The Outcast

by Kathryn Lasky

“By my uncle’s knees, look at that owl catch!” Banquo said.

  The Rogue smiths on the ground had stopped haggling over the price of coal. The gnaw wolves on the cairns began to howl their approval, and the wolf birds squawked.

  It had been a few days since Hamish had witnessed Coryn’s amazing feat, and he had hoped that Coryn would come to visit, but so far he hadn’t. The gnaw wolves of the Sacred Watch were not encouraged to socialize among themselves or with any creatures, for that matter. But Hamish had a feeling this rule might be relaxed in the case of Coryn. Banquo was very impressed that Hamish was the young Barn Owl’s good friend. Hamish hoped that Coryn hadn’t become too proud with his accomplishments to visit his lame friend, who was, in fact, getting stronger with each day. But he couldn’t believe that Coryn would ever be that way. He was such a modest owl. So modest that he had not even tried to repeat the great feat. Hamish had not even seen him flying since that day. So he was somewhat relieved when he heard some other owls saying that they had not seen the young Barn Owl since the night of the triple-bonk catch.

  One evening it began to snow. The she winds had died down and the red sparks from the volcano traced lazy patterns between the flakes as Hamish patrolled the trail between Dunmore and Morgan. He loped by two Rogue smiths who were swapping coals.

  “I’ll give you three of my best bonks for one of them you got in your bucket.”

  “Nay, them’s the ones the young’un caught on the fly. He meant them for me.”

  Hamish slowed down. He recognized the Masked Owl Gwyndor, who was a friend of Coryn’s from his earliest days. Coryn had told him about Gwyndor, and he had finally met him when they had all come here. But Hamish had not seen him since. He was anxious to talk to Gwyndor, but not while the other Rogue smith was around and, of course, it was forbidden when he was on watch. But he would soon be off duty. He only hoped that the Rogue smith would still be there. Why not circle back now and have a quick word, asking him to wait for him someplace? Yes, behind one of the piles of weathering bones.

  The moon had only just begun to rise when Hamish rounded behind the bone pile. Gwyndor was perched on it.

  “My, my,” Gwyndor said. “Look how you’ve grown already. Look at that chest on you, lad.”

  “Yes, sir. What they say is true. This training does make one stronger.”

  “I’ll say. Have you started practicing the leaping yet?”

  “Just, sir. It’s very hard. Especially being lame and all. But I guess I’ll learn to do it.”

  “Sure you will, laddie. I tell you, there used to be an old gnaw wolf on the watch and he had but three legs. Well, one night, along comes one of them gray whatchamacallits—graymalkins. Oh, this was years ago. By Glaux, if that old gnaw wolf—Macbeth MacDuncan, I believe was his name—if old MacBeth didn’t leap right up there in the sky and pull that old fiend down! But what did you want to talk with me for, lad?”

  “Coryn. He’s my best friend, you know.”

  Gwyndor nodded.

  “And I haven’t seen him for days, or at least not since the night he caught the coals on the fly.”

  “Aaah, yes,” the Masked Owl churred softly. “Quite a night, wasn’t it?”

  “Has something happened to him?”

  “No, lad. He just went off to have himself a think. He has much on his mind and his gizzard troubles him. He just needed a spell to think. But I’ll be sure and tell him when he comes back that you’ve been wanting him to come see you.”

  “Oh, you will, sir? That would be ever so kind of you.”

  “Certainly, lad, certainly.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  From the River’s Mist

  You must discover your own strengths, Coryn, your own powers.”

  Ever since Coryn had made the spectacular retrievals of the three bonk coals from the eruption, Otulissa had been pressing him, but he was not quite sure what it was about. She didn’t seem to want to come right out and say it.

  “Powers?” Coryn asked. “I don’t have any powers.” He was hesitant to say anything about his ability to read flames. Otulissa was nosy. She would want to know what he had seen.

  “Look at what you did, catching those bonk coals on the fly, Coryn.”

  “Maybe it was luck. Did you ever think of that?”

  “It was not luck. You flew those columns of flame and coals like a seasoned collier. Listen to me.” Otulissa stopped. “No. What I really mean is, listen to yourself. Listen to your gizzard and your heart, Coryn.” Her yellow eyes grew more lustrous. He could see in them that she wanted so much for him to understand something. He nodded slowly.

  “Maybe I need to get away for a while,” he said.

  “Yes, that might be a good idea. Go where there are fewer owls and not all the noise of the volcanoes. I think it will help you,” Otulissa said softly and patted his shoulder feathers with her wing.

  Beyond the Sacred Ring, there was a river and it was here that Coryn had gone to think. He needed to be alone. Otulissa was nice, but she talked too much. And Gwyndor didn’t talk enough. It was difficult to get an opinion from him. He remembered this from the first time he had really talked with Gwyndor back in the canyonlands. Ask him a question and he would always say something like “Oh, lad, I can’t tell you what to do…” Or “Laddie, in your gizzard you know the answer.”

  Well, Coryn didn’t know the answer in his gizzard or anywhere else. But he had to think about the meaning of the reflections of what he had seen in the bucket of bonk coals. Yes, he had seen his mother’s face, but he had seen something else, too—the Ember of Hoole. If he was the one destined to retrieve it, there were many questions still to be answered. First, how had he been so wrong in his thinking to imagine that the egg he had rescued, that of little Coryn, was a prince and that he was to be, like Grank, his tutor, his teacher? What was little Coryn if he wasn’t a prince? Why had there been all those coincidences? Maybe he shouldn’t be thinking about that right now.

  Precisely, a voice said. But it was not out loud. It was in his head.

  The scroom! He knew it! He looked toward the river from the rock where he perched. There was mist rising in swirls. It began to gather itself into a bundle with shimmering bright spots, a Spotted Owl. And through it Coryn could still see the falling snow. It was a most beautiful sight.

  I thought you were nearby when I caught the coals. I think Otulissa thought so, too.

  She did, but she almost denied me. The scroom spoke directly into Coryn’s mind. She is still embarrassed by believing in such things as scrooms. That is why I had to wait until you were alone. I cannot concentrate when there is even a speck of disbelief.

  I’ve seen my mother’s image in the coals. She is near. I’m so scared.

  I know, my dear. But you have seen much more, haven’t you?

  Coryn could not speak.

  Haven’t you, Coryn?

  Yes, I have. I have seen the Ember of Hoole. But it can’t be true that I am the one to retrieve it. Can it?

  If not you, perhaps your mother, then?

  Never!

  You must make sure it is never. Not ever.

  What was she saying? Why were owls and creatures always speaking to him in riddles? Why was it always scraps he got and never the whole answer?

  There is no such thing as a whole answer, Coryn.

  Is there truth?

  One creature’s truth is another’s lie.

  But can’t I believe in anything?

  Yourself, Coryn.

  What?

  There. I just gave you a whole answer, as you call it.

  But it was just one word.

  And you are just one owl.

  But…but…

  The scroom had begun to fade. How will I know in which volcano to dive? Is it Dunmore?

  Suddenly, Coryn heard a sharp crack and then a rustle. Glaux, was it his mother? Had she stalked him all the way to this far edge of the Beyond?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  In the Eye
of the Wolf

  Gyllbane had been on the trail for two days. She had slipped out of the Gadderheal the very same night after the “Madame General” had left. This was not a hard quarry to follow. She was one of the noisiest owls she had ever heard. Her wing beats were thunderous. She was, of course, heading for the Sacred Ring of volcanoes by the most direct route. It was getting on toward twilight of the second evening when Gyllbane first picked up the odd scent and then perhaps only seconds later saw the splayed footprint of a wolf. She stopped dead in her tracks. “Brachnockken.” She muttered the ancient dire wolf oath and made a sign with her paw to ward off evil. She then sniffed some more. It was a wolf with the foaming-mouth disease, and he was headed in the exact same direction she was. She would have to change her course. The safest way, and unfortunately the longest, would be to follow the river. Would she get there before the owl, though?

  Gyllbane had no choice. She simply had to. She was fleet, the fleetest of the whole MacHeath clan. It was the only reason the chieftain had allowed her to stay in the clan. Her speed made her not just a good hunter but a great hunter. If the snow was not deep, she could do it. She stretched out her legs, making long slicing strides. She gained speed. Her heart pounded. She would do this. She had only two thoughts. She would not let this mother owl kill her own son, and she would do everything in her power to destroy the alliance, even if it meant her own death. I won’t let this happen. I won’t let this happen. It became a song pounding in her blood, the rhythm of her stride, the cadence of her beating heart. Her ruff swept back in the wind. Her eyes were like two blazing green stars, her hackles were raised with the anger that coursed through her and drove her. On that night, she was the angriest wolf in the Beyond. She had all to gain and nothing to lose. She had lost her son. She had lost her mate. And she would lose her clan if she had to.

  She stepped onto the ice to cross the river. If it cracked and she fell in, she could swim. She was as strong a swimmer as she was a runner. But the ice didn’t crack until she got too close to the opposite bank. She fell in, but just for a second, and then clambered out onto the bank and rolled herself on the ground to dry. When she rose to her paws, she saw an owl. Not just any owl. The owl: Coryn, trembling on a nearby rock.

  “I thought you were my mother.”

  Gyllbane blinked in dismay.

  “Never mind. I heard the noise, and I was thinking about her and you scared me. I mean, I didn’t really think you were her.”

  Gyllbane was panting hard. Never had she run so fast or for so long. “Your mother, the Supreme Commander of the Tytonic Pure Ones, she is…” She stopped to catch her breath. “She is coming to kill you. There is not much time. You must act fast.” She paused to gobble breaths of air. “You must get the coal, the ember, the Ember of Hoole.” Her breathing was ragged. The words tumbled out in painful chunks.

  “Rest, rest just a little while,” Coryn implored her.

  “There is no time, Coryn. It all depends on you. She wants the ember. She has promised it to my clan, the MacHeaths. It will give them the power they have always been desperate for. In exchange, they will join her in an alliance to rule the owl world.”

  “But why are you doing this? You are a MacHeath.”

  “They took my son. They mutilated him. So badly did they want a MacHeath in the Sacred Watch, they cut off his paw pads and his tail. They drove my mate from the clan. How can I have anything but hatred for them? And if your mother succeeds, they will become more hateful and powerful beyond imagining.”

  “Cody is your son?”

  She nodded. She was now drooling long silver strings of saliva, but she seemed to have recovered her breath. “Cody is my son but he does not even know it. I was not allowed to nurse him. But really, Coryn, there is no time. You must claim the ember. It is yours, I know it. I know it.” Coryn looked deeply into her sparkling green eyes. His own reflection looked back at him with a steady gaze. Yes, there was fear in his own eyes, but there was daring as well. At last, he believed in what he saw reflected in that wolf’s green eyes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Glass Volcano

  In many ways, it was a night not unlike all the others. The Sacred Ring was wind-ripped once again. Red volcanic sparks and snowflakes were locked in a mad dance, blurring together to the music of the savage she winds that had returned in full force. On the ground, there was the usual bustle of Rogue smiths and Rogue colliers haggling over coals. The gnaw wolves of the watch patrolled their trails. The senior ones who were perched on the towering cairns of bones howled into the night a secret code of instructions, alerts, and commands that only they understood. A few of the bolder colliers were flying the higher and wilder layers of air in attempts to emulate the brilliant catches they’d seen Coryn make.

  No one seemed to notice Coryn as he returned and began a wide circle in a survey of all the volcanoes of the ring. Gyllbane had settled herself in the shadows of weathering bone piles. She examined one closely. It was true these gnaw wolves were great artists. A wolf bird had been incised on the one she was looking at. It was perfect, down to the fine lines depicting its feathers. Would it have been so bad for Cody to be here on the watch? To become an artist, to become one of the most incredibly strong wolves on Earth and yet forbidden to mate, to be doomed to a completely solitary life without family or clan.

  She looked up at the stars. Was it true what they said, that after a gnaw wolf of the Sacred Watch died and climbed the spirit trail, that wolf could return as anything it wanted to be on Earth? Would it be worth it? “No,” she muttered to herself. Life is to live on Earth in the whelping den with your young, in the Gadderheal with wolves of honor, on the trails where the code of lochinvyrr is respected. That is how a wolf’s life is to be lived. Damn the clan of hers, which kills and forgets the ways of lochinvyrr. Damn the MacHeaths for their jealousies, their mutilation of young pups, and their alliances with devil owls. She looked up and caught sight of Coryn. Slowly, so slowly, he was circling each of the five volcanoes. Other owls were beginning to notice him now. Many had stopped flying as if to make airspace for him.

  Perched on a rock outcropping were two owls that had been watching him from the start. It was one of the few times in her life that Otulissa was completely silent. Gwyndor stood motionless, as if holding his breath. Both of their gizzards were in a frenzied state. They sensed what was coming.

  Except for the screech of the wind and the occasional howl of a gnaw wolf, a hush had fallen over the Sacred Ring. This was Coryn’s fifth circle of the ring. He could see Otulissa and Gwyndor watching him. He spotted Hamish on the ground. He must be off duty, Coryn thought, for he had stopped loping the trail between Dunmore and Stormfast. Coryn felt bad that he had paid such scant attention to his friend these past several days. He hoped there would be time later. He hoped there would be a later!

  But despite this grim thought, Coryn was calm, as calm as he had ever been in his life. His gizzard was trimmed and fit for the challenge. Part of this challenge was patience. He knew someplace deep within his gizzard that it was not a matter of guessing which volcano the ember lay buried in. It would come to him in some inexplicable way and he would know that one is the volcano.

  On the very fringes of the dark red shadows cast by the volcanoes, another owl lurked. If anyone had noticed her, they would have thought she flew most awkwardly for a Rogue smith. She set down her tools with a clank but no one heard it above the wind. Every creature’s eyes were focused on just one thing: the young Barn Owl flying now for the sixth time over the top of the cones of the volcanoes—every creature, that is, except for the gnaw wolves on the cairns. Their hackles had risen the moment this other owl had arrived. A silent scent message went out. Beware! A graymalkin is here. Would she try to fly up where the young Barn Owl was circling? It could prove a difficult intercept if the two of them were fighting over the ember. Never in the history of the Sacred Ring had two owls attempted at the same time to recover the Ember of Hoole.


  But the wolves were wrong. This owl would not attempt to retrieve the ember before Coryn. No, Nyra had it all worked out. She was not diving into some boiling volcano. Let Coryn do it and if he died, he died. He was no more the heir of Hoole than she was. But if by some freakish incident he did get the ember, well, then, she would wrest it from him. She would kill him and take the ember back to the MacHeaths. And if no one got it? Her plan would still work. She had promised to restore the MacHeaths to their glory as the true members of the Sacred Watch and then, with them by her side, she would begin to dominate the world of owls. If only Kludd were here to see this. Kludd!

  Coryn looked down into the boiling crater of Dunmore. It was in Dunmore’s cauldron that the bonk coals he caught on the fly had been born. And even though those coals had revealed to him the image of the Ember of Hoole, he knew in his gizzard that the great ember was not buried in that boiling cauldron. He flew over Morgan and peered in, and then Stormfast and Kiel. So far, he had been flying high, but it was as he approached Hrath’ghar that he noticed a strange phenomenon on the slopes just beneath the cone’s opening. He began to hover. He blinked in dismay and now felt a quickening in his gizzard. The sides of this volcano seemed suddenly luminous. Now they were turning a pearly opalescent, and then the gleaming swirls started to glow and become translucent. Were the others seeing this, too? The night was strung with that wild savage music of howling wolves. Owls were flying in the lower levels around Hrath’ghar, but suddenly Coryn knew that they were not seeing what he was seeing at all. They had come to this volcano merely because he had been hovering so long. They did not see that the volcano was turning to glass!

  And through that burning glass, Coryn saw the Ember of Hoole, orange with the lick of blue at its center ringed with green—the green of wolves’ eyes. Just like those of Gyllbane! The ember was cradled in a black pocket of a lava bubble. Through the glass, he saw how the boiling lava sea grew still and the pocket in which the Ember of Hoole rocked began to float to the surface of that black sea. Other embers, sizzling and popping from the crater, seemed to hang suspended for just a moment in the air.