Guardians of Ga'Hoole 07 - The Hatchling

time.”
    “You…know…nothing!” Nyroc said, slowly enunciating each word.
    “Nyroc, you are my world. My entire world.”
    “If I am your world, it is a world I do not want to live in.”
    He then spread his tattered wings and flew. He clamped his beak shut against the pain of flying so nearly featherless. But he felt his will surge through his gizzard. So this is free will? he thought. It hurts!

CHAPTER TWENTY
Away
    N yroc was utterly and completely alone. He had no idea what he was flying toward. He knew only what he was flying away from: away from the rocky burnt-up canyonlands, away from the Pure Ones, away from his mother and the bloody scene that still boiled in his brain. He flew into the windless folds of the black night, wrapped himself in its cool silky darkness. He was weak, very weak, and he knew he could not fly far with his tattered feathers. But he had to fly just far enough. Just far enough to get away. The words played over and over like a chant in his head.
    He looked down. Those are trees, he thought. And perhaps if it were not night, I would see the green. But the tall timbers that poked at the sky seemed to be fringed in black needles. Yes, needles, Nyroc reminded himself. It’s winter. The leaf trees would have molted. Phillip had explained what leaf trees did in the winter.
    Phillip! He felt his gizzard lurch with despair. He could not think of Phillip now. Just think of away. Just think of away.Perhaps that is the Shadow Forest beneath me. It can’t be The Barrens for there are hardly any trees in The Barrens. Phillip said —He cut off the thought.
    Suddenly, Nyroc knew that he could not flap his wings a moment longer. He had to light down somewhere. He began circling. It was difficult. His ruddering was off. He gave the command to his tail but it just wouldn’t respond as it had in the past. The trees were dense. He had heard that trees had hollows. Maybe he would find one. Maybe not. He’d settle for anything right now. He suddenly saw a bright reflection like a silver blade split the night. It’s the moon come down to earth! No, of course not. It is the moon’s reflection. It must be a pool, a pond, a lake! He had heard about such things. Nyroc began a gradual dive toward the forest pool.
    He lighted down on a log on the pebble beach. A thin skin of ice had begun to form over the water. He crept toward the edge and looked down. There was still a patch of water left and when he looked and saw his own reflection he gasped. A seam ran diagonally down his face just like his mum’s except that his slanted from left to right down his face, while his mum’s had gone from right to left. His scar was still red with the blood that had caked in the seam. A shiver ran through his gizzard. I am exactly like my mum!
    And at that instant, two things happened. From themiddle of the lake a mist rose. It began to swirl into a vague shape. It’s a mask! A metal mask! Then it was as if Nyroc had stepped out of his own body and was hovering over the lake, and yet when he looked down, his talons were dug firmly into the pebbles of the beach. Could he be in two places at once? Impossible! But inside his head he could hear a voice, a voice he did not recognize, calling to him. Come here, lad. Come here. Nod pule. He saw something like his own shadow moving out from him. It was going toward the swirling shape. Toward the scroom of my father.
    Yes, lad. It is I. Like your mum said. There is no escaping your destiny. You must go back, Nyroc.
    You’re here on unfinished business, Nyroc said without speaking.
    It is your business to finish, lad.
    What is that business?
    The mask glared at him and became mute.
    I am not on earth to finish your business. I have free will.
    Ha-ha! Ha! the mask exploded in harsh clanking laughter that made Nyroc’s gizzard shudder.
    So his mother had been right. He would be haunted by his father’s scroom wherever he went for the rest of his life. He was almost too weary and scared to think. How could he go on? He wanted to weep.
    Yes, how can you go on? The scroom’s echo of his thoughtrang in his brain and clanged in his gizzard. How can you do anything?
    What do you mean?
    To be a Barn Owl, Nyroc, is to be the noblest of birds. In your condition, frightened and nearly featherless, you are barely an owl and far from noble.
    Maybe I should return …The words were just forming in his mind when the echo clanged again.
    Yes, maybe you should return.
    No, no, never.