Guardians of Ga'Hoole 13 - The River of Wind

resisted saying this, however. In this part of the world it would open up too many questions.
    “Tell me, what have you seen?” Bell asked.
    The blue owl sighed. He had seen so much but yet so little. There was no way he could explain. He believed she was what they called in this world a Barn Owl. He had found that with this inquisitive little owl it was best to answer her questions with as few words as possible. It was better to just let her fill in with her own notions and ideas. It had actually worked quite well. First, the little owl whose name was Bell had quite by accident given him a name. When she had asked what he was he had merely answered with the generic name “Striga,” which he knew his kind was called. She had assumed it was his personal name, and the blue owl loved it immediately that Bell had thus named him. He much preferred the name Striga to his real name, Orlando, which had always irked him. Itwas one of those fussy, overly fancy, typical court names. Through such conversations, the blue owl was never really forced to lie outright.
    Bell began to make assumptions derived from the short answers he gave her. He had artfully led her into believing that he was from a very remote part of the Northern Kingdoms and was a Glauxian Brother. Talking passed the time, and she was a pleasant little owl. Her port wing was badly damaged, and he knew it would be quite a while before Bell could fly home. And she did miss her home. She often woke up in the middle of the day crying for her mum or da or her two sisters. The blue owl had become quite fond of the little one. He would be sad to see her leave. He assumed that some owl would come looking for her. He liked to hear her talk of the great tree, but often it caused her to cry. He believed it was the very same tree he had heard of in whispers back home about what were called the Theo Papers.
    He now heard a fluttering outside the tree hollow as the little owlet ate the skinny mouse he had brought her. He went to the rim of the hollow and peered out. He had had a feeling for a night or more that there was something out there, someone watching this hollow. But all was still. It must be my imagination. Besides, I’m tired. So very tired. He had arrived only a few nights before from the terminus ofthe Zong Phong. It was amazing that he had found his way out of it at this end, for there were no qui guides, but the windkins did not seem as fierce here. He simply had been dumped out of it unceremoniously, onto the shores of the Guanjho-Noh. He then had to fly what seemed like a much longer flight than the one he had just completed to get to this forest. And face it, owls of his background were not much good at flying. Riding the Zong Phong was one thing, but flying without a current to carry one along was quite another. He had only just arrived in the midst of a gale when Bell had fallen from the sky. His recollections were interrupted again by a sound close by. He was right. Someone was watching them.
    “I don’t believe it!” An owl with a huge face that gave the appearance of a ragged moon whispered to another Barn Owl with a large nick out of his beak. “A blue owl, I’ve never seen the likes.”
    “Nor I, General Mam.”
    “Nor I,” three other owls replied in turn. Two of these owls were Barn Owls, the other was a Burrowing Owl.
    “What’s he got in there?”
    “I think it’s a wounded young owl who got tossed about in that gale,” said the Burrowing Owl.
    “You don’t think it’s one from those chawlet practicesyou were monitoring, do you?” The owl with the huge face turned to the other three accompanying her.
    The larger of the two Barn Owls replied, “Well, it’s a far piece from Silverveil to here in Ambala. But that gale was part of the westers, and its winds could have blown the young one this far. You never can tell.”
    The moonfaced owl’s eyes gleamed darkly. “Stryker, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Stryker was the only one of the three other owls who would know what she was suggesting. Of the three owls accompanying the moonfaced Barn Owl, only he had been in battle—not once but three times—against the Guardians of Ga’Hoole.
    “Well, yes, ma’—I mean, General Mam. It’s almost too good to hope for.”
    “This isn’t about hope, Stryker. This is about practical imagination. It’s about making things happen. Any fool can hope. But it takes brains to imagine. And if you can’t imagine, nothing will