Guardians of Ga'Hoole 09 - The First Collier

of bones. He often honed the edges of the bones into sharp objects, as sharp as any ice swords. And something similar to this and much more could be done with metal.
    After this first trip, I returned to the Beyond several times over the years. Very few owls in the N’yrthghar knew about these journeys. When I was away, King H’rath and Queen Siv kept in touch with me by their most trusted messenger, Joss, who would bring me missives on the progress of peace, or its shattering, at which times I returned immediately.
    I had learned much that I felt someday could be of benefit to H’rath and his kingdom, but catching a coal on the fly eluded me. I was feeling very frustrated by thisinability, and one day was complaining bitterly to Fengo. “I don’t understand it, Fengo. I have come this close so many times.” I held up my talons and pinched the front two together. “And yet I always miss.”
    Fengo, who had been lying down, suddenly stood up and assumed a very erect stance. His tail was straight in a line with his spine and he stared hard at me and then growled. My gizzard lurched. Never in my long friendship with Fengo had he treated me like this. He was threatening me! His posture, his raised hackles, the stare, the growl were all the behaviors a low-ranking wolf could expect from a higher-ranking one. But why me? I am an owl. We were, in our own ways, equal.
    “What is it?” I tried to look into his eyes, but I flinched. The ember blazed there as if his pupils were on fire. I had to look down. I dropped my head and, within a split second, I—an owl!—had slid into the posture and the gestures of a submissive, low-ranking wolf.
    “You will never catch a coal until you put that one coal out of your mind: the ember of the owl.”
    “But it is called the owl ember. And I am an owl. It haunts me.”
    “It is not for you, this ember,” he said. “At least, not now.”
    “Not now?” I waited for him to say more.
    “You have learned much, Grank,” he said finally. “But still not enough. If I had wings, I could fly those thermals better than you. You have been so obsessed by the one ember that you can’t see the shapes of the wind. Heat carves wind, my friend. It sculpts it into bridges and air ladders and spires and mountains and tunnels and passageways. When you learn the windscapes of heated air, then you will know how to catch a coal on the fly.”
    Fengo was right. I had been a distracted student in this land of fire.
    Fengo dropped his tail and his hackles lay flat. “Grank,” he said softly, “think of all that you know about the ice and the winds coming off that ice in the N’yrthghar. There is not a katabat that you have not flown. You know that air, that wind of your country of the Great North Waters. Now you must learn about the heat and blazing winds of the Beyond.”
    And so I began that very night. The air surrounding and above a volcano is layered. There are strata in air just as I have seen in rock formations. And within these layers, there are distinct features, unique forms and particularities. I explored them all: every kind of thermal that each of the volcanoes created as it erupted, the strange columns of intensely heated air that soared, piling up marvelous thermal cushions. Between the top of thecolumn and the bottom was a region rich in coals and embers of all sorts. The fire columns were different from the fire whirls that were spinning vortexes of heated air. “Hot tornadoes” I called them. Not nearly as rich in coals. I learned the structure of flame, its flanks, the pressure created in the air surrounding it. There were cool gaps that offered quick flight paths to slower-moving embers.
    Every night I learned more and came closer and closer to catching a coal on the fly. I had been studying the shape of the wind for more than a moon cycle when one night toward dawn I was hovering in the bottom layer of a thermal cushion, my eyes scanning the fountain of coals that was bubbling at the top of the column. I could not go for them all. I knew I must focus on one, draw a bead on it. And so I did. In that moment, I was flooded with confidence. It was as if a pathway opened up leading directly to that coal. I plunged out of the thermal cushion and into the top of the column. My beak clamped down. It did not even burn. I had it!
    “Bonk!” came a cry from below. It was Fengo howling for joy. I had no idea what this word “bonk” meant. Fengo leaped high into the air, his