The Capture

at the Boreal Owl, who towered over her.

    "Ah! One simple question, one not quite so simple. The purpose of St. Aggie's is to take control of every owl kingdom on Earth."

    'And to destroy it?" asked Soren.

    "You can be sure the kingdoms shall be destroyed, but control is really what they want. And for the kind of control they want they must moon blink. That is their main tool, for moon blinking destroys will, erases individuality, makes everyone the same. The flecks, however, are another kind of tool, a weapon for war."

    "What can flecks do?" Gylfie asked.

    "No one really knows. I am not entirely sure. The flecks do have powers if certain things are done to them."

    "What kind of powers?"

    'Again, I am not certain. They seem to be able to pull things toward them, sometimes. When I am working in
    the fleck storage area of the library, sometimes I think I can feel their force."

    Soren and Gylfie were mystified. "How strange," Gylfie said.

    "Teach us to fly, Grimble! Teach us to fly." It was Soren who blurted out the words. The idea half formed seemed to explode at once in his head, sending tremors all the way down to his gizzard. There was a stunned silence. Gylfie and Grimble both looked at Soren and blinked but remained wordless.

    "But you know, Soren, and you know, Gylfie, I can tell you what to do, and I can help you practice, but I cannot do everything. It's very strange with flying. A young owl can do everything just perfectly but if you don't believe ..."

    Gylfie and Soren both blinked at Grimble and together said, "If you don't believe, then you'll never fly."

    "Yes, yes. I see you understand. And, of course, that is why none of the owlets in the glaucidium will ever fly. It is not only that the vampire bats quiet their stirrings and cause their feathers to turn brittle, but if an owl is moon blinked it, of course, has no notion of what it means to believe."

    "But we aren't moon blinked," Gylfie said. "And I don't believe you are either, Grimble."

    "You give me hope, you two young ones. I thought all of my hope had been destroyed, but you give me hope. Yes, I shall try. Here is what we must do."

    So Grimble explained to them that he was in charge of organizing the products of the pellets -- the teeth, the fur, and the flecks -- after each day's work. "I store them in the library and keep lists, inventories. I can get you a pass to help in the listings. I work mostly in a small area off the library and then take them in when I get enough. When I don't do that, I am on day guard of the library. You will never be permitted in the library, but I can try to teach you how to fly in that small space. It isn't ideal but it is the only place we have. It connects to the library, which is larger, but you can't go in there because when I am in the inventory area someone else is guarding the library."

    "I thought the library had books," Gylfie said.

    "It does. But we store these materials there, too. Near the books that supposedly explain them."

    "Gylfie feels somehow deep in her gizzard that the flecks might help us escape."

    "Don't depend on such things," Grimble said sharply. "Your own belief in yourself will help you much more than any fleck ever will."

    And so it was arranged. Gylfie and Soren would be given passes to help in the inventory area, the inventorium, each night during the newing and on various nights until the moon was full again and all owlets were required in the glaucidium for moon blinking. Their first lesson would begin that very evening.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

    To Fly

    More flap, deeper flap. Your wings must almost meet on the upstroke of the flap ..." Grimble directed.
    Soren and Gylfie were exhausted. This was much harder than anything either one of them had ever seen their parents or oth er siblings try to do.

    "I know you're tired, but the only way out of here is straight up. You have to build your muscles. That's why I am not even having you practice hopping or branching. You do not have the luxury of gliding gently down from a nest. You have to develop your power-flight skills. So try it again."

    "But once we're outÂŤ" Soren asked, "how will we know what to do?"

    "You'll know. What did I tell you? The still air has no shape. In the sky You won't need mass of air as it moves around your wings- You * will sense its speed, if it is bumpy or smooth, hot of cold- And you will know how to shape it and use it. Wind always has shape but there is no wind in St. Aggie's. It is too