Guardians of Ga'Hoole 14 - Exile

from the great tree and its vanities, I shall gain some insight.”
    “It’s not your fault!” Coryn said almost desperately. But there was no discouraging the blue owl. He left just after tween time. And with each passing hour, Coryn slipped deeper and deeper into a sadness that seemed nearly bottomless. And his sadness seemed contagious. For although during this season of the Copper Rose, the nights had been clear, the stars sharp and brilliant in the sky, and the days bright with sunshine, a gloom seemed to have wrapped itself around the tree like a thin mist. The silence that had prevailed during the Harvest Festival continued. Mysteriously, several strings of the grass harp were broken and had not yet been repaired. So there was no singing or harp guild practice. It was as if life’s energy was slowly seeping out of the tree.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A World Gone Yoicks?
    A lthough the weather on the Island of Hoole was perfect, with calm seas and flawless skies, such was not the case as one approached the mainland. For several days, cantankerous winds and sudden autumn squalls had buffeted the coastline beyond Cape Glaux and well into the interior. Otulissa and Fritha’s flight with the books had taken longer than they had expected. Fritha was tiny even for a Pygmy Owl, but she was an excellent flier and never complained. There was something in this young owl that reminded Otulissa of herself. She possessed a steely determination in the face of difficult odds. At last the two owls had made it to the Palace of Mists and were now perched in the library, exhausted, their botkins deposited on the table. Bess, a Boreal Owl, was helping them unstrap the books from their backs.
    “All right, now what is all this about?” Bess asked. She was utterly bewildered. Never had she seen this SpottedOwl so out of sorts. Otulissa had been thinking how she would explain all of this to her. Bess was strange. Reclusive. She rarely left the Palace of Mists. First and foremost, Bess was a scholar. She had learned the Jouzhen language of the Middle Kingdom and was fairly fluent now. Long before that, she had also learned the language of the Others and enjoyed translating their books for the great tree. But for all her learning, she was not a particularly worldly owl. She lived alone and knew little of the surrounding regions.
    Otulissa began: “You know about the blue owl that saved Soren’s Bell and alerted us to the slink melf and all that, right?”
    “Yes.” Bess nodded.
    “Well, that same blue owl, who calls himself ‘Striga,’ or rather ‘the Striga,’” Otulissa’s facial disk contracted as she said this, and the dark patches that were on either side of her beak seemed to pucker. “The Striga,” she repeated, and continued. “Unfortunately, this blue owl is having a bad influence on the tree, especially on Coryn.”
    “For example?”
    “For example, the blue owl is obsessed with what he calls vanities. Excesses, decorations, festivals. There was no Harvest Festival this year.”
    “Coryn agreed to this?”
    Otulissa nodded.
    “And why did you bring these books?” Bess said, casting her eyes on the ones that Otulissa and Fritha had just set down. “He claims books are vain?”
    Otulissa nodded again, took a step closer, and whispered, “He burns books!”
    Bess staggered, blinked, and seemed to have difficulty catching her breath. She had known there had to be a good reason for Otulissa to bring this young Pygmy Owl with her. Otulissa and the Band were sensitive to her reclusive ways.
    “Are you all right?” Otulissa said, leaning forward, listening to the Boreal Owl’s labored breathing.
    “No, I am not all right!” The mist from the great falls against which the palace was built swirled into the library. “Who could be all right on hearing this?” She recovered her breath. “So that is why you brought the books.”
    “Our most precious ones,” Otulissa replied, and then explained how books had begun disappearing from the library, and how she had sneaked into the Striga’s hollow and found the burnt scraps of a joke book. “And I am not sure if he is confining his activities to the great tree. I have a feeling that he might actually be doing most of his burning on the mainland. He makes many trips away from the tree for what he calls contemplative journeysor meditative retreats. Since the Great Flourishing more owls read than ever before. More animals of all sorts read. With the press up and