Guardians of Ga'Hoole 06 - The Burning

The worst part of it is that the parliament doesn’t meet until after we leave.”
    “That’s tomorrow! Can’t they call an emergency session?”
    Soren looked at Gylfie and blinked. “Gylfie, there is one thing I have learned since being in the Northern Kingdoms—these owls are set in their ways. You can’t budge them. They have their own way of doing everything, from hunting to preening, from nest building with moss and down…”
    “To harvesting ice,” Digger said as he settled onto the outcropping with Soren and Gylfie.
    “Harvesting ice?” Gylfie and Soren both said at once.
    “You bet,” said Digger. “I was just learning from a couple of Snowies how to split office shards for swords, splinters, daggers, and scimitars. A very precise piece of engineering work it is. And if you think the owls are set in their ways, you should see the Kielian snakes who were teaching me how to bury the swords to preserve their sharpness and keep them from melting. You can call it ‘set in their ways’ but I think it is really just part of surviving in this ice-locked kingdom. There are no second chances here. You do it one way or die.”
    Soren looked hard at the Burrowing Owl as he spoke and when he had finished, Soren blinked. This was so like Digger. The most philosophical of all the owls, Digger was always, as his name suggested, digging beneath the surfaceof things, prying loose the obvious to find a deeper truth in the obscure—the hidden facets and meanings of life. Soren now flipped his head around. “See that owl, Snorri, up there on that cliff?”
    “Yeah,” Gylfie said. “What’s she doing?”
    “She’s the skog,” Soren replied.
    “But what’s she doing?”
    “Skogging,” said Soren. “She’s the teller of stories, the keeper. I found out that skog means not only ‘telling’ but ‘keeping.’”
    “Well what in Glaux’s name is she keeping or telling up there?” Gylfie asked.
    “Us,” Soren said quietly. “She’s telling about us. What we’re doing here. Why we have come. But I wish I knew the end of the story.” Soren sighed.
    Meanwhile, hiding in the shadows of a distant cliff on Dark Fowl Island, a raggedy old Whiskered Screech Owl perched. At his feet, a snake coiled. “You mean to say that my brother still lives?” This was at least the hundredth time in two days that Ifghar had asked this question. “Yes.” Gragg nodded with infinite patience.
    “And that these owls are commanded by him, for some…some…” Ifghar tried to arrange his thoughts. Ithad been such a long time since he had felt that there was anything worth thinking, let alone speaking about.
    “An invasion,” Gragg prompted.
    “An invasion of what?”
    “I’m not sure. Something called the canyonlands that are being held by some force called the Pure Ones.”
    “I thought Lyze had stopped fighting. Hung up his claws.”
    “He’s not doing the fighting. Those owls out there are. And they’re trying to recruit owls and snakes from the Kielian League.”
    “Hrrruh!” Ifghar made a growling sound. “Good luck,” he said acidly.
    This is good! This is good! Gragg thought. He’s feeling something. It had been years since Ifghar had experienced any emotion. It was as if in his envy and his jealousy of his brother, Lyze, he had spent every shred of feeling, of anger, of hate, of anything. He was simply resigned to being towed around by that stupid old Short-eared Owl, Twilla. Twilla had, of course, accompanied them on this flight to Dark Fowl Island, but Gragg had sent her off hunting for lemmings. She had gone without a word of protest for she was simply ecstatic that the old Whiskered Screech had, for the first time in all the years she had been taking care ofhim, shown any eagerness to do anything at all. But Gragg had been careful to say nothing to Twilla of Lyze or who these owls were.
    He waited, then began to speak in a slow voice to Ifghar. “Now listen to me very carefully, Ifghar. Do you want the glory that was to be yours—and I don’t mean Lil. I am not talking about love. I am talking about glory, power, respect.” Ifghar blinked. Gragg continued, “Supposing we find out information, good information, valuable information about when these Guardians plan to invade, and suppose we go to the Pure Ones with it and because of this information they are able to defeat your brother and the Guardians? Well, do you not think that they would restore the glory that was stolen from