Guardians of Ga'Hoole 06 - The Burning

And most frightening of all was thinking about what these owls of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree might think up next.They had notions that no other owls had ever dreamed of. Uglamore nearly laughed out loud at the very thought. Dream—racdrops! We don’t dream. We don’t think. And then it suddenly burst like a great illuminating star in Uglamore’s brain. Not thinking was exactly the meaning of being a member of the Pure Ones. But it is easier this way, Uglamore told himself. It truly is. One can be too smart for one’s own good. Can’t one?
    A fine drizzle had begun to fall. Neither Uglamore nor any of the other owls at the garrisons or watch rocks noticed the two owls who had walked past them into the canyonlands. The troops of all the garrisons were, of course, looking up and out and not down.
    When Soren and Bubo finally took to wing after walking, they lofted themselves into very low-level flight a few feet above the ground. Soren marveled at how Otulissa’s research at the Glauxian Brothers’ library had advanced the Guardians’ knowledge of flecks. The discovery of cold fire and cold coals had revolutionized the way in which Devil’s Triangles could be neutralized. Furthermore, armed with Otulissa’s knowledge, Bubo had devised a more efficient way to detect the deadly triangles. Now Bubo and Soren carried with them what they called a true stone. Sometimes fragments of meteorites survive their passage through Earth’s atmosphere and hit the ground. A“true stone” was a fragment from a particular kind of meteorite, which was rich in iron. Through experimentation, Bubo discovered that a small needle-sized sliver from one of these fragments would vibrate at a high rate when approaching a concentration of flecks and would swing to point to the source. In the past, in order to protect themselves from the brain-and-gizzard-damaging flecks, the owls had had to fly with mu metal shields. Flying with the heavy shields for long periods of time was awkward. But now even that had been improved. Bubo had forged lightweight helmets of mu metal for them to wear.
    Bubo was carrying the true stone in his talons. Soren followed with the bucket of cold coals. He saw Bubo veer sharply to port and then ascend in tight spirals up the face of a cliff. Soren followed. With a prearranged signal, Bubo angled his one wing and ruddered his tail feathers. Soren flew in. There it was: an innocent-looking little pile of flecks on a narrow shelf carefully surrounded by small rocks so as not to be disturbed. Soren dropped the cold coal in. There was a brief dim glow, no smoke, and a slight sizzle. That’s that, thought Soren, now on to the next emplacement, and flew off behind Bubo, who had begun descending to the lower airspace that so far had hidden them from the sentries on watch.

CHAPTER TWENTY
A Song in the Night
    I t had not taken Gylfie long to get the hang of flying the smee holes. Twilla had accompanied her as far as the southernmost peninsula of the Ice Talons. From that point there was a short stretch of water to fly across, but Twilla assured her that very deep under the water’s surface in this region of the Everwinter Sea there was a volcano and the boiling lava in its crater created an underwater smee hole, which vented directly out of the sea, causing thermal updrafts.
    “Don’t worry, Gylfie. You’ll do fine,” Twilla said as they lighted down on the ledge of a cliff on the tip of the Ice Talons.
    “B-b-but, Twilla,” Gylfie stammered.
    “I cannot go any farther with you. I must return to the Glauxian retreat. I must tell the brothers of this betrayal by Ifghar and Gragg. You will do fine, Gylfie. I am going to give you a song to sing. It will ease you on your flight. It is a short song but you must learn it right now by heart andby gizzard. Twilla began to sing the song in Krakish but by now Gylfie could understand the words.

Set your wings upon the sea wind
Set your eyes upon the steam
Feel the billow of the updraft
And believe in your dream
    Know the mercy of these waters
Know the safety of the sky
Hear the voices in the distance
And believe—they will not lie.

    “It’s a beautiful song, Twilla. Where did you ever hear it?”
    “Oh, I didn’t just hear it. I composed it. I was once a skog. Do you know what a skog is?”
    “Yes, we met one on Dark Fowl Island. She was a Snowy named Snorri.”
    “Ah, yes, Snorri. I know her well. Skog of Moss’s clan, a very big, important clan. Most of the