Guardians of Ga'Hoole 09 - The First Collier

moon red. I saw other ice harvesters falling, their severed heads caught on the sharp points of curved icescythes, the kind always carried by hagsfiends. And the hagsfiends flying off screeching, with gruesome trophies of murder, their ragged dark wings blacker than any night.
    What could this mean? I had thought the hagsfiends had retreated, particularly from the Firth of Fangs where Lord Arrin claimed to have put down their insurrections so successfully. But then it all suddenly became clear to me: I saw Pleek, a Great Horned Owl, long an enemy of Hrath’s and known to consort with hagsfiends. Indeed, it was rumored that Pleek had taken one as a mate. Her name was Ygryk. In the ember, I saw them flying with Lord Arrin’s knights.
    It was unthinkable that Lord Arrin, the chieftain I had so recently visited, was attacking King H’rath’s ice harvesters, the very ice harvesters for whom I had negotiated ice rights. Had it all been a trick to lure these owls into Lord Arrin’s realm so he could kill them and thus deprive the High King of weapons and able knights? I saw all of this but I was not moved. I felt no alarm, not even the mildest stirring of my gizzard. It did not touch me. I did nothing. I saw Lord Arrin’s troops of vassals, knights, and even hireclaws massing on a northern point of the Firth of Fangs with Pleek’s fiercest lieutenants leading them. I saw Lord Arrin himself dispatching hagsfiend scouts inthe direction of the Hrath’ghar ridge. And this could mean only one thing. Invasion.
    For all my ability to see the treachery of Lord Arrin in the present and to glimpse the disasters in the near future, I did nothing. I was suspended in a kind of void. When I was not looking into the flames of the fires that Fengo and I built, I was staring into the ember. This went on for some time. I knew deep in my gizzard that my inaction meant disaster for my two closest friends, King H’rath and Queen Siv, and still I did nothing.
    For nights and nights, moon cycle after moon cycle, I remained in that peculiar numb state. In truth, I was no longer a creature of time. For all my powers, I was not aware of its passage. I drifted apart from Fengo. Or perhaps he left me out of boredom and disgust. I heard him sneer one day when I had become too lazy to try a new rock in the fire, “Go on, go stare at the ember.” He would never say “your ember.” It was always just “the ember.” This alone should have given me a hint.
    Then one night, Joss came with a message from the N’yrthghar. He arrived, breathing hard, his feathers shredded on their leading edges from the harsh weather that had set in.
    “It’s a message from your king!” Fengo growled. I continued to stare into the ember. “Your king is calling you, Grank.”
    “What’s wrong with him?” Joss asked, staring at me.
    Fengo did not answer him but walked up between the ember and me. He butted me with his head, then pointed his tail straight out and the hackles on the back of his neck stood erect. He was threatening me again. Humiliating me in front of a servant of the king. For me, the king’s closest advisor, to be treated this way was unthinkable. But did I care? Not really.
    Joss gave me the message scrawled on a piece of lemming hide. Few owls read, so there was very little danger of anyone understanding the message if Joss had been captured, but still I was warned to “burn this missive after you finish reading it, burn it in those fires you are always studying.” The message was from H’rath, my king and friend. It began:
    “These are most grievous times. I sense a deep and devious plot against me. My ice harvesters have not returned from their expedition to the Firth of Fangs. I do not know whom to trust. I fear that some of my oldest allies have joined ranks with hagsfiends. Fragile coalitions with neighboring clans are disintegrating. They all lust for nachtmagen.”
    Ha! I almost laughed out loud. Nachtmagen! Hagsfiends’ magic could not compare to mine. It is astonishing that it did not occur to me even then that I had done nothing with my new power except to gaze deeper into the ember to see more and more terrible things. I read on:
    “Siv has set an egg.”
    I felt a twinge in my gizzard for the first time in a long while.
    “Promise me, dear Grank, that if something happens to me, you shall protect my family. Protect Siv, her egg, and when the time comes, the hatchling. But now you must come home. We need you desperately.