(GoG Book 08) The Outcast (12 page)

Could that someone else be Coryn, son of Kludd and Nyra, son of tyrants?

“Does he know what his visions mean?” she asked Gwyndor.

“I don’t think so. I think he sees things but he cannot always fit them together. I was talking to the gnaw wolf
Hamish, and he said Coryn thinks that he has come here for an education.”

“Well, he certainly has, and I am to be his ryb, as we say in the great tree.”

“Coryn doesn’t see it that way,” Gwyndor replied.

“What do you mean?” She narrowed her eyes.

“Well, first of all you must realize that the lad knows little of the legends of Ga’Hoole. The Pure Ones forbade such things.”

“Yes, I would assume so. That would explain his ignorance.”

“But he is not completely ignorant of them. He apparently has heard some fragments of the Fire Cycle and such. He knows a little about Grank, the first collier.”

“Oh, dear,” Otulissa sighed. “A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.”

“Yes, it can. Coryn seems to see himself in the role of Grank.”

“What?” Otulissa seemed flabbergasted. “Has he ever done any colliering? Ever retrieved a coal?”

“Not that I know of. But, you see, he really sees himself as a teacher.”

“ For whom?”

“A little Burrowing Owl back in The Barrens who he believes is the true heir of Hoole.”

“Where does he get these yoickish ideas?” Otulissa was genuinely perplexed.

“I don’t know, but I only tell you all this because you’re going to have to go carefully with him. Remember he believes that he’s to become a teacher.”

“But he also believes that the scroom of Strix Struma sent me to help in some way.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“How do you suppose we begin this entire undertaking? I mean, Gwyndor, do you believe that he is the heir of Hoole?”

“I am not sure. But I know that he saw the ember in the fire, I suspect more than once.”

“Orf, the great Rogue smith of the Northern Kingdoms has fire sight.”

“But there’s a difference. Orf ain’t never seen the Ember of Hoole. No. No owl has seen the Ember of Hoole since King Hoole himself.”

Otulissa was persistent. “But tell me, Gwyndor, how do you know that Coryn actually saw it?”

“I can’t explain it, ma’am. It’s something I just know. Perhaps it is because I am a Rogue smith and I know how certain flames can well be felt in the gizzard. I sensed his gizzard lurching at that moment.”

“Hardly scientific,” Otulissa sniffed.

“It ain’t science, ma’am. It be more like magic from the old times, the ancient times.”

Otulissa was about to say that she didn’t believe in magic, but a short time ago she hadn’t believed in scrooms, either. And now here she was in this Glaux-forsaken place talking to this “old codger” of a Rogue smith because of a scroom. Otulissa sighed deeply. “Well, seeing the Ember of Hoole is one thing, retrieving it is another.”

“Yes, ma’am. I think that is where you come in.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You are known as one of the finest colliers in the colliering chaw of the great tree.”

“Oh, you’ve heard.” She lowered her eyes modestly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he continued. “I’ve heard, and as you said, seeing the ember is not the same thing as retrieving it.”

“But I can’t teach him to retrieve an ember in the boiling crater of a volcano!”

“This young’un has never retrieved an ember from anyplace. You can teach him the fundamentals.”

“You think so?”

“Ma’am, I know so.”

“Well, I have heard that the south slopes of the volcanoes of the Sacred Ring are good for finding bonk coals and that the gnaw wolves of the watch permit colliering there.”

“That they do. I’m no collier, but I’ve tried a bit of coal diving myself.”

“Any luck?”

“No. Don’t have the touch, ma’am.”

“Well, let’s hope young Coryn has it.”

T
he most enormous wolf Coryn had ever seen was making its way toward them. He stood erect, his tail in a horizontal line with his spine, his brilliant green eyes staring at Hamish. Coryn would not notice until much later that he was missing one paw. Hamish immediately lowered himself, his belly scraping the ground, his ears laid back flat in a gesture of total submission. His lips were pulled in a grimace that revealed his teeth in a kind of grin that signaled complete obedience. Then Hamish lowered his head farther and twisted it so he was looking up at the higher-ranking animal. This final signal of appeasement was transmitted as he flashed his eyes white.

“Welcome, Hamish MacDuncan.”

“My Lord Fengo, I am here to serve,” Hamish said.

Coryn felt a current pass through him. Where had he heard that name “Fengo” before? Had he seen the wolf or the name written somehow in the fire? But he could not
read then. He would not have recognized the letters. Yet he knew the name.

“And before you serve, you shall learn,” Lord Fengo continued.

“I am your obedient student,” replied Hamish.

“Your taiga is Banquo.” Another huge wolf approached. He was missing an eye.

If Coryn had thought this land was strange, nothing could compare to the bizarre and extraordinary region of the Beyond he had now entered. There were towering bone cairns at intervals encircling the ring of the Sacred Volcanoes. They rose from glistening black beds of sharp grit, which was a kind of glass that the volcanoes’ lava was ground into after years upon years. Atop each one of the cairns sat a gnaw wolf. And patrolling the space in between were other gnaw wolves. Hamish would begin his training period on the ground and then, when he was deemed ready, he would climb a cairn. From this vantage point, the gnaw wolves could keep watch on owls, look out for intruders. It was said that a gnaw wolf on a cairn could jump as high as an owl in flight and catch him on the wing.

“But what are they afraid of?” Coryn asked as he watched Hamish trot off behind his taiga.

“Well, two things, really. They don’t want some yoickish
owl diving into the crater and losing its life, and…” He paused and looked at Otulissa as if for help.

“Coryn, dear, they don’t want the wrong owl retrieving the ember. An owl might come along who is Glaux-blessed with fire sight and sees in which volcano the ember is buried. But it is also possible that a vicious, tyrannical owl might try to retrieve the ember, and it would have to be killed immediately. The powers of the ember are too great for it to fall into dangerous talons.”

“But how do they know if it is a good or a bad owl?”

“I don’t know,” Gwyndor replied. “They say it’s in the gnaw wolf’s bones—their own bones and the ones they gnaw for the cairns. It’s a kind of code that has been passed down for centuries through the MacDuncan clan. That is why it is so important that only MacDuncans guard the ember.”

Above them, owls wheeled in the sky, plunging to catch the edge embers, as they were called, that ran off the spills on the slopes of the volcanoes. There were other owls as well, mostly Rogue smiths hoping to strike a deal with the colliers for bonk coals. But the land was bleak and the dire wolves that slinked between the cairns did not have the easy camaraderie that Coryn had seen among the wolves of a clan. Perhaps it was because as young pups and yearlings, they had always been the lowest-ranking
members, scorned yet feared, destined to always live at the edges of wolf society.

He already missed Hamish and wondered if he would be permitted to visit his wolf friend. He had not dared to ask when Fengo and Banquo has led him away.
Fengo!
Where had he heard that name before?

They were perched on a ridge now, and Otulissa had been observing the owls careening overhead, riding the hot drafty winds. She was saying that she had yet to see a bonk caught on the fly just as Coryn remembered where he had heard the name. It was spoken by the mystic rabbit in the Shadow Forest. The one who could find messages and visions in the designs of a spiderweb. The name “Fengo” had shown up in the web that the rabbit was reading, and she had told Coryn. The frustrating thing about the information in a web was that it never told the whole story. It seemed to Coryn that was always the way it was for him. He never got the whole story—not from the scrooms, not from Mist, not from the web-reading rabbit, and not even when he eavesdropped on parents telling the legends of Ga’Hoole to their young chicks before bedding down for the day. Always, either sleep or a squabble in the hollow would interrupt the storytelling, so Coryn would be left only with fragments.
Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing? Am I really to be the teacher of a new king?

“No, I’m the teacher,” Otulissa’s shrill voice blasted in his ear slit. He thought he had been thinking to himself but apparently he had said something out loud. “Coryn, have you heard anything I’ve said?”

“Oh, sorry, Otulissa.”

“I was saying that not one of the colliers out there,” she nodded toward the nearest volcano, “not a single one has caught a bonk coal on the fly, which is a shame. Bonk coals retain their strength if caught on the fly and not scavenged from the ground. Very inferior grade of bonk, ground bonk is. Am I not right, Gwyndor?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am, very inferior.”
She’s mighty picky,
Gwyndor thought.
I’d take any bonk coal, ground or on the fly.

“But first we should start you with harvesting ground coals. Catching on the fly is very difficult. Now watch me scoop up a ground coal, and please note the position of it in my beak when I come back. It is called the ‘Classic Grank Grip,’ named, of course, for the first collier.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now, before I lift off, I want to always check for wind direction.” This was exactly what Otulissa now did. Then she circled overhead and called down, “You want the wind behind you when you begin to spiral in to collect the coal. You do not want the coal blown into your face. All right, here I go!”

Otulissa made a wide circle overhead, banked and turned, and began her spiral. She swooped in on a glistening orange coal bed at the base of one of the rivers of embers that ran down the slope. In no time, she was back with the coal in her beak. She faced front, then twisted her neck to the side and flipped her head almost completely around and back so Coryn could observe the Classic Grank Grip from all angles. After this, she dropped the coal into Gwyndor’s bucket. “Sorry, Gwyndor,” she sniffed. “Very inferior, class B, if that.”

“Never you mind, ma’am. I’ll take any bonk I can get.” Otulissa gave the Rogue smith a withering look as if to say,
What’s happened to quality these days?!

“Now, Coryn, you try it. Remember all I said.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Wind check, then loose circle, steep bank…”

Otulissa kept talking as Coryn took off. But then just as he was about to pull out of his banked turn and begin the downward spiral to the ground, the volcano belched vigorously and a column of fiery embers shot high into the air. All the owls immediately began spiraling to earth to catch these hottest of bonk coals. All the owls, that is, except one.

“What in hagsmire is the young’un doing?” Gwyndor gasped.

“Coryn!” Otulissa screeched as she watched her pupil spiral upward at a dizzying speed.

Instinctively, he flew through the rain of coals, tipping his wings this way and that, catching first one coal on the fly in his beak, then another in his port talon, and then a third in his starboard talon.

“My Glaux,” Otulissa gasped. “He’s coming in fully loaded! Well, I never.”

Coryn dropped all three coals in the bucket. The three owls peered into the glow.

“Magnificent,” Otulissa said.

Three blue coals, with a flash of yellow in their centers. “Now, that is quality, Coryn. Those are bonk coals.”

“I’ll say so, ma’am. I should pay you for coals like this.” Gwyndor was jubilant.

“Nonsense,” Otulissa snapped. “Besides, I don’t approve of accepting payment for coals from a sacred site. It’s vulgar.”

“Yes, ma’am, anything you say. Thank you very much.”

“I need no thanks,” Otulissa replied, and then turned to Coryn with tears in her eyes. “Seeing this young’un fly so exquisitely through that rain of embers is reward enough.”

But what next,
thought Otulissa,
what next? Oh, Strix Struma, you have brought us here. But what am I to do? The young’un still does not know himself. He does not recognize his destiny.

Coryn was alone with his own troubling thoughts as he peered into the bucket.

Now what is that young’un seeing in those coals?
Gwyndor wondered.

For Coryn, the coals in the bottom of Gwyndor’s bucket seemed to breathe like living creatures. Coryn’s fire sight was so powerful now that he did not need flames. The coals offered shapes and images as clear as the ones he read in fire. And what he saw first in these coals was the face of his mother, Nyra. And, as before, when he had seen her in the fire in the Gadderheal, her face was no longer white, but sooty and stained with smoke. There was a wolf figure near her. He wore a headdress of bones.
So she
had
been there,
Coryn thought,
or perhaps is there right now with the MacHeaths.

Coryn felt the old fearful twinges in his gizzard exactly like the ones he had felt so often in the hollow he had shared with his mother in the canyonlands. But suddenly, his gizzard grew still. What was that deep in the coals? It flickered like the reflection of another coal. He blinked. There were only three coals in the bucket, but now each one was reflecting an image. The same image. It was orange, but at its center was a lick of blue and then around the edge, there was the green—the green of wolves’ eyes.
This was not an image of a bonk coal. This was the reflection of the Ember of Hoole!

But where? How? What am I supposed to do?

You will know, Coryn. You will know,
a voice whispered in his head.

Was it a scroom? Was it Mist?

When he lifted his eyes from the bucket, he saw Gwyndor and Otulissa staring at him hard. It was Otulissa, however, who shivered. “By Glaux, I felt as if a scroom floated by me.” And then she churred a bit, as if to say,
Nonsense. I don’t believe in such things.