Book 12 - The Golden Tree (12 page)

myriad shapes ranging from needlelike
protuberances to blossoms locked in an eternal spring, But Gylfie was no lesser owl. Her mind buzzed with star charts and the configurations of the 141 153 constel ations in the sky above. Her brain and gizzard tingled with the minute vibrations of the Earth's magnetic poles. Within her were both chart and compass.
Stil , Gylfie was not used to being underground. Although she was flying, she felt as if she were being buried alive because with each wing beat she was moving deeper into the Earth. Earth is not a place for a winged creature, she thought. The damp smel of clay, rock, and soil offended her sensibilities. She hated not seeing the sky. That's how it had been at St. Aggie's when they were imprisoned deep in the stone maze, exposed to the ful shine of the moon for moon blinking. She felt, her gizzard grow squish}' with dread and her heartbeat accelerate. Keep calm! Keep calm! The sky is there. You just can't see it. I've had worse experiences -- like when I was captured by kraals in the Northern Kingdoms. I have to do this for the Band. For the tree. For owlkind, birdkind,

Band. For the tree. For owlkind, birdkind,
animalkind. Don't be some weak-gizzard moon calf freak gizzle, idiotic owl. Gylfie kept up the self- scolding. She would fly on. She had flown in battle, through hurricanes, and through fires. She could fly through this frinkin' stupid tunnel!
The only other owl of the Band who would have possibly been adeauate for the lob, despite his lack of celestial navigation abilities, was Digger. As a Burrowing Owl he had an extensive knowledge of caves and tunnels and the
154 topography of the underground; not only the topography but the cave dwel ers, the peculiar animals that lived in caves. But with a wingspan of nearly two feet, Digger was too big. He told Gylfie as much as he could about the natural history of caves and tunnels in general. However there was not much time. For the moon had long passed its dwenking and was wel into its newing, growing fatter and fatter each night. The strange transformation of the dire wolves into vyrwolves took place, they had been told, on the night of a ful moon. But even before they were told this, Coryn had been nervous about the newing moon because

this time there would be an eclipse. Coryn's words
now flowed back to Gylfie as she flew the twisting channels of the earth: "Do you know the significance of an eclipse?' Coryn had asked with a quaver in his voice.
Neither Coryn nor the Band had known that at the very same moment he had spoken these words, his own mother was speaking nearly the same words to Stryker, her top lieutenant. Stil , Coryn's obvious agitation over the coming eclipse coupled with what they now knew of the effect of the ful moon on vyrwolves added an acute urgency to her mission. Aside from the navigational information Gylfie was continuously processing as she flew, she kept in mind Digger's stories of the tunnel. The legend of the place
143 155 interlocked with its natural history in a remarkable manner. The tunnel, which meandered off into caves of varying sizes, was perforated with thousands of holes, cracks, and crevices through which rainwater seeped. On its journey downward, this water dissolved the rock in its path, leaving these many cave flowers and strange formations.

And as the water col ected, it turned fizzy and
bubbled not with heat but odd gases. The oldest caves and pools were closest to the Earth's surface. As water continued to leak down, cutting more passageways, the newer caverns were formed. It was in the oldest caves, however, with their burbling gaseous pools, that strange creatures lived. Eyeless fish and shrimp, blind albino crayfish, and al manner of strange spiders. Certain kinds of eels and catfish also found their way from aboveground streams into those of the Tunnel of Despair. And final y there were trogloxenes - cave visitors or cave guests - crickets, bats, rats, and flying insects, and, Gylfie supposed, herself. There was in the Tunnel of Despair an unnatural history as wel and it, too, had its source in the pools and lakes. For it was the deep water of certain pools that gave rise to vyrwolves. By drinking deeply from these pools, a wolf- not an ordinary wolf but a vicious or depraved one with a touch of evil - could be transformed into a wolf with the potential 144 156 for extraordinary evil, and on nights of the ful moon become a vyrwolf.

Gylfie's mission was to find any trace of these
wolves and to locate this pool of potent waters. She was also to explore and see where the tunnel ended. Coryn knew that Nyra had col aborated with MacHeath to try to seize the ember. If they were together again, the destruction they could wreak was gizzard-freezing, unthinkable. With the ful moon and its eclipse fast approaching, it was as if heaven and earth were conspiring to inexorably arrange themselves in a deadly design. A dance of death was about to commence.
Gylfie was not sure how long she had been flying, but she knew she had covered several leagues with al the twists and turns. She had rarely stopped to rest, but now just ahead there was a welcoming niche and she thought she would fetch up in it. The tunnel, of course, was windless and Gylfie had never felt more cut off from al the things that had meaning for an owl - the bil owing thermal drafts of air rising from earth warmed by the sun, the coolness of the night, the moon scattering its silver on her wings, the stars - the dear, dear stars in their familiar transits across the velvet of the night. She slipped into the niche. A flatworm was crawling by

slipped into the niche. A flatworm was crawling by
and she peeled him off
157 the stone ledge with her tiny talons and popped him in her mouth, then settled in for a short snooze.
It was the smel that first woke her - deeply rank, wet, wet fur! And they say owls cant smel ! And then she became aware of a loud panting. I'm near! she thought. She shut her eyes tight and told herself not to panic. I must stay calm. I must find out as much as I can. She stepped out onto the ledge. Her talons clicked against the stone. She. froze. She would have to fly. And she wasn't the most silent of fliers. Stil , it would be more silent than trying to creep up on them with her talons striking the rock surfaces. She flew close to the wal . Suddenly, there was light! Gylfie blinked. A moon hung in the darkness of the tunnel. For a second she felt completely disoriented and faltered in flight, recovering just before col iding with a stone flower. She lighted down. The moon? Impossible!
And then she realized that through an opening in the cave's roof the moon was reflected in a large pool of water. Stil water. Al the pools she had seen

so far were fizzing with tiny bubbles, but not. this
one. And it was not only the moon she saw reflected in its dark surface but the faces of a half dozen wolves.
"Drink, drink deeply," one wolf counseled. "It has been a whole moon cycle since last we met to drink of the vyr. Our strength has waned but it wil come back. Yes,
146 158 it wil !" As the wolf said this, he lifted his head and swung it in Gylfie's direction. His eyes hung in the blackness like two yel ow flames. Gylfie felt a coldness in her gizzard. Her wings drooped. It was like every fyngrot she had imagined when they had read the legends. This was a hag-wolf if there ever was one. She wilfed and grew thinner. She heard in the distance a fluttering of wings, large wings. And then there was a second moon! A scarred moon. There was only one owl with such a face. Nyra!
147 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Race the Moon
So you're sure, Gylfie, that the cave over there is where you would have emerged if you had been able to go to the very end of the tunnel?' Soren cocked his head in the direction to which he was referring. The owls had flown to the canyonlands as soon as Gylfie had reported back to them at their prearranged meeting place in the Shadow Forest. "Absolutely." The tiny Elf Owl nodded firmly. "Somehow I managed to fly out of it while the wolves were stil drinking at that pool just before the tunnel widened into the cave. No one saw me. "And this is the cave of Kludd's Final ceremony?" Twilight looked at Coryn.
"It is. And just over there in those cliffs beyond the next ridge is the stone hol ow where I was raised.' Coryn swiveled his head around. This place was fil ed with bad memories. His First Flight ceremony. His mother's rage, his own despair over his friend Phil ip, the terrible fear
148 160 when he had experienced his first

visions in the fires of his father's Final ceremony
and realized that he had been lied to since the moment of his hatching.
It seemed an uncanny twist of fate that, the Tunnel of Despair had ended in the very same cave in which Kludd had been kil ed. The Band, Coryn, Gyl bane, and the other wolves who traveled with her were gathered on a ridge in the canyonlands. Gyl bane and the wolves she could muster had traveled in a byrrgis at a speed they cal ed "press paw"- not as fast as attack or chase speed but fast enough to cover long distances quickly.
It had been hard to get more wolves, for it was mating season and the clans were scattered. But Hamish had known where to find Duncan
MacDuncan and his lieutenant. Gyl bane had prevailed upon Fitzmore McFang, who had kindly taken her in after she had left the MacHeaths. McFang had come with his powerful mate, Adair, who was as fearless as she was strong. Their son, Fitzy, had also come. In addition to these, there were three from the MacNamara clan, a clan traditional y headed up by a female always cal ed Namara. And because MacNamara she-wolves

Namara. And because MacNamara she-wolves
were known for their toughness and great intel igence, males vied for them. But only one male would be chosen and, contrary to al custom, he would drop his birth clan name and assume that of 149 161 MacNamara, So Namara came with her mate Cormag and their son. Airiila, and daughter. Mo rag. In al , there were a dozen wolves. But they were dire wolves - not vyrwolves. It remained to be seen if it would be an even match,
"Are the vyrwolves al in the cave now?" Twilight whispered.
"I think so," Namara answered. She lifted her nose. "The scent marks are old out here. They have not been out for some time,"
The owls and the wolves knew that they had to strike before the moon rose, but cave battles were difficult. Even in a large cave, space would be tight if they fought with fire. And they did plan to do just that. There were other considerations that made the cave far from ideal: It led into a long, long tunnel. The last thing they wanted was for the vyrwolves to scatter down the intricate maze of passages. They

had to assume that the vyrwolves and Nyra and her
remnant Pure Ones knew the terrain of the tunnel better than they did. That meant that Nyra and the wolves would be fighting on familiar territory. This would give them a distinct advantage. But if they rushed them in the cave - before the moonlight shone on them - the wolves would stil be just wolves and not vyrwolves. For that transformation, they needed to expose themselves to the moon. It was a very hard cal to make.
150 162 They say owls cant smel Stryker thought to himself. But he could. He could smel the fetid stink of these wolves to whom his commander, General Mam, had al ied them. There was no choice, real y. Their own ranks had been shattered, and he had to admit these wolves had powers -- powers that Nyra felt were akin in some mysterious ways to the powers that she hoped to attain. She was saying the words again now.
"The book, the transforming waters, these ashes of my dear Kludd." She ran her beak through the ashes and seemed to inhale them as if savoring their scent. "These ashes, my friends" - she swiveled her head to look at the congregation of

swiveled her head to look at the congregation of
wolves and remaining Pure Ones - "are the key to what the ancients cal ed nachtmagen. With them, you wil see, I shal transform my son - and, with that, the ember shah be ours. "
"Does the book say that. General Mam?" Stryker asked.
"You doubt me, Stryker?" It was as if a stream of yel ow heat glared from Nyra s eyes,
"Never, my general," He raised his right talon in the salute that Nyra had recently begun insisting upon when being addressed. It seemed that since their numbers had been depleted, Nyra had become increasingly obsesssed
151 163 with these formal gestures indicating acknowledgment of her exalted state. She greatly admired the elaborate codes of conduct that the wolves required between the lower and the higher ranks and wished that owls could scrape the ground as effectively as the wolves did when they cowered on their bel ies in front of MacHeath, rol ing their eyes back until they flashed white. But this was

simply not how owls were constructed.
She lowered her voice and spoke in a close, intimate tone. "You see, my dear Stryker, I feel a kinship with this ancient bird named Kreeth.' She would not admit that the words from the book were hard for her to read. The diagrams and the pictures were real y enough. She sensed their meaning. "I understand the science of nachtmagen. These are deep things that only a chosen few can
comprehend. And Kreeth and I are among them. Or she was ..
Stryker, though not very bright, was mul ing over some troubling thoughts. The Pure Ones' entire philosophy was based upon Barn Owls being the most superior breed of al owls. And yet this Kreeth was not even a true owl. She was a hagsfiend, a strange cross between owl and crow. He himself had encountered those ragtag remnants that came like dark wisps of bad dreams as one flew through the night. Their hauntings, although startling, were harmless. But here was Nyra, claiming kinship with 152 164 an archfiend from some distant past who was as far from pure as one could imagine. He

dared not question her, though. No, never. He
regarded her now, as she once again ran her beak through the ashes, and observed that there seemed to be a darkening of the white feathers at the edges of her face.
Always just before a battle there were those quiet thoughts one had - random notions that often had nothing to do with the attack, with strategy, or even with premonitions of death. Soren was experiencing such thoughts as he perched on the ridge and swiveled his head toward his nephew. Coryn appeared to almost bristle with readiness and galIgrot for this fight. But would he be strong enough to face his mother? To fight her to the death if need be? To kil her? Soren vowed that he would spare Coryn that horrendous task. He would kil Nyra. A son, even the son of one as terrible as Nyra, should not be required to fight his mother to the death. How odd, Soren thought, that it had been his intention to set out on this journey with his nephew to distract him from his obsession with Nyra and his own haggish-ness. Instead he must face her. Then for perhaps the thousandth time, Soren wished that Otulissa were here. The Spotted Owl was a superb