And Soren simply did not know how to answer her, for, indeed, he had asked himself the same question so many times. Near daybreak, Primrose was sound asleep and Soren decided to make his way back to his own hollow. He meandered through the central hollow of the tree and more than once took a wrong turn that led down another pa.s.sageway. While wandering down a particularly twisty one, he met up with an elderly Spotted Owl.

"Ah, one of the new arrivals, part of that band that flew in from the Ice Narrows," she hooted softly.

"Yes, well, we don't come from the Narrows. We were blown off course. We'd left from The Beaks but somehowa"

"Oh, dearaYes, The Beaks, only for the strongest gizzards."

Soren blinked. Now what did she mean by that?

"I'm Strix Struma, here. Perhaps you need to sharpen your navigational skills. I am the navigation ryb. It's getting to be First Light, so I suggest you hasten to your hollow. And if you are very quiet, you shall hear the music of Madame Plonk's harp. It is lovely to go to sleep to and she has a fine voice."

"What's a harp? What's music?" Soren asked. He remembered the awful songs of St. Aggie's. Surely this must be different.

"Oh, dear. It's hard to explain. Listen and you'll begin to know."

When he got back to his hollow, they were all having cups of milkberry tea. "It's amazing, Soren," Gylfie said. "Nest-maid snakes brought the tea around on their backs."

"Yes, I really think there will be a place for me here, Soren. I think I can serve." Mrs. P. almost glowed as she said the word.

Everyone seemed quite content except for Twilight. "I didn't kill those two fiends of St. Aggie's, I didn't battle crows and tear out the throat of a bobcat to sit on my tail feathers and be served tea." Twilight seemed to swell to twice his size.

"Well, what can you do, Twilight?" Gylfie said.

"I think we have to have a word with the head owlsa"Boron and Barran. I don't think they know what real evil is. This border skirmish up there that they are talking abouta"it has nothing to do with St. Aggie's. You heard what little Miss Stuck-up Spotted Owl said. I don't think they know what they're in for. But we do!" He slid his yellow eyes about the hollow. "Right?"

"You mean the *You only wish'?" Digger whispered the words of the dying Barred Owl. They had never really spoken about the meaning of those words, but they knew that the Barred Owl had meant, in no uncertain terms, that there was something out there that was far worse than St. Aggie's.

"Yes," Soren said hesitantly. "Maybe we should go talk to the king and queen. But not now. It's daylight. Time to sleep."

The hollow was lined with the finest mosses and the fluffiest down. Soren made his way to a corner near the opening to watch the breaking dawn. The very last of the evening stars was just winking out and a lovely pink-ness began to spread in the sky. The immense gnarled limbs of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree stretched out and seemed to embrace the new day.

"This down," Soren whispered to Mrs. Plithiver, "reminds me of Mum."

"Oh, doesn't it, dear!" said Mrs. Plithiver, arranging herself into a neat coil in the same corner. Then, as the owls nestled down, the loveliest, most unearthly sounds began to pling softly through the Great Ga'Hoole Tree, and a voice began to sing.

Night is done, gone the moon, gone the stars From the skies.

Fades the black of the night Comes the morn with rosy light.

Fold your wings, go to sleep, Rest your gizzards, Safe you'll be for the day.

Glaux is nigh.

Far away is First Black, But it shall seep back Over field Over flower In the twilight hour.

We are home in our tree.

We are owls, we are free.

As we go, this we know Glaux is nigh.

Soren never remembered feeling so peaceful.

"Digger, Soren, Gylf, you asleep?" Twilight called.

"Almost, Twi," Digger and Soren replied.

"How soon do you think until we get our battle claws?"

"I have no idea, Twilight. But don't worry, good light," Soren replied sleepily.

"Good light, Twi," Digger said.

"Good light, Soren," Gylfie said.

"Good light, Gylf," Soren replied. And then added. "Good light, Mrs. Plithiver."

But Mrs. Plithiver was already sound asleep.

CHAPTER NINE.

A Parliament of Owls

The four owls were in the antechamber of another hollow called the parliament. They were waiting to be admitted for their meeting with Boron and Barran.

"Very important business inside, young'uns," an owl on guard spoke in the soft tings of a Boreal Owl.

"We won't take long," Gylfie said.

I hope not, thought Soren. He was frightened. The other three had decided that he should be the one to speak.

Another owl stuck her head out. "You can come in now. But be quiet and wait your turn."

She indicated a branch where they should perch. Soren looked about. It was not an especially large hollow, not nearly as big as the one in which they had first been welcomed by Boron and Barran. There were candles, of course, and there was one long white branch from a tree that Soren thought was called a birch that had been bent into a half circle. It was on this white branch that the owls of the parliament, no more than a dozen, perched. He recognized the elderly Strix Struma, the Spotted Owl he had met the night before. She perched next to a Great Horned Owl of an unusual ruddy color with even more unusual very black talons. Then there was an ancient and decrepit Whiskered Screech, who appeared to have the worst case of feather fletch Soren had ever seen. Not that he had seen all that many. The Whiskered Screech had a long bristly beard. One of his eyes seemed stuck in a perpetual squint, and his beak had a notch in it.

"I've never seen a more disreputable-looking owl," Gyl-fie whispered. "Great Glaux, look at his foot! His talons!" She paused. "Or lack of!" The Whiskered Screech, indeed, had only three talons on one foot. And just as Soren was blinking in a mixture of astonishment and horror, the old owl swung his head about and fixed Soren in his squinted gaze. Soren thought his gizzard was going to drop right out of him.

"So, Elvanryb," Boron turned and addressed another owl, a Great Gray. "It is your notion that we need to have a search-and-rescue attachment chaw on the colliering missions?"

"Not all, Boron. I think they are only necessary when we are in areas near battle zones. So often the parents are off fighting. In normal circ.u.mstances, the parents are there if a fire breaks out, but tonight, for instance, we had to pick up that little Pygmy and a Northern Saw-whet. We got them back, but it taxed our chaw, believe mea"carrying coals and injured owlets. Can't exactly drop them in the coal bucket. And I don't even like to think of the ones we might have missed and left behind."

The old Whiskered Screech raised his deformed foot.

"Yes, Ezylryb?" Boron nodded to the owl.

"Question for Bubo." the Whiskered Screech's voice was a low growl. "You think this fire was natural or more trouble with the rogue raids?"

"No telling, sir. The rogues make good targets, and it wouldn't be the first time raiding one caused a fire."

"Hmmm," the Whiskered Screech replied, and then scratched his head with the second of the three remaining talons of one foot.

"Next order of business," Boron said. "Something about starvation in Ambala?"

Ambala! Soren and Gylfie looked at each other. Ambala was where their friend the great Hortense came from. When they first had met Hortense at St. Aggie's, they thought she was the most perfectly moon-blinked creature ever. Moon blinking was perhaps the cruelest thing that St. Aggie's did to young owls. By forcing them to sleep during the full shines of the moon, directly exposing their heads to the moon's light, they destroyed the will, the very personalities of individual owls and made them perfectly obedient with no thoughts of their own. Soren and Gylfie had devised a plan for fooling the sleep monitors and escaping the full shine. It turned out so had Hortense. She, in fact, was an infiltrator and had been sneaking out the eggs that St. Aggie's patrols had been s.n.a.t.c.hing. Unfortunately, however, she was caught and killed. Still, they had heard that Hortense had become a legend in Ambala because of her heroic deeds.

"Yes," another owl was speaking now. "The egg production is down, and it is thought to be caused by a blight on the rodent population. Simply not enough food." Soren and Gylfie exchanged looks. It was not just the rodent population. It was the St. Aggie's egg s.n.a.t.c.hers. This was information they could offer. This might convince Boron and Barran that they really knew something.

"We'll look into it," Boron said. "And now, I believe some of our new arrivals have requested to speak with us." He turned and blinked at the four young owls.

Speak with us! What was he talking about? Soren was not prepared to talk in front of all these owls.

"Now who wants to go first?"

Twilight, Digger, and Gylfie all looked at Soren.

"Up here, young'un." There was a perch in the middle of the half circle to which Boron nodded.

Oh, my Glaux. I have to fly up and stand there all by myself. Soren was so much more comfortable sharing this lower perch with his friends. Great Glaux, he would be close enough to that weird owl Ezylryb to reach out and touch his three-taloned foot. Soren got a terrible queasy feeling, not in his gizzard but in his first stomach, the one before the gizzard. How embarra.s.sing if something just came up out of his gullet and went splat.

"Uhamy name is Soren. I am from the Forest of Tyto. I era" He and Gylfie had discussed how he should explain the events leading up to his s.n.a.t.c.hing by St. Aggie's. Gylfie felt it was not good to go into too much detail about Kludd actually shoving him from the nest. "Tales of attempted fratricide might not be the right way to start," Gylfie had said.

Of course, Soren hadn't known what fratricide was until Gylfie explained it meant killing your brother. Then he agreed with her. He certainly didn't want the owls of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree to think he came from such a murderous family. Kludd was the only one, after all. "I was s.n.a.t.c.hed by a St. Aggie's patrol. It was at St. Aggie's that I met Gylfie."

It was difficult at first to speak and not look at Ezylryb's mangled foot, but as he spoke, Soren became more relaxed. The owls seemed attentive but not particularly impressed, not even when he told them about Hortense and that it was not simply starvation that was accounting for the low egg counts in Ambala.

"And so?" Barran said when Soren appeared to have concluded.

"And so what?" Soren asked.

"What is it you want, dear?"

"The four of us are a band. We have flown together, fought together, and escaped many dangersa"as a band. We know from our experience that there is great evil that threatens every owl in every owl kingdom on earth. We want only to fight this evil, to become guardian knights of this order." He saw Ezylryb stifle a yawn and pick up what appeared to be a dried caterpillar to munch. "We feel that we have special knowledge. We have much to offer," Soren concluded.

"I am sure you do," said Boron. "Every owl here has special knowledge and, during your training, you will find out what your talents are. You will, after proper instruction, be chosen for a chaw and then your learning will, indeed, advance to a higher level, become more specialized." He explained why they probably would not be put into the same chaws, even though they were a band. "We do not all need to learn the same things. Each of you will make your band better in the end if you learn different skills. And this all takes time."

Soren felt Twilight rustle behind him. He knew it was Twilight without even flipping his head for a look. He also felt that the old owl, Ezylryb, despite his yawning and munching, was looking at him sharply. Indeed, he felt locked in that old owl's sights. He might as well be a mouse scuttling across a forest floor about to be pounced on by a bird of prey. It was as if that little sc.r.a.p of amber that glimmered through the squinty eye had trapped him. He had never felt such a penetrating, piercing look and yet to the other owls of the parliament it did not appear as if Ezylryb was regarding him at all. Rather, it seemed as if he was bored silly with the young Barn Owl.

Boron continued to speak, "It takes time, of which I think you have an abundance. It takes patiencea"and that, I am not sure how much you have and, most important, it takes dedication and that, young'un, is found both in the heart and the gizzard. The n.o.bility of the owls you see here in the parliament has not simply been given, nor has it been earned through courageous acts. Indeed, n.o.bility is not always found in the flash of battle claws or flying through the embered wakes of firestorms, or even in making strong the weak, mending the broken, vanquishing the proud, or making powerless those who abuse the frail."

Soren's gizzard grew quiet as Boron spoke. "It is also found in the resolute heart, the gizzard that can withstand the temptations of false dreams, the mind that has the imagination to comprehend another's pain, as I think one young owl did tonight when he sat by the little Pygmy Owl with quiet understanding of her loss of tree, nest, family, and egg. It is all of this that ultimately confers n.o.bility and makes the Guardians of Ga'Hoole rise in the night with hearts sublime." Boron paused and looked at the other three owls. "And so as I said when you arrived, one journey has ended and now another starts. On the night of the morrow your training shall begin."

CHAPTER TEN.

Twilight on the Brink

Dawn is the thief of night, and the night is when owls stir and become alive, when they fly. So the day that follows that dawn is only for sleeping, to prepare for the night. For some, however, the day feels like an eternity. And for the four young owls the night to come, the morrow night of their training, was still hours away.

Perhaps it had been a mild twinge in Soren's gizzard or a faint stirring in his heart, but sometime near midday, while the hollow was thick with sleep, the young Barn Owl sensed that something was slightly amiss, perhaps incomplete. It was not the feeling of dreadful cold fear that could steal into one's gizzard and make one's wings go yeep. No, not that at all, but something was not right. Soren's eyes blinked open, and in the dim milky light of the day that filtered into the hollow he saw only two other owls. Twilight was gone!

Soren blinked again. Was he really gone? In the flick of a wing, Soren had lofted onto the rim of the hollow. Every limb of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree stood out keen and black against the dull winter sky. Shadows were cast with sharp edges. There was, however, one long shadow stretched between the thick, gnarled branches of the tree, swelling like a dark cloud dropped down from above. That shadow was Twilight's. The Great Gray was perched on one of the less public takeoff branches. Soren flew up.

"What are you doing, Twilight?" Soren spoke softly.

"Thinking."

That was a good sign. Twilight was a creature of action, of instinct. Not to say that the Great Gray Owl was stupid. He just acted out of an incredibly honed instinct and rarely meditated. "Thinking of leaving," Twilight added in a flat, dull voice.

"Leaving?" Soren was stunned. "But we're a band, Twilight."

"We're not a band, Soren. Boron and Barran said as much."

"They didn't exactly say we're not a band, Twilight."

"I think that is exactly what they meant. They said it was highly unlikely that any of us would be chosen for the same chaw. They said it was not the Ga'Hoolian way. In other words, they are separating us."

"They are separating us only for the chaws and that's because they want us all to learn different things. That doesn't mean we're not a band. A band isn't just perching side by side, or even flying side by side all the time."

Twilight blinked. "Well, what is it, then?"

Soren paused. This was hard. Maybe he wasn't quite sure what a band was. But no, that wasn't right. In his gizzard he knew they were a band. "We are a band despite what any owl says or does. In our gizzards, we are a band and we feel that. It cannot be undone. We are what we are and I know it and you know it and we all know ita"even they know it."

Twilight dropped his eyelids so that they were only glinting slits of gold.

He's going to tell me about the Orphan School of Tough Learning. I just know it, Soren thought.