Guardians of Ga'Hoole 08 - The Outcast

privacy of the mind and the gizzard.
    “Do you think I could ever go to my uncle Soren and live with him at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree?”
    “Perhaps, but not yet. Remember you said you knew in your heart that you were more than what your parents were.”
    Nyroc nodded.
    “I agree. You are much more, my dear. And there are tasks that you must first complete.”
    “I have to prove myself, I know. But did Soren have to prove himself before he went to the great tree?”
    “Yes, but it is hard to explain.” How indeed would she explain? Gwyndor had told her, after leaving the canyonlands for the last time, that Nyroc had fire sight. And he was certain that Nyroc had seen the Ember of Hoole. If this was so, it was essential that Nyroc make the long journeyto Beyond the Beyond. He must retrieve the ember, or die trying. But if he succeeded, then truly…oh, it was almost too wonderful to think about. For what it could mean for owlkind was huge!
    “But what?” Nyroc asked.
    “Yes, Soren had to prove himself, but you have much more to prove.”
    “It doesn’t seem fair. Just because my parents were horrid tyrants. I mean, I didn’t ask to be born to them.”
    “Life isn’t always fair. But it is not a question of fairness or your parents.”
    Nyroc blinked. “This has to do with the…the…” Nyroc could not bring himself to say the words.
    “The thing you have tried not to think about. Yes, the journey to Beyond the Beyond.”
    Nyroc felt his gizzard quake. Everyone he met—from the scroom in the spirit wood to the Great Gray Owls and now Mist—kept telling him in one way or another that he had to go there.
    “It’s a place for outcasts,” Nyroc said. “That’s why I must go there, isn’t it? It’s the only place for an owl like me.”
    “No! Not at all!” Mist spoke severely and the air around her began to scintillate and glimmer. The sun flashed through her transparent feathers. “You must never think that. And secondly, there is no ‘must’ to it.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You have free will, my dear. The only thing you must do is choose: either to go there or not to go there.”
    “And if I choose to go there, then what?”
    “You will discover what might be your extraordinary destiny.”
    “I don’t know what to do.”
    “That is why you should stay here for a while. You need time to think.”
    “Yes, yes, I do.”
    “Now, about your name.”
    “Yes?”
    “That is yours to choose, too. Do you know how to read at all?” Nyroc shook his head. “Do you know any letters?”
    “Two,” Nyroc replied.
    “Two? Which two?”
    “P and H.”
    Mist was slightly perplexed. These weren’t letters that occurred in this young owl’s name.
    “Why, may I ask, P and H?”
    “They were letters in the name of my best friend, Phillip. He was going to teach me all the letters and how to read, but we only got to these two…” Nyroc gulped, “before my mother killed him.” He had tried not to thinkabout Phillip and the horror of that day, his mother’s beak ripping the Sooty Owl’s heart from his chest.
    Mist, too, could see that bloody day in Nyroc’s mind. What a despicable creature Nyra was! The young’un needed to stay here for a while. He must be nurtured with love and stories of noble owls. Yes, she would tell him about the great tree and about the owls who, every night with sublime hearts and valiant gizzards, rose in the blackness to perform noble deeds; the owls of Ga’Hoole who spoke no words but true ones, whose only purpose was to right all wrongs, to make strong the weak, mend the broken, and make powerless those who abused the frail.
    Furthermore, Mist would tell Nyroc how Soren and Gylfie had successfully resisted moon blinking with whispered recitations of the legends of Ga’Hoole, how every time they recited or even thought about these legends their brains would clear and they once more felt their gizzards begin to quicken.
    That is what Mist would do. She would feed him with legends of Ga’Hoole. The young owl would be safe here in the eagles’ nest. There were many rumors of Nyra and the Pure Ones regrouping, finding hireclaws and Rogue smiths. But no one would know that Nyroc was here with them, for few dared to come to the aerie with its two huge eagles and venomous flying snakes.

CHAPTER FOUR
Sky Writing
    T hat’s an S, that’s easy! Come on, Slynella, give me a harder letter,” Nyroc called out to the snakes that were flying above the nest.
    This was