Bubo pointed a talon at the whirlygla.s.s. "Those bright pieces came from what was called a window in something called a church."

"Churches!" Soren exclaimed. "I know about them. And that's stained gla.s.s from their windows! Barn Owls used to live in churches."

"Certainly did. Some still do, live in churches and barns as well, and even castles."

"Castlesa"what's a castle?"

"Well, it ain't a church and it ain't a barn, but it's a big old fancy thing made from big stones, towers, walls, one of them things that the Others made."

Soren had heard of the Others but he was never exactly sure what the Others were, except that they definitely were not owls, or birds, or really any other living thing that he had ever seen. And, for that matter, they were no longer living. They were creatures from long, long ago, maybe in the time of the first Glaux. Glaux was the most ancient order of owls from which all other owls descended.

"Castles," Soren said dreamily. "Sounds exciting, beautifula"very grand."

"Oh, grand indeed. But you ask me, no owl, Barn Owl or not, belongs in a church or a barn or a castle. Better life in a tree."

"But you live in a cave."

"That's different."

"I don't see why."

Bubo squinted one eye at Soren as if studying him more closely. "Got a lively mind, don't you, lad?"

"I don't know." Soren shrugged self-consciously.

Then, as if trying to change the direction of the conversation, Bubo said abruptly, "Don't you want to know about gla.s.s?" Soren nodded again. "Well," continued Bubo, "the churches and castles, they have these windows made of gla.s.s and they colored the gla.s.s."

"Oh, I read about that in a book in the library."

"Yes, they made it all pretty. Well, Mags the trader, she knows where there are a lot of broken-down old churches with smashed-up windows. Leave it to a magpie to find such bits, but that's their nature and she knows Plonkie."

Plonkie! Soren thought, They must have been close!

"Plonkie has a weakness for all these colored bits and things. So Mags always brings a bagful with her here when she comes to trade. Plonk thought this place needed brightening up"a"Bubo gestured around the cave with his talonsa""so she made me this whirlygla.s.s. Plonk has a number of them in her apartmentsa"as she call her placea"ridiculous name, if you ask me."

It did brighten it up, but Soren couldn't help but ask another question. "Don't you miss living in a tree? I mean, it's not like you were born a Burrowing Owl used to living in holes. Don't you miss the sky?"

Soren thought of his own hollow that he shared with Gylfie and Twilight and Digger. There was an opening just the shape of an owl's beak through which they could glimpse the sky. So during the day there was always a pretty slice of blue in their hollow and when they came back from night flights before the dawn rose, it perfectly framed the last of the evening stars. They could feel the wind and hear the stirring of the milkberry vines. Soren did not think he would like living in a cave.

"I warn't born a Burrowing Owl, that's the truth. I be a Great Horned, and it ain't customary for any Great Horned to go about life in a cave. But you see, I be a smith. It's in my gizzard, this feeling for the metals." He gestured toward his bookshelf that indeed had many books about metals and forging. "And we smiths, no matter if we're Great Grays or Great Horneds or Snowies or Spotted Owls, get these special feelings in the old gizzard, you know. We fly, yes, we love the sky, but we is drawn to the earth as wella"not like the Burrowing Owls, not the same thing at all. It be a strange and most peculiar force. It's as if all these years working with the iron, we get a bit of the magnet in us, you know. Like them special metals, you know, iron. It's got what we call a field. Well, you'll be learning this in metals cla.s.s, in higher magnetics, where all the unseeable parts are lined up. It makes this force that draws youa"same thing with mea"I get drawn to the very earth from which them little flecks of iron come from."

"Flecks!" Soren nearly screamed. Flecks were part of Soren's worst memories from St. Aggie's.

"What's a matter, boy? You gotta yarp? Go right ahead. We ain't formal around here."

"At St. Aggie's, they made us pick apart pellets for bones and things and then something they called *flecks.' Only first-degree pickers could pick for flecks."

"You don't say?" Bubo blinked his eyes.

"But Gylfie and I never knew what flecks were. And, of course, we could never ask. But we did know they were kept in the library."

"Odd place to keep iron."

"Is that what flecks area"iron?"

"Yes, in their smallest bits, but better if you can find a nice big hunk of iron ore, just like if you can find a nice hunk of silver or gold in a creek. The metals chaw brought me back a very handsome piece of gold the other day. Wouldn't you know Plonk spotted me with it practically as soon as they lit down and was all over me to make something for her. *Course Boron and Barran will have a thing or two to say *bout that. Silver, gold, that is all kept for the whole tree and not for one vain old Snowy with a taste for the glitter." He made the soft churring sound of laughter. "Speaking of which, Plonk's going to start singing good light any minute. You better fly on up to your hollow. A lot to do tomorrow. Elvan thinks you'll be ready to fly with the coals. Now you pay attention, son. Don't go smacking into Otulissa like you nearly did in practice." Then he squinted at Soren. "You know, not everyone is chosen to be double chawed like you. Boron and Barran must think you got something special. And Ezylryb, too."

"But why me? I don't get it. I'm not that special."

"Oh, but you are. You had the mark on you."

"The mark on me? What are you talking about?"

"Ezylryb spotted it. None of the rest of us could see it, of course. He got something special with that squinted eye of his. You'd been messing about with coalsa"hadn't you, lad? Ain't nothing to be ashamed of. Good Glaux, no! Flew with one, maybe?" Bubo c.o.c.ked his head and looked quizzically at Soren.

"I did, but I washed off the smudge."

"Ah, but you still be marked. Only none else can see it, except Ezylryb. He's a tough one, Ezylryb. And smart! Smartest owl in the whole place. He wouldn't just choose any old owl. He wanted you, mark or no mark. So you be all you can be, Soren."

Be all you can be. What exactly did that mean? Especially when he wasn't even sure what he wanted to be, except not in a double chaw with Otulissa and have Ezylryb as his ryb. Soren kept thinking of Bubo's words long after Madame Plonk's song had ended, and Twilight and Gylfie and Digger were asleep. Or at least he thought so. But just then he heard the slightly raspy voice of Digger curling through the milky light that slipped in through the opening of their hollow.

"Soren, are you all right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I'm just worried about you. I mean, you've been so quiet since the tapping, and you didn't come to tea, and all."

"Well, don't worry, Digger, it's not your problem."

"But it is."

"No, it's not, Digger. You worry too much. You just need to worry about yourself. Not me. That's not your job."

"It's not a job, Soren," Digger said with a slight edge in his voice. "It is what I am."

"Now what do you mean by that?"

"Well, you might think I'm only a Burrowing Owl, you know, perfect for tracking with my long strong legs, but I am more than just this bunch of feathers and bare legs. I can't explain it. I just feel things. And right now I am feeling very sorry, very bad for you."

Soren blinked. He thought about what Digger had just said. It made him think of his conversation with Bubo, who had, in a sense, said the same thing. When he asked Bubo why he lived in a cave, he said that he was not simply a Great Horned Owl. In other words, Bubo, like Digger, was not just a bunch of feathers on a pair of legs, weak or strong, with a pair of wings. He was something more, and it was this that had drawn him to a cave in the earth to live, closer to the metals he knew and worked with. Maybe this was what Bubo had meant when he told Soren to be all he could be. Maybe it had something to do with an owl's true nature that went beyond his or her species as a Barn Owl or a Burrowing Owl. Soren's head swirled with these confusing thoughts.

Then Digger asked a truly astounding question. "Soren, what do you think it means to be an owl?"

"I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure what you mean."

"I'm not sure, either," Digger said. "But it's just as if it is so easy to describe us. You know, there are so many things that we have that are different from other birds, but do you really think that is the meaning of being an owl? Just because our heads can spin nearly all the way around, that we can see what other birds cannot at night, that we fly slow and silenta"is it just these differences that make us owls?"

"Digger, why do you ask these questions? They're impossible to answer."

"Maybe that's why I ask thema"because they are impossible to answer. It's kind of exciting. It means that there can be unexpected truths and meanings to why we are what we are. You seea"that is why I know I am much more than strong legs and weak wings. And you are, too, Sorena"you are more than your lovely white face and your sharp ears that can hear anything and your strange black eyes."

Digger was a curious owl. There was certainly no doubt about it. Soren looked out the opening into the last of the morning as it began to blare into the lightness of midday. If, indeed, what Digger said was truea"that there were unexpected truths and meanings to be found, Soren wondered what that might mean for him. He looked at his friends sleeping peacefully now: Twilight, huge, a luminous silvery gray in the morning light; Gylfie, like a little dusty smudge not much longer than one of Twilight's talons; and Digger, his peculiar, featherless legs, long and sinewy, his stubby tail, and his rather flattish head.

Soren remembered when, in antic.i.p.ation of going to the Great Ga'Hoole Tree, he and Gylfie imagined it as just the opposite of St. Aggie's, but it was really much more. And maybe he could become more, too. The beak-shaped opening in the hollow flared white in the noonday sun as Soren finally fell asleep.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

The Voices in the Roots

Psstapssst," something hissed in Soren's ear. "Gylfie, what are you doing up at this hour? It's broad daylight. Are you yoicks?"

"Not at all." Soren could see that Gylfie was practically hopping up and down with excitement. "Soren, there's a very important meeting going on in the parliament hollow."

"So?"

"Soren, I think they are talking about the Barred Owl and"a"Gylfie gulped and shut her eyes tighta""andaanda" Gylfie was seldom at a loss for words. "The *you only wish.'"

Soren was suddenly fully awake. "You're kidding."

"I wouldn't kid about something like this, Soren, and you know it."

"How do you know this? I mean, how did you find out? Were you in the meeting?"

Gylfie blinked and looked down at her tiny talons in embarra.s.sment. "Look, I know it's not nice to eavesdrop, but I couldn't sleep and you know how Cook always says come down to the kitchen if we can't sleep and she'll make us a nice cup of milkberry tea. So I went down, and on my way back I just thought I'd take a different route, so I followed one of those deep inner pa.s.sageways that is very winding and pretty narrow, and it actually started to go down instead of up toward the sleeping hollows. There's a spot where something happens to the timber of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree. It is very thin, and I could hear voices, and then I found this perfect slot that is just Elf Owl size."

"Do they have one just Barn Owl size?" Soren interrupted.

"Maybe. There's an even better one my size higher up, but I would need a perch."

"At your service, Gylf!" Twilight was suddenly awake. "What a team we'll make. On the shoulders of giants, the little Elf will bring back the word!"

"Twilight, puhleeze!" Soren said.

"Why not? Makes perfect sense."

"Well, I might not be a giant like you, but I can hear better than any of you. I'm going, too. So count me in," said Soren.

"Me, too." Digger was stretching his legs and seemed at least half awake.

"Do you even know what we're talking about?" Gylfie turned to the Burrowing Owl.

"No, but we're a band, remember? n.o.body gets left out. Fill me in on the way to whatever we're doing."

And so the band of four, as quietly as possible, moved out of their hollow with Gylfie in the lead. They left by the sky opening and flew a quarter way down the tree, where they entered a very small opening that Gylfie had discovered, which twisted and turned, pitched and curled through the huge trunk of the tree, until they had wound around to the back side of the Parliament hollow and found themselves actually slightly beneath that hollow, in the root structure of the tree. It was not that the walls were thin, Soren soon realized. It was rather that the roots of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree were transmitting the sounds.

Gylfie hopped on Twilight's shoulders and Soren pressed one ear to a root, as did Digger.

"And so you say, Bubo, that no trace of the dear Barred Owl was found? Our n.o.ble servant perished in the region of The Beaks?"

The four eavesdropping owls blinked and suppressed gasps of astonishment. It had to be the same owl. It just had to. Soren pressed his ear closer.

"Not rightly sure if he exactly perished, Boron. I mean he mightn't be dead. He might just be captured."

"By St. Aggie's patrols ora" Now all four owls strained to hear, but they could not make out what Boron had said. Indeed, it seemed as if there was a little hole in the conversation, as if a word had dropped out, perhaps a word too awful to say. Soren wasn't sure. But he felt a chill run through him.

"Either way it's a bad piece of work." It was Ezylryb's voice. Soren could tell.

"We done lost one of our best slipgizzles and a darned fine smith as well, one of the best of the rogues." Bubo was speaking again.

What is a slipgizzle? Digger mouthed the words. Soren shrugged. He had never heard the word before. He might have heard the word "rogue" but he wasn't sure what that meant, either.

"Without a reliable slipgizzle," now Barran was speaking, "it's going to make it very difficult to get any information about their activities in The Beaks."

"It was a very strategic spot where he set up his forge."

So that was it! thought Soren. That cave that, as Digger had said, not only held the spirit of the Barred Owl within its walls, sooty and scorched by countless fires, but also was his forge. He was a blacksmith, like Bubo. But he was also something elsea"a slipgizzle. Gradually, the four owls began to understand that a slipgizzle was some sort of owl who listened hard and found out things.

"That old Barred had ears like a Barn Owl," Boron was saying. "We got more information from him than three other slipgizzles put together. And, as you said, my dear, his forge in The Beaks was ideally situated near the four points area where Ambala, The Beaks, Kuneer, and Tyto almost touch. Couldn't be better. Flew egg guard in Tyto, I hear. Trained up a bunch of young ones to go into Ambala when they were having the worst of their problemsaOh, my. Well, to the immediate business. We must not lose a moment in shoring up the four points region. We're going to need to cultivate a new slipgizzle, of course, but in the meantime we'll have to send out some egg patrols and a small reconnaissance team. Nothing too big. Don't want to attract undue attention. I don't need to tell you how dangerous it will be with the recent reports we've been getting. A lot of groundwork and, as you know, bobcats are numerous there."

"I'll go!" a voice said. Soren blinked. It was that old boring Ga'Hoology ryb.

"Count me in," said Bubo.

"And me." It was the voice of another owl that Soren didn't recognize.

"I think that's enough," Boron spoke in a low voice. "Bubo, you sure about going?"

"*Course I'm sure, sir. He was a smith."

"Yes, Bubo, I know that, but you are our only smith. If we lose youawell, where would we be?"

"I ain't going to get lost, sir. Ain't going to get captured. Ain't going to get eaten by a bobcat. You need me on this mission. I can see what happened in that cave. It takes a smith's eye and a smith's nose to figure something like this out. He couldn't have just vanished into thin air, and I don't believe the Barred could have been captured by St. Aggie's or them others. But there'll be clues."

Them others? It was so maddening, Soren thought. Who were they? Who exactly was the "you only wish" Barred Owl?

"Well," continued Boron, "that taken care of, I think the time has now come to honor our brother the Barred Owl, who had no name and elected never to live with us on this island in the middle of the sea, never to be embraced by the lovely ancient limbs of our Great Ga'Hoole Tree, but served as n.o.bly in his own peculiar way as any Knight of Ga'Hoole. Let us raise a flagon of milkberry mead and think gentle thoughts of this brave and n.o.ble owl who made safer the hollows and nestlings of so many other owls in the Kingdoms of Ambala, Kuneer, and Tyto. Slipgizzle beyond compare, artisan of metals, courageous defender against the growing tides of evil, a Glaux-blessed owl. Hear! Hear!"