The First Collier (3 page)

“I am watching,” I said.

“It is going to erupt when the last star of the Great Fangs rises above the horizon.”

And so it did. I was astonished.

“How did you know that?”

“I know,” was all he said.

He turned to me. The eyes of these dire wolves were a color I had never seen before. To say they were green does
not do them justice. They were more like green fire. And Fengo’s were absolutely astonishing. Our eyes locked and in that moment something passed between us. I knew then that although we were owl and wolf, two such different animals, we shared something: We both had visions. I could see the image of the volcanoes’ flames reflected now in his eyes. As I peered deeper into that eerie greenness, I saw more. It was as if the eyes themselves were no longer eyes but something else. There was the reflection of orange flame, but in the center of that flame was a glimmer of blue and then a shimmer of green, the same green as the wolf’s eyes. But I was not seeing eyes.

“You see it, don’t you?” Fengo said.

“I see something but I am not sure what.”

“It is an ember.”

So it was in the eyes of the dire wolf Fengo that I caught my first glimpse of what would come to be known as the Ember of Hoole. I felt its power immediately. I sensed that it could be a dangerous thing to let loose in the world. But it also held the promise of great good.

“You came to learn about fire, did you not?” Fengo asked.

I nodded. I did not ask how he knew this. I understood that in many ways this wolf was like me. He was a flame
reader. He had firesight. And he knew much, for he lived in a world of constant fire here in the Beyond.

“I can help you,” he said. “I can teach you some things, but not everything. And you will soon learn more than I can teach, and know more than I can imagine.”

This puzzled me. “How can that be?” I asked.

“You can fly,” he said simply.

“But why should this help me learn more?”

“You are able to fly over the craters from which the fires leap. You can look into the heart of the volcano. On the wing, you shall catch the hottest coals.”

“Catch coals?”

“Yes.” Fengo nodded. “Catch coals and then make fire and see what can be made from fire. With that, I might be able to help you for I have explored the effects of flames on certain materials.”

“It doesn’t just burn things up?” I asked.

“Not always. Sometimes it changes things.”

I was intrigued and was wondering what these changes could be when he interrupted my thoughts.

“And perhaps one day you shall see where the ember lies buried.”

“Do you mean the wolf ember?” I asked him, for that was how I thought of the ember I had seen in his eyes.

“It is not the wolf ember,” he said quietly. “It is the owl ember. Make no mistake. It is the Ember of Hoole.”

“That cannot be!”

“Why not?”

“Because it has been told that Hoole was the first owl: In that time when all birds were alike, the first one to become an owl was called Hoole. It was even said that he was a mage. That he possessed good magic. But it is just a story from a time long ago when there were no high kings, no kings at all. The word ‘Hoole’ now means first of a kind.

“And in our wolf language the word ‘Hoole’ simply means owl. You see, my friend, it was the spirit of a Hoole that I followed when I led my kind here from our icelocked land.”

“The spirit of an owl? Not a real owl?” I asked him.

“Oh, she was real all right. But long dead.”

“You mean a scroom, then.”

“Yes, a scroom, if that is what you call the spirits of the dead.”

“Hoole,” I repeated the word softly. It had a lovely sound that seemed to spin out into the darkness like that wild and untamed song of the wolves when they howled into the night. “Hoole,” I said it again. Like a silvery filament of moonlight, it whispered through the dark.

A
lthough it had been only a reflection in Fengo’s eyes, I became haunted by my brief vision of this ember. I sensed a power in this coal, power far beyond that of my visions, of being able to see the present in distant places where I was not flying or roosting, and events in a time that was not my own. On my subsequent trips, I flew over the five volcanoes countless times trying to figure out where the ember lay buried. It burned in my dreams, in my gizzard. Its power both fascinated and frightened me.

I learned much from Fengo at this time, much about fire and flame. He showed me how to start fires from the cooler embers that lay in the glowing coal beds that flanked the sides of the volcano. He showed me how nuggets of silver and gold could be melted by fire and shaped as they cooled. But more exciting to him than silver or gold were the rough rocks in which something he called the “deep metals” were locked. Fengo felt that there might be a way of extracting these metals if a hot enough fire
could be built. But for that kind of fire, one had to retrieve coals before they hit they ground. They were the hottest of coals. Every time Fengo talked of this, his eyes gleamed.

“Grank, if we can make strong metal and learn how to shape things from it”—he paused—“well, it is almost unimaginable how our lives might change.”

Fengo needed me to retrieve the coals, but I needed Fengo to craft the metals, for the wolf was amazingly skillful. With his teeth he gnawed intricate designs on the surface of bones. He often honed the edges of the bones into sharp objects, as sharp as any ice swords. And something similar to this and much more could be done with metal.

After this first trip, I returned to the Beyond several times over the years. Very few owls in the N’yrthghar knew about these journeys. When I was away, King H’rath and Queen Siv kept in touch with me by their most trusted messenger, Joss, who would bring me missives on the progress of peace, or its shattering, at which times I returned immediately.

I had learned much that I felt someday could be of benefit to H’rath and his kingdom, but catching a coal on the fly eluded me. I was feeling very frustrated by this
inability, and one day was complaining bitterly to Fengo. “I don’t understand it, Fengo. I have come this close so many times.” I held up my talons and pinched the front two together. “And yet I always miss.”

Fengo, who had been lying down, suddenly stood up and assumed a very erect stance. His tail was straight in a line with his spine and he stared hard at me and then growled. My gizzard lurched. Never in my long friendship with Fengo had he treated me like this. He was threatening me! His posture, his raised hackles, the stare, the growl were all the behaviors a low-ranking wolf could expect from a higher-ranking one. But why me? I am an owl. We were, in our own ways, equal.

“What is it?” I tried to look into his eyes, but I flinched. The ember blazed there as if his pupils were on fire. I had to look down. I dropped my head and, within a split second, I—an owl!—had slid into the posture and the gestures of a submissive, low-ranking wolf.

“You will never catch a coal until you put that one coal out of your mind: the ember of the owl.”

“But it is called the owl ember. And I am an owl. It haunts me.”

“It is not for you, this ember,” he said. “At least, not now.”

“Not now?” I waited for him to say more.

“You have learned much, Grank,” he said finally. “But still not enough. If I had wings, I could fly those thermals better than you. You have been so obsessed by the one ember that you can’t see the shapes of the wind. Heat carves wind, my friend. It sculpts it into bridges and air ladders and spires and mountains and tunnels and passageways. When you learn the windscapes of heated air, then you will know how to catch a coal on the fly.”

Fengo was right. I had been a distracted student in this land of fire.

Fengo dropped his tail and his hackles lay flat. “Grank,” he said softly, “think of all that you know about the ice and the winds coming off that ice in the N’yrthghar. There is not a katabat that you have not flown. You know that air, that wind of your country of the Great North Waters. Now you must learn about the heat and blazing winds of the Beyond.”

And so I began that very night. The air surrounding and above a volcano is layered. There are strata in air just as I have seen in rock formations. And within these layers, there are distinct features, unique forms and particularities. I explored them all: every kind of thermal that each of the volcanoes created as it erupted, the strange columns of intensely heated air that soared, piling up marvelous thermal cushions. Between the top of the
column and the bottom was a region rich in coals and embers of all sorts. The fire columns were different from the fire whirls that were spinning vortexes of heated air. “Hot tornadoes” I called them. Not nearly as rich in coals. I learned the structure of flame, its flanks, the pressure created in the air surrounding it. There were cool gaps that offered quick flight paths to slower-moving embers.

Every night I learned more and came closer and closer to catching a coal on the fly. I had been studying the shape of the wind for more than a moon cycle when one night toward dawn I was hovering in the bottom layer of a thermal cushion, my eyes scanning the fountain of coals that was bubbling at the top of the column. I could not go for them all. I knew I must focus on one, draw a bead on it. And so I did. In that moment, I was flooded with confidence. It was as if a pathway opened up leading directly to that coal. I plunged out of the thermal cushion and into the top of the column. My beak clamped down. It did not even burn. I had it!

“Bonk!” came a cry from below. It was Fengo howling for joy. I had no idea what this word “bonk” meant. Fengo leaped high into the air, his shaggy silver coat tinged orange in the reflected light of the fire and coals, and “bonk!” he howled again. When I asked him upon landing what the word meant, he said, “I don’t know. It just came
out.” This was the way it was sometimes when one felt joy, the words just streamed out. Sometimes they made sense, other times they did not. We both laughed and from that day on we called these coals “bonk coals.”

But I’ll never forget that moment when I landed with the coal in my beak and dropped it in front of him. He stared down at the coal, which pulsed with a heat that stirred the air into shimmering waves. Once more he leaped high into the air, the moon silvering his pelt, and began to howl that savage untamed song of wolves in the night. He called to me as he shot higher and higher with each exuberant leap. “Grank, you are indeed a hunter of coals, a collier.”

And so, though I had never before heard that word—collier—I knew what he said was right. I was indeed a collier. The
first
collier.

The finding of that bonk coal marked the beginning of a new phase of our education about fire. I was able to harvest a bountiful supply of coal, which provided us with a steady stream for our work. I learned not only how to fly those peculiar drafts of hot air but to follow the trajectories of the coals. I learned how to time their falls. We began building all sorts of fires and experimenting with rocks that bore traces of metal—and other things as well.
One night I had caught a small vole, and we decided just for the fun of it to try roasting the plump fellow. The burnt fur tasted awful but the meat was good, quite flavorful. So the next time I caught one, Fengo scraped off the fur so only the flesh was left. It was quite delicious. That was the beginning of all sorts of food experiments. But I have to say as flavorful as roasted meat was it went down rather dry. After a steady diet of it, I truly missed the blood.

Perhaps the most interesting experiments we tried with fire were those using sand. There was a particular kind of sand that could be found in the pits around the ring of volcanoes. When we heated it up to very a high temperature, curious transformations began. The bits of sand melted together and when it cooled became clear as the issen glossen or clear ice of the N’yrthghar. So we called it “glossen,” or simply “gloss.” Both of us were thrilled with this discovery, but for me, it also marked a strange interlude in my life. One for which I shall always feel deep shame. I cringe to think of it. But, Dear Owl, as a writer, I owe one thing to you, and that is complete honesty.

A
fter our discovery of gloss, Joss arrived with a message calling me back to the N’yrthghar. War had not broken out nor had peace been shattered. I was called to attend the annual lemming hunt held by Lord Arrin, a powerful lord in the Firth of Fangs whose allegiance was vital to the High King.

Lord Arrin’s realm was rich in issen blaue, a kind of ice that had many uses in the Northern Kingdoms, particularly for weapons. Also in the region of the Firth of Fangs, there was a preponderance of Great Snowy Owls who, as a breed, were particulary skillful fighters. Snowies were also known for their expertise in hunting lemmings; thus, the annual lemming hunt. So the Firth of Fangs was a region rich in resources vital to the High King. Add to this the additional fact that Lord Arrin himself was an owl of great vanity, and it would not do to offend him by not attending this event. I had secured for King H’rath the ice rights during the brief summer months when the issen
blaue could be harvested. Each year these rights had to be renewed. It was always a delicate negotiation, and I was the chief negotiator.

So, as much as I hated to leave the Beyond, there was little choice. Too much was at stake. And, in truth, the lemming hunt was fun, for it was not all just chasing after those stupid rodents. There were festivities and katabat dancing, a particular specialty of owls of the Northern Kingdoms, in which we danced in those boisterous winds unique to our kingdom.

Lord Arrin was a generous host as well, and the bingle juice always flowed. There were always troops of gadfeathers to entertain us. Gadfeathers were wandering owls who were looked down upon in general, and often scorned by owls for having no solid place to roost. They lived for the most part by begging or stealing. But they were wonderful musicians and made a festive addition to any celebration. Festooning themselves in molted feathers from other birds, lacing moss and berries through their primaries, they were about as gaudy as an owl could get. Wonderful katabat dancers, they were a delight to watch and they were legendary for their singing. The gadfeathers sang all sorts of songs, merry ones to accompany a jig on a katabat, or achingly tender ballads of love and wandering. To hear a gadfeather’s melodious voice singing
a ballad under the starry arc of a lofty summer sky is an unmatched experience. Though I knew I would miss my fire studies, I felt little regret leaving the Beyond to go to Lord Arrin’s lemming hunt in the Firth of Fangs.