The Keepers of the Keys

by Kathryn Lasky

  On the island of Stormfast, winter had come with a ferocity not usually known in these parts. Svern was in the listening nook of his Yinqui post, tapping out for perhaps the fifth time an encrypted message to his paw master, code-named Blue Bear, who was stationed in Lower Rainbow, a code name for the region that the kraals used to occupy. For a Yinqui, it was an ideal location due to its good smee holes. Terrific transmitting ice from the Hrath’ghar Glacier and a good observation point to the north and east. But Blue Bear had not responded, and now Svern was getting nervous. He, of course, thanked Ursus that messages had been getting through between himself and Blythe at the Great Tree. She had assured him that not only had the yosses arrived and proved to be excellent students, but were now on a mission to recruit allies. He knew this recruitment mission was a possibility and would be a shock to the young bears. But it was typical of the owls to work this way. He had been reluctant to tell them this before their departure, as it might be too disheartening to them. They had to go forward with this mission with confidence.

  In any case, at the moment, he was quite disheartened himself at the silence from Blue Bear. What did it mean? It was Blue Bear who had recruited him long ago as a Yinqui and taught Svern everything he knew about Yinqui craft. Without his paw master reporting on enemy movement, he felt as though he had been left dangling. But he was going to have to stop transmitting. Too many repeated coded messages that went unanswered were risky. He would have to cross this Yinqui post off. It was simply too dangerous to keep it up. An enemy bear could pick up on it. Although they were unschooled in code, if there was excessive transmitting they might be able to detect the origins. A good Yinqui was chary in his or her transmissions, only transmitting when absolutely necessary and with the briefest of messages. They changed posts often. The den from which Svern was transmitting was not the same one he had shown the yosses. He decided to try Blue Bear one more time. Nothing came back, and he began to doze. Like soft vapors, thoughts and images of Svenna began to stir in his mind. She was a good bear, a smart bear, and so beautiful. She was of the Sven clan, the same clan as the hero bear Svenka. They of all the clans had the closest relationship with the owls of the Northern Kingdoms. Svenka had been responsible for saving Queen Siv after she had been wounded by a hagsfiend. It was rumored that the Guardian owls had a portrait of Svenka at the Great Tree.

  Svenna, the descendent of Svenka, had the most beautiful dark eyes, which possessed an almost amber cast. And so he called her likki, for there was one shade in the ahalikki lights that was the same color, and they together had danced beneath that amber light the first time they had met and she called him kaeru, which meant dear one. They were their secret names for each other, their leyn navn. They had danced to the music of the ahalikki, which only bears could sometimes hear—it was a music of color and wind.

  He had nodded off and on the near edge of a beautiful dream—the undulating lights of the ahalikki and the amber eyes of his beloved Svenna. What he would give to hear her call out to him kaeru … kaeru min elskede—dear one, dear one, my beloved. A sob swelled in him like a breaking wave from the Everwinter Sea. Something seemed to scratch at his dream like claws against the music of the ahalikki. It was a most unmusical sound. Svern was awake instantly. Could it be his paw master, Blue Bear? He tapped back, giving his own code name. But the response was not what he wanted. It was not a confirmation.

  “Code name,” he tapped: —** … **

  The response made no sense at all. Whoever was at the other end was trying but was completely untutored. Or was this a ruse of some sort? A trick? Was he being lured into something? Then he had this mysterious inkling. Just a glimmer, really. Although he was a coder, he had never thought of himself as having gifts like his cubs: Stellan, a riddler of minds, and Jytte, an ice gazer. But suddenly it was as if he sensed the mind of the bear at the source of the tapping. Impossible! he thought. It couldn’t be. And then he remembered he had taught Svenna the tapping codes for their names. It was a simple code. Not based on the poems of Ezylryb but of their secret names. He now tapped out the symbols for Svern held his breath. He waited. It was not long before the first tap came through. He gasped in disbelief. Kaeru! It was Svenna! “Svenna!” he cried out, and tears poured down his face.

  Third did not squirm or wiggle or yell out. There was no use. These were three powerful bears. The wounded one was no longer bleeding, so that meant the trail would not be so easily followed. But would Stellan, Jytte, and Froya follow? It was not that he doubted their loyalty. In fact, he hoped they would follow, but should they first go to the Brad and get help from the greenowls of Ambala? However, at this moment, Third was unsure if he was even still in the territory of Ambala. The tiny bear felt his heart race, and his breath became short, as if he couldn’t catch it. As if there was not enough air for him to breathe. Panic surged in him like a rising tide. We have all of us gone through so much—am I now to die? Shall I never see Froya, Jytte, Stellan … again?

  He had to stop thinking such thoughts. He looked about. Was there any way he could escape? These bears were huge. Stellan might have been able to fight them off, but he was locked in the grip of the largest one, who was dragging him across a rutted landscape. Each time he tried to twist out of the grip, the bear tightened his paw. The pain was excruciating. He could hardly breathe. Would they really kill him if they didn’t get the key? He had to think, but he could hardly think.

  “Let up a bit,” he gasped. “If I die, you’re never going to get the key.”

  “Oh, they’ll get it.” An owl swooped down. “We have our methods.”

  “Hireclaw scum!” Third shot back.

  The owl darted in and gave him a sharp peck on his head with her beak. Third refused to cry out. Let them tear him apart. He would not waste a breath. He couldn’t waste a breath. He had to focus on breathing more steadily, more slowly, not tearing at the air as if it were raw seal meat. Slow but steady, that was what he must do. He was small, he knew it. He was scared. But he had to think, save his energy, and somehow, some way, he had to escape.

  He had no idea where he was being taken. They had barely talked. But he had a feeling that the owl was directing them, showing them the way. The terrain had shifted. The ground was harder, rockier. There was nothing green, and the trees grew sparser. They appeared to be entering an entirely new landscape. Slender needles of rock thrust up into the dark and starry night. They were passing through a canyon bristling with stone. This must be the Canyonlands of St. Aegolius, a place of infamy in owl history. They had learned about it from their lessons with Otulissa. This was where the treacherous owls known as Pure Ones had dwelled and kept captive young owlets they had seized, owlnapped to serve in their wars. Soren and his friend Gylfie, an elf owl, had been snatched as very young owlets.

  Third and his captors were now winding their way through a maze of narrow canyon passageways. It became apparent to Third that the spotted owl was leading them by flying just a few feet above the ground. Every now and then, she swiveled her head or flipped it entirely. She would call out, “Still with me?”

  “Yes!” the lead bear would call back.

  And then, finally, they were in a very small but deep box canyon. It was beginning to blaze with moonlight. The spotted owl perched on an outcropping. In that moment, Third realized that this owl bore a very strong resemblance to Rags. Could this be the mother who had left her?

  “All right, bears.” The owl began to speak. “We are in a very special place at a very special time of this particular moon. It is what we call full shine. There was a custom here known as moon blinking. I think you will find that it is as effective as your black ice orts for extracting information.” The owl glared at Third.

  “Where are the torture instruments?” asked a bear who the others had addressed as Alfghar. Third felt now as if the air was being sucked out of him. He had to resist but could he? Could mysterious forces of moonlight destroy his mind? He had read about this method of torture at the Great Tr
ee. It was bloodless. There was no pain—only the ghastly sensation of one’s mind being taken over, invaded, and becoming a toy for evil forces to manipulate.

  “Right up there!” The owl pointed cheerfully. “Let this fellow bake out here under the moon for a few hours.” Third knew what was coming. And he’ll be moon blinked. “Yes, once he’s under the spell of the moon’s light, he’ll tell you all you need to know about the whereabouts of the key. His brain will become mush. Pliable. He will tell whatever you demand. The exact location of the key in the Great Tree.”

  But I don’t even know it, Third thought.

  Again, the owl turned to Third. “You will be completely under their command, with no will of your own.” She seemed to derive some perverse enjoyment as she spoke these words.

  So how can I tell them if I don’t know? Third wondered. Perhaps he should say this? Perhaps not! These bears were fools. And maybe, Third thought, I can fool them.

  “You’re sure of this, Edith? That is your name?”

  “It is, but I prefer to be addressed as agent Point 09.”

  “Of course.” Another bear nodded, the one whom they had referred to as Alfghar.

  “But how do we guard him while protecting ourselves?” asked Fyor, the bear whose face had been slashed by Rags’s talons. One eye was swollen shut. “And as you can see, I’m not much good for keeping watch.”

  “Yes, I was going to ask who attacked your eye.”

  “Actually, an owl similar to yourself. But smaller.”

  “A spotted owl?” Edith asked. A shiver ran through her as she felt her gizzard clench. She wilfed a bit and appeared to grow smaller before the bears.

  “Well, don’t worry,” Edith said. “There are only two entrances into the moon chamber, as the owls called it back in the day of St. Aegolius Academy. There are three of you, so you can guard them easily. You must not, however, come into the chamber, for the moon will be directly overhead within the next few minutes.”

  “Three minutes, forty-five seconds, and two milliseconds,” Svorg, the third bear, answered.

  It always amazed Edith how these bears could keep such precise track of time. “As you say,” she continued mildly. “The point is, you should by no means step into this chamber during those long minutes when the moon is directly overhead. A glaring light will fill this space, and you shall instantly become moon blinked. However, as soon as the moon passes and when the light begins to slant, then, as it sinks in the western sky, you can reenter safely.” Edith paused, then turned to Third. “And you, your brains shall be slop!”

  They all left. Third tipped his head back. The moon was sailing overhead on its inexorable path. What would it feel like to have your mind, your will, destroyed? Should he cover his eyes? And what about that part of his mind that walked through dreams? Would it be wrecked? He felt as if he was about to be annihilated, so vandalized that he would not even recognize himself.

  Third saw the deadly silver disc of the moon begin to creep over the edge of the high rock walls. Panic filled him again. He began to gasp as though he were drowning, but not in water. Suffocating not from lack of air, but rather light. He was being devoured by a terrible light. It cut through him with bright glittering fangs. He was losing consciousness. Third felt himself crumple into a corner of the chamber. His head dropped listlessly to one side, resting on his shoulder. The last flicker of a tiny flame within him was being doused, and that flicker was his mind.

  There was a fluttering in the air. Something cool began to steal over him. He opened his eyes. He felt just as he had before the moon had scalded his brain. He could recall the dream he’d had of the strange smell, the dyes of the bears who had carried him off. He could still smell them, for they were right outside. The light-bleached chamber was dim now. But what was all this fluttering?

  “Owls?” he whispered.

  “Not exactly,” a voice said.

  “Haven’t I been moon blinked?”

  “Not at all,” chirped another voice. But was there more than one?

  “Where are you? … I see shadows of you … but … but …”

  “But not us, right?”

  “Yes,” Third said.

  “We’re scrooms,” said another, and this time a misty figure seemed to hover in the air. It had all the appearances of a barn owl with its white heart-shaped face. “We’re spirits, sort of like your gillygaskins, the ones who have not quite made it all the way to your bear heaven.”

  “Ursulana?” Third asked.

  “Yes,” replied another owl. Its piercing bright yellow eyes peered out from a face of concentric gray and white circles. “Except we call it glaumora.”

  “But why aren’t you there?” Third asked.

  “Well,” said another. A tiny elf owl. “There are some of us that have formed a brigade, a ghost army so to speak. We revisit on the nights of a full shine moon, to rescue any creature who has been trapped, accidentally perhaps, or on purpose, as in your case, to be blistered and blinked by the moon. It had happened to us long ago. And we took a vow to try not to ever let it happen again. But this is the first time in a long time that another species—bears—have brought their own kind here.”

  “We blame it on Edith,” the barn owl said.

  “But you have saved me from being moon blinked. I’m not sure how exactly, but how will I leave? There are three bears out there waiting to torture me.”

  “Moon blinked,” said the elf owl in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “Huh?”

  “We moon blinked them,” replied the great gray. “We absorbed all the moonlight. We as scrooms can no longer be affected by such exposure, but we can expose others by spraying them with the light we absorbed.”

  “Fascinating!” Third said in awe.

  “We hovered in front of them. They are deeply blinked now. When they awake, their brains will not function.”

  “Not properly at least,” added the barn owl. “They will stagger around in these canyons for several days and not even know why they came in the first place, or where they are going.”

  “And me, how do I get out?”

  “Easy enough,” the elf owl said. “We’ll guide you toward wherever you want to go.”

  “The Brad!”

  “Ah yes, the Brad!” they repeated, and churred.

  “The greenowls of Ambala,” the great gray added.

  “Indeed!”

  “Then follow us,” said the barn owl.

  Third walked out from the stone enclosure, stepping over the unconscious bodies of the three bears. How stupid they looked with their brown-stained fur and yet their blue tongues hanging out. The scrooms spread their wings and lifted into the air. They appeared in the night like glowing spheres of mist with silvery wings. Like the stars, Third thought. He trusted these three scrooms to guide him like the stars.

  The yosses were growing more desperate. Three times they had set out in separate directions, only to circle back to their meeting place each time with nothing to report. Nor had Rags anything to report.

  “We need a new plan!” Jytte said grumpily. “This is complete nonsense.”

  Stellan sighed. “Well, what would you suggest that would not be ‘nonsense,’ Jytte?”

  “Don’t make fun of me. I hate it when you do that.” Rags regarded the two arguing bears and glanced nervously at Froya, who seemed to be growing more and more desperate.

  “Do what?” Stellan shot back.

  “You know! You do it all the time in that superior way of yours.”

  “STOP IT!” Froya shouted. “This is not a sibling squabble. My sibling is lost and you two arguing gets us nowhere.”

  “What do you suggest?” Jytte asked in a somewhat calmer tone.

  “I suggest that we go to the Brad. That we ask the greenowls.”

  “That is a plan,” Stellan said.

  “Yes, that is a plan,” Jytte agreed, suddenly docile.

  Froya now took out her star map and studied it silently. She had already
plotted a course to the Brad, which at this time of the night in the Moon of the Copper-Rose Rain would be directly beneath the second star of the Great Glaux constellation.

  “This way,” Froya said quietly, and began to lead the way, with Jytte and Stellan dropping in behind her.

  They traveled on until they grew tired and decided to take just the briefest of rests.

  “Maybe here,” Rags suggested. “Under this tree. You know it’s a full shine moon and that can be dangerous for owls.”

  “Oh, moon blinking,” Stellan said. “Yes, we heard about that. Mostly I believe it happens when one is in a confined space. But this is quite nice.” He looked up through the spreading shadows of a tangle of limbs at the full shine moon.

  Sleep, however, was not the bears’ friend tonight. Nor was it Rags’s friend. She tossed and turned and cursed herself for losing the trail of those horrible bears. Finally, knowing that she had a better chance than the bears with her view from above, she quietly set out from her roost in a tree.