The Keepers of the Keys

by Kathryn Lasky

  Earlier, Rags had been rather haphazard in her approach to tracking the horrid bears. But now she decided to try a more methodical approach. She would use this slender fir tree as her base, then fly out in a different direction each time. She looked up at the sky. The moon was dipping down in the west on its way to Beyond the Beyond, where the wolf clans lived. The Golden Talons were rising in the east, and just above was the Great Glaux constellation. She flew east in setting her course by the starboard wing of the Great Glaux. Skimming low over a grove of birch trees, she tried to pick up any sign that bears had passed through. There was none, not a hint of that vile scent of the dyes they had used to stain their fur. She knew there had been something wrong as soon as she caught a glimpse of one of those terrible bears. What other creature on earth had a blue tongue? When she had first met the yosses, while they were sleeping at night, she would often tiptalon to see if perhaps one or two of them slept with their tongues hanging out. Jytte often did. She had never met a creature with a blue tongue. All the birds she knew, not many, but owls certainly, had pink tongues. Nest-maid snakes as well. Although her mum never had a nest-maid snake. “What do we need a snake slithering around our hollow for? Just a bunch of old gossips,” she would mutter when she heard other owls talking about nest-maid snakes.

  Rags had just finished making her fourth foray out from the tree and come back to rest when she saw that the branch she had perched on was already occupied by another owl. A spotted owl. As she drew closer, she began to stall in her flight. Her eyes opened wide in utter shock.

  “Mum!”

  “Not me!” the owl squawked back.

  “But it is you, Mum. I’d recognize you anywhere.”

  “Scram.” The owl lifted off the branch and in a twisting flight surged high into the air. Then she began a hurtling plunge. A kill spiral! My mum is in a kill spiral and coming for me!

  Rags’s wings locked. She began plummeting to the ground. The last thing she remembered was a green flash in the night.

  Deep in the most enchanting part of the forest of Ambala was the Brad. A special place where the owls gathered nightly before taking flight and then reassembling at twixt time as the dawn broke. There they would exchange stories and sometimes recite verses from their favorite books they had rescued during the hideous reign of the infamous Blue Striga, a dragon owl from the Middle Kingdom who began to burn the precious books and volumes of the Great Tree. The owls of Ambala had rescued many of these books. The Blue Striga and his “storm owls” were finally decimated. But during the time of their dominion, the greenowls of Ambala began to memorize as many books as possible before they were destroyed. These owls were now gathered around the glowing coals from the blacksmith of Ambala. It was a sight that Stellan would long remember, as impressive as the parliament of the owls, yet different. Every single owl from the largest, a great gray, to the smallest, a tiny northern saw-whet, wore a mantle of green moss across its shoulders. These owls seemed almost like spirits of this forest, as if they had been perhaps born from the deep greenness of the trees and the very texture of leaves and lichen and moss.

  Stellan remembered that he had read in The Gentle Owl’s Guide to Manners and Protocol that these moss capes were the ceremonial garb for gatherings in Ambala. Hence, they came by their names—the greenowls of Ambala.

  Although the yosses had just arrived, they knew that they had to wait to speak, despite their agitation over Third’s capture. This would be their first effort at mustering allies. And more specifically, Stellan’s first attempt in his role as frynmater—diplomat from the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. An elderly whiskered screech began. “Greetings.” He nodded at them. “What brings you bears from the Whitelands so far south?” Stellan recalled that this was the peculiar name that these owls called the Nunquivik—the Whitelands, since snow and ice were rare in Ambala.

  Stellan now stepped forward. “Hope and disaster bring us,” he said simply.

  The owl’s bright yellow eyes blinked. “Disaster? Let us then hope we might help you.”

  “One of our own has been taken, taken—we fear—as a hostage.”

  “One of your own—that is terrible.” His beak seemed to quiver a bit. This, Stellan had heard, was a sign that an owl had felt something deep in its gizzard. The gizzard was the most sensitive organ of any owl. All their strongest feelings and intuitions came through this muscular, thick-walled part of an owl’s stomach for grinding the grit of its food.

  Stellan paused. “But we also come with a message from the Great Tree.”

  “The Great Tree? Soren?” A look of great concern fled through the amber eyes of the owl. “The king has a message for us? It has been so long since we have heard from Soren. We feared for his health.”

  “Yes, sir, a message from the king. And he is fine, in good health for a creature of his years.” Stellan lightly dragged one claw across the forest floor, a sign of extreme respect. Then he quickly repeated the gesture, but this time with two claws. He stepped forward and dragged the second claw again. Claw dragging was part of the protocol for presenting a serious question to the greenowls.

  “A subject of vital importance. Kindly proceed.”

  Stellan felt caught in the amber glare of the whiskered screech’s gaze. He was extremely nervous. These august owls of Ambala were considered profoundly intelligent. They were venerable because of their long history and esteemed for their intellect, but they were also legendary fighters.

  “Go on,” an owl who’d introduced himself as Braithe said.

  Stellan coughed slightly. “Sir, we are deeply appreciative of your concern for our lost friend, Third. But we originally set out with another mission. A mission authorized by the owls of the Great Tree.”

  “Indeed!” Braithe replied. Stellan could not tell if Braithe was surprised or not.

  “Yes. We are bears of the Nunquivik, the Far Ice, or the Whitelands as you call them. We have reason to believe that the bears who control the great Ice Clock believe the great clock to be a god. To this false god, they sacrifice young cubs, very young cubs called Tick Tocks.” There was a stirring among the owls. Low murmurs of shock and disbelief. Yellow and black and brown eyes blinked and flashed with horror.

  “They kill their own, their own young?”

  “What would make a creature do such a thing?”

  “They must have licked at the bark of the Gynyakka trees,” Stellan heard a great horned next to him murmur.

  “There are no such trees sir in the Far Ice. There are hardly any trees.” Stellan paused and went on. He certainly had all their attention. “I cannot tell you everything except this violence needs to be stopped. We fear that it could actually spread to regions beyond the clock. More sacrifices, more young creatures’ blood to please this false god.” There was a gasp from all the owls draped in their moss cloaks. Stellan continued. “For this reason, we four bears have been entrusted with the mission of … of … of—”

  “Speak no more,” Braithe interrupted. “You need allies, am I correct?”

  “Yes, sir.” And then Stellan’s diplomatic composure seemed to dissolve in an instant. His ears were twitching nervously. “Will you brave and learned owls help us?”

  Braithe was quiet for several moments. Stellan was not sure what was happening. The whiskered screech swiveled his head slowly. The dazzling light of his eyes seeming to settle on one owl at a time. It was as if some imperceptible secret message or signal were being exchanged. Then he spoke.

  “Good bears of the Nunquivik,” he sighed. “All tyranny needs to gain a talonhold in these kingdoms of Ga’Hoole is for creatures of good conscience to remain silent.” He paused for several seconds. “You shall excuse us perhaps while we discuss?”

  “Certainly, sir,” Stellan replied. He could feel Jytte flinch beside him. Patience, Jytte, he wanted to say. Patience.

  “Moby.” Braithe nodded at a male great snowy owl. “Would you escort the bears to the Moss Dell?”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”r />
  The three yosses exchanged glances. They had never heard these words aye, aye or Captain.

  “Uh,” ventured Jytte. “These are new words to us.”

  “And your name as well,” Stellan asked. “Moby? Does this have something to do with books?”

  “Indeed it does,” the great snowy replied as he began to lead them down a tangled path to the Moss Dell a short distance away. When they arrived, they found hummocks and shallow gullies thick with the softest and greenest moss they had ever seen or felt. Moby swept his wing lightly over a swelling mound of the moss.

  “Finest moss in the world. Rabbit Ear moss we call it. So settle back, and while you rest—and you do look tired—I’ll tell you how I came to be called Moby. Moby Dick, to be precise.”

  “What a very odd name,” Jytte murmured.

  “So you have been told, I expect, by the owls of the Great Tree how the greenowls of Ambala dedicate themselves to be the guardians of the written word, of books.”

  “Yes,” Froya replied softly. Did she really want to hear about books when her brother was missing and perhaps in mortal danger? The last thing she needed to hear were the words Once upon a time …

  But that was not how Moby began. “Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—”

  “Pardon me,” Froya interrupted. “I thought your name was Moby?”

  “Moby Dick is the great white whale. Now, I just love this part, so let me go on, kindly.” Moby resumed, “Having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore …”

  Borrring! thought Jytte, but Stellan was captivated by the gently rolling cadences of this owl’s voice.

  “I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul …”

  The bears were uncertain how long they had been listening to Moby. Stellan appeared to find the story engaging, but Jytte and Froya were fidgety and greatly relieved when a small spotted owl appeared.

  “Braithe has summoned the bears. A decision has been reached.”

  “At last!” Jytte muttered. They returned to the circle, where the greenowls were all perched in their moss cloaks. Stellan stepped forward.

  “Bears,” Braithe intoned, “first of all, I want you to know that I have already dispatched a search party for your brother.” He nodded at Froya, and the bear appeared to stagger a bit.

  “Thank you, sir,” she replied in a trembling voice.

  “This is all very odd,” he continued. “We think of Ambala, these woods and forests, as places of great tranquility.”

  Stellan looked about, taking in the strangely serene scene of these greenowls. Could such violence have transpired here, or anywhere near this place? Yet Stellan knew that neither he, nor Jytte, nor Froya, would ever be serene until Third was back. He almost felt guilty that he had been so lulled by the story of Moby.

  “And secondly,” Braithe sighed, “this threat from the Far Ice in the north, this monster clock, is in fact a danger for all creatures. So, yes. Yes, we shall join you. Our decision is unanimous. Take back our tidings to the king, Soren, and tell him that we are prepared to take up arms against this enemy.”

  Stellan felt relief wash through him. He looked at the owls that flanked Braithe. They were a fraction of the size of the bears, and they seemed in their draping caps of moss the most unwarlike creatures in the world. And yet he knew from their studies at the Great Tree that they led the fight long ago against a tyrannical owl who came from across the Sea of Vastness and attempted to destroy the owls of Ga’Hoole. However, they seemed so different from the owls of the Great Tree. Braithe seemed to sense Stellan’s thoughts.

  “You are wondering about this place, I can tell. Very different from the Great Tree.”

  “Indeed, sir,” Stellan replied softly.

  “This is the very center of the Brad, as we call it,” he began to explain. “The Brad was the first book from the fragmentum that we rescued, and I myself committed those fragments to memory. I’m a collier by trade and had plunged into a fire to rescue this book. Only fifty pages were undamaged.” He paused, then resumed. “So you see, we call this the Place of Living Books. I believe Moby began to recite one of these books that we saved. It is one of the longest ones, called Moby Dick, about the white whale from the time of the Others.

  “This place, the Brad, was named for the author of the first book that was salvaged from the fires of the Striga, the blue owl who began the burnings. We don’t know what the author’s full name was, for we only had scraps of the cover. But we think it was Ray Brad.” He turned his gaze on an eagle who had just alighted. He nodded at the eagle and continued talking.

  “This eagle, Zyrr is his name, saved the immense eagles’ nest that was at the top of a nearby heartwood tree. He too was a rescuer of books, some of the great Ezylryb’s writings. And Emily”—he nodded to a small owl who wore a tiny cape of moss—“she saved Emily’s poems and loved them so dearly that she renamed herself Emily.” Emily was a tiny pygmy owl. She looked almost exactly like Rosie back at the tree. She struck Stellan as an especially shy owl. Quite different from Rosie.

  “Emily, would you care to start off with a poem for twixt time?”

  “You mean for dawn, Braithe—that’s what the Others like Emily called twixt time, dawn.”

  “Yes.”

  The little pygmy wilted and became even smaller.

  “I’m not sure, Braithe.” She spoke in a tremulous voice.

  “Emily is very shy,” Braithe explained. “But her voice is so lovely. Please, Emily.”

  She scuffed her talons against the pine needles on the ground as if trying to work up her nerve.

  “All right.” In two wing beats, she was perched on a taller stump than the one she had previously occupied. The glow of the fire cast a luminous pink glow on her white eyebrow feathers and the streaks of white on her belly.

  I’m nobody! Who are you?

  Are you nobody, too?

  Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!

  They’d banish us, you know.

  “I think you’re somebody,” Stellan said softly.

  “Now, bears,” Braithe said. “I know you are still missing very much your friend Third. If the search party has any news, they shall send back a messenger immediately. But they have only been gone a short time.”

  “Third isn’t just my friend,” Froya said timidly. “He’s my brother.”

  Braithe was about to tell her not to despair, when there was a flash of green in the morning light filtering down through the crown of the heartwood tree. The three bears cried out and stiffened as they saw an immense and luminous bright green snake settle on the ground. The snake deposited a fluffy little bundle on the ground. Rags staggered to her feet.

  She twisted her head this way and that. Then she spied Froya and flew toward her. “I couldn’t find him. I’m so sorry.” She looked around again. The three bears were cowering. Their eyes were clamped on the snake.

  “Oh, don’t worry. Don’t worry,” Braithe said quickly. “These are the greensnakes of Ambala. Yes, the deadliest venom on earth, but they are our friends. Deadlier than frost vipers but good creatures. And Efyr here is one of the best.”

  “Sssssooo many thankssss, Masssster Braithe.”

  Braithe tossed his head and chuckled. “I am not their master at all. We are friends, colleagues.”

  “I prefer to addresssss you assssss masssster.”

  Rags had now climbed up from Froya’s arms and perched on her shoulder.

  “I tried so hard to find Third, and I was just resting for a moment in a tree … and … and …” Her voice broke. Rags began to gulp. “I … I … can’t say it.”

  “Say what?” Braithe asked.

  The green snake slithered closer to Rags and gently lifted the tip of its tail onto the owl’s shoulder to
comfort her.

  “Should I tell them, Ragssss?”

  Rags nodded. Emily swooped down and extended a protective wing over Rags’s other shoulder.

  The snake Efyr continued. “Ragsssss encountered her mum, Edith, who sssseemssss to be a ssssslipgizzle for the enemy. We have had a watch on her for ssssome time. To put it ssssimply, she attacked her own child. We ssssaved Ragsss just assss she was sssstriking.”

  Braithe’s beak dropped open. “She tried to kill her own? She’s a slipgizzle?”

  Rags began to sob uncontrollably. “I am ashamed! My mum, a slipgizzle! I am the child of a slipgizzle. No one will ever trust me …”

  “No! No!” Stellan almost roared. “You are the most trustworthy owl we have ever met! I heard you getting up in the middle of the night to go out and search for Third. Were you fearful when you flew out?”

  Rags nodded.

  “And were you fearful when your mum, Edith, attacked?”

  “Of course. It was a kill spiral!”

  “Don’t you understand, Rags? You have courage. There cannot be courage without fear.

  “If anyone here”—Stellan cast his eyes around the circle of owls—“deserves to be Guardian of Ga’Hoole, it is you, Rags.”

  A peculiar mist had begun to seep through the Brad as Stellan was speaking. A stillness fell upon all the creatures as they watched slightly confused, and then in the very center, quietly with no fuss, Third stepped out of the mist.

  “Third!” Froya yelped, and ran into her brother’s arms.

  “What? Wh-wh—” stammered Jytte.

  Tears began to fill Stellan’s eyes. With a trembling paw, he reached out to touch Third’s shoulder, as if to confirm that this was, yes, truly Third, the cub whom they had known since his birth.

  It had not struck Jytte until this very moment how awful it would have been if her own brother had been seized. She had an overpowering urge to embrace both Froya and Stellan. In that moment, she realized that without Stellan she would not be whole, not whole at all but merely a half bear. Her knees suddenly felt weak. She had to crouch down on all fours to steady herself.