The Capture

air.

    "Good!" whispered Grimble. "Again. More powerful." Soren was halfway up the wall to the chink and he had used only two downstrokes.

    J can do it, I can do it! I feel the air. I feel the force of my strokes. I am going up. I am going up. I shall fly....

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Shape of the Wind

    Tonight? Grimble, you must be yoicks. It's not anywhere near the dwenking. It's too soon!" Gylfie cried.

    "We're not ready," protested Soren.

    "You are ready Soren, I gave you five strokes to get to the chink in the inventorium and you got there in four. Gylfie, I gave you eight and you got there in seven. Tonight is the night."

    "Why?" they both said at once.

    Grimble sighed. He was going to miss these two. He might miss their questions most of all. It felt so luxurious to be able to ask and answer questions. He had once thought the sweetest taste in the world was that of a freshly killed vole, but now he knew differently. The sweetest thing was a question on the tongue. A word beginning with that wonderful rush of air that w's made. Oh, how he would miss these two young owls. They were lovely to look at, too, in their coats of newly fledged feathers untouched by vampire bats. "The thermals are coming this evening. This is why you must go."

    "Thermals? What are thermals?" Soren asked.

    "Warm drafts of air. They've arrived earlier than usual. They'll make flying very easy for you once you get out of here. You should meet up with them within a short distance from here. You'll be able to soar."

    "We don't know how to soar," Gylfie said. "All we know how to do is flap."

    "Don't worry. You'll know exactly what to do when you meet the thermals. The shape of the wind will tell you."

    "Who is on guard tonight?"

    "I ' I "

    Its Jatt.

    "Jatt!" Soren gasped. "That's terrible. How will you get him to go to the pelletorium?"

    "I'll think of something. Don't worry. I'll get him out of there. I've already got you a pass for tonight between the third and fourth sleep march."

    The third sleep march had just finished. Soren and Gylfie sought out the sleep correction monitor in their area and showed them their passes. He blinked and told them to be off. They made their way silently through the stone corridors of St. Aegolius, alone with their thoughts.

    Yet those thoughts were the same, for they were deep in concentration as they tried as hard as they ever had to believe in their own ability to fly. They tried not to let themselves be distracted by the fact that the sum total of their flight experience had covered only a very small range of the usual maneuvers a young and newly fledged owl practices. They had no real knowledge of gliding, soaring, or hovering.

    "Words, words, words," Grimble would mutter if they ever brought up these notions that they had heard their parents discussing with older siblings. It was Gylfie who mostly asked such questions. And Grimble would always admonish her. "You're thinking too much. You don't need to know anything about hovering and soaring. All you need to know is rapid takeoff straight up -- THRUST! POWER FLAPPING!"
    He poked his head forward as he said each word and fixed Soren and Gylfie in the fierce, uncompromising glare of his yellow eyes. "That's it! That is all you need to get out of here."

    So that is what Soren and Gylfie thought of It filled their minds. The power downstroke. The bunching together of the slots on the leading edge of their primaries. The upstroke, the spacing of those same feathers so the air could pass through with no drag. They had become very muscular from all their practice. They were probably the
    most muscular young owls in the entire academy of St. Aegolius. This alone should make them believe.
    Had there ever been an Elf Owl as young as Gylfie who could power flap so strongly?

    They arrived at last at the inventorium. Grimble could immediately tell that both owlets were concentrating fiercely. This was good. Now he just hoped that his ruse to get Jatt out would work.
    Luckily, Grimble had detected that things were not perfect between the two brothers Jutt and Jatt.
    Perhaps it was jealousy. It seemed as if Skench was paying more attention to Jutt than his brother, particularly on battle flights. There was always a bit of contention after a battle as to the dividing up of the battle claws left on a field from the defeated owls. Skench and Spoorn got first choice and then, when they returned to St. Aggie's, the rest of the claws were sorted and handed