Exile (2 page)

B
lythe would not be allowed to sing. There would be no bingle juice, no dancing. One would hardly know it was a festival. Worst of all, this was by order of Coryn. “Just this once, that’s all,” Coryn had said. “You know how much we owe him. It seems the right thing to do.” That was Coryn’s reasoning for the pared-down Harvest Festival.

The Band exchanged glances as they perched in Coryn’s hollow, and Coryn looked nervously from one to the other. “You understand, don’t you?”

“Not really,” Twilight replied bluntly.

“Don’t be difficult, Twilight,” Coryn said.

“I am not being difficult. I really don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand where the Striga gets the right,” Gylfie added.

Coryn drew himself up a bit taller and puffed out his chest feathers. “It has nothing to do with rights. Look, do any of us have to be reminded of how awful it was not much more than a year ago during the time of the Golden
Tree? The cult of the ember? The Guardians of this tree became obsessed with pomp and ceremony. They began to worship the Ember of Hoole. It was terrible. All that gilt and glitter had nothing to do with being an owl. It was Other-ish. You were the first to say it, Soren.”

Soren blinked. Coryn was right. They should be suspect of ritual. The Striga had roused himself from the jeweled splendor, the listless existence at the Dragon Court. Condemning luxury and pampering, he had endured the extreme pain of stripping out his own excess of feathers. Yes, this owl was definitely wary of excess, of indulgence, of the vulgarities that came with celebrations and festivities. These thoughts ran through Soren’s mind while Coryn spoke. Soren had to admit that it had been extremely astute of Coryn to refer to the time of the Golden Tree and the pernicious consequences of ritual and celebration that had inspired the cult of the ember.

The Band, as they often did, looked to Soren. It was from Soren that they usually took their cue in matters to do with Coryn, for the young king was Soren’s nephew. “You have raised some interesting points, Coryn. For now, we will respect your wishes.”

Twilight blinked, barely disguising the glare in his eyes. “Will there be a Punkie Night?”

“Of course,” Coryn said. Punkie Night was celebrated
on the first new moon after the Milkberry Harvest Festival. It was a favorite holiday, especially for fledglings, although grown-up owls got into the spirit almost as much as the young’uns. There were mischief and sweets and masks. Bands of young owls put on masks and flew from the hollow, and, in exchange for sweets, they would sing or do flying acrobatic tricks. Although Twilight was much too old for such frolicking, it didn’t stop him. He was one of the most enthusiastic and raucous punkies. Donning the mask of a Pygmy Owl, he flew about with the fledglings, egging them on with his antics.

“There better be a Punkie Night. What’s life without a bit of punk?” Twilight muttered as he left Coryn’s hollow with the rest of the Band.

Soren was the last to leave. And before he hopped out the port to the branch, he turned to his nephew and blinked several times. “You’re sure about this, are you, Coryn?”

“Yes, Uncle. We must be wary of ritual and ceremony…” Soren was only half listening because something in Coryn’s hollow had caught his attention, something that he had not noticed before. Wedged into one of the niches where Coryn kept some of his favorite things was the tip of a blue feather.
Why in the name of Glaux would Coryn keep a molted blue feather? That club is for young’uns. Coryn’s not an owlet
.

O
tulissa had not gone to Coryn’s hollow for the conference. In addition to her other duties, which were many, she had temporarily taken on the job of chief librarian when Winifred’s, an ancient Barred Owl, arthritis had kicked up. So while the Band had been discussing the Harvest Festival with Coryn, Otulissa was minding the library. This was a job she loved, for it afforded her the opportunity to further her research on a weather-interpretation project she had been pursuing since her return from the Middle Kingdom—windkins and the system of air known as the River of Wind that flowed between the Ga’Hoolian world and the Middle Kingdom. Otulissa’s powers of concentration were great. She did not hear the clutch of little owlets giggling over a joke book nor did she hear the owl approaching the desk where she perched. It was actually the desk of Ezylryb, the late distinguished ryb, scholar, poet, historian, and, once upon a time, great warrior of the tree.

“Ahem.” The owl cleared his throat. Otulissa’s head jerked up from her labors. The blue owl, the Striga, perched before her.

“Oh, so sorry. I was quite absorbed here,” Otulissa said.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

But you did
, thought Otulissa. She had little tolerance for the indiscriminate use of words.
Wouldn’t it have been better to say simply, “Sorry to disturb you”?

“What is it, might I ask, that absorbs you so?” the Striga asked.

“I have for some time been immersed in a study of weather and air currents. I am a member of the weather-interpretation chaw.”

“Oh,” the Striga said with a jovial note in his voice. “I approve!”

Otulissa blinked. She did not quite understand. “Approve of what?” she cocked her head to one side.
What in the name of Glaux is there to approve of? And why should you be the one doing the approving?
But she, of course, said none of this aloud.

“I approve of the practical studies such as weather.” He swung his head slowly around. “But not the inessential, the frivolous, the, how should I put it? The heretical texts.”

“Heretical?”

“Yes. You know, the anti-Glaux books such as those the young owlets are giggling over.” He nodded toward the young owls gathered around a desk reading a book with great glee.

“It’s a joke book! That’s all!” Otulissa then told one of the few lies she had ever told in her life. “I read it myself when I was an owlet.” Otulissa had never read a joke book, but she would never deny another owl the right to read one.

“But such books are fripperies, indulgences, vanities!”

She looked at him closely.
What is this owl talking about?
This word “vanity” was often in his speech.

“I am not quite sure what you mean by the word ‘vanity’ in reference to literature.”

“Literature?” He paused. “But surely, Otulissa, you need not concern yourself with literature, for you are a student of practical disciplines—like this er…uh…weather and—what is it you are reading now?”

She didn’t like the way he asked the question. It was interfering, beaky. Why should she have to tell him what she was reading or studying? It wasn’t as if she had anything to hide. In fact, she was quite proud of this book, because it had been written by one of her own ancestors, a most distinguished scholar, the most renowned
weathertrix of the previous century, Strix Emerilla. The book had the rather ponderous title
Atmospheric Pressures and Turbulations: An Interpreter’s Guide
. She held it up. “Written by my thrice-great-aunt, maternal side.”

“You must be proud,” the Striga answered softly.

“I am. I am very proud,” Otulissa replied curtly.

“You must be careful of too much pride.”

“Another vanity?” Otulissa leaned forward a bit and peered more closely at him. His face looked different from when he had first arrived at the tree. The feathers had thinned. Indeed, his face was almost bald. There was just a thin mist of blue over the gray-and-puckered skin.

“Exactly, Otulissa! Exactly!”

Otulissa flexed her head to one side, then to the other, running through a series of head postures as if she were studying the blue owl from every possible angle.

“I am curious,” Otulissa began in a reflective tone. “Just what do you mean by this word ‘vanity’?”

“Oh, I am so glad you asked.”

I’m sure you are!
Otulissa thought to herself.

“As you know, Otulissa, I came from the Dragon Court, a most impractical place.” The Striga gave special emphasis to the word “impractical.” “It had become this way because of excess—excess of luxuries, of pampering, of every kind of indulgence imaginable. At the very
center of this excess, the driving force, the fuel that fired it, was vanity.”

“But what is vanity?” Otulissa asked.

“Vanities are all the indecent things in life, the fripperies, the impracticalities that distract us from Glaux and our true owlness.”

“True owlness?” Otulissa blinked.

“Yes, we are, by nature, humble creatures.”

“Hmm.” Otulissa sniffed, and thought of Twilight.
Humble, my talon!

“We must practice humility,” the Striga continued. “Anything else is vanity.”

Otulissa was tempted to say,
Well, to each his own
. But she thought better of it. “One last question,” she said.

“Of course.”

Her eyes fastened on his face. “Are you suffering from mite blight? I notice the feathers on your face are quite thin.”

“Oh, nothing of the sort,” the Striga answered almost cheerfully. “No. You see, for a long time, I was burdened with an indecent abundance of feathers. These feathers were the ultimate vanity. We dragon owls cultivated them with a disgusting mixture of pride and pleasure, preening all day. There were even special servants whose only job was to stroke and comb our feathers.” The Striga seemed
to wilf just talking about it. “I can’t tell you how vile it was.”

“But you did it. You preened your long blue feathers,” Otulissa said curtly.

“I knew nothing better. I was deluded,” the Striga said.

Otulissa blinked. There was so much that she did not understand about the Panqua Palace and the Dragon Court. She thought of Theo, that noble owl from ancient times they had all read about in the legends. When Otulissa had been in the Middle Kingdom, she had learned that it was Theo who had realized that the best way to distract owls with evil intentions, was to engulf them in luxury. The result was overweening vanity, so that their attention could focus only on one thing—themelves—to the point where they were reduced to powerlessness. It was an ingenious strategy for quelling the most dangerous kinds of owls, which had found their way into the Middle Kingdom long ago.

“But I still don’t understand,” Otulissa said to the Striga. “You now have fewer feathers than any of us. Especially on your face.”

“I strip them out. It is my personal penance. Thus I relinquish the unnecessary things, the distractions.”

“I’ve never thought of feathers as a distraction, frankly. They are a most essential part of our bodies.” She paused. “Our true owlness, as it were.” She emphasized the word “owlness.”

“But not your spirit! And how can the spirit rise, become everlasting, when burdened by the vanities of feather and bone?” The Striga blinked his pale yellow eyes.

What did the Striga mean by “everlasting”? Life was the here and now. One must be able to rise into the air above this earth and fly. Was it not an abuse to pluck the very gifts Glaux had given owls to make a life for themselves? But Otulissa, for whom arguments were like a tonic, had no desire to engage in any further discussion with the Striga on the subject. Indeed, after this odd conversation, Otulissa was rendered speechless for one of the very few times in her life.

O
tulissa was not the only one that early evening who had entered into a very odd conversation. When the Band left Coryn’s hollow, the young king felt as if something rather strange had occurred. It was almost as if it was not he himself speaking. But it was. He, of all of them, had spent the most time with the Striga since he had arrived at the great tree. Although their lives had been entirely different and Coryn had never lived in anything comparable to the Dragon Court of the Panqua Palace, he somehow sensed a resonance with what this owl had been saying. Coryn’s early life in the harsh, unforgiving landscape of canyonlands had been entirely different from the Dragon Court. He had never been pampered, and had been abused by his mother, who had subjected him to a merciless indoctrination in order to make him a leader of the Pure Ones. The two words, “Pure Ones,” almost carried a stench. For the Pure Ones believed that Barn Owls,
Tyto albas
, were the only true owls. The rest were impure,
inferior, afflictions to owlkind. It was a base, venal notion. The violence that could be justified by such thinking was revealed to Coryn most brutally when, before his eyes, his mother killed his only friend.

But then the Striga had come to the great tree, invited by Soren and the rest of the Band after the defeat of Nyra and the Pure Ones in the Middle Kingdom. He had fought bravely, if not strictly according to the fighting methods practiced by the owls of the Middle Kingdom. The Striga’s attack had been bloody and the Hoolian owls were in his debt.

The Striga preached that within every owl there was a “perfect simplicity.” But to find it, one must cleanse—or “scour”—one’s self of vanities and fripperies and all such distractions, and then a level of perfect simplicity would be attained. And thus, the message was an uncomplicated one: Burn away vanity. Being truly cleansed, one would achieve the supreme state of perfect simplicity, ready to receive Glaux’s blessings forever and ever.

Just as Coryn was thinking about this, the Striga entered.

“How did it go?” the Striga asked.

“I’m not really sure.”

“They agreed?”

“Yes,” Coryn replied.

“Well, that’s good.”

“Yes, it is.” Coryn nodded his head vigorously, almost as if he was trying to convince himself. “It is. Yes, I’m sure it is. But…”

“But, what?” the Striga asked.

“Well, it’s a change—this new way of celebrating the Harvest Festival. I promised them that we were just trying this. That we’d still have Punkie Night.”

“Of course,” the Striga said quickly, although he had no idea what Punkie Night was. He felt that now was not the time to push.

“I think Soren felt a little bad about Blythe not singing.”

“She will sing better when she has achieved simplicity. Then it will not be a vain art.” The Striga paused. “I was having a most interesting conversation in the library with Otulissa.”

“Really?” Coryn looked up.

“She is a very intelligent owl.”

“She’s practically a genius!” Coryn said.

“Yes, well, you know she has embarked on a very—very interesting research project.”

“Oh, yes. Her study of windkins and the currents in the River of Wind. She and Soren are veterans of the weather-interpretation chaw, and were taught by the old master Ezylryb himself.”

“I think these studies are good. Practical. Would it not be a benefit to the tree if she were allowed to pursue them further?”

“Well, yes. She had talked about going out and performing some experiments, some feather-drift trials.”

“Feather drift?” Striga asked.

“Yes. It is done with wind and air currents. Feather buoys are set out, then tracked to measure variations in speed and drift.”

“And who does it? Just the weather chaw?”

“Well, it’s mostly under Otulissa’s direction but, you know, it’s fun. So, oftentimes, the rest of the Band goes. I mean, that is one thing that is special about the Band. They are so talented that they can really serve in any chaw when called upon. Gylfie, she’s chief ryb of the navigation chaw, so she can take instant fixes on the positions as the feathers drift. Digger is a skilled tracker, as is Twilight. Both come in handy.”

“Might I propose something, Coryn?”

“Certainly.”

“Do you think it might take their minds off this simplified Harvest Festival if they were on a mission?”

Coryn’s eyes suddenly brightened. “You mean, perhaps Otulissa and the Band should go on a research expedition for her study of windkins?”

“Precisely. A service that they will rise to joyfully and it might…oh, how should I say, distract them from their regrets about the Harvest Festival.”

“It’s a wonderful idea. I’ll send for them right now,” Coryn said.

The Striga raised a talon in the air as if to caution him. “And when you tell them about this experiment, try to convey to them how essential this is to the well-being of the tree. How they are really the only owls who could do this because of their extraordinary expertise, brilliance, and depth of knowledge. Impress upon them that they are the best and that these studies are crucial. As a matter of fact, why not make the announcement in the parliament to give it the dignity it deserves?”

“You’re absolutely right. The parliament! That is where it should be announced.”

Coryn regarded the Striga with even deeper respect. It was a splendid idea, but more moving to Coryn was that the Striga valued Otulissa’s research. That truly surprised him. He wished that the Band could have heard the Striga’s concern for their feelings.
I think they judge him too harshly
, Coryn thought.
Had they only been here! But give them time, give them time. They will see, as I have, that this is an owl of many parts. Good parts, all of them!