Sword Mountain (26 page)

Relieved, the owl redirected his ears toward voices now coming from the open rehearsal room.

“Here it is.”

“What did the queen say? Put it into the package?”

Tranglarhad sucked in his breath, resisting the urge to dash forward and peek. “Patience,” he said to himself.

He pressed back into an alcove in the wall as Sigrid's soldiers emerged in the hallway. The package they carried looked more stuffed. “You hear something?” said one eagle.

“Just the gong,” said the other. “We have to be quick.” They headed toward the other side of the castle, and Tranglarhad followed them, the three birds moving in a triangle. They went through the Hall of Mirrors.

Had the two soldiers even glanced at a mirror, they could have seen the owl, tagging along behind them. Tranglarhad felt dizzy as he noted hundreds of Tranglarhads in the reflections, sneaking alongside him.

The guards finally stopped before a half-open door near the top of the south tower. They entered, placed the package on the desk, and left.

Tranglarhad waited in the shadows, his eyes gleaming. The vibrations of the gong beats tingled in his blood. The owl rushed into the study, flipped the package upside down, and slit it open. The Leasorn gem! He tossed the book that had also been inside the package onto Fleydur's desk; the silk cloth that had been wrapped around the gem fluttered to the floor. He thrust the shining, faceted prize into his pocket and made for the door.

The gong beats had masked approaching claw steps. Uri, Fleydur's valet, was not far away down the hall. “Hey! Who are you?” Uri hollered.

Tranglarhad jumped into the air, pulling out a cleaver. He would not lose this one precious chance! He slashed at Uri as he rushed past. Uri drew his own weapon and struck off the tip of one of Tranglarhad's talons. Biting back his hoot of pain, the owl fled into the depths of the castle. Astounded, the valet did not chase him.

Back in his office, Tranglarhad hurriedly changed into a loose-fitting suit, dropping the gem into a hidden pocket over his heart. As he tried to swab his toe, a knock sounded at his door. Tranglarhad jumped.

“Tutor?” said the treasurer. “I realize you are going to your lesson. I want to talk more about my son's studies as we go down the hall. You don't mind?”

“Not at all, not at all,” said the owl. He managed to put on a wavering smile. He must stay for the lesson and avoid suspicion.

Morgan had sent a messenger for Fleydur and Dandelion. As the celebration continued, the two made their way toward the king's tower.

“That was wonderful, the performance you put on with your students, Fleydur,” exclaimed Morgan. “I am proud of you and your music. I am proud of how you adopted this eaglet and showed us something extraordinary.” He gazed at Dandelion. “The children of the court, they were gloomy miniature adults, never children, until today. And the adults? They were unchanging iron statues, never alive, until today.”

He placed a set of talons gently over Fleydur's. In the distance, the gong continued to sound.

“You are a born leader, Fleydur. Won't you stay?”

“I—I will stay until I know I have done enough to help Sword Mountain.”

“Does my ‘enough' differ much from yours? For I think there's something a king—”

Uri rushed into the king's room.

“Your Majesty, I've urgent news for Prince Fleydur!” cried Uri. When Morgan acknowledged him, he turned to his master. “Prince, there was an intruder in your room a minute ago! I tried to stop him, but he fled!”

“Who was he, could you tell?”

The valet shook his head. “He was hidden in a cloak and armed. But I cut off a talon nail.” He showed it to Fleydur. Dandelion and Fleydur both stared at it. The nail could have been anybird's.

“What did he take?” asked Fleydur.

“I don't know,” Uri said. “But I do know that some birds dropped off a package for you earlier. Come quick, sir!” The gong rang as if to punctuate his remark.

“Strange,” Fleydur muttered as Morgan nodded and allowed him to leave. “Dandelion, you go to class now.” He followed his valet into his study. Nothing was astray, nothing missing. Then he noticed the open package on his desk. “What's this?”

Fleydur pulled the book from the wrapping. “How fantastic! A printed copy of the
Old Scripture
, from my old woodpecker friend Winger …” Engrossed, he dismissed the incident of the intruder.

Dandelion was nearly late to class, but this time, the owl tutor did not seem to mind a student's tardiness.

“Good hiding—er, good evening class,” he said.

Pudding raised a claw.

“Yes, Pouldington?”

“Mr. Tranglarhad, sir, you've buttoned your suit wrong,” said Pudding. Tranglarhad glanced down, alarmed to find it was true.

“Yes, yes,” he said, flustered and annoyed. He turned to one side, undoing the buttons and fixing the problem. As his talons danced rapidly over his suit, Dandelion saw something that made her suck in her breath.

Tranglarhad looked sharply at her. “Oh … ah …
ah-choo
!” said Dandelion.

The owl relaxed, blinking rapidly, and turned to the class to begin his lesson.

Dandelion didn't listen to a word. The gong rang. Her heart pounded.

One of the owl's talon nails was missing.

“The gemstone is gone! The gemstone is gone!” somebird cried in the banquet hall. The birds of the court leaped up as a rush of guards stampeded toward the treasury. “Block the doors! Close the gates!”

“How is it possible?”

“Who stole from the treasury?”

“When was the gemstone last seen?”

The treasurer, coming back from Tranglarhad's classroom, sobered up immediately from the hysteria. To his dismay, he could not remember the details of the evening, apart from meeting the tutor in his office. The treasurer stammered, bewildered. “Prince Fleydur borrowed the gem to show it to his students earlier this evening.”

“Where is it now?”

“We don't know!”

“It's not in their rehearsal room.”

The hall was boiling with voices.

“It wasn't returned!” shouted the queen at the same moment the gong struck again. She stood and pointed toward Fleydur's tower. “He is responsible! Ask him!” Birds holding torches flew up the spiral staircase.

Tranglarhad dropped the chalk from his claws as he heard the alarm.
Calm, now, calm
, he thought to himself. The students jumped off their perches, their lesson promptly forgotten. Tranglarhad opened the door just as a stream of soldiers swooped past. Tranglarhad stopped one. “Pray tell, what is this uproar?” he said.

“Don't let your students out yet, sir! Somebird has stolen the gemstone of the mountain!”

“Who did it?” cried Tranglarhad, blinking with horror.

“Don't know. It may be one of the princes,” said the soldier as he left. Tranglarhad closed the classroom door, his face solemn and glum as he latched it shut. As the confusion of shouts and fluttering wings and crackling torches went past, Tranglarhad bellowed to his class, “A shocking thing has happened on the mountain!”

He stomped up and down the rows of the desks, piercing each pupil with his gaze. “Stealing is a treacherous, hideous, abominable act. Do you hear me? How many of you have stolen something, even a crumb of food?” Beneath his feathers, Tranglarhad's face was dark red. “Be ashamed of yourself! It is wrong to take something that is not yours.” As he spun around, he could feel the weight of the gemstone against the secret pocket over his heart.

“Tonight—this scandal—let this be a lesson!” A beat of the gong rang after his final word.

It was easy to declare an emergency and end class early. None of the worried parents who swarmed into the classroom noticed or cared when Tranglarhad slipped away from the castle. Cauldron hanging from one claw, the
Book of Heresy
in the other, the owl turned his head around for a last furtive look at the summit. The layer of snow that covered Sword Cliff like a sheath had crumpled off. Underneath, the gray granite, sharp and shining and gilded with ice, blazed in the moonlight like a bared blade. Tranglarhad smiled a smile nobird saw. He and his gliding shadow on the white snow seemed to gradually merge into one as he descended toward the foot of the mountain.

Sigrid kept close behind the flood of fear-stricken eagles. “Hoy!” shouted the guards, banging at the door to Fleydur's study.

“What do you want?” cried Uri.

“Open up!” the crowd yelled back.

The door creaked open, and Fleydur stood there, his face gaunt in the torchlight. “What?”

“Search his room. Is he hiding the gemstone?”

Fleydur staggered back, gripping the
Old Scripture
, as the eagles flew past him and started pulling out his drawers, yanking back the curtains, flinging books off his shelves, and rummaging in his closet. And still the gong rang on.

Sigrid hung back in the shadows, clutching her shawl around her, her heart beating wildly.

“I've found something!” called out one of the soldiers. All activity stopped. The soldier lifted a silk cloth from the floor behind Fleydur's desk.

“It's the cloth that was wrapped around the gemstone!”

Sigrid stepped up. “But where is the stone itself?”

Fleydur shook his head slowly, not comprehending. “I don't have it.”

The strike of the gong was loud in the silence that followed.

“You do. You should!” Sigrid accused him. “The cloth is here. The gem has to be in your room!”

“He's hiding it,” insisted somebird.

“I took nothing; I left the gemstone in the rehearsal room, with the guards! Haven't they taken it back?” cried Fleydur.

Sigrid squinted triumphantly. “With your own trick, we'll know if the gem is nearby. Tell the Leasorn to sing your heart!”

Fleydur reluctantly did, but there was no response.

“Fleydur didn't do it,” added Uri. “It must have been that thief who planted that cloth here. I cut his talon, see?” The valet showed everybird the fragment of nail.

Sigrid's heart did a somersault. The gemstone was now truly gone. Things were beginning to slip out of her talons. But perhaps it was all for the better, she reasoned to herself. Now Fleydur would be truly condemned.

“Your Majesty, what will we do? Shall we inform the king?” said one of the eagles.

“No. Not yet,” said the queen.

Then a messenger burst into the room. “The king!” he shouted, his eyes wide with horror. “The king is dead!”

And then nothing. Nobird spoke a word. Even the air they breathed felt as if something was dreadfully amiss. And they realized that the one hundred beats were done, and the gong, like a heart, had gone silent.