Guardians of Ga'Hoole 03 - The Rescue

St. Aggie’s, which offered the best escape route, and Skench, twice their size, advanced toward them, battle claws extended, a fearsome, horrific figure. And then suddenly, for no explainable reason, she slammed into the wall, drawn by some incredible force, and was rendered helpless. Thus, they had escaped. Now Soren remembered one of his very first conversations with Bubo as to why the blacksmith was “drawn to live in a cave.” Bubo’s words came back to him: It be a strange and most peculiar force. It’s as if all these years working with the iron, we get a bit of the magnet in us. Like them special metals—you know, iron. It’s got what we call a “field.” Well, you’ll be learning this in metals class, in higher magnetics, where all the unseeable parts are lined up. It makes this force that draws you—same thing with me—I get drawn to the very earth from which them little flecks of iron come from.
    Now, finally, Soren realized what the force was.
    “The flecks were stored in that wall in the library,” Gylfie said.
    “Yes, and Skench was wearing metal. There was a strange interaction. But she was so stupid, she didn’t know,” Soren replied.
    “It’s simple,” said Otulissa.
    “Simple?” Digger asked.
    “It’s higher magnetics. The second volume of Strix Emerilla focuses on disturbances and abnormalities in the earth’s magnetic fields. The St. Aggie’s owls might not have known what they were doing with flecks but, believe me, these owls of the castle know exactly what they are doing.” Otulissa paused dramatically.
    What are they doing? The question hung silently in the air.
    “Should I go on?” Otulissa asked. She was clearly relishing her superior knowledge.
    “Oh, for Glaux’s sake, yes!” roared Twilight, seeming to swell to twice his size.
    So Otulissa explained how an owl’s brain could become muddled to the point of complete directional confusion so that it would be impossible for him to navigate. She was talking on and on, becoming increasingly technical, when Soren finally interrupted. “Eglantine, how many sacred flecks were there?”
    “Three golden bags full.”
    “How big were the bags?”
    She thought a moment. “Oh, about the size of”—she hesitated—“an owl’s head, say, a Great Gray.” She looked at Twilight.
    “But how, if the sacred flecks were kept in this shrine, as you call it, how did the owls here protect themselves against the disturbances?”
    “Especially Metal Beak,” Gylfie added. Soren hadn’t thought of this, but why wouldn’t Metal Beak slam right into the bags in the same way Skench had in the library?
    “I don’t know,” Eglantine said. “But we never felt anything.” She hesitated again. “But maybe we did. When they forced us to sleep in the crypts. Sometimes I felt a strange buzzing in my head, and I would get very confused.”
    “Aha!” Otulissa exclaimed. She had flown up to the shrine and was investigating the doors that shuttered it closed. “Just as I suspected.” She tapped her beak on the lining of the doors. “Mu!”
    “Mu?” All the owls said at once.
    “Mu metal—magnetically very soft. Surround a magnetic object with it, and it blocks the field. That’s what protected you, Eglantine.”
    “Except when I was put into the crypt.”
    “And that is what protected Metal Beak,” Gylfie said. “His mask and beak must be made of mu metal.”
    “Precisely,” Otulissa nodded sagely.
    Soren had said nothing. He was listening and thinking. “There were three bags, Eglantine, right?”
    Eglantine nodded.
    “But now they are gone.” Soren turned toward Otulissa. “Otulissa, what would happen if you set up these three bags of flecks at certain points?”
    Otulissa began to tremble, then in a barely audible whisper, she spoke. “There would be a Devil’s Triangle.”
    “So the mu metal protects one from the magnetic disruption. But is there anything that can actually destroy the flecks, the magnetism itself forever?”
    Otulissa nodded solemnly. “Fire!”
    “Fire…mu…fire, fire!” Soren spread his wings and rose in flight. He swept from one corner of the castle ruins to another. It was the owl manner of pacing. To fly, to move, helped him to think. Gylfie soon lifted into flight. How often during their long imprisonment at St. Aggie’s had the two of them plotted and planned together? Soren felt the comfort of Gylfie’s presence as the Elf Owl fell into flight beside him. The other owls