Third was growing nervous. What would be left for him to do? Had he no useful talents? Was he too small for anything?
“And, Third, you sense what creatures might say before it’s said, or what creatures might do before they do it. You are a tracker of sorts, not just of minds, but of land. Not just of earth, but dare I suggest that you have all the makings of a dreamwalker?”
Third gasped at this. How did she know? The same thought coursed through all the yosses’ minds. “However did you … ,” Third began, but was so completely amazed he could not complete the question.
“My dear cubs,” Otulissa addressed all of them now as she swiveled her head. “When you have lived as long as I have, for indeed I am a very old owl, you begin to sense things about creatures. Perhaps most particularly if you have lost something, as I have.” And with this, Otulissa tapped her eye patch with a front talon. “You gain other abilities. There are compensations of sorts.” She took a deep breath. “To find the old forge of the blacksmith Bubo, you did it, Third. None of us could figure out how you did it so quickly.”
“The coals, ma’am.”
“But the coal had long vanished.”
“Their dust, the coal dust, was in the ground. I could almost see it the way Jytte can see the smallest crack in ice or a trapped bubble.”
“And that is precisely why you will be the tracker, the navigator. You can see the dust of dreams or the dust of coals.”
What about me? Froya thought, and Otulissa then turned abruptly to her. “And, Froya, your skills with celestial navigation are extraordinary. You are the only one who missed not a single question about navigating with the star coordinates. You have learned every star’s position at any time during any moon. Is that not an accomplishment?”
“I guess so,” Froya said softly.
“I know so. Your brother might be a dreamwalker, but you keep the stars safely tucked in your brain, be it night or day. You are a starwalker! Together with your brother, Third, you will make a powerful navigation team.” She took another deep breath. “Now that your course of studies is completed at our Great Tree, you shall, with your talents, I am certain, be able to gather an allied force to fight these loathsome timekeepers of the Ice Clock. So tomorrow you shall leave at twixt time.”
“Dawn!” all four bears said at once.
At last! thought Jytte.
But are we truly ready? thought Stellan. He knew Jytte couldn’t wait to leave. But how could she be so confident? Could they gather this force? Stellan wondered. Would anyone listen to them?
They had not expected such an abrupt departure.
“Why twixt time?” Stellan asked. “We’ve just become used to sleeping in the day and waking and studying at night—like owls.”
“Exactly! No one you accidentally encounter, for it could be a hireclaw, must suspect that you have been with us. You must learn to eat your food raw again. You must avoid phrases like ‘Great Glaux’ or the curse ‘racdrops.’ ”
Jytte blinked. She had become rather fond of that curse, which meant the droppings of a raccoon. It was much better than the bear version, gort skrat, which meant scat of a land creature and not one of ice.
Otulissa then took a deep breath. “Now listen to me, yosses. Together, you are a team, but individually, you are each a chaw, a chaw of one! Congratulations.”
Deep in Ambala, a tiny owl whined at a rabbit who sat on its haunches regarding her. “Don’t whinge, Rags!” the rabbit snapped.
“I wasn’t whinging—I was whining.”
“Same thing. And this is not a discussion about words. It’s about flying.”
“But you said that if I just perched on that log and flapped a bit—a bit you said, no more—I would lift off. And now I’ve fallen. Fallen smack on my butt. Why didn’t you tell me it was this hard?” Rags was racked with despair.
“For Lapin’s sake! I’m not an owl. I’m not even a bird. I’m a rabbit! I was just trying to give you some tips, having lived in this forest a long time and seen the owls of Ambala flying here and there.”
“Who’s Lapin again?”
“The Big Rabbit in the sky. Rather like your Glaux.” Rags made a sound halfway between a squeak and a moan as she tried to groom her own wings from the bits of pine needles and dirt. She must be the filthiest owlet alive. All because she couldn’t fly. It had been almost a moon since her mum had left, and then a few nights later, she had fallen from the hollow. By now, she realized that her mum was never going to return. But knowing and understanding were two different things. “Why, Rabbit, why would she do this?” The rabbit had never divulged his own name. So Rags had to be content with simply calling him Rabbit.
“Why what?” His pink-rimmed eyes blinked.
“Why didn’t Mum ever come back?”
The rabbit sighed. He had a sense, a wispy inkling why Rags’s mum had not returned. He had seen it in the spiderweb that was strung between the fork in a fallen branch near his rabbit hole. “Glimmerings” he called them, and that was how these notions, intuitions came to him. He was a web reader. He came from a long line of web readers. They were known as mystic rabbits because of their odd gifts. Gifts that were slightly incomplete, and that was the problem. What these rabbits saw in a web was always incomplete and not the entire picture. They could see things that might have happened or might soon happen, but the story was often confused. They never saw the whole picture or story. There was a crescent shape of white fur on the rabbit’s forehead that marked him as a web reader.
What the rabbit had seen before Rags had even hatched out was that her mum hardly cared about her. Indeed, she would go off and leave the egg for long periods of time—on cold nights! If he could have climbed up there to keep the egg warm, the rabbit would have. Thank Lapin there was a very nice family of sugar gliders who lived nearby, and he had convinced them to scramble up the tree and cover the egg when the mum was away. Edith was the mother’s name—a spiky name if there ever was one! Seemed to fit her. All the thanks those sugar gliders got was that Edith ate one of them. She was a dreadful owl. And she didn’t care a whit for her child. And then, one night shortly after Rags had hatched, she was off! It was not exactly a surprise to the rabbit. He’d seen something in the web of that orb-weaver spider that alarmed him more than even Edith’s desertion of her owlet.
He had stared for a long time at the glittering web. In the corner of the web on that particular night, he saw an odd tangle. Lines crossing in peculiar ways, as if the spider itself was confused. The web was at first glance rather classic—a circle with radiating threads of silk forming concentric circles within the perimeter. The final spiral at the center, with the sticky capture silk, was crossed with a line from one of the radial threads. Very confusing. What did it mean? That web was gone, but now the rabbit noticed that the orb weaver had just finished another web. It was a bit higher up. He jumped. Almost saw it but not quite. He jumped two more times.
“See, it’s hard,” Rags whined.
“What?”
“Trying to fly.”
“I’m not trying to fly.” The rabbit shook his head in disgust. “I’m trying to read this new web. Now get over here and help me.”
“How?”
“I’m going to crouch down. You walk up my back, starting at my tail, and get on top of my head. Then describe what you see in this web.”
Rags blinked. “No flying?”
“Right. Just walk up my back to the top of my head.”
“I won’t be too heavy?”
“No!” the rabbit said in exasperation. “You have hollow bones, remember?”
“Oh yeah.”
Rags hopped on the rabbit’s back and was soon standing on top of his head.
“Now what do you see?”
“Well, it’s very large, and it’s sort of flat. Flatter than the old one you showed me.”
“And the radials?”
“What are radials?”
“The threads that spread out from the middle
.”
“Oh, those—they look kind of fuzzy. Like they maybe have rabbit fur on them.”
The rabbit’s pink-rimmed eyes grew huge. “Really!”
“Yes, what does that mean?”
“It means something big is coming our way. Really BIG!”
“Up! Up! We have to get up,” Third called out. “Twixt time. Remember what Otulissa said. We can’t do anything that makes any creature think we’ve spent time with owls.”
“But there are plenty of animals who are night creatures,” Jytte protested. “The ones they call raccoons. Rosie told me that. Badgers, bats.”
“Listen to me. We must do exactly what Otulissa told us. We have not spent almost a moon learning the ways of owls, the customs of this new land, to immediately break some of the most important rules they taught us. Remember, our goal is to find allies. Without an allied force, we fail. The clock is not stopped and …”
Jytte felt a wash of shame run through her. How had she been so completely distracted from their purpose? And she was the one most anxious to leave. If she had to spend one more night studying star charts without actually being outside under the stars and moving toward Ambala, their first destination, she thought she would expire. Studying was not her favorite occupation. One could spend a lifetime studying and then doing nothing. She was not, nor ever would be, a student. All action, that’s me! she had said once to Otulissa, who had replied calmly, Action without study can only amount to a senseless reaction. And you seem to be doing quite well with those codes. So study on.
Third blinked into the rising sun. It was a new day. A golden pink was beginning to seep over the horizon. “That’s east,” he said softly. He put on a pouch with the map that he would carry as the navigator. Froya would also carry one. The sun would be to their backs for the first part of their journey, as they would cross the sea south and head slightly west to Ambala, where the greenowls lived. Then, after Ambala, they would begin to angle due north toward Silverveil and eventually cross over into the Beyond, where they would meet the wolf clans. Such was their course with the intention of gathering an allied force.
The tree at this hour of the dawn was at its most quiet, for all the owls were sound asleep as they left and began to swim away from the island of Hoole, toward the distant shoreline. It felt odd to Froya to be getting up at this hour. The morning star, the one called Joss, named for a renowned scout and messenger, was dissolving into the thin light of this new day. No stars to guide me now, thought Froya, just the land itself. But those maps were emblazoned in her mind. She never would have dreamed she had a mind for such things. But it wasn’t just the owls of Ga’Hoole who had taught her. It was the yosses. Her life had seemed so meaningless until she had found her brother Third again, and Stellan and Jytte—and Svern! How could she ever forget Svern!
It was not a long swim. The dawn was still lingering when they climbed onto the beach where the river flowed into the sea. They kept to the west banks of that river. They needed to follow it to the headwaters and then turn due west. Winter was slow to come here in comparison to the Nunquivik. Nothing was completely frozen yet, and there were plenty of fish in the river and they had been told there were otters as well.
Froya stood up and surveyed the landscape. “So this is what they call winter here. The stream flows, hardly any snow on the ground.”
Froya squinted at the same map with star coordinates that she had pulled from a pouch around her neck. “There will be even less snow once we get to something called the Brad.” She looked harder at the map. “I don’t quite understand what this Brad is,” she murmured.
“They kept talking about greenowls. It’s hard to imagine owls with green feathers,” Stellan said, not really answering. “But that’s our first stop. Supposedly, they have an alliance with some powerful snakes that have been allies in the past during owl wars.” The last really powerful snakes they had encountered were not nest-maid snakes of the Great Tree but the the terrifying frost vipers on Stormfast Island. They had not left Stellan or any of the bears especially inclined toward reptiles. But here he was the designated frynmater, the diplomat. So it would not do to offend the greenowls’ friends.
“I’m not sure about the greenfeathers,” Jytte said. “But they are supposed to be very smart owls. Well, no sense waiting around. Let’s go.”
They headed off. The farther inland they went, the less snow they found. How peculiar to be in this place with no white. There were all sorts of hues of colors. There were trees with still deeply green leaves, yet some had leaves that were very pale green—the same greens as those of the ahalikki that danced in the sky during the Seal Moon. Several trees had begun to turn brilliant colors—orange, bright yellow, and bloodred. And yes, some copper—a color almost gold but not quite. This was an ever-changing land that yielded up jewels brighter than any ice or snow.
And there was mud, some almost black, some reddish. Froya thought that it was as if a rainbow had come down from the sky and spilled its colors across the land. Could she ever go back to that colorless place from which she had come—the Nunquivik? Where a cub must wait until the ahalikki painted the night skies of the winter moons to see such bright colors splash the vastness of Ursulana? Here one did not have to wait for night or winter. Here there were colors in every moon.
They stopped frequently, as they grew tired more easily and were unaccustomed to this new schedule of waking during the day in a world vastly different from the Nunquivik. That world now seemed as distant as any star.
They had entered a wooded area. Jytte was in the lead. Froya was reflecting on these differences as she followed the three bears ahead of her. She looked about, noting every tree and fallen log. It was all so strange. So unfamiliar but not frightening. In fact, it was seemingly benign in a certain way. She then stopped short. Off to one side, there was a very peculiar sight, not just a sight but a spectacle. A rabbit stood completely still, as if it might have been frozen, for not a whisker moved. However, on the very top of its head, an owlet perched. A spotted owlet.
“What?” Froya exclaimed. The other three bears stopped suddenly and looked at her. The owlet gave a shriek and fell from the rabbit’s head.
“What? What is it?” Stellan said in a taut voice.
“I cannot believe you just walked by that. An owl perched on top of a rabbit’s head!” Froya exclaimed.
“Believe it,” the rabbit replied, and turned toward the bears. By now, the owlet was giving whiny hoots.
“Believe it!” the rabbit repeated. “I told you something big was coming,” he said, turning to Rags, who was by this time on the ground. “Just get up. You’re not hurt.”
“Yeah, but …”
“But nothing. Wave your port wing.” The owlet did so. “Wave your starboard wing.” Again Rags did as she was told. “Now wave both.” The owlet did and lofted into the air.
“You did it. You did it! Now keep pumping those wings!” The bears were watching this spectacle in absolute amazement.
“I did it! I did it!” Then the owlet’s wings seemed to lock above her head in a V shape.
“Pump!” screeched the rabbit, but it was too late. The owlet fell to the ground.
There was a stunned silence. “Am I dead?”
“Not if you can ask the question,” Third replied.
The rabbit now leaned over the owlet. “I told you something big was coming.”
Rags staggered to her feet and blinked at the bears.
Froya came forward. “What exactly is going on here?”
Rags stepped forward. “I flew. I flew for the first time in my life.”
“And you were taking off from this rabbit’s head,” Froya added in an incredulous voice.
“Oh, no, when I was up there, I was just helping read a spider’s web.”
“Yes, of course,” Jytte scoffed. “A common sight, I suppose.” There was more than a tinge of sarcasm in her voice.
“It’s a long story,” the rabbit said uneasily.
>
“I would think so,” Jytte said. A rabbit teaching a young owl how to fly. How does that happen? There were so many mysteries in this new world with all these new creatures. It was a bit overwhelming. Would they be required to ask rabbits to join this allied force? Jytte wondered.
And so the four bears sat down on their haunches and listened to the rabbit. They heard how Rag’s mother had vanished.
Vanished, thought Stellan. Ours did too. He tried not to think of Svenna too much. But how can one banish such a thought? He could almost smell her milk now—though he was far beyond being a nursing cub. While the rabbit spoke, Rags was so taken with the idea that she had almost flown that she politely asked if she might crawl up on top of any of the bears’ heads and practice taking off.
“Of course, be my guest,” Stellan replied quickly. The other three bears looked at him in confusion. “It’s all part of my job, you know. I’m the diplomat,” Stellan said softly.
By the time the rabbit finished the story, Rags, exhausted from her short flights, curled up in a little moss nest the rabbit had made for her. Then the rabbit, looking to make sure the owlet was asleep, turned to the four bears.
“Rags’s mum abandoned her, I’m sure. I think her mum is a slipgizzle.”
“Spy!” Stellan said in alarm. And just moments ago, he was feeling so profoundly sorry for this owlet. Perhaps the mother was mean like Taaka!
“That or a hireclaw.” All four bears gasped. The rabbit nodded. “You must go to the Brad. That is where the smartest owls are. You must tell them.”
“That was where we were heading,” Jytte replied. “They will be very interested in this.”
“Absolutely!” Stellan said. “If there are spies in Ambala already, this will be invaluable information and I daresay will help our mission. We need allies, and if the enemy has infiltrated …” Stellan’s voice dwindled as he imagined these woods thick with spies. He turned abruptly to Froya. “Froya, get out the map.”
The Keepers of the Keys Page 7