Guardians of Ga'Hoole

by Kathryn Huang

  “Tonight, they go to their true owner.” Lyze laid the battle claws at my feet. “I’m proud of you, Ifghar.”

  “Thank you, Lyze.” I managed to say as I tried to hold back tears.

  How could I have been angry with him? How petty of me. He had watched out for me the best he could, yet I blamed him for my despair. No more. Tonight, I would vow to be happy for my brother, happy for him, and for Lil.

  “Where’s Lil?” I asked casually, hoping that my emotions would not betray me.

  “She’s home, resting. She has just laid an egg.”

  An egg! “That’s fantastic news!” I wrapped my wing around Lyze. And indeed, I was happy for them.

  I was put on medical leave to allow my wound to heal. My new battle claws hung on a peg in my hollow, unused. My injury was a bit more serious than I had originally thought. I was barely able to fly, so I spent most of my waking hours reading and writing. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed that.

  The selection of books available to me at the base was limited. I asked Gragg to go to the Academy and bring me some fresh reading material. He brought back a lackluster selection, including a manual on battlefield recovery, a book on troop movement, and one on hunting in the desert. All boring stuff meant for cadets. Then, one book caught my attention: A Treatise on Unification and the Foundation for Peace in the Northern Kingdoms, by Bylyric. General Bylyric? Leader of the Ice Talons? The brutal tyrant and our most hated enemy? Writing about peace, of all things.

  I began reading.

  Some one hundred and seventy years ago, the Ice Talons sought to strengthen our region by unifying all the kingdoms of the Everwinter Sea. It was thought to be the start of a vigorous campaign to unify and centralize all the Northern Kingdoms. They were met with resistance by a few of its neighboring clans. The neighboring clans, including those on Stormfast Island and elsewhere in the Kiel Bay, began a resistance movement. The resistance was rooted in a desire to remain independent mainly in the area of trade.

  I had always been taught that the Ice Talons had started the war out of their desire to conquer. This was the first I had heard of an attempt at unification. I kept reading.

  The path to peace and prosperity has often been obscured by misinformation. What began as an earnest concern on the part of the resistance has become a faulty ideology. To achieve peace, this ideology must be defeated. A victory for the Ice Talons would lead to the stability and peace that the region desperately needs.

  The more I read, the more it all made sense. How many generations of owls have lived and died in the war? I thought of Lyze and Lil, and of their egg. I thought of Pa, whom I barely knew before war took him from us. I thought of Lysa, whom I never knew. I thought of the scores of owls I had killed and watched be killed. What was I really fighting for? I only fought because that was what owls did in the Bay of Kiel. It was as if a dense fog had suddenly cleared to reveal a sky full of stars. All these years, the Kielian League has sought victory while it should have sought peace.

  Lyze. I had to tell Lyze, he would understand.

  “Have you gone completely yoiks?” From the moment I told him of my plan, Lyze was outraged. “Bylyric is a tyrant and an oppressor!”

  Again and again I tried to make him see my point. “I know Bylyric has been ruthless in the past. But have you ever considered that he may be far-seeing as well? If we could only speak with him, off the battlefield…” My arguments had won over Gragg just the day before, but they were utterly ineffective at convincing Lyze.

  “No!” he barked. “What you’re suggesting is treasonous!”

  I was shocked and dismayed. How could my brother not see my logic, not even in the slightest? He was a reasonable owl, a bright owl. But at that moment, his pride and the strength of tradition overpowered all reason.

  “Please, Lyze. If we could only get our side to consider surrender. Then, we could live in peace for the first time in almost two hundred years,” I implored.

  “No! These tyrants have done us wrong, made life in the Bay of Kiel miserable for generations of owls. I will not surrender, and neither will any of my fellow warriors. They want to crush us, Ifghar! And I mean to obliterate them!”

  “Perhaps they want peace, too.”

  Lyze shook his head in disbelief. He turned to look at my battle claws. “I was wrong. You are not ready.” He removed them from their place above my nest in my hollow. “Not only are you not ready, you are not worthy of these. You have shamed yourself to our forefathers in glaumora.”

  With my battle claws in his beak, he flew out of my hollow.

  I began to pursue him. I wasn’t sure what I would do if I caught up to him. Would I fight him to reclaim my battle claws? Plead with him some more? Apologize and tell him that I was wrong? In the end, I never found out. My injury was still not completely healed, and I could not fly very quickly or very far. I lost him when I was forced to land in a fir tree, no longer able to continue.

  I fear that I have caused a rift between me and my brother that will be impossible to mend. I also fear that I am a part of a war that will never end. I do not take what I am about to do lightly. I know the consequences will likely be dire.

  Tomorrow, I will go to General Bylyric, alone. The next day, perhaps all of the Northern Kingdoms will have peace.

  Perhaps, for once, I will be the one watching out for my big brother.

  THE PLONK SINGERS AND HONEYVOX

  For as long as there have been owls at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, a singer from the renowned Plonk family has tolled the passage of daily life there. The Snow Rose was the very first of these singers. Once a gadfeather, she accepted Hoole’s offer to become the great tree’s resident singer, thus starting a tradition that has lasted a thousand years. Plonk, of course, was not the family name that the Snow Rose was born into. She chose to take the name as a way of marking the new chapter in her life. Plonk was derived from the Krakish word plonkvir, which means “enjoyment” and “delight.”

  The Plonk family of Snowy Owls, all descendants of the Snow Rose, have since flourished in the Northern and Southern kingdoms. They have sent singers to every community in every kingdom for generations. The most refined and most talented singer in each generation has always been chosen to reside at the great tree. Every one of these singers has been a fixture at the tree, and has

  brought much joy to the owls who have lived there. When an owl from another kingdom speaks of the splendid culture of Ga’Hoole, the Plonk singer is inevitably mentioned.

  Currently, the resident singer is Madame Brunwella Plonk. Of course, no one at the tree ever refers to her as “Brunwella,” she is simply “Madame Plonk.” I am not sure how that tradition started but it seems that all singers have been referred to only as “Madame Plonk” or “Sir Plonk” in person. I can only deduce that it was done as a sign of reverence. In the annals, their full names are used, but only to distinguish them from one another. I will do the same here.

  Madame Brunwella and I are as different as owls can be. She can be a bit, oh, how should I put it, ostentatious at times. What with her “apartments” and “whirlyglass” and other doodads…why, I cannot help find some of those things appallingly vulgar.

  But, at the great tree, we are free to live as we wish. And it’s her choices that make her the owl she is. I appreciate our differences almost as much as I appreciate her songs. Her voice and her harp have gently lulled me to sleep on many mornings ever since I was a mere owlet. I am glad to have her at the tree, despite her flaws.

  Before Madame Brunwella Plonk, scores of Plonk Snowies have graced the tree. And each has enriched the tree in his or her own way.

  It was Madame Cornelia Plonk who first brought the great grass harp to the tree. No one is quite sure who built it or where it came from (I plan to make this the topic of one of my research projects in the future), but it was instantly loved by every owl who heard it. The sound it makes is sweet, yet haunting; soft, yet resounding. The instrument is strung with different leng
ths of various types of grasses. Long, wide blades can be found in the lower octaves, while only the thinnest reeds are used in the highest octave. Today, the harp can be found in the gallery of the Great Hollow, where it can be heard from anywhere in and around the tree.

  Marthe, Madame Cornelia’s nest-maid snake, quickly became a harp virtuoso. She would weave through the strings so effortlessly that it seemed as if she and the harp shared a soul. She and Madame Cornelia complemented each other perfectly—the sound of the Snowy’s voice and the music of the harp melded together to create something much greater than the sum of its parts. Marthe was also the celebrated founder of the harp guild. Not only did she teach other nest-maid snakes to play the harp, she invented a way for multiple snakes to weave through the harp’s strings at once so that a beautiful harmony emanated from the instrument, stirring listeners’ deepest feelings. Since Marthe’s time, hundreds of nest-maid snakes have been a part of the illustrious harp guild, the most artistic and prestigious of the snake guilds. Our own Mrs. Plithiver, Soren’s family’s nest-maid snake, has continued the tradition. She has been an indispensable member of the guild for many seasons as the G-flat, and has attained the rarefied position of sliptween.

  Since the time of Hoole, no owl has challenged the supremacy of the Plonk singers of the great tree—except one.

  During an especially cruel winter, a Tropical Screech Owl, a stranger to the Guardians, came to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree to seek shelter from the harsh winds and relentless snow that had battered the land for weeks. The governing owls decided to allow him to stay a short while even though he was not requesting to become a Guardian, for it was the compassionate thing to do.

  The stranger was a singer who went by the name of Honeyvox, although he always introduced himself as “the World-renowned Honeyvox.”

  “Greetings and salutations! I am the World-renowned Honeyvox, but of course, you already knew that,” he’d say.

  Nobody at the great tree had ever heard of him.

  Honeyvox constantly boasted of having sung for all the birds in the land, eagles and whooper swans in the north, and some fantastical purple flamingos in the south. (Ridiculous, of course. We all know that flamingoes are pink).

  “The flamingo! Oh, Fernando—dear, dear Fernando. Lovely, lovely bird. Adored my rendition of the ‘New Moon Ballad,’ he did. Begged me to stay, absolutely begged, I tell you. ‘Oh, Honeyvox,’ he’d say, ‘how are we to live our lives without hearing your bewitching voice every day?’ Alas, I had to be quite firm with him, you see. I told him that I simply must go north to share my gift with other birds.

  “Ah, and I must tell you about Fiona and Dougal and their darling, darling cygnets. Those little ones…always trying to imitate me with their little ‘whoop-whoops.’ Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, you know. And then they’d giggle. Oh, I suppose they knew as well as I did that my voice cannot be emulated, and were simply laughing about their own effort. Why, they were always giggling when I was around. Just couldn’t get enough of me. I would have sung for them longer had they not flown off. Something about an early migration for the family that year, just upped and disappeared one day. Strange birds, migrators. Oh, but they must have been very sad that I could not go with them, I’m sure.”

  On and on Honeyvox went. He talked to any owl who would listen to him. Sometimes, he’d talk to no one at all. Honeyvox was also fond of bingle juice. This he made clear, having carried his own supply all through his difficult voyage.

  To most owls, especially those who knew anything about music, Plonk was a household name. But Honeyvox claimed that he had never heard of the famous singing family.

  “Plonk, you say? No, no, doesn’t ring a bell. Snowies, you say? With that ‘kroo-kroo kroo-kroo’ call, I never would have guessed that they made very good singers. Well, to each his own I suppose.”

  Sir Lucien Plonk, the well-loved singer of the tree at the time, was clearly offended. But being the dignified owl he was, he held his beak.

  The owls of Ga’Hoole listened to Honeyvox sing on many a night during his stay. He was grateful for the Guardians’ hospitality and insisted on showing his appreciation with the “gift of song.” He also insisted that the harp guild accompany him every time. Sir Lucien magnanimously agreed, even though the harp guild wasn’t too happy. He noted that, for such a small owl, Honeyvox did have a booming, though not especially refined, voice.

  Honeyvox sang so much and so often, that Sir Plonk was hardly able to get a single note in. The owls of the tree enjoyed Honeyvox’s singing for the first few days. It was a change of pace, after all. By the fifth night, however, the owls were clamoring for Sir Lucien Plonk to make his return. Honeyvox was singing the same two songs again and again. “That moon has dwenked already!” some owls would say under their breaths—one could only listen to the “New Moon Ballad” so many times, especially when the moon wasn’t even newing.

  On the seventh day of Honeyvox’s stay, the snowstorm finally let up. The owls of the great tree assumed that their visitor would be on his way as soon as weather permitted. Yet, Honeyvox lingered on. Days turned into weeks. He could always be found in the gallery of the great hollow, trying to get the harp guild to accompany him on one more song. “Play it again, nesties!” he’d say. He was a freeloader, everyone figured. But it was also clear that he had become enamored with the music of the great grass harp.

  One night, Honeyvox asked Sir Lucien to “talk shop” over a cup of milkberry tea.

  Honeyvox got right to the point, “Say, old Snow, I’ve come to fancy that harp of yours quite a bit, you see. Would you be disposed to selling it to me? Perhaps we could work out some sort of…arrangement. The other owls don’t have to know.”

  The Snowy was taken aback. “Well, I never! You are a presumptuous owl, aren’t you? Absolutely not! That harp is a treasure of Ga’Hoole, it shall not leave this tree!”

  “Quite right, quite right,” Honeyvox replied, a bit too readily, “I don’t know what I was thinking. Foolish idea, obviously. Never mind, sir. Never mind.”

  His plan having failed, Honeyvox knew he had to find another way. But how? He couldn’t imagine ever singing again without the accompaniment of the harp. He realized, too, that even if he was able to get the harp away from the tree, there would be no one to play it—the nest-maid snakes of the harp guild were the only ones who could play the instrument. And it was clear that the stewards of the tree wanted him to leave.

  Before Honeyvox knew it, he was coming up on the second month of his stay. He was running out of time. He stayed up all day to think. Why take the harp with me when I can simply stay with the harp? But, they would never have two resident singers here. Blast it!

  Sir Lucien Plonk was an obstacle. Honeyvox would have to get rid of him somehow. He couldn’t kill the Snowy, that would be…unseemly. He must find another way. By early evening, he had found the solution. It was one that would require guile and unwavering nerves on the part of the Tropical Screech. He swallowed a good glug of bingle juice for courage, and flew off to the infirmary hollow.

  Bloodroot is a plant that’s commonly used by the healer owls of Ga’Hoole to this day. Its juice is used to treat a myriad of symptoms from sore throats to gray scale. In small doses, it helps to relieve discomfort. In large doses, it is highly toxic. It was rumored that it could damage a bird’s throat, causing it to become permanently mute. Honeyvox hoped that there was truth to this rumor. Just before all the other owls woke, he gathered all the bloodroot juice he could find and stole quietly out of the infirmary.

  When night fell, Honeyvox approached Sir Lucien. He would have to choose his words carefully so as not to raise suspicion. He anxiously took another slug of his bingle juice. “Say, Sir Lucien, I hope there are no hard feelings between us. I meant no disrespect the other night. Why don’t you have a drink with me in the guest hollow…to, um, set things right?”

  To Honeyvox’s relief, Sir Lucien graciously agreed.

  In the guest ho
llow, where Honeyvox had been staying for the last many weeks, he set out two nut cups. He filled both with his own special reserve of bingle juice. Into one of the cups, he added a stiff dose of the bloodroot juice he had stolen. Luckily for him, bloodroot is odorless, and its slightly sour taste was easily masked by the much stronger flavor of the bingle juice.

  It was almost time. Honeyvox started to feel a little wobbly in the gizzard. He wasn’t sure if it was the jitters or the bingle juice that was making his head spin.

  Sir Lucien arrived exactly when he said he would. The two owls awkwardly exchanged pleasantries. They talked of the weather and of the coming spring…Boring, pointless conversation that Honeyvox could barely pay attention to. All the while, he eyed Sir Lucien’s cup nervously—the Snowy had not taken a single sip while his own cup was already empty, despite having been refilled twice.

  Down the hatch, you wretched owl! Go on, take a sip. For the love of Glaux, just one sip!

  “Oh, the time of the Silver Rain can be so lovely, my favorite time of the year, really,” Sir Plonk droned on and on. It was a wonder that the old owl didn’t grow thirsty with all this chitchat.

  Honeyvox nodded, and then nodded some more while trying to think of a way to get the Snowy to drink his poison. He kept refilling his own cup in an attempt to send a subliminal message to his guest. Driiiink, Sir Plonk, driiiink…

  Finally, in desperation, he raised his own empty cup. “How about a toast, then? To…say…music!”