Guardians of Ga'Hoole 11 - To Be a King

the cliff where it was said there was another ice palace of the old king’s, the palace of the Ice Cliffs. Very difficult to find and not nearly as elaborate and grand as the H’rathghar glacier palace, it was said to be deep within an impenetrable maze of ice canyons.
    But the Ice Cliffs themselves were riddled with the hollows of hagsfiends. It was a very safe place because the water remained frozen in the channels for most of the year. It was pure daring of King H’rath to have a hideaway so close to hagsfiends. Kreeth had to credit the king and queen for their audacity. But it was also true that most hagsfiends were not extraordinarily bright. It would have been a challenge for them to navigate through the tangled maze of ice channels and canyons. Kreeth, of course, counted herself an exception to this rule.
    A hagsfiend now flew in her wake and swooped in beside Kreeth as the narrow channel widened and deepened into a canyon.
    “What brings you here, Kreeth?”
    “I seek Penryck. He fought in the Battle of the Ice Talons, did he not?”
    “Yes, as did I.”
    Kreeth looked at the hagsfiend but she could not remember her name. “There was an old lieutenant, a Spotted Owl.”
    “Oh, Strix Hurthwel.”
    “Who killed him?”
    “A hagsfiend named Mycroft.”
    “And where might this hagsfiend be found?”
    “In the Ice Narrows.”
    “What?” Kreeth staggered in flight. “No hagsfiends live in the Narrows except for me.”
    “He indeed does.”
    “Don’t you ‘indeed’ me! You, you…” She wheeled around on her port wing and headed back to the Ice Narrows.
    Flying as fast as she could and beating her great ragged wings against the wind, she was in the Narrows before the moon had risen. She had intended to scour every cave and cranny for this Mycroft. But then she suddenly realized there was no need for that. No need at all. The divining eyeball! It had taken years for her to find just the right eyeball, but not long ago she had plucked one from a young Barred Owl who had been blown into the Narrows by accident. It had all happened just before Lutta had hatched.
    “Did you bring the feather?” Lutta asked as Kreeth swept into the ice cave.
    “No. The head is in the possession of a certain hags-fiend called Mycroft.”
    Neither Kreeth or Lutta noticed, but the puffowl began to wilf and cower in a corner when the name Mycroft was spoken. He knew of Mycroft, and Mycroft himself had promised to change the puffowl into either an owl or a puffin if he would spy and bring him the secrets of Kreeth’s potions. It was a dangerous game the puffowl was playing, but he was sick of Kreeth and her experiments and her abuse. He was sick of being this horrible, ridiculous waddling mixture.
    Kreeth got the eyeball and suspended it over a small ice pyramid. It turned slowly and the slivers of gold began to sparkle and glint. An image was forming. “What is it, Auntie?” Lutta asked.
    “Shut up. I’m concentrating.”
    Lutta backed away. Kreeth bent closer to the eyeball.
    She saw Mycroft in his cave. He was not an especially large hagsfiend. His tail barely swept the floor. His cave was also strewn with the bits and pieces scavenged from slaughtered creatures. She scanned the cave as he busied himself with his work. Within a minute, no more, she saw it. On an ice ledge in the cave, there was a head—and ahandsome one it was! Well, she thought, there is no denying that Spotted Owls are handsome, comely birds. And this one’s eyes had retained a wonderful luster. Kreeth tried to suppress her excitement. She must get a feather or two from that magnificent head and then…and then she froze.
    In an ice bowl on the shelf in Mycroft’s cave floated two yarped pellets and the spine of a dead fish. That was her formula! The one she hoped would render water powerless against hagsfiends. There was only one way Mycroft could have come up with that formula! Kreeth spun around. “Puffowl!” she screeched, but the creature was gone.
    She flew out of the cave, first turning north into the Narrows and then south. She searched for him for an hour. She went back and looked into her divining eyeball, but it had grown murky and she could see nothing. Where was the cursed little beast? Had he gone to warn Mycroft? There was no way of knowing. At least not until the eyeball had recovered its sight. Until then, she was essentially blind. There could be no divining. Well, she would wait. If there was one thing Kreeth had, it