"This is worse than being moon blinked," Soren whispered to Gylfie.

Gylfie didn't know what to say. She felt desperately sorry for Soren. She knew that Soren had missed Eglantine so fiercely. But to have her back like this was almost worse than not having her back at all. Gylfie, of course, would never dare say such a thing to Soren. Just then Otulissa peeked her head in.

"May I come in?"

"Sure," Soren said.

"Look, I've been in the library all this time working on Tyto research, to see if there is anything that would explain thisa"all of them being Tytos and babbling about Tytos, but I somehow got distracted and started looking at a book by a distinguished Spotted Owl that's about owls' brains and feelings and gizzards."

"Great Glaux," Twilight muttered and yarped a pellet out the hollow's opening. "No doubt a relative of yours, Otulissa."

"Well, possibly. There were many distinguished intellects in our ancestry and we do go back so far. Anyhow, in this book it says that your sister might be suffering from something he calls *gizzlemia.' It is a blankness of the gizzard. It is as if the gizzard is just walled off and nothing can get through, and because of this there is a malfunction in the brain as well."

"Well, that explains so much," Soren said sarcastically. "What in Glaux's name am I supposed to do about it?"

"Wellawell," Otulissa stammered. "I'm not sure. I just thought you'd like to know what's making her this way. It's not as if she doesn't want to remember you. She just can't help it," Otulissa said feebly. "IaI meanaI'm sure she loves you still." Soren stared at her with a hard glint. "Oh, dear. None of this is coming out right." Otulissa's eyes welled with tears. "I was just trying to be helpful."

Soren just sighed, turned away, and began to fluff up the bed they had made for Eglantine.

That day, as the darkness leaked away into the morning and the light of morning turned harsh in the glare of noon, in that hot slow time of the day when the silence pressed down despite the babble, Soren felt as lonely as he had ever felt in his life. Lonelier than that first frightening night on the ground when he had been pushed out of the nest by his brother, Kludd, lonelier than when he had been at St. Aggie's, lonelier than when he had almost given up on ever seeing any of his family again. This was the most excruciating loneliness he had ever imagined. Eglantine was here at last, but was she really?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

Trader Mags

Soren had been looking forward, it seemed forever, to the day that Trader Mags would come with her wares. But now it meant nothing to him. Still, there was certainly a buzz of excitement as they roused themselves at the end of the day in antic.i.p.ation of the magpie's arrival around twilight. Everyone was excited except for Soren and, of course, the nest-maids, who considered magpies among the worst of the wet p.o.o.pers, almost as bad as seagulls. He supposed he would go and drag Eglantine around, although he doubted it would mean anything to her. Mags would be showing her wares all evening, so there was no rush.

She was late and no one was more upset than Madame Plonk. From his hollow, Soren could hear her several branches above him on a lookout perch, waiting with other owls. "If that bird was ever on time in her life, I'll eat my harp!" Madame Plonk was fuming. "She has no sense of time. Here it is past twilight, nearly First Black." But suddenly, curling out of the night, came a lovely warbling sound.

"It's the carol!" someone shouted. And a cheer went up. Mags was approaching and her caroling threaded through the night. The warble of magpies was known as a carol and was like no other birdsong in the world. He heard the owls now, swooping down through the branches to the base of the tree where Mags would set up her wares. She came with several a.s.sistants, carrying baskets of her latest "collection," as she called her wares.

"Want to go down, Eglantine?" Soren said. Eglantine, of course, said nothing but got up and followed Soren. She had recovered her flight skills almost immediately and the two alighted on the ground together as Mags and her a.s.sistants spread out the collection.

There was a festive mood with much chattering and special treats that cook had whipped up. Bubo stomped forward and gave Mags a great hug with his wings that nearly knocked her over. Mags looked nothing like Soren had expected. Her feathers were mostly black and the sleekest, blackest black he had ever seen, but she did have some streaks of white feathers. Her tail was immensely long and, on this moonlit night, her black tail feathers had a greenish gloss. She wore a jaunty bandanna on her head. "More where these came from, my dears!" she squawked. Soren could have been knocked over by that squawk. How could the same throat that produced that lovely carol be squawking as raucous as a seagull?

"Come on up, don't be shy," Mags said. "Bubbles, Bubbles!" she squawked at a smaller magpie. "Where're them sparklies I got at the whatchamacallit for Madame? You know the ones. And I got you some nice velvet, dear," nodding to Madame Plonk, "ever so squashy. Ta.s.sels, ta.s.sels anyone? Tie some crystals to them and yeh got yerself a charming windchimeaBubbles! Get them crystals out here on the double! I tell you, Boron, you can't get a good apprentice these days. I mean one would think that to serve Mags the Trader, known from here toTyto, from Kuneer to Ambala, would be enough incentive, if you catch my drift, but no. How's the missus, now where she be?"

"Away," Boron said cryptically.

The little black eye almost covered by the bandanna gave a quick piercing stare. "Oh," she said. Then muttered to herself as Boron walked away. "I just mind me own business. I don't ask no questions, don't b.u.t.t my beak in where it ain't wanted."

"Ha!" Bubo laughed. "If that ain't a pile of yarped pellets."

"Oh, scram, Bubo," she replied merrily. "Get out of here with your yarping pellet talk. Remember, we're not fit to a.s.sociate with you, we wet p.o.o.pers."

"Now, Maggie. I ain't no sn.o.b and you know it. I never held that against you. I mean, you're different from seagulls, sweet gizzard."

"Don't you go *sweet gizzarding' me, Bubo. And I'll say we're different from seagulls. About twice as smart and ten times prettier. Not as pretty as Madame Plonk, though, in that gorgeous tapestry piece I found for her." She flew over and began to help Madame Plonk arrange it more artfully on her high white shoulders.

Soren felt Eglantine flinch. "You okay, Eglantine?" She said nothing but he noticed that she had turned toward Madame Plonk, who was admiring herself in a fragment of mirror that Mags had brought.

They had moved on. Walking along, they looked at other simpler cloths that had been spread with a variety of itemsa"a bright pocket watch, several broken saucers with a sign that said "mendable," a strange flower that Soren paused to look at. "It ain't real," the little magpie, Bubbles, said.

"Well, if it isn't real, what is it?" Soren asked.

"It's an unreal flower," Bubbles answered.

"But why have an unreal flower?"

"It ain't never gonna die. Ya see?"

Soren didn't see but moved along. Despite all the merriment, he noticed that Boron and Strix Struma were always huddled together in tense conversation. They seemed, in fact, very apart from the entire festive spirit of the evening.

Soon Soren and Eglantine joined Twilight and Digger and Primrose. Primrose had traded one of her strung milkberry bracelets for a tiny comb. And Digger had traded a very smooth pebble for a sh.e.l.l. "They say it comes from a very faraway ocean and that once a tiny animal lived inside it," he explained.

The moon was beginning to slip away, and Mags had begun to pack up her wares. It would be time for good light, but suddenly Soren noticed that Eglantine was not by his side. He had a terrible moment's panic but then spotted her standing rigidly in front of a cloth covered with fragments of gla.s.s and pretty stones. Bubbles was packing up. "She ain't moved an inch," Bubbles said. "Just staring at this stone here, with the sparkles. Ain't really gold, Mags saysa"just little bits of something she calls isingla.s.s, some calls it mica. But makes a right pretty rock. Kind of sparkly in places and, if you hold it up, light can shine through it a bit. It's kind of like a dusty mirror. Certainly caught your sister's fancy. There be something wrong with her, I s'pose?" she said quietly to Soren. "Here, dear, I'll show you something real pretty we can do with it." She picked up the stone, which was as thin as a blade. "See what it does now." She held it up to the moon as it swept down on the dark horizon. When the light of the moon touched the stone it grew luminous. At that very same moment, the harp could be heard as the guild began their evening practice. No one else noticed, of course, but for one fraction of a second the stone blade shimmered in a swirl of flickering light and sound.

Eglantine began to shake uncontrollably. "The Place! The Place!" Eglantine screamed.

Something started in a dim way to make sense to Soren. He put a talon on his sister's shoulder and spun her around to face him. "Eglantine," he said softly.

His sister blinked. "Soren? Oh, Soren!" she cried as he swept her under his wings.

"I ain't done nothing, Mags, I swear. Nothing." Bubbles was crying and sputtering in near hysterics. "I just held up this here piece of gla.s.s we got from that castle over in Am-bala and she done gone yoicks."

"Take me to the music, Soren. Take me to the music. Take us all to the music," Eglantine cried.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

In the Folds of the Night.

Soren perched on a slender branch next to Eglantine. He draped one wing over her shoulders. It seemed like a miracle. His sister was backa"really back. And now she said they must listen to the harp music. If she had told him to hang upside down and be mobbed by crows, he would have. He had never been happier in his life. The other owlets that had been rescued were now gathering on the limbs outside the concert hollow. Madame Plonk rarely allowed owls to observe harp practice but she made an exception now. Boron came and perched on the other side of Eglantine. They all watched as the nest-maid snakes of the guild gathered at the harp and took their positions. Half of the guild snakes played the higher strings and the other half played the lower strings, and then there were a very few, the most talented harp snakes, that were called sliptweens. The job of the sliptweens was to jump octaves. An octave contained all eight tones of the scale. This harp had six and a half octaves, from C-flat below middle C to the G-flat. G-flat was three and a half octaves above middle C. To find a snake that could do that jump and do it well in a split second, causing the most beautiful liquid sound to pour from the harp, was rare. And it could be exhausting work, depending on the composition.

Mrs. P. was a natural sliptween. And Soren now blinked as he saw a pink streak pa.s.s through the strings of the harp and a beautiful sound drifted into the air. It was Mrs. P. Then, in a flash, she was back in her original position, weaving ba.s.s notes. It was lovely to watch. Not only was the music magnificent but the snakes themselves, in their varying hues of rosy pinks, wove a continually shifting pattern as they shuttled through the strings of the harp.

They were now playing an old forest cantata. And Madame Plonk's voice blended perfectly with the sounds of the harp.

Soren looked at Eglantine. She had a relaxed, dreamy look in her eyes. All of the rescued owlets seemed different now. There was not one clack of a babbling beak. The owls were silent and happy.

Boron had been watching them all from a higher perch. He was deeply perplexed. Happy, of course, that all the owls they had rescued had stopped their babbling. But mystified as to how it had happened. Beyond Hoole, he sensed that there was a danger lurking that was worse than the owls of St. Aggie's. And why had Ezylryb not returned yet? Barran had come back during the harp practice, but she was surprised that Ezylryb was not yet back. She thought he had a head start on her. "Don't worry, dear. He'll show up."

Soren looked at Boron and Barran. Despite their words, they did seem worried. And Soren himself had a funny feeling in his gizzard. Gylfie suddenly turned to him.

"I think they're worried about Ezylryb."

Soren blinked. "Maybe tomorrow we should go out and take a look."

Twilight and Digger alighted at that moment next to them on the branch.

"Take a look?" Digger asked. "A look for what?"

"Ezylryb," Twilight said. "I heard them talking, too."

There was a sudden pulsing of light in the sky and then a gasp from all the owls as a radiance swept the black night.

"What is it? What is it?"

"Oh, great Glaux, we are blessed!" hooted Barran.

"It is the Aurora Glaucora," Boron sang out.

Soren, Gylfie, Digger, Twilight, and Eglantine all looked at one another. They had no idea what Barran and Boron were talking about. But the sky seemed rinsed with colors, colors that streamed like banners through the night. Suddenly, Madame Plonk abandoned her perch by the harp and flew out into the brilliance of the night. Still singing, she swept through the long lances of light, her white body reflecting the colors. It was irresistible. Soren remembered that morning months ago when he and Madame Plonk had flown through the rainbow. But the rainbow was pale next to these pulsing banners of light that draped the sky. His worries about Ezylryb grew dimmer as the colors grew brighter. The sky beckoned, the shimmering light drew them. But there was a strangeness to it all. He felt a shudder deep in his gizzard. Behind those banners of throbbing light he knew there was blackness. Ezylryb was still missing, St. Aggie's was still a threat, and now there was the almost unthinkable, the nearly unspeakable "you only wish." Yes, Eglantine was back, but was she really back? Was it the same dear Eglantine? Soren felt as if he could no longer trust. For the world on this night had suddenly become too strange. It was as if everything had been turned inside out and the thing that owls called heaven, glaumora, had come down to Earth and swallowed the night. But this was not quite right, Soren thought. Just at that moment Eglantine swept in beside her brother.

"Isn't it beautiful, Soren? Isn't it just beautiful?"

"Just beautiful," Soren said absently.

But even as he spoke, he felt a strange dread in his gizzard. Well, he finally thought, Eglantine and I are together at last, and we need no colors, for just flying with her at my side is as good as glaumora on Earth. Tomorrow, yes tomorrow, I shall search for Ezylryb. Soren recalled the amber squint of the old Whiskered Screech's injured eye that indeed sparkled with the glint of deepest knowledge. But tonightaSoren and Eglantine tipped their white faces to the tinted sky and flew off into the painted night just as the GoldenTalons began to rise.

And yet the talons were no longer golden, just as the sky was no longer black.

THE OWLS and others from

GUARDIANS of GA'HOOLE.

The Journey.

SOREN: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, from the kingdom of the Forest of Tyto; s.n.a.t.c.hed when he was three weeks old by St. Aegolius patrols; escaped from St. Aegolius Academy for Orphan Owls His family: KLUDD: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, older brother EGLANTINE: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, younger sister NOCTUS: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, father MARELLA: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, mother His family's nest-maid: MRS. PLITHIVER, blind snake GYLFIE: Elf Owl, Micrathene whitneyi, from the desert kingdom of Kuneer; s.n.a.t.c.hed when she was three weeks old by St. Aegolius patrols; escaped from St. Aegolius Academy for Orphan Owls; Soren's best friend TWILIGHT: Great Gray Owl, Strix nebulosa, free flyer, orphaned within hours of hatching DIGGER: Burrowing Owl, Speotyto cunicularius, from the desert kingdom of Kuneer; lost in desert after attack in which his brother was killed and eaten by owls from St. Aegolius BORON: Snowy Owl, Nyctea scandiaca, the king of Hoole BARRAN: Snowy Owl, Nyctea scandiaca, the queen of Hoole MATRON: Short-eared Owl, Asio flammeus, the motherly caretaker at the Great Ga'Hoole Tree STRIX STRUMA: Spotted Owl, Strix occidentalis, the dignified navigation ryb (teacher) at the Great Ga'Hoole Tree ELVAN: Great Gray Owl, Strix nebulosa, the colliering ryb (teacher) at the Great Ga'Hoole Tree EZYLRYB: Whiskered Screech Owl, Otus trichopsis, the wise weather-interpretation ryb (teacher) at the Great Ga'Hoole Tree; Soren's mentor POOT: Boreal Owl, Aegolius funerus, Ezylryb's a.s.sistant BUBO: Great Horned Owl, Bubo virginia.n.u.s, the blacksmith of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree MADAME PLONK: Snowy Owl, Nyctea scandiaca, the elegant singer of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree OCTAVIA: Madame Plonk's blind nest-maid snake TRADER MAGS: Magpie, a traveling merchant OTULISSA: Spotted Owl, Strix occidentalis, a student of prestigious lineage at the Great Ga'Hoole Tree PRIMROSE: Pygmy Owl, Glaucidium gnoma, rescued from a forest fire and brought to the Great Ga'Hoole Tree the night of Soren and his friends' arrival MARTIN: Northern Saw-whet Owl, Aegolius acadicus, rescued and brought to the Great Ga'Hoole Tree the same night as Primrose RUBY: Short-eared Owl, Asio flammeus; lost her family under mysterious circ.u.mstances and was brought to the Great Ga'Hoole Tree

A peek at.

THE GUARDIANS of GA'HOOLE.

Book Three: The Rescue.

The dawn bled into night, faying the darkness, turning the black red, and Soren, with Digger by his side, flew through it.

"Strange isn't it, Soren, how even at night the comet makes this color?"

"I know. And look at those sparks from the tail just below the moon. Great Glaux, even the moon is beginning to look red." Digger's voice was quavery with worry.

"I told you about Octavia. How she thinks it's an omen, or at least I think she thinks it is, even though she won't really admit it."

"Why won't she admit it?" Digger asked.

"I think she's sensitive about coming from the great North Waters. She says everyone there is very superst.i.tious, but I don't know, I guess she just thinks the owls here will laugh at her or something. I'm not sure."

Suddenly, Soren was experiencing a tight, uncomfortable feeling as he flew. He had never felt uncomfortable flying, even when he was diving into the fringes of forest fires to gather coals on colliering missions. But, indeed, he could almost feel the sparks from that comet's tail. It was as if they were hot sizzling points pinging off his wings, singeing his flight feathers as the infernos of burning forests never had. He carved a great downward arc in the night to try to escape it. Was he becoming like Octavia? Could he actually feel the comet? Impossible! The comet was hundreds of thousands, millions of leagues away. Now, suddenly, those sparks were turning to glints, sparkling silvery-gray glints. "Flecks! Flecks! Flecks!" he screeched.

The Guardians of Ga'Hoole.

Book One: The Capture.