reaching for the upraised gem.

  “Wha—?” Tranglarhad shouted. Before Cloud-wing could get close, the tongs dropped out of the owl’s claws. The gem skittered across the floor, blocked from sight by other owls fluttering toward Cloud-wing. Before their advantage of surprise wore off, Dandelion and the eagles attacked, shrieking raptor cries.

  “Upon my pellet, the blasted gem! Conjured up hookbeaks from the bones in our garbage dump, it did.” Gargling curses, Tranglarhad leaped up high, swinging a cleaver at Cloud-wing’s head.