A Perjury of Owls

by Michael Angel

  “Perhaps,” Galen admitted. “Yet it is irregular, to say the least.”

  “Dayna honored one such as I with her name,” Shaw put in. “I for one knew that she would ne’er stand on ceremony with us.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t doubt me,” I said, as I reached out and stroked Shaw’s white-plumed head. “But while I’d like to stay and chat, the King has tasked me with using my talents on one of the parties out here.”

  “Most interesting,” Galen observed. “Considering that there are no fresh corpses lying about for examination, I must assume that he wants you to upend someone’s tea.”

  “Or strip the bark from their favorite tree,” Liam added.

  “Aye,” Shaw agreed. “Fitzwilliam wants someone’s feathers thoroughly ruffled.”

  “Okay guys, I get it,” I said, though without heat. “Fitzwilliam wants me to stir the pot a little. Specifically, he wants me to talk to Raisah, the owl that leads the Holy Order of the Sepulcher.”

  Galen frowned and crossed his arms, evidently thinking about what to say.

  Shaw shook his head. “Knowest I little of the owls, save that they are difficult to understand. The Albess was the only one that seemed hale of mind, if not body.”

  “And she has been missing,” Liam said, picking up on the thread. “We of the Fey deal with the owls now more than the griffins. As the Protector, I have tried to strengthen the links between us, for the Parliamentarians regularly visit our new home. They reputedly roost to the north and east of us. I have been rebuffed each time, though gently.”

  I nodded, taking in the information. Liam had led the Fayleene people across the northern reaches of Fitzwilliam’s kingdom in order to establish a sort of realm-in-exile within the Grove of the Willows. The forest containing the grove was one of Thea’s favorite spots, and I’d seen whole flocks of owls within its boundaries.

  “I too have endeavored to find Thea’s whereabouts,” Galen said, though he couched his words as if unsure of what to say next. “Alas, like Grimshaw, I found the owls singularly opaque. And the ones that Fitzwilliam wishes you to converse with…disturb me.”

  That got my attention. Liam and Shaw’s too, for that matter.

  “Explain, wizard,” Liam encouraged.

  “The owls, as we call them, refer to their own people as the Hoohan. Raisah and her two companions are as such, but they are also members of the Noctua, which is a religious sect of some kind within the Hoohan. Outside of the owl community itself, the Noctua are usually the first to render aid to human communities in distress. The order does its best to recruit the strongest, longest-distance fliers.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a bad thing,” I commented.

  “Nay, it is not,” Shaw agreed. “Yet when I hear of such ‘recruitment’, ‘tis also a way to pick the best avian warriors in a flock.”

  I considered. “Galen, you did say ‘outside’ of the owl community. What about inside of it?”

  “I have observed that when in the presence of a member of the Noctua, other owls immediately go silent. Or at the very least, they become highly deferential.”

  Interesting, I thought. The Noctua sounded like a form of owl aristocracy. Or secret police.

  “That’s all helpful,” I acknowledged. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve got to see if I can rattle the cages a little. I want to find out more about where the Albess is too. We’ll see if these Noctua plead ignorance as to Thea’s location.”

  “I doubt that they can effectively dissemble on that subject,” Galen observed wryly. “After all, the anointed leader of their Holy Order of the Sepulcher is supposed to be Albess Thea herself.”

  Now that Galen’s information had my insides in a thorough jumble, I set off to where the owls perched atop their metal T-bar. I approached them, stood a few respectful paces away, and then waited patiently.

  As I expected, the owls completely ignored me.

  “Greetings and thanks to you,” I began, trying a friendly tone on for size. “For your participation in my investiture.”

  That got me exactly nowhere. The giant birds remained in place, staring passively over my head. The Parliamentarians most closely resembled the Great Horned Owls I’d glimpsed on occasion as a girl in Pike County, Illinois. That is, if the ones back home had gotten access to smart pills and a truckload of growth hormone. Thea and her helpmates were close to three feet tall. But these birds were half again as large. They were fully armed raptors the size of Emperor Penguins. A shiver went through me as I looked more closely at their talons. Each grasping foot was larger than a human hand, and these owls wore armor pieces that wrapped each extremity in cunningly wrought bronze, their forward-facing sets of talons tipped in scalpel-sharp steel tips.

  I couldn’t let that intimidate me. Maybe I was so newly dubbed that I probably had a ‘new car’ scent about my ears, but I’d be damned if I would fail the King’s first assignment.

  “Well now,” I tried again, trying to think of a new angle that the owls would understand, given their strange mode of speech. “It must be difficult for one used to the night to be abroad by day. Curious, how it must stunt one’s sight. And intelligence.”

  This time, at least one of the bigger owls, Nix or Nox, acknowledged me with a flick of his eyes. Then the center owl, the one with a raccoon-like mask, slowly turned to one side. Her short, hooked beak opened and she let out a single griffin-like caw.

  Another owl came fluttering up as fast as her wings could take her. She settled onto a lower T-bar that had been placed nearby and bobbed her head, eyes flicking back and forth, taking in the situation before she spoke. Her gentle voice was one that I’d choose for a child’s nanny. It helped me recognize her as Xandra, the first Parliamentarian I’d met at the start of my journeys in Andeluvia.

  “So sudden, so sudden!” Xandra said worriedly. “One does not realize that one must ask for an audience with those of the Holy Order. Those whose lives are spent not in idle chatter, but in deep contemplation of the divine. Conversation must be channeled, it must not flow loose like a river that has broken its banks.”

  My brain didn’t even bother translating all of that. “No disrespect meant, Xandra,” I said. “But really, let’s cut to the chase. One gets tired – and by ‘one’ I mean me – being put off by you folks.”

  “Oh my, oh my–” Xandra flapped her wings in distress. Her eyes darted between my face and those of her superiors.

  “I’m no longer just an ‘outworlder’ that you can put off,” I stated firmly. “I’m a member of the King’s court, and I request – no, I demand one of two things. Either you give me an audience with the Albess, or you tell me what’s happened to her. Right. Now.”

  “Oh my…” Xandra squeaked one final time.

  With a clack of shifting metal-clad talons, Raisah finally turned her gaze on me. It was unnerving in an entirely different way than the griffin High Elder’s examination. Belladonna was all paranoia and hot emotion, served up with a heaping side of ego. This raptor’s voice was as cool as a tub of frozen nitrogen.

  “One should know better than to ask for gifts from beyond one’s friends and family,” Raisah said, in a tone that contained equal parts annoyance and dismissal. “One would think that the parents of such an offspring would teach it not to play in front of the bear’s den.”

  In other words: Listen up, kid. Be quiet and stop poking the bear before it bites you.

  Well, my mom had tried to teach me, but I’d always been a slow student when it came to letting well enough alone.

  “If one’s parents are wise,” I shot back, “They teach offspring to learn. To examine. To uncover truth if it is hidden away from them and expose it to all.”

  I didn’t know that owls could frown, but this one did. “Does one truly know what shall happen? What price can be paid for lack of wisdom when silence would be best?”

  “One cannot pay, if there is no price. One need not worry about the bear if it is old, if it is toothles
s, if it is all growl and no bite.”

  The owl to Raisah’s right leaned forward. I noticed a tiny O-shaped splotch of black feathers beside one of the bird’s eyes as he spoke in an equally chill voice. “Release this one, Anointed. For this one’s battle talons are well forged, and have spent too long in idleness.”

  Now the owl to Raisah’s left moved as well, mimicking his companion’s stance. Together they looked like a pair of butterscotch-colored gargoyles come to life. This one had no black mark on his face, but the eyes and voice were just as cold. “Nay, release one who truly wishes to taste blood. A beak such as this cannot but thirst for the sweet ebb of life into one’s maw.”

  “Alas!” Raisah said, in a tone that badly mimicked regret. “Shedding blood here is ill-advised. And unnecessary.”

  “Anointed one–”

  “Nix, one’s thirst may not be slaked yet.” The owl to the left shifted position back to ramrod straight on his perch. “Nox, one’s talons must remain idle a little longer as well. But not too much longer, one suspects.”

  The owl to the right didn’t look happy about things, but he also leaned back.

  “One can hide the Albess,” I gritted. “But not forever. Forests can be searched, stones can be flipped over, and even caves can be turned inside-out.”

  “One cannot search if one lacks eyes. Or hands,” Raisah said ominously. Her voice swelled as she added, “Those who ladle out idle concerns may yet run into the harsh blade of reality. Witness the pair of Noctua one gazes upon here. They are trackers who miss no trace! Hunters who know no fear! Warriors that feel no pain! Invincible to all who oppose–”

  That was my cue to cut in.

  “Then why do you have two of them?” I asked.

  Raisah puffed herself up, annoyed that I’d stopped her in mid-rant.

  “What?”

  “I said, why do you have two of them?” I nodded at the one with the face mark. “Nox here looks like a sturdy enough fellow, if not too bright. And Nix must be what, the scrawnier, slower younger brother you let tag along?”

  “You cannot…that is…”

  “Look, if one is invincible, then why keep both of them around? Maybe they need a partner to play checkers with when things get slow? Do they provide each other company? So they can have someone to welcome them home and nest together to keep warm on a winter night?”

  That did it.

  The shrill sounds of a tea kettle boiling over erupted from a triple set of beaks. Then the three raptors began to swell ominously, like poisoned helium balloons. Each owl raised their wings over their backs like a large fan and spread their tail feathers.

  Beaks clacked. Four-toed talons flexed and the birds shifted position to take off. In the space of two wingbeats, they could tear my flesh and sate their thirst on my blood.

  It looked like the bear I’d baited was going to be both growl and bite.

  Chapter Nine

  A blast of wind came from above and behind me, tossing my hair in front of my face for a heart-stopping second. Shaw’s leonine growl cut into and then overrode the hisses of Raisah and her two owl goons. That was joined a second later by two sets of hoof beats. The glow of magic from antler and wizard staff pulsed on either side of my vision.

  “You’re not the only one whose friends thirst for blood,” I said evenly. “Nor are your friends the only ones who have talons that ache to be used in battle.”

  Raisah’s eyes burned like hot coals at me, but she brought her wings forward and deflated her tail and body feathers. Her voice was curt, and it hadn’t lost an ounce of the iciness I’d first heard in it.

  “No blood shall be shed. For now. But mark this one’s words: this shall be remembered, and paid back in full.”

  She let out a raucous caw. With a flurry of silent wingbeats, she and her bodyguards took to the air. Xandra threw me a fearful look before hurriedly flapping off in their wake.

  Galen took a step forward, his palms aglow with magical energy. As if only noticing that he’d been ready to cast a devastating spell, he looked at his hands, blinked, and muttered a single word. The glow went out.

  “That was quite the merry message Raisah left with you,” he observed, as Shaw broke his hover and landed next to him with a thump. “By chance, did this fulfill your obligation to King Fitzwilliam?”

  “I’d hope so,” Liam put in, as he too extinguished the magical glow that lit up his antlers like multicolored Christmas lights. “Otherwise, this course of action strikes me as more than a little dangerous.”

  “Liam has a point there,” I admitted. “I don’t think I’d have pushed so hard without knowing that you three had my back. I think I found what Fitzwilliam really wanted to know. I found out that the owls are willing to push back as hard as necessary to keep Thea in seclusion.”

  “I agree with thee upon all but the Fayleene’s point,” Shaw scoffed. “Why shouldst thou think this is a hazardous duty? Surely, the three of us might well dispose of a few owls without raising a sweat!”

  “I for one do not feel the matter is incontestable,” Galen cautioned. “The Noctua have quite a reputation.”

  “Hah! I have served in the Air Cavalry nigh on thirty years, and never have I seen an owl raise a weapon heavier than an ink quill.”

  “That’s because they do not openly display their skill,” Liam said darkly. “The Hoohan keep that part of their society well hidden.”

  “Hold up,” I said. “What do you mean?”

  “Since becoming Protector, I hear and see more.” Liam’s deer face took on a worried cast. “I get…flashes, impressions of many of the creatures that live in the forest that encompasses the Grove of the Willows.”

  I nodded. This unexpected magical bonus had served us well in the past. Liam was able to give and receive general orders or warnings from creatures in the woods that made up the original Fayleene homeland. I gave him a little verbal nudge to go on.

  “What were these flashes?”

  “Just quick images, shadows. Of large numbers of owls – numbers greater than those of the griffins – flying in formation high above the forest. The sound of metallic clinks, as of armored plate.”

  I thought of the foot armor that I’d seen the three Noctua wear. That didn’t make me feel a lot better. Liam continued.

  “I get flashes of death, always quick, always from above. A great deal of blood. And always at night.”

  “If they are performing kills within your demesne, you have cause to complain to them,” Galen pointed out.

  “Not necessarily,” Liam said, with a shake of his antlers. “The owls have always had privileges to hunt within that forest, a claim that predates my own people’s residence. And the Hoohan are not killing indiscriminately. Rather, they are keeping in check the rodents and other species that eat my kind’s food. Taken as a whole, their skills are actually benefiting my people.”

  For now, I thought, in a strange echo of what Raisah had said earlier.

  Aloud, I said: “I need to report this to the King.”

  “Dost thou wish us to accompany thee?” Shaw inquired.

  “No, I can handle Fitzwilliam on my own. And besides, I got the impression that he wants to keep whatever he’s asking me to do private.” I thought for a moment. “But there is something I need to talk about with all of you. Something that just got a whole lot more urgent after that exchange with Raisah.”

  “We are at your service, as always,” Galen said gallantly, and Liam nodded agreement. “As our resident griffin warrior has surmised, it is more important than ever that we work in concert from now on.”

  “Then let’s meet at our usual place, the room in the corner tower.” I glanced up and saw how quickly the late afternoon sun was descending towards the horizon. “Call it an hour and change, maybe. When evening falls.”

  “We shall be there,” the wizard promised.

  With that settled, I began working my way back through the palace grounds towards where I’d last left King Fitzwilli
am. It was slower going than I expected. Though I picked up my own pace, people still stopped what they were doing when I went by. They would turn and bow, or at least incline their head to me.

  It seemed rude to not return that, so I ended up head-bobbing my way back to the throne room’s antechamber. Instead of the usual pair of guards, a single page remained at the door, alternately stirring his mug of ale with a spoon and taking a judicious gulp of the beverage.

  He snapped to attention as quickly as he was able to as I came up to him. He gulped, bowed, and said, “At your service, Dame–”

  “Yes, yes, thank you, and you’re welcome,” I said hurriedly. “I’m looking for King Fitzwilliam. He left here a while ago, accompanied by four of your co-workers. Any idea where he might be?”

  “His Majesty was out greeting commoners on the west green, then visiting with the assembled knights and lords in the Great Hall,” the page recited, his face scrunching as he did his best to remember. “He claimed fatigue from the day’s proceedings and excused himself. Since it is early, and he has not summoned us to bring him anything since nuncheon, he must be in his private library.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” I said, and I took a half step before I realized that I had no idea how to get there. “And…where is that library, exactly?”

  “I can guide you, Dame Chrissie.”

  “I appreciate the gesture, but no. I may need to consult with the King in private.”

  “Oh. Ah, you’ll want to turn left at the outside corridor. Then a left at the third oak door. That shall take you to the Great Hall. Pass through that and walk straight-on through the hall with the banners of the Knight’s Orders until you come to a staircase leading up to the turret. One flight up and you should see it.”

  “Right,” I said, and I mentally fixed the directions in my mind.

  I turned left as indicated, counted my way past two oak doors, and then made another left. The pat-pat of my leather boots on flagstone were soon drowned out by the sounds of drinking and merrymaking. The somewhat homey slate-and-soot bouquet of the palace gave way to the boozy smell of spilled wine.