The bear unleashed a terrible roar that drowned out even the roar of the wind and the sea. A roar so violent Lockley thought the sound alone would be fatal. Before he or Egbert could react, the bear attacked in a blur of white, and Lockley, knocked back from the sheer force of it, was horrified to see the bear’s claws dug into Egbert’s sides, his teeth sunk into Egbert’s shoulder. Only Egbert’s enormous weight kept him from being overwhelmed, and he managed to stab a tusk into the bear’s already injured shoulder. The bear howled in pain, and backed away.
Lockley hoped against hope the bear was retreating. Instead he raised himself up on his hind legs, towering over Egbert in a fearsome pose, drawing back a daggered paw to strike. Casting aside all common sense, Lockley ran forward and launched himself at the bear. He heard Egbert cry, “No!” just before that massive white paw struck him a blow across the face, sending him sliding across the ice.
The last think Lockley remembered seeing was Egbert looking upon the bear, twisted sideways because of Lockley’s brave attack, and throwing himself forward just as the bear turned back to face him. Their collision shook the earth, tooth met claw, the ice cracked, and the white ground blossomed with bright red flowers.
THE RETURN
For the second time, Lockley awoke on the ice, cold, confused, and in pain. Where was he? What was that hill in the distance? He came to his feet, unsteady, and wobbled toward it, and slowly he remembered. There was Egbert, lying motionless in the crater made by his own body. His tusks and his bristly face were stained with blood. Nearby lay the white bear, sprawled on a massive spiderweb of fractured ice.
“Oh, Egbert,” said Lockley, his voice soft and sad. “This is all my fault.”
A soft whoosh of air escaped from the walrus’s nostrils, and his eyes rolled open.
“Egbert?”
“Am I…alive?”
“Say that again!”
“Say what?” he groaned, barely audible.
“Egbert! Egbert! You’re alive! You’re alive! You won! You won!”
Egbert let out another moan. “What did I win?”
“The fight! The fight!”
Egbert gave his head a shake. “Something wrong…hearing double…”
Lockley was embarrassed by his emotional outburst, but he couldn’t help himself. To have his friend lying here, alive, against terrible odds! For as anyone knows, a walrus is poorly matched against an adult polar bear. Even a full-grown bull in fighting shape, to say nothing of a flabby male who had given up fighting for scholarship.
But given no choice, Egbert’s instincts had shown themselves, and he had met the bear with terrific force. He had thrown the full weight of his body forward and speared him with his tusks. The bear was too big and too strong, though, and would have killed Egbert but for a tactical mistake. The sting of those ivory knives made him flinch. He spun behind Egbert and climbed onto his back. Maybe Egbert knew what he was doing, or maybe it was a fluke reaction in the face of fear. Whatever the truth, just as the bear opened his jaws aimed at Egbert’s throat, Egbert tucked his fins and flopped over like a giant mackerel. The earthquake when they hit the ice must have rattled the ice shelves of the Scholars. Egbert knocked himself unconscious, but the bear’s back was broken. He died with a pathetic moan.
They both studied the massive cloud of fur next to Egbert. The bear’s claws were full of walrus hide, blackened with blood. Egbert was strangely humbled. “It was luck, wasn’t it?”
“What makes you say that?” said Lockley. “You fought like a warrior!”
“Even so,” and he shook his head. “I could never have taken him one-on-one.”
“Well, you certainly didn’t have much help from me,” said Lockley. “Come on, old boy. There’s no reason to be modest for the first time in your life. Your hide’s not smooth now.”
Egbert smiled, but weakly. Lockley realized he was badly shaken by the battle, and so he left his scarred friend there to rest while he caught fish for them both. When Lockley returned, Egbert seemed to be his old self, bellowing with his customary melodrama, “Oh, Lockley, I am weary unto death!” before devouring the small feast Lockley had set before him. Egbert started to nod off, but Lockley was upon him instantly.
“Egbert, get up. Get up!” He tugged at his friend’s whiskers until he came awake. “We’ve got to get back to Neversink! Posthaste!”
“Excellent use of an official-sounding word or phrase,” said a groggy Egbert, but Lockley didn’t hear him. He was already at the water, wishing dearly to find his home and his family intact.
From her perch far away, Astra watched peacefully as a small puffin hit the shores of Neversink and bumbled to a stop, followed soon thereafter by an exceedingly large walrus washing ashore like a giant toboggan. And she thought to herself, This is the beginning of the end.
As he came to Auk’s Landing, Lockley felt as if he’d been away for years. He felt this way because he was so homesick, so eager to see Lucy. But also because Neversink was so different from the place he had left. For one thing, the population had shrunk because of those who had recently abandoned the colony to escape the owls. The ones still here, determined to stick it out or unable to move from their nesting grounds this late in the season, seemed almost lifeless, and not just from poor nutrition. Lockley could see for himself how defeated they were.
Among the first to see him were the band of young auks led by Arne Puffin and Snorri Guillemot. “Arne!” said Lockley, “look who I brought back!” But the piffling and his friends said nothing to either Lockley or Egbert. It was as if games and play had been banished from Neversink. There was nothing to be joyous about. Lockley knew then the seas were still barren. Maybe there had been no spirit journey. Maybe it really was a dream.
Lockley tried to go immediately to his burrow, but before he got there, he ran into Algard Guillemot, who was packing his belongings. “I thought you were dead,” said Algard, without sympathy. When Lockley said nothing, Algard nodded to Egbert and added, “He doesn’t belong here. None of us do, anymore.”
“So there has been no sign of fish?” said Lockley.
“Why would there be?” said Algard.
Before Lockley could stop him, Egbert blurted out, “Because my dear friend Lockley has just been on a spirit journey to Sedna’s lair, and she has promised to restore the bounty of our waters. You should all be thanking him.”
Algard did not thank him. In fact, what he had to say in response to this cannot be repeated here in a book for genteel and sophisticated readers. Most of the other auks within earshot muttered similarly unprintable things. Lockley was hurt, but at the moment he didn’t care—he was determined to see Lucy. His heart began beating so fiercely he thought it would burst. His breath came in short, violent gulps. In part from eagerness to reunite with his beloved, yes. But Lockley realized he was also terribly afraid. Afraid of what his leaving had done to Lucy—and to them. That he was too late to save their egg. That she wouldn’t forgive him.
He pushed aside the sealskin door and saw Lucy sitting there, alone. She stood up, and said nothing as Lockley stepped inside. They just stood there, looking at each other. Lucy had been told Lockley was alive, yes. But she had not been willing to believe it fully until she saw him again. And Lockley had not been willing to believe she would be happy to see him. But then, Lucy went to him, and wrapped her wings around him. She pressed him to her and began to cry.
“I’m so happy you’re back,” she wept, and Lockley felt as if a stone he had been trapped under had been rolled away. His legs went weak from relief, and he began to weep as well. He stumbled back into his chair; Lucy pulled him right back up again. “There’s someone you need to meet.”
“In the name of Sedna!” said Lockley. “I almost forgot….”
Lucy led him to their bedroom. At the threshold, Lockley paused to admire the beautiful egg, nestled in blankets. He moved toward it, and as soon as he walked through the door, he was bombarded by sharp pokes to his head and neck.
<
br /> “Ow…ow!”
“Back off, egg snatcher!”
“Ruby, no!” cried Lucy. She had forgotten the feisty hummingbird was on guard.
When Ruby realized it was Lockley, and that he was still alive, her tiny pulse accelerated to more than a thousand beats a minute. She didn’t know what to do with herself, so she flew over to Lockley, darted her tongue out, and licked his bill. “I’ve seen you and Lucy say hi that way,” she explained to a somewhat surprised Lockley.
Lucy laughed and pulled Lockley to her again. “It’s done like this,” she said, and she and Lockley gently rubbed their bills together, prompting Ruby to flee the burrow.
“I think we managed to embarrass her,” said Lockley.
He walked outside to tell her it was safe to come back, and as he did, he was nearly crushed by murres and razorbills coming down the walls of Auk’s Landing. Circling overhead, an arctic tern was crying out, “Fish! Fish!”
It was true. A warm current had swept up from the south along Neversink’s coastline. And with it, schools and schools of fish.
You have never seen such wild celebrating! Auks by the dozen plunging off the top of the sea cliffs and shore rocks after fresh eel, trout, char, cod, and other fish with short names. The burrowing owls left on Neversink who tried to stop them were trampled underfoot, their silk derbies crushed flat. All afternoon the birds feasted until happily stuffed, and then fished again just to make sure the seas were really fertile. Egbert himself ate a thousand pounds of clams. For good measure, they fished a third time just for the sake of tossing some into a pile for Rozbell—as if to say, Tax all you want!
You would have thought these same auks would have come to Lockley and apologized, and given him the hero’s welcome he deserved. But you’d be wrong. They all gave thanks to the Great Auk, the gods rest his soul. He must have sacrificed his own life to appease Sedna, Rozbell, or both, they thought. Only an auk with the stature of the Great Auk could have accomplished such a thing.
Lockley didn’t waste energy being offended. For one thing, he was relieved that the spirit journey hadn’t been just a dream. For another, he knew that the colony still had the bigger problem of a despotic little owl to contend with.
Astra once again found herself having to make the flight back to Tytonia. There wasn’t another owl or messenger bird willing to personally deliver the news to Rozbell that the puffin who had deprived him of smidgens, the husband of the puffin who had humiliated him publicly, had returned safely to Neversink. She had to do it herself. And Rozbell practically invented the phrase kill the messenger.
To her surprise, Rozbell directed his anger at Feathertop: “You…incompetent…fool!” he screeched at the stunned eagle. The king’s eyes bulged and his feathers fluffed out as if he’d received a jolt of electricity. “You were supposed to take care of this in the first place, and then you lied about it with the help of that raven! I’ve always said, you can’t trust a raven!”
Feathertop tried to protest, looking repeatedly in Astra’s direction, but he couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
“You featherbrained, feather-headed idiot! You and those overgrown blackbirds! You aren’t fit to fly! You aren’t fit to sit in my owlery! You ought to be plucked and paraded around the woods like a lemming! Look at you—as big as an ox and just as stupid! Gewh, gewh, gewh!” On and on it went, with hundreds of other choice words that were again, I regret, far too indecent for cultivated readers.
For Rozbell, Lockley’s return symbolized his failure to get what he wanted, whether it was the food he craved or the power to crush the loathsome auks. His tirade went on for several more minutes, and news of his rage soon circulated throughout the territory.
On Neversink, the auks’ bellies were full, but the news of Rozbell’s fury gave them all indigestion (which they blamed on Lockley, of course). Lockley knew he had to think of something fast. He pulled the now empty clamshell necklace out of his breast feathers again and stared at it. Maybe there was still luck in it yet, he thought. Or maybe, just maybe, there was more luck where the clamshell came from.
He needed a quiet place to think anyway, so he made his way down the shore to the Great Auk’s abandoned nest. He was relieved to see that at least someone had had respect enough to come tidy up—even put things back where they belonged, as if the nest was now a shrine to their former leader. Here is where he kept his tea. And here is where he kept his tea cups. And here is where he boiled water for his tea. In fact, there was a pot of water boiling now. Well, that’s going a bit far, thought Lockley.
A voice behind him said, “Hello, Lockley.”
He turned around. It was the Great Auk.
ROZBELL’S CLUTCHES
Lockley wondered if he was seeing a ghost. After his trip to Sedna’s lair, anything seemed possible.
“It’s really me, Lockley.”
“How did you escape?”
“It’s not important right now,” said the Great Auk. “I trust, from the bountiful seas, that you found the biteweed useful?”
“Oh yes,” said Lockley, clasping the shell again. “I can’t thank you enough. I guess your foresight is as good as ever. You were spot-on about the Owls With Hats, after all.”
“You don’t really need to be a seer to predict that owls will make trouble, now do you?” said the Great Auk. “As for the spirit journey, I made it once, long ago. I gave you the clamshell because I felt that if the journey needed to be made again, I would be too old to do it. As you no doubt discovered, it is a trying task. I know your confidence was shaken after the fish party. I had faith, though, in your resourcefulness.”
“Well, that makes one of us,” said Lockley. He went on to recount his disastrous escape attempt, being fooled by a tiny mole, of all creatures, and then detailed his spirit journey. The Great Auk compared it to what he had once seen. He was intrigued by Lockley’s vision of the future in the World Tree, where the apes were climbing among the birds. Lockley still had something nagging at his brain. “What about Sedna?” he wondered. “Her shape, her form…what is she?”
“The birds say she is made in the gods’ own image,” the Great Auk replied. “As the story is told, the gods were displeased with their experiment, because she was tricked by a bird. And so they made her an immortal.” Lockley nodded, though he still didn’t fully understand. “The gods don’t give up easily,” said the Great Auk. “There will soon be others.”
Lockley wanted to know more, but he had a confession to make first. He admitted to the Great Auk that he hadn’t really remembered the entire “Tricking of Sedna” story. That Egbert and the Scholars had to help complete the mission. The Great Auk didn’t seem too angry. “Good friends come in handy, do they not? And perhaps now, with your help, we can persuade the others of the need to collect the Stories somewhere, for when our memories fail us?”
Lockley agreed, but there were more urgent matters at hand if this particular story was to have a happy ending. He told the Great Auk what Sedna had told him—that no false ruler could perch on a branch of the World Tree.
“A branch of the World Tree,” said the Great Auk. After a pause he said, “I may be able to help with that.” And there was a glint in his eye when he said it.
The next morning, Lockley came out of his burrow to find a crowd gathered at Auk’s Landing, which wasn’t all that unusual. Except that along with the families of puffins, murres, guillemots, and razorbills, there were also Owls With Hats everywhere. When Lockley spotted the menacing Feathertop and, next to him, the glint of Rozbell’s new gold crown, he knew the moment of truth was at hand.
“There he is!” someone cried. The whole crowd of auks and owls re-formed into a half circle as Lockley came forward and put himself face-to-face with Rozbell, who stood on a rock to meet Lockley’s eyes. Egbert went to Lockley’s side. Feathertop loomed over Rozbell’s shoulder with a sour look on his face.
“Well, well, well,” said Rozbell. “I must admit, I thought you had met a most unfortunate
end. Just goes to show, you can’t send an eagle to do an owl’s job.” Feathertop’s expression went from merely sour to downright hideous. “Has everyone brought you up to speed? There have been a few changes around here.”
“Well, duh,” said Ruby, appearing over Egbert’s head.
Lockley stepped closer. “Actually, I’ve had a lot of time to think on my journeys, and I’m back to offer my full support.”
“You are?” said Egbert, Ruby, and Rozbell in unison.
“Quite right,” said Lockley. “I’ve heard there’s been some controversy over the change of leadership and the arrangements between Tytonia and Neversink. I think I can put an end to all that. After all, if you are the legitimate leader of the owls, then you have every right to lead as you see fit.”
Rozbell smelled a rat, which for owls is normally a good thing, but not in this case. “What do you mean, if?”
At which point Lockley produced what looked like a crooked, bleached tree limb and held it up for all to see. “This is a branch from the World Tree!” he shouted.
There was a collective gasp, and Egbert leaned in and asked, “Where on earth did that come from?”
“Yes,” said Rozbell, his eyes afire. “Where on earth did that come from?”
“I gave it to him,” came a voice from the back. The crowd gasped again as the Great Auk strode forward. The auks were electrified; Rozbell looked as if he might self-combust.
“Is anyone I ordered killed actually dead?”
Lockley saw the Great Auk glance at Astra from the corner of his eye, although the stoic white owl betrayed nothing.
“You all remember the story,” said the Great Auk. “A branch of the World Tree was passed down through descendants of each of the Birds of the Four Talents.” Of course, the auks and the owls did not remember this story. But from the mouth of the Great Auk, it sounded authoritative enough.
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