Guardians of Ga'Hoole 08 - The Outcast

the fire, I suspect more than once.”
    “Orf, the great Rogue smith of the Northern Kingdoms has fire sight.”
    “But there’s a difference. Orf ain’t never seen the Ember of Hoole. No. No owl has seen the Ember of Hoole since King Hoole himself.”
    Otulissa was persistent. “But tell me, Gwyndor, how do you know that Coryn actually saw it?”
    “I can’t explain it, ma’am. It’s something I just know. Perhaps it is because I am a Rogue smith and I know how certain flames can well be felt in the gizzard. I sensed his gizzard lurching at that moment.”
    “Hardly scientific,” Otulissa sniffed.
    “It ain’t science, ma’am. It be more like magic from the old times, the ancient times.”
    Otulissa was about to say that she didn’t believe in magic, but a short time ago she hadn’t believed in scrooms, either. And now here she was in this Glaux-forsaken place talking to this “old codger” of a Rogue smith because of a scroom. Otulissa sighed deeply. “Well, seeing the Ember of Hoole is one thing, retrieving it is another.”
    “Yes, ma’am. I think that is where you come in.”
    “Me?”
    “Yes, you. You are known as one of the finest colliers in the colliering chaw of the great tree.”
    “Oh, you’ve heard.” She lowered her eyes modestly.
    “Yes, ma’am,” he continued. “I’ve heard, and as you said, seeing the ember is not the same thing as retrieving it.”
    “But I can’t teach him to retrieve an ember in the boiling crater of a volcano!”
    “This young’un has never retrieved an ember from anyplace. You can teach him the fundamentals.”
    “You think so?”
    “Ma’am, I know so.”
    “Well, I have heard that the south slopes of the volcanoes of the Sacred Ring are good for finding bonk coals and that the gnaw wolves of the watch permit colliering there.”
    “That they do. I’m no collier, but I’ve tried a bit of coal diving myself.”
    “Any luck?”
    “No. Don’t have the touch, ma’am.”
    “Well, let’s hope young Coryn has it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Basic Colliering
    T he most enormous wolf Coryn had ever seen was making its way toward them. He stood erect, his tail in a horizontal line with his spine, his brilliant green eyes staring at Hamish. Coryn would not notice until much later that he was missing one paw. Hamish immediately lowered himself, his belly scraping the ground, his ears laid back flat in a gesture of total submission. His lips were pulled in a grimace that revealed his teeth in a kind of grin that signaled complete obedience. Then Hamish lowered his head farther and twisted it so he was looking up at the higher-ranking animal. This final signal of appeasement was transmitted as he flashed his eyes white.
    “Welcome, Hamish MacDuncan.”
    “My Lord Fengo, I am here to serve,” Hamish said.
    Coryn felt a current pass through him. Where had he heard that name “Fengo” before? Had he seen the wolf or the name written somehow in the fire? But he could notread then. He would not have recognized the letters. Yet he knew the name.
    “And before you serve, you shall learn,” Lord Fengo continued.
    “I am your obedient student,” replied Hamish.
    “Your taiga is Banquo.” Another huge wolf approached. He was missing an eye.
    If Coryn had thought this land was strange, nothing could compare to the bizarre and extraordinary region of the Beyond he had now entered. There were towering bone cairns at intervals encircling the ring of the Sacred Volcanoes. They rose from glistening black beds of sharp grit, which was a kind of glass that the volcanoes’ lava was ground into after years upon years. Atop each one of the cairns sat a gnaw wolf. And patrolling the space in between were other gnaw wolves. Hamish would begin his training period on the ground and then, when he was deemed ready, he would climb a cairn. From this vantage point, the gnaw wolves could keep watch on owls, look out for intruders. It was said that a gnaw wolf on a cairn could jump as high as an owl in flight and catch him on the wing.
    “But what are they afraid of?” Coryn asked as he watched Hamish trot off behind his taiga.
    “Well, two things, really. They don’t want some yoickishowl diving into the crater and losing its life, and…” He paused and looked at Otulissa as if for help.
    “Coryn, dear, they don’t want the wrong owl retrieving the ember. An owl might come along who is Glaux-blessed with fire sight and sees in which volcano the ember is