Guardians of Ga'Hoole 13 - The River of Wind

them gone, the Band would weaken, and when the Band weakened, the Chaw of Chaws weakened, and when the Chaw of Chaws weakened, the Great Ga’Hoole Tree would be vulnerable, and the way to the ember, the powerful Ember of Hoole would be clear. It was the ember she wanted, that she lusted for. With it, all the kingdoms of owls would be hers.
    The owls wasted no time. They flew off immediatelyand left a light guard behind with the blue owl and the little Barn Owl.
    Cuffyn blinked as he listened to all this. The brutality of these owls, their evil, knew no bounds. Well, he was a healer, not a fighter. His life had been dedicated to helping the weak through the herbal arts. And he was determined to help this strange blue owl and the little owlet. He would not countenance owl-napping. He did not dare open flight right now, but returned through the network of tunnels to his cactus. Bingle juice , he thought, laced with a heavy sleeping draft. That’ll do it. He knew these owls drank spirits when the top lieutenants were away, especially the old one called Ifghar and his snake, Gragg. They were loyal to this moonfaced owl mostly out of fear, but discipline lapsed when she was away with her high-ranking officers. They were small of gizzard, the lot of them, and had no imagination. Cuffyn might be a quarter their size, but he could outwit them, and that was exactly what he planned to do. Desert trash, the lot of them!
    The blue owl blinked his eyes open. “Striga, are you all right?” Bell asked.
    “What did I say? What did I say?” he asked urgently, though his voice was shaky.
    “Oh, nothing much. I mean it was kind of hard to understand. Something about flying west. I think you meant to the Beyond and the Unnamed Sea and finding a hole in the wind.”
    “I said that? I said all that?!”
    “Yeah, but it sounded like nonsense. You know, like it really didn’t mean anything.”
    “But it does,” he said frantically. “It does.”
    “Hey, shut up in there.” A Sooty Owl stuck his head in. “You want another whack?” Bell cowered in the corner. The blue owl wilfed, then slowly swiveled his head toward Bell. How could I be so weak? How could I have said all that? And then feeling a deep twinge in his gizzard, he thought, And how could I have let this dear little owl down? I want to save something. I know it is my phonqua to save something. I am a good owl. I am a good owl …
    He turned toward Bell and blinked. “Come here, little one. These desert nights are cold, aren’t they? Tuck under my wing.”
    Bell nestled under the blue wing. “Your feathers are so long. Don’t you ever molt?”
    “Very seldom. They just keep growing.”
    “No wonder you have so much trouble flying.”
    “Yes, it is a…a…” He searched for the right word.
    “We call it a wingicap.” Bell yawned.
    “That’s a good word, yes, a wingicap. But I’m going to grow stronger. You’ll see.”
    “How did you ever fly all the way here from the Northern Kingdoms?”
    “Very favorable winds—very favorable.”
    It wasn’t quite a lie, but the blue owl did not feel good about what he had just said.
    Eglantine and Primrose, following Soren’s instructions, had sought out Bess. Now, deep in the Shadow Forest where the trees dipped steeply behind the gossamer spray of the great waterfalls, they huddled with the Boreal Owl over some very ancient-looking charts in the library of the Palace of Mists.
    “I so regret,” Bess was saying, “that I had not completed these calculations when your brother and the others left for the Middle Kingdom. For a long time after they left, I just had some…how should I call it? Some vague inklings about these windkins. They are more treacherous than I had originally thought, with very deadly wind shears. You must avoid these tumblebones that can pop up unexpectedly in the midst of a windkin. Now you understand the key and its symbols, but these symbols cannot tell youeverything.” Through finding further documents, Bess had discovered evidence of the same phenomenon that Mrs. P. had sensed. When explaining it to Eglantine and Primrose, she even used words similar to those of Mrs. Plithiver. “You see,” she said, “I believe that central stream of air—think of it as a river of wind—begins to influence time, perhaps because it carries us so fast, to where a new night, a new day begins.” Then, with words so identical to Mrs. Plithiver’s as to be astonishing, Bess said, “Look, the