The Coming of Hoole, Page 3

  Once before, Siv had disguised herself as a gadfeather. But still that would not solve the problem of where her chick could be found. How could she find out?

  That night as the cubs slept nestled in the deep fur of Svenka’s underbelly, their mouths all milky from nursing, Siv told Svenka of her growing yearning for her hatchling, her son.

  “The problem is I don’t know where in the N’yrthghar he is or might be.”

  “What makes you think he’s even in the Northern Kingdoms?”

  Siv blinked. She had never thought of this. But surely he was too young to fly out of the N’yrthghar and into the Southern Kingdoms. She paused in her thoughts. Or the Beyond. Would Grank have actually taken the chick to the Beyond? she wondered. It was his favorite place and he had a good friend there, a wonderful ally, the wolf Fengo. But it was so far away. And yes, she had to admit, so safe. Oh, if only she could read the shards of light, the flames of the fire as Grank could, she might then know where her son was.

  “I must see him, Svenka.”

  “But if you don’t know where he is, how will you know where to go?”

  It always comes back to that question, Siv thought wearily. How could she find out where he was? Then an idea burst upon her. “I must clad myself as a gadfeather again. Who knows more about where every creature in this N’yrthghar is but gadfeathers?” She did not wait for Svenka to reply. “They fly constantly. They are everywhere, all over the kingdom. They see everything. They hear everything.”

  “But they are stingy with their information, Siv. I know that for a fact. Ask them about herring runs and they want payment for it—a tuft of my fur, a whisker, a tooth I might have shed. Greedy, they are.”

  A sly sparkle glinted from Siv’s amber eyes. She cocked her head and looked at Svenka. Svenka was a quick study.

  “Oh, no, Siv! Not you, too!”

  “Just one little whisker, please, Svenka. And look at that fur ball Second coughed up this morning.”

  “That disgusting thing! You’re welcome to it.”

  “Oh, Svenka, thank you! Thank you!”

  “Don’t thank me, thank Second. And yes, you can have a whisker. Step up and pluck it out yourself but be quick about it. I still don’t feel good about any of this, Siv.”

  “I know. It’s probably all foolishness.”

  Svenka’s eyes glistened. “No, Siv, it’s never foolish to love a child, even when you cannot see him. I do understand.” Svenka took her enormous paw and ever so gently touched Siv’s shoulder.

  It did not take Siv long to collect a few more gadfeatherish trinkets with which to adorn herself. She found a rather fine blue-black cormorant feather and a dried-up fragment of a fishtail and with Svenka’s help wove them into her feathers. When they had finished, Siv stepped gingerly to the edge of the berg and looked down at her gaudy reflection in the clear still water. “Great Glaux, what a sight!”

  “You certainly look less than regal. No one would mistake you for a queen.”

  “That’s just the point,” Siv replied.

  “So you’re ready to go?”

  “Almost.”

  “What do you mean, almost? I told you that the gadfeathers always gather up at the mouth of the firthkin on that island this time of year. If you don’t want to miss them you had better fly soon.”

  “There is one thing that I want to happen before I go,” Siv said, looking straight and unblinkingly into Svenka’s eyes. The polar bear was clearly puzzled.

  “What is it, Siv?”

  “I want you to name First and Second.”

  “You do?” Now Svenka was completed bewildered. “But why?”

  “Because you love them dearly, as do I, and you are not going to love them any more or any less if they are named or unnamed. I think you owe it to them. They are fine cubs. They put up with my dreary ways. They are already calling me ‘Auntie.’ You heard them the other day when they were sliding down your back.”

  Svenka nodded, tears glistening in her eyes. Siv was right. The cubs deserved to have names of their own. “So we shall have to have a Naming ceremony,” Siv said.

  Svenka chuckled to herself. Oh, these owls and their ceremonies! Was it simply not enough to give them a name? No, it never was enough with owls, especially Siv. The polar bear remembered that when Siv’s beloved servant, Myrrthe, had been slain by the hagsfiends, Siv had climbed atop Svenka’s head holding a white feather of Myrrthe’s and had sung a beautiful song into the night. She had told Svenka that this was part of what owls called the Final ceremony. When an owl died, a special song was composed and sung at this ceremony. The song celebrated the memory of the owl who had died and who had hopefully found glaumora, the heaven of owls. Now Svenka roused her sleepy milk-drunk cubs so the Naming ceremony might begin.

  Second blinked her huge dark eyes. “Auntie, what did you do to yourself? You look so pretty!”

  “Oh it’s just for fun, really, dear.”

  “We’re going to give you names now,” Svenka said gently.

  “Names? What are names?” First asked.

  “They are what we call one another.”

  “But I’m First and she’s Second.”

  “Yeah, and I want to be First for a change.”

  “But I don’t want to be Second.”

  “Neither of you will be First or Second. You shall be Anka,” Svenka said nodding at Second. “And you”—she turned to First—“shall be Rolf.”

  “Rolf!” Rolf said with great delight. “Rrrrrolf!” He growled his name now. “I like that.”

  “Ahhhhnka!” Anka opened her jaw wide and let the sound roll around in her mouth and throat. “Ahhhhnkaaaa.”

  “Now quiet, dears,” Siv said as she climbed atop Svenka’s head, “and I shall sing you the song we owls always sing at the Naming ceremony when we have chicks. I’ll change it a bit so it will fit for you cubs.

  In the mighty roiling waters

  of this cold and icy sea,

  may you swim ’neath Ursa’s eyes

  may you grow up strong and free.

  May you be true to your nature,

  swift in water and on land,

  for you stand the tallest of the tall

  in this white and icebound land.

  The greatest of the great in stature

  and in power,

  there is nary a living thing a polar bear

  cannot devour.

  And like your mum be massive in matters of the heart.

  Be of good cheer and loyal, dear Anka and dear Rolf.

  Siv left at First Black and headed for the mouth of the firthkin where Svenka had told her the gadfeathers gathered each year as the time of the spring equinox approached.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A Gathering of Gadfeathers

  She heard the strains of the ice harp as she approached the point on which throngs of gadfeathers had gathered. She was nervous, but she knew that gadfeathers did not pry. They were very close-beaked about who they were and where they had come from. It was part of their culture, the gadfeather way of life. All of them at sometime or another had left something they called home or family for whatever reason, and it was considered a grave transgression to ask a gadfeather about his or her personal history. Theirs was a journeying way of life. They considered themselves free of loyalty to any region or clan or hollow. The words “free” and “freedom” threaded through many of their songs. They mostly traveled alone or sometimes in small flocks, but these flocks changed constantly. So even though they were known to be rather solitary creatures like polar bears, they did gather several times a year to meet and sing. The gift for making song and lovely music was one thing that all gadfeathers seemed to have in common. Among the most musically gifted of the gadfeathers were the Snowy Owls. As Siv drew closer, she could clearly hear one of the Snowies singing to the beautiful liquid notes of the ice harp. It was a mournful, soul-searing song.

  Fly away with me,

  give my loneliness a break.

&nbs
p; Fly away with me,

  so my heart will never ache.

  Fly away with me this night.

  Fly away with me,

  I’ll find a feather for your ruff.

  Fly away with me till dawn.

  Fly away then we’ll be gone.

  Hollows we shall leave behind,

  fly to places they’ll never find.

  Fly away with me right now,

  I can’t wait.

  Fly away with me,

  don’t hesitate.

  I want to soar the smee hole drafts

  where the steam rises from the sea.

  I want to cross the mountain ridge,

  I want to see the other side.

  We’ll preen each other in the moon’s light.

  Fly away with me.

  We shall wake up in the snow,

  go where the winds always blow.

  Fly away with me!

  “Lovely, ain’t it?” A Whiskered Screech lighted down on the ice cliff where Siv had perched.

  “Oh, yes,” Siv replied. The song had awakened so much loneliness in her. How she missed her beloved H’rath and the chick she had never met, and now Svenka and the cubs. She had never felt lonelier in her life. It struck Siv as rather ironic that gadfeathers disdained the life of family and hollow yet sang so beautifully of loneliness. It was as if they craved companionship yet celebrated loneliness.

  “Nothing like a Snowy for singing. They call her the Snow Rose.” The Whiskered Screech nodded at the Snowy Owl who had just finished singing. “Hope she sings ‘Sky of Tears.’ Just wait’ll you hear that one. Your gizzard will be in shreds.”

  That is the last thing I need, Siv thought, my gizzard in shreds! She had to be alert and pulled together and keen for anything she might hear—not just these aching songs.

  She flew onto another perch. Here, gadfeathers were swooping through the air doing one of their jigs while a Great Horned Owl belted out another song full of hurt and anger, bad weather, and teardrops that froze feathers.

  Enough of this! thought Siv. She flew off to where a group of owls were picking over a pile of herring that some Fish Owls had delivered. She sidled up to a small clutch of gadfeathers who were busily eating and talking.

  “They say the fighting’s moved back to the H’rathghar glacier. Lord Arrin, you know.”

  “Yeah, the last of H’rath’s guard tried holding him off.”

  “Well, if they’ve moved to the glacier, that’ll free up the Firth of Fangs for a bit of sport flying this summer. Nothing like them smee holes up there.”

  “Yeah, but there be kraals, too.”

  Kraals, Siv thought. What exactly were kraals? She had heard King H’rath speak of them once. She had thought they were some kind of gadfeather, but these owls were speaking as if they were something else entirely.

  “They say that old Screech who used to fly with us went kraal last summer.”

  “They be a nasty lot.”

  “I heard they were settling down somewhere on the glacier.”

  “Naw, you got it mixed up. It’s them Glauxian Brothers who are on the glacier.”

  “No, Mac, them brothers picked up and flew off. Started a retreat somewhere, like the sisters have.”

  This was news to Siv. She knew for a fact that the brothers had lived in the scattered holes on the glacier. Indeed, the brothers had often visited the Glacier Palace during the periods when they were permitted to speak. Throughout the year the brothers kept long periods of silence. And even during the rest of the year, each day had certain hours in which they kept the rule of silence. They had always been welcome at the palace, for both Siv and H’rath had enjoyed them greatly. They were most learned owls, and it had been Siv’s hope that if she and H’rath ever did have a chick, one of the brothers might be convinced to come and tutor it. She had often heard them speak of their longing to have a retreat, a place where they could all live together in what they called a community of learning instead of living scattered. They dreamed of starting a library in which they could keep records of all they had learned. So, it seemed at last they had done this.

  “It’s peaceful over there in the Bitter Sea. Hasn’t been touched by the wars. That’s probably where they’ve gone.”

  “Not much to fight for over there. Not like around here. I heard tell the hagsfiend Ygryk had been spotted not ten leagues from here.”

  Ygryk! Siv’s gizzard froze. Ygryk near here? The thought was too terrible. She would have to be extra careful. She would need more gadfeatherish bits and pieces to tuck in. Nearby was a pile of reindeer moss. She had noticed one gadfeather had swathed some around her head, lending her a rakish air but also obscuring her face. She went to the pile and plucked some up and while arranging it, continued to listen to the two gadfeathers that had been talking.

  “Bitter Sea never freezes up. You ain’t gonna get Lord Arrin over there now that he’s cozied up with the hagsfiends. Too much open water. Salt water. Odd how it be only salt water that gets them hagsfiends, and not rainwater so much.”

  “Lose their half-hags from the salt. Salt usually makes things melt. But when it gets mixed with that poison of the half-hags it makes them freeze up, then the feathers of the hagsfiends start to freeze and down they go. No oil in their feathers, either, like the rest of us, which helps us shed salt water.”

  The terrible half-hags! Siv remembered them vividly. They had never reached her for she had successfully blocked the fyngrot. However, she would never forget the image of them swarming over her mate as he fought Lord Arrin. Nevertheless, H’rath had fought on as the poison coursed through his hollow bones, dissolving them and then flooding into his bloodstream. But it had been Lord Arrin who had delivered the fatal blow. And then the hagsfiend Penryck had sliced off H’rath’s head, jammed it onto his ice sword, and swooped off into the night. The hagsfiends were known for their ghoulish ritualistic ways of murder. Siv clamped her eyes tightly shut against this rush of memories.

  “‘Too much open water’!” The words rang now in Siv’s brain. Her gizzard tingled. Why had she never thought of this before? The Bitter Sea would be the perfect place for Grank to have taken the egg on that night when they had been attacked by the hagsfiends in the Ice Cliff Palace. She would go there immediately!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A Deadly Plan

  As Siv plied her way west toward the Bitter Sea against a headwind that made her barely healed port wing throb with pain, Lord Arrin was meeting with his band of hagsfiends and commander owls in a cave on the H’rathghar glacier. There were twenty owls with the rank of commander, each of whom had a company of no less than ten owls. Every one of the twenty units had a hagsfiend attached to it. And there were some units composed entirely of hagsfiends. The cave was crowded with the twenty commanders and six hagsfiend captains. And on each hagsfiend, unseen, lurked scores of miniscule half-hags. They lived in the interstices and narrow, slotted spaces between the hagsfiends’ feathers. It was from these nearly invisible refuges that the half-hags would dart out in battle with their poisonous loads. The hagsfiends themselves had built up a strong immunity to the poison. If one were to look closely, its feathers, even while the hagsfiend was resting, would appear to be moving slightly as if stirred by the most delicate wind. But it was actually the half-hags. Like ants in an anthill, they went about their business constantly and their business was to feed off the small lice and other tiny vermin that lodged in their hosts’ wings. Perched in the shadows behind Lord Arrin was his closest confidant, Penryck, who was the captain of one of the hagsfiend units. Penryck who was also known as the Sklardrog, which in Krakish means sky dragon. He was a bold hag full of wit and magic, and Lord Arrin had come to rely on him more and more as the war had turned in his favor. The Glacier Palace of the H’rathghar was now within their reach. They would lay siege to it by summer’s end, before the katabatic winds started to blow.

  But what was a palace without a queen? Lord Arrin needed Siv, and he needed the chick who
must have hatched by now, but where were they? Where was this chick who might have greater powers than any of them could imagine? Luckily for Lord Arrin, few had imagined these powers. It was Penryck who had first suggested to him that the chick might have a special energy. They had only caught a glimpse of the egg as Siv and her servant, Myrrthe, had fled from the Glacier Palace when King H’rath had been killed. The egg had possessed a peculiar luminosity, which had resisted the fyngrot. The searing yellow light had slipped off the egg, simply melted away like ice crystals in the heat of the sun. Indeed, the egg had grown even more radiant.

  And had this radiance in some way rubbed off on Siv? Was that how she had resisted the fyngrot? It was quite extraordinary. She had seemed impervious to the yellow glare. This had both fascinated and frightened the hagsfiends. They imagined that both Siv—and especially her chick—had untapped magic. And if there was any magic greater than their own in the N’yrthghar, the hagsfiends lusted for it. They were the rightful heirs of nachtmagen! No others but the hagsfiends could possess it.

  But magic was not all. They needed an alliance with a powerful owl like Lord Arrin. Despite their nachtmagen, they still were peculiarly vulnerable to seawater. Thus, there were only limited regions that they could control, but with Lord Arrin this problem was solved. Solved, that was, as long as he himself did not become too haggish through association. That is why he desperately craved Siv for his mate. She who could resist the fyngrot, would thwart those haggish tendencies, would make him immune to that one vulnerability he had learned by Pleek’s example.

  The lesson of Lord Pleek and Ygryk was a harsh one. For as soon as Pleek had taken Ygryk as a mate, he had begun to acquire certain haggish aspects and was now beginning to fear open water. The union between the Great Horned and the hagsfiend had proved to be a chick-less one. Eggs were laid but they never developed. After a few days, they shriveled up into gray, hard, misshapen spheres. Nonetheless, Lord Arrin and Penryck had discussed how they might best use Pleek and Ygryk in obtaining Siv’s chick. Ygryk longed for a chick of her own. She was desperate, so desperate that she was willing to fly over open water to get one if need be. She was obsessed. It had been Ygryk who had actually found Siv on the iceberg in the firthkin.