The Capture

asked.

    Iran.

    "Ran?" Soren and Twilight both spoke at once. This, indeed, was a very strange owl.

    "Well, I hadn't really learned how to fly yet, but we

    Burrowing Owls are good at running." Soren looked at Digger's legs. Unlike most owls, Digger's legs barely had any feathers and were exceedingly long. "I ran as far and as fast as I could. You see, our parents were out hunting when all this happened, and these two owls were in such a tussle over Flick.

    Cunny, the next oldest brother, had already been snatched, and this other owl had flown off with him, although he kept yelling back to the other two not to eat Flick. His voice was odd, softer than the other two owls, a kind of tingg-tingg sound. I never heard anything like it."

    "Grimble," Soren and Gylfie said at once.

    "So what happened?" Twilight asked. "Did your parents come back and find you?"

    "Well, the problem is that I'm lost. I ran farther and faster than I ever thought I could and I have been trying to find my way back ever since. Once I came to a burrow that looked just like the one that I had lived in with my parents, but there was no sign of them. So it must have been the wrong burrow." Digger said this in a quavering voice and then added, "Mustn't it?"

    Soren, Gylfie, and Twilight remained silent.

    "I mean," Digger continued, "they would never just leave. They would think something had happened and they would go out and search for us. One of them would
    search and the other would stay behind. You know, in case we returned or..." His voice died away and was swallowed in the cool breeze of the desert night.

    Deep in his gizzard, Soren felt the Burrowing Owl's anguish. "Digger," he said, "they might have come back and seen the ... the" -- he took a deep breath -- "the blood and the feathers of your brother on the ground. They might have thought that you had all been murdered. They didn't really leave you, Digger.
    They probably thought you were all dead."

    "Oh," Digger said quietly. And then, "How awful. My parents think I am dead! We all are dead! How terrible. I must find them, then. I must show them that I am alive. I am their son. Why, I can even fly now." But instead of flying he began to stride off with great purpose into the desert.

    "Well, why aren't you flying?" Twilight called after him.

    Digger spun his head around. "Oh, there's a burrow right over here. I just want to take a look."

    "Oh, great Glaux," sighed Gylfie. "He's going to walk all the way across this desert, poking into every burrow."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

    Desert Battle

    They flew for another night, skirting the edges of the Desert of Kuneer. Nowhere had they found any signs of Gylfie's family, not even in the old cactus where they had all lived together before the snatching.

    As they flew, Soren began to think deeply about St. Aggie's and the absolute evilness of the owls there.
    The evil seemed to have touched almost every kingdom -- egg snatching in Ambala, chick snatching in Tyto, and now the worst horror of all, cannabalism in Kuneer. Hortense had told them that a few of the owls in Ambala had somehow figured out that the source of the evil was St. Aggie's, but his own parents had just thought it was something random, perhaps a small gang of renegade owls -- nothing as large and powerful as St. Aggie's. They never could have imagined such a place, and Soren felt that few owls in any of the kingdoms could have, either. Was it possible that Soren, Gylfie, and Twilight were the only ones who were aware of the scope and power of St. Aggie's? Were they the only ones who had all the pieces to this horrible puzzle of violence and destruction that was touching every single owl kingdom? If this was true, they must stick together. There was strength in numbers even if the number was only three. They were the three who knew the terrible truth of St. Aggie's. This knowledge alone could help them save other owls.

    Soren remembered when he was still a prisoner of St. Aggie's and first realized that it was not simply enough to escape. How awful it had been to imagine his beloved sister, Eglantine, a victim of the brutality of St. Aggie's. He remembered thinking that there was a world of Eglantines out there. So now they had escaped, and now he knew for certain that their task was greater than he and Gylfie and Twilight had ever imagined. Soren knew he must think carefully about how he could explain all this to Twilight and Gylfie.

    Every now and then, the three owls would