Neversink

by Barry Wolverton

  “Lovely,” he said.

  “Boy, do I feel better,” said Ruby.

  “I wish I could say the same,” said Lockley, shaking small chunks off his feet.

  Agnes came to Lockley bearing strange plants with orange flowers. “I brought something for you, too, Mr. Puffin.”

  He shook his head. “The last thing I ate was fish, on Neversink. I don’t need to bring it back up.”

  “Just hold still,” said Agnes, and she began chewing the flowers into a balm, which she applied to Lockley’s wounded shoulder. “You’re going to need to be stronger to fly home.”

  “That does feel good,” said Lockley.

  “What now?” said Ruby.

  “Well, old girl, if the owls know we’re here, we don’t have much choice but to fly away as fast as we can.” Turning to Agnes, he asked, “Any suggestions?”

  “Let me think,” and she began scratching at the dirt with her feet. “We’re here, between the two great forests. On the western coast, to the north, is the Bay of Whales, here. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I would stay out in the open. Auks fly near the water’s surface, don’t they?” Lockley nodded. “Good, you can keep close to the ground and fly across the meadows, using the tall grasses for cover. Follow this route,” she added, scratching a diagonal line northwest from the moors to the bay. “However, I suggest you let us keep you overnight. The owls will be coming out to hunt now, and your injured wing could use the rest.”

  Lockley thanked Agnes, while Cedric and Bruce just grunted and encouraged them to be gone already. The next morning, the moorbirds watched as Lockley and Ruby shrank along the horizon, then shuffled off. And in leaving, they all missed the sight of a dark, hawklike bird, sailing with flat, swept-back wings over the moors, landing by the bog where the Teeth of the Moors had vanished, and retrieving a mouthful of Lockley’s plucked feathers.

  THIS IS GOOD-BYE

  Once Lockley and Ruby were off the moors, the land spread before them in a rolling expanse of tall grasses and flowering plants. Lockley was used to vast horizons, but here the wrinkled gray sea and toothy glaciers of his world were replaced by gentle waves of limestone hills and fertile meadows of snowdrops, daffodils, buttercups, and cowslips that teemed with color like a coral reef.

  Following Agnes’s advice, they picked up the river, which flowed down into the countryside from a mountainous spine the natives called the Backbone. Lockley, for once grateful for his low, charging style of flight, kept just below the tops of the tallest grasses while Ruby followed close behind.

  Flying near to the ground, though, Lockley saw something that contradicted the sweeping beauty of his surroundings: dead birds and rodents, whose carcasses normally would have been carried off by predators or picked clean by scavengers, left rotting and crawling with insects. And once, Lockley glimpsed a jarring sight in the distance above the grass line. It appeared to be a large bird of prey—possibly a hawk—struggling to perch on the slender branches of a bush as he used his meat-eating beak to strip it of leaves and berries.

  Near midday they stopped to rest and drink from the river before concealing themselves in the grass again.

  “I know I don’t live here, but it’s obvious things aren’t right,” said Lockley as they discussed the odd and disturbing images.

  “Yeah, something’s fishy all right,” said Ruby.

  “No, fishy is good,” said Lockley. “Something’s owly. As that malevolent mole said, whether the Sickness has returned or not, Rozbell has the beasts of Tytonia believing it. Either that, or they’re just afraid to defy him by eating their normal diet.”

  “Speaking of eating…are you okay?” said Ruby. She hadn’t dared inhale another insect, despite their abundance. But she had sipped nectar among the many flowers along the way. Lockley, though, hadn’t eaten a solid meal since being kidnapped. He’d been given only water in captivity, and Agnes had only gotten him to eat some leafy greens.

  “I’m okay,” said Lockley. Like many birds, he could go stretches without food, though he did feel weaker, and despite Agnes’s balm, his wing was still sore. But there was an ache inside him that wasn’t from a lack of food. He had been thinking of all that had happened and all they had seen—the extinct badger kingdom and the moorbirds threatened with removal, the other creatures forced to alter their way of life—and he thought of the Great Auk’s last words to him. The spirit journey is not for the faint of heart. You could take Lucy elsewhere. The Great Auk was giving him an out. Leadership is an unfair burden.

  Lockley sat there watching Ruby sample flower after flower, oblivious to the world around her. She finally noticed that Lockley was staring at her. “What’s up, L? You don’t look well.”

  “Ruby, when we get to the sea, I need you to head directly to Neversink.”

  “Well, duh,” she said. “With you right behind me. Right? Lockley?” She alighted on the ground at his feet.

  “I do plan to return to Neversink,” said Lockley. “After I go to Ocean’s End.”

  Ruby was instantly airborne again, abuzz. “Are you crazy, Lockley?”

  “I have to, Ruby. The Great Auk told Rozbell that it may be preferable to perish than to live as an owl’s slave. Maybe so. But even better is to live as an independent auk. A colony of independent auks.” He paused for a moment. “Besides, I made things worse—with Sedna, I mean. I should be the one to make the spirit journey.”

  “What’s the spirit journey?” Ruby asked.

  “It’s how we appease Sedna. It’s how we bring the food back to Neversink. Beyond that, I’m not entirely sure,” Lockley admitted. “But I will figure it out. I have to.”

  “That’s great,” said Ruby. “But you don’t need to go it alone. I’ll come with you! I’ve helped so far!”

  “You certainly have,” said Lockley. “But I need you to go home and tell Egbert and Lucy I’m okay, and that I’ll be back. Help Egbert take care of Lucy.” When Ruby looked at him doubtfully, he said, “At least help protect Lucy from Egbert!”

  “Now you’re talking sense,” said Ruby, and they took to the air again with new resolve. To the east was a deep, dark forest of towering trees the likes of which Lockley had never seen. Giant coniferous pine, juniper, fir, and spruce peaked above rowan, oak, and alder, silver birch, beech, and willow. He was far enough away to admire just how large the forest was. Looking at the colossal trunks and lofty canopies of leaves supported by sturdy outstretched wooden arms, he felt slightly jealous of the perching birds. It seemed so grand and so safe way up there. Part of him wondered how the first Great Auk of the World Tree could have abandoned such a fine home.

  “That must be the Great Northern Forest,” said Lockley. “It rather puts the Midland Woods to shame, don’t you think?”

  “You should see the jungle,” said Ruby. “Nothing but huge trees from coast to coast. Of course, all trees look big to me.”

  Before long it was clear they had reached the highlands. Wild tufts of grass were bent low by strong winds and framed by rough ridges of sandstone and granite. Long-horned cattle and goats grazed the open spaces. The air was cool and dry. Both Lockley and Ruby could smell the briny Northern Sea in the wind gusts.

  If you studied the map at the front of this book (and if you didn’t, you really should), you will have noticed that Tytonia grows narrow at its northernmost point, and the Bay of Whales, their intended destination, is like a small mouth on the northwestern coast.

  When he smelled the familiar air, Lockley veered due north from the river to a granite outcropping that dropped steeply off to the sea. To the north were hundreds of small rock islands, jutting out of the water, covered with moss and lichens and battered with sea spray. The auks used to call these the Crab-Back Islands. Lockley grew still and quiet and breathed it all in deeply. “Ruby, do you know where we are?”

  “I know where we’re not. We’re not on the moors. And we’re not on Neversink…. Lockley, let’s go!”

  “We’re on Murre Mountain,�
� he said, standing at the precipice, above all those nooks and crannies so favored by the auks. He could almost hear the deep, hoarse arrrs of a thriving murre colony drifting up the cliff face. Lockley continued to stand there, silent and proud as he overlooked his ancestral home, where the first Great Auk had roosted after he left the World Tree.

  “Lockley!” said Ruby. “Turn around!”

  “What?” Lockley turned back toward the highlands. Behind them a large bird soared in their direction. Its silhouette was unmistakably that of an eagle.

  “Feathertop!” Lockley’s first reaction was to head for the river, where he could submerge himself and try to swim away. But he needed a running start to get airborne, and if you’ve ever seen a duck or a goose run, you know that short, webbed feet aren’t made for sprinting. Feathertop banked to the west to cut him off.

  “You’ll never make it, Lockley!” cried Ruby. And then to Lockley’s horror, the tiny hummingbird flew straight at the eagle, as if she believed she could knock him out of the air.

  “Ruby, no!” Lockley took flight, ignoring the lingering ache in his right wing, and then veered away from the river, toward Feathertop.

  The martial eagle had never had his prey fly directly at him before. As the two birds approached him, he stuck out first one talon, then the other, losing his balance in the twisting highland winds. He tried to brake with his wings, but it was too late…the eagle plummeted toward the earth, nearly goring himself on a bull’s long horn.

  As Feathertop rolled along the ground, Lockley veered back toward Murre Mountain. “Ruby, if you had any doubts about splitting up, do it now! He can’t catch both of us!”

  “No!” said Ruby. “We can take him! Get up, Featherbrain!”

  “Ruby! Get to Neversink!”

  Lockley didn’t wait for her to argue. He beat his wings furiously for the Northern Sea, the granite peaks racing toward him, until the precipice of Murre Mountain was beneath him. He took one look over his shoulder and saw that Feathertop was airborne again and bearing down on him, and then he tucked his wings and plunged down the cliff side, disappearing into the white spray of the violent sea just as Feathertop swept overhead.

  Egbert’s new job as Rozbell’s official editor and biographer (a word they still hadn’t invented) threatened to do him in. The king’s poems—long, epic verses—were actually part of one even longer cycle, entitled Song of Rozbell: Warrior-Poet. In the short history of literature at this point, Rozbell’s poetry was probably the worst stuff ever written. In fact, for eons afterward, dictator poetry was regarded as the most deplorable trend in publishing until the dawn of celebrity children’s books.

  The sheer volume of the material Rozbell had sent to Egbert made it difficult for him to be as vigilant as he needed to be for Lucy. A small crew of burrowing owls was on Neversink almost every day now, checking and double-checking nests for any eggs they had missed or that had just been laid. Egbert had hoped that successfully shielding Lucy’s burrow a few times would be enough, that the owls would quit looking down at her end. But auk nests are so close together that there was a constant danger of them stumbling onto Lucy’s by accident.

  Finally Egbert remembered all the times Lockley had used Arne Puffin and other immature birds as distractions, and so he called a group of them together.

  “What do you say to a game to take our minds off our hunger?” said Egbert. “Not Pin the Sea Urchin on the Walrus,” he added quickly when he saw their faces light up. “I thought we could try something new.”

  “Wait,” said Snorri Guillemot. “This isn’t going to be like that time Lockley made us work, is it?” The others groaned.

  “Oh, no!” said Egbert. “I thought we could have a little fun with, you know, the owls,” he whispered. They seemed skeptical. It was one thing to pick on Egbert, but the owls? “I’ve got some special treats for anyone who helps me out.” He held out two finfuls of small fish. The young auks’ bills dropped.

  “Where did you get that?” said Arne Puffin.

  “Never mind,” said Egbert. “But believe me, it wasn’t easy. Which shows you how important this is to me.”

  Egbert told them his plan, and from that point forward, when any burrowing owls came near Lucy’s burrow, the young auks would immediately circle them, herding them elsewhere by swearing they had seen eggs in another part of the colony, or that Astra had asked to see them, or whatever else their imaginative young minds could come up with.

  Their assistance took a load off Egbert, and he congratulated himself on his ingenuity. But just when he thought he had less to worry about, Egbert received an unexpected summons. Neversink’s Council of Elders wanted to see him.

  Egbert remembered hearing the term from the Great Auk once when he was talking to him about the colony’s history. Though the Great Auk was the law-speaker, in theory there was a Council of Elders, made up of one senior bird from each species, who could be called upon to resolve minor conflicts, vote on any proposed changes in the colony’s day-to-day affairs, or—in the absence of a law-speaker—govern the colony. As you already know if you’ve been reading up to now (and if you haven’t been reading up to now, why are you starting here?), auks don’t typically have a lot of affairs to deal with. The last time the Council met was to decide who should be on the Council.

  When Egbert arrived at the meeting place, he was met by Algard Guillemot, Tor Razorbill, Egil Murre, and a barely conscious puffin named Grimsey.

  “So this is the Council of Elders,” said Egbert.

  “We’re not sure,” Algard admitted. “It’s been so long since we elected it. In any event, this is who’s here now.”

  Egbert resisted a strong urge to tout the benefits of being able to write things down.

  “I’ll come right to the point,” said Algard. “We’ve decided to ask you to leave.”

  “But I just got here!”

  “Not this meeting, Egbert. We’re asking you to leave Neversink.”

  Egbert snorted. “Don’t be absurd. I have to be here when Lockley returns. And in the meantime, Lucy needs me.”

  Algard looked at the others as if to say, I told you getting rid of a four-thousand-pound mammal wouldn’t be easy. “Yes, Lucy,” he said. “It has come to our attention that you have been hoarding food.”

  Egbert pinkened a little. “I think hoarding is a bit of an exaggeration,” he blustered. “I had some extra, and poor Lucy needed nourishment. If you could have seen her right after Lockley was taken—”

  “Egbert,” said Algard, cutting him off, “where did you get stores of food?”

  Egil Murre lunged forward, pointing at Egbert. “He’s working for the owls!”

  “What? I am not!”

  “We see you with Rozbell!” said Tor Razorbill.

  “Oh, that,” said Egbert. “He’s making me edit his poetry. For the love of Sedna, it almost makes me wish I couldn’t read!”

  “Egbert!” said Algard, more forcefully this time. “Whether you’re getting food from the owls or hoarding old catches, you have betrayed us. Any stores of food should have been shared with the entire colony, not given to one puffin.”

  “It was hardly enough to feed the colony,” said Egbert. “And I didn’t give it all to Lucy. Just enough to revive her. And I’m a walrus! You must understand I need more than any of you!”

  “Precisely,” said Algard. “You have been living among our colony, fishing our waters. And until this crisis is resolved, we can’t allow a beast with your appetite consuming what few stray portions of food remain.”

  “What are you saying?” said Egbert, his whiskers vibrating.

  “I already told you. We took a vote and decided you have to go.” The other Elders nodded, except Grimsey, who had fallen asleep. Algard kept his eyes on Egbert’s until the crestfallen walrus dropped his head and turned away.

  Egbert was devastated. He slouched back to his nest and began to gather a few of his things, including his favorite books—all written by himself. He thoug
ht about how he had failed his friends, and how he would be unable to help Lucy now. And the young auks would tire of their new game soon, especially with no food to offer as bribes. What would Lockley find when he returned?

  Lockley! thought Egbert. He realized he might never see his best friend again. Or Lucy. He even felt an ache that he might have bantered with Ruby for the last time. He left his things and made the long slog back to Lucy’s to tell her.

  As soon as he did, Lucy ignored all his warnings about being seen in public and marched straight to Algard’s.

  “Lockley was right. You’re nothing but a coward!” she said. Her tone caught him off guard. “You won’t stand up for yourself or your colony against the owls, but you’ll stand up to poor Egbert!”

  If you’ve gotten the impression that Algard was heartless in addition to being crusty, you may have been misled, somewhat. Part of him actually felt bad about what he did to Egbert. Lucy’s words stung. And she wasn’t done.

  “You accuse Egbert of working with the owls? As soon as the Great Auk’s out of the picture, you dig up the so-called Council of Elders. Is that even real? Maybe we should be wondering if you’re part of the owl takeover!”

  “Lucy! How dare you!”

  “How dare you, Algard.” And she stormed back to her burrow, leaving the guillemot with his red tongue hanging from his bill.

  When the time came for Egbert to leave, Lucy walked him down to the water’s edge to see him off. “I guess this is good-bye,” he said wearily.

  Lucy launched into the unfairness of it all and promised Egbert that Lockley and the Great Auk would make sure he was brought back once they returned. She was being strong for Egbert, but he could see the fear in her eyes. He was being exiled, but she was being abandoned. And he knew the thought had crossed her mind more than once that Lockley might never return.