The Keepers of the Keys

by Kathryn Lasky

  The scouring winds of the Beyond were nothing for these four young bears. However, Stellan, as the frynmater, the diplomat, felt caught in a whirlwind of facts, particulars, and instructions about the culture of this strange land. First, there were all the new words that only wolves used—words like gaddernock, which was the complete and sacred laws, codes, and traditions of the wolves of the Beyond. They must not transgress any of those. And then there was a myriad of words and rules pertaining to the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes, from which the collier owls came during certain seasons of eruption to harvest the coals. The Fengo was the chieftain of the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes. And there were the very precise rules of protocol that governed how a creature approached a pack, the pack leader, and the clan leader. There had been so much to learn and so much to remember.

  “I see Beezar!” Jytte called out, and stopped, rising up on her hind legs to point to the fighting bear constellation. In the wolf world, this constellation was called the Blind Wolf.

  “I think we’re getting close to the MacDuff territory,” Froya said. It was as if the map she had studied for those long hours was now emblazoned on her brain as bright as this starlit wind-scoured night. She looked up and saw that Rags’s flight was a bit errant in these adverse winds. She’s tired, Froya thought.

  “Rags, come down. Settle on my shoulder. These winds are too stiff for you.”

  “No, they aren’t.” It had to be nearly impossible for her, Froya thought. She was half the weight of one of her paws.

  “Yes, come on!” Jytte called. “We’ve traveled a fair distance. We’re all hungry. We all need to eat something.”

  “Actually …” Rags emitted a swooping hoot of excitement. “It’s … it’s a caribou!”

  “But how can that be?” Froya exclaimed. “It’s not the Caribou Moon now. The Caribou Moon is an autumn moon.”

  Jytte gave Froya a withering glance. “You can be a dead caribou in any moon.” Sometimes, Froya could be slightly annoying. She was quite literal and a stickler for facts.

  “Dead and no vultures,” Froya added.

  Ahead, they saw Rags swooped down on what at first they thought was a snow-covered rock, but it was the rump of the caribou. When they arrived, Rags flew and perched on the animal’s antlers. “I’m not sure how long ago it was killed, but there is plenty left for us. Well, probably not me. One needs fangs for this job.”

  “Don’t worry,” Stellan said. “I’ll tear a hunk off for you. After all, you spotted it. Therefore you should get the first bite. Don’t the wolves have a lot of rules about who gets to eat first after a kill?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t kill it.”

  “You found it.” And with that Stellan approached the neck of the creature, where there was an open wound, and tore some flesh. “I might have to shred that up for you a bit.”

  “Thank you, Stellan,” Rags replied.

  After Rags had her first bite, the rest began to tear greedily at the carcass. A rising moon, large and luminous as a silvery bubble, wobbled on the horizon. They hardly noticed when a strange shadow began to slide over the carcass they were feasting on. But then, all at once, they froze. A dread filled Froya. She turned around.

  A magnificent wolf stood in complete silence. Unlike other wolves they had learned about, this wolf’s eyes were not really green but a deep, almost midnight blue. Its pelt was gilded in frost and moonlight. The bears felt themselves enveloped in a thick silence, but finally, Stellan fell to his knees and began crawling toward the wolf. This was the first of the submission postures he had read about in The Gentle Owl’s Guide to Manners and Protocol. Tucking his tail was difficult as it was so short. As he drew closer, he began to roll onto his back and lift his paws as if to scratch at the stars.

  “Not necessary,” the wolf barked. “First submission posture is adequate. No need to advance to second.”

  Jytte turned her head to look at Stellan. He knew exactly what she was thinking. Submission? Really? Looks like groveling to me. But such were the ways of the wolves.

  “My name is Alasdair. I am a scout for the MacDuncan clan.” She paused and cast her eyes on Rags. “The she-winds are blowing. You tried, little owl. You have good marrow.” The wolf spoke in a beautiful lilting cadence, and when she said the word marrow, it almost seemed to trill in the frosty air.

  The notion was slightly alarming, and before Rags could mind her beak, she blurted out, “Actually, truth be told, I have no marrow. My bones are hollow.”

  “It doesn’t matter. The owls might say you have a bit of Ga in ye.” She turned to the other wolves and spoke. “Where do you go? What do you seek?”

  Stellan stepped forward. “We seek parlagh with the chieftain of your clan.”

  “You speak our language well, bear. Now follow me. I’ll take you to the gadderheal of the MacDuncan clan.” The swooping cadences of her voice were like music.

  “MacDuncan clan!” Stellan exclaimed. “I thought we were close to the MacNab clan.” Otulissa had recommended going to the MacNab clan first. She had told them that the MacNabs had risen in the last few years to become one of the most influential clans. If one could convince the MacNabs to join the alliance, it would make it easier with the other five clans.

  “Ah, no, you see, in the time of Faolan”—upon uttering this name, the wolf Alasdair dropped to one knee, then sprang up again—“when the Wolf of all Wolves left, it was because of an earthquake. Many left with him and went across the ice bridge in the far west. It has only been in recent years that many of those who left have returned. The clan borders were redrawn. Alas, same old squabbles.”

  “Squabbles?” Third asked. Third knew that the wolves were very territorial. They did not tolerate trespassers. Although the bears had studied the maps, apparently those maps didn’t exactly seem to work now, not since the great earthquake of some twenty years before. Too bad, Third thought, that they didn’t have more up-to-date maps. They would have to carefully pick their routes and try to figure out whose territory they were crossing. Seeing as both Third and Froya were the navigators, the responsibility was on them. It was rather like moving blind through an unknown landscape during a blizzard.

  “Never mind. Follow me.” The beautiful wolf Alasdair began to trot off. Then she turned and called back, “And in the gadderheal when meeting the chieftain, you can carry out the complete range of submission postures for visiting non-wolf species.” She paused. “He is very formal, Chieftain MacDuncan. More so than other chieftains.”

  Stellan and the other three bears exchanged nervous glances. Otulissa had seemed to think it was important that they ease into the Beyond. She knew their customs would be quite foreign to the bears and for this reason as well felt they should first be introduced to the MacNabs. Very formal. What if we make a mistake? Jytte, Third, and Froya were all thinking the same thing. Otulissa had said that the wolves were vital to any success if there was war. They were superb fighters, efficient, strategic, and relentless on the battlefield.

  Alasdair sensed the bears’ anxiety. She could try to put them at their ease, but it would do no good. She couldn’t help but recall a conversation she had overheard just the day before between Duncan MacDuncan and his mate. The chieftain always seemed to be yearning for something bigger, grander, more important. That was the reason for all the quarrels with the neighboring clans concerning the territorial boundaries. For some reason, the chieftain felt he deserved that land. Alasdair had been made scout because she had an extraordinary sense of smell and could detect the slightest infringement of another clan member on the MacDuncan hunting grounds. She had overheard a peculiar conversation once when the chieftain was talking to his mate, Liathe.

  “You know, my dear, if we were owls … ,” he was saying.

  “Duncan, whatever are you talking about … if we were owls?”

  “All I am saying is that if we were I’d be a king and you’d be a queen.”

  “Oh, what does that matter, Duncan? You’re a chieftain. Is that no
t enough?”

  Alasdair was struck by the oddness of this conversation—a wolf wanting to be an owl? Yet the chieftain never mentioned wings or flying. That was the only advantage that Alasdair could think of for becoming an owl. She wondered if any other creatures longed to slip the cloak or pelt of their species and become another. These bears of the north appeared content in their own skin. The four young bears seemed like good creatures to her. Although she was unsure why they wanted to meet with the chieftain, they had obviously crossed over from Ga’Hoole. The scent of the Great Tree was on them. She would lead them to the gadderheal and try to give them some advice that might help them during their parlagh with the chieftain.

  She turned to Stellan. “Now, try not to be nervous. You did that first submission posture very well when we met.”

  They followed the wolf Alasdair for several leagues, passing perhaps two or three wolf packs of the MacDuncan territory. Their pelts ranged in color from gray to reddish and tan. A few were pure white. There was a grace to their light, absolutely soundless gait. Prey would never hear them coming. It was their silence that was slightly eerie. They might as well be walking on air, Froya thought. There was something almost ghostly about them, especially now, as a heavy snow began to fall, slanting against the harsh wind. The figures of the wolves appeared like silhouettes behind the scrim of the growing blizzard. They were curious but kept their distance. One might emerge from a pack cave and stare at them rather indifferently, then return to its cave. The first time this happened, Stellan was unsure of the protocol.

  “Do we need to do the submission greeting for the packs, Alasdair?”

  “No, you’re with me, and we’re just passing through on our way to the gadderheal.”

  “So the chieftain is Duncan MacDuncan, right?”

  “Yes, that has always been the custom of any chieftain in a clan. They take as their first name the last part of the clan name—like Nab MacNab or Duff MacDuff—we just passed through a slice of the MacDuff territory over there.”

  “What about the MacHeaths?” Jytte asked.

  Stellan stopped in his tracks. How could she mention the MacHeaths? They were the most treacherous clan in the Beyond.

  Alasdair gave a low growl and swung around, lowering her head. Her eyes cast a shimmering blue light on Jytte.

  “We don’t speak of them. They returned, unfortunately, after the Great Leaving to the Distant Blue. We had hoped they had perished on the ice bridge but apparently not.”

  Jytte felt a surge of humiliation. She should have known better. She’d forgotten what Otulissa had told them about the complicated relations between clans. But the MacHeaths were shunned by every clan in the Beyond. Even outclanners who belonged to no clan shunned the MacHeaths. The clan that interested Jytte the most, however, was the MacNamara clan, the only clan led by a female—the Namara. This clan lived on the most distant outreaches of the Beyond.

  A howl pierced the air and the cubs all turned their heads at once. It was a rather lovely sound, Stellan thought. The howling seemed to create a peculiar piping music that swept across the vastness of this land.

  “What is that?” Stellan asked.

  “We are passing the territory of the River Pack of the MacDuncan clan. That’s Greer da Greer, the skreeleen, the howler, the storyteller of the pack. We can rest here a moment and listen. Her mother was one of the greatest howlers in the Beyond. Also named Greer. That’s what her name means, Greer daughter of Greer.”

  They paused.

  “Oh, dear, look at that poor little wolf!” Third said. “She looks so hungry and raggedy.”

  “Gnaw wolf,” Alasdair replied matter-of-factly.

  “Oh,” Third said, and clamped his mouth shut. They had been told about gnaw wolves, the lowest-ranking pack members. They ate last, slept far from the warmth of a pack den, and endured endless abuse until they could prove themselves as expert gnawers of bone and incise precise designs that might eventually qualify them to become wolves at the Watch of the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes.

  “But what is the story the skreeleen is howling?” Froya asked.

  “Oh …” Alasdair almost gasped. Stellan immediately detected a sadness, a silent weeping in the wolf’s mind. “It’s telling the story of an outcast wolf, a peculiar wolf that some thought was a Sark, a witch. They called her the Sark of the Slough, for she lived in a marshy region, in a cavern. She toyed with fire.” Alasdair paused and then said darkly, “She disturbed the order.”

  Froya was attentive. In all their preparation at the Great Tree with Otulissa, she had never told them about any witch, any creature called the Sark of the Slough.

  “Was this just a legend?” Froya asked.

  “Some would like to think. But no!” Alasdair said emphatically. “She was not a legend.”

  And in that moment, Stellan knew that the Sark of the Slough was indeed not a legend and not a witch, but someone very dear to Alasdair. This was what had made her so sad. This was the deep secret that lived within this beautiful wolf, a secret that Alasdair herself might have sensed but not yet realized as true.

  The gadderheal was perfectly concealed and from a distance appeared like a pile of gnarled logs or tree stumps beneath an overhang of a large rock. To enter, the bears had to crawl down a slope for a fair distance. Their heads often scraped the ceiling. But then the space opened up, and on an elevated ledge covered with animal skins, Duncan MacDuncan sat tall. His muzzle twist was neatly braided and hung down beneath his chin. Only clan chiefs and members of the Watch at the Sacred Ring of Volcanoes were permitted to braid their fur in this manner. One paw was placed on a long bone from an animal that stood much taller than a wolf. The bone was known as the Bone of Truth. Each clan leader had one that had been gnawed by a gnaw wolf of their clan.

  Otulissa had told them about the central importance of gnawed, incised bones in this world of wolves. But what a strange world this was, thought Stellan. Otulissa and others at the Great Tree had described the Beyond as being “of Ga’Hoole” but not “in Ga’Hoole.” A subtle difference that the bears did not grasp at the time but were beginning to understand now. The hierarchical society of the wolves with their elaborate caste system, or rather pack order, and reserved manners set them apart from any other species the bears had ever encountered. Their lives were layered with elaborate rituals for hunting, gnawing bones, eating their kill. And now, as Stellan gazed about, he saw several wolves that he judged to be clan elders wearing elaborate headdresses and necklaces made from the small bones of perhaps rabbits or rodents. There were only two sounds in the cave—that of the sizzling coals in the center, where a small fire burned, and then the peculiar clicking of the bone headdresses when a wolf might tip its head this way or that.

  The bears immediately commenced with the submission postures. Stellan accidentally rolled on top of Jytte, but she suppressed a growl. DO NOT GROWL! Otulissa had warned them. There were other rules they must follow. They were not to speak until spoken to. Although a chieftain might approach them to sniff or touch, as is customary between many animals on first meeting, such conduct is strictly forbidden for the visiting creature. When leaving the presence of the chieftain, one was supposed to back away, but never, never turn their hindquarters to the chieftain.

  The initial submission gestures had now been completed. The chieftain gave a short bark. “You may rise to a crouching posture now … no more.” The bears all nodded that they understood. “Whom among you shall speak?”

  “I shall speak, Honorable Chieftain,” Stellan replied. He had been told by Otulissa that after addressing the chieftain once by his proper title he could call him sir.

  “Are you the leader of this pack?”

  “We have no leaders, sir,” Stellan replied.

  “No leader! How peculiar.”

  How peculiar—I’ll tell you who’s peculiar, Jytte thought. Relief swept through Stellan that she had not blurted that out.

  “We have come, sir, at the request of Soren, the
—”

  “I know who Soren is,” snapped Duncan MacDuncan.

  “—to request that you join and rise up against these evil bears of the far north in the Nunquivik who threaten all of Ga’Hoole with their worship of this hideous clock. We ask you as faithful servants of truth and justice. We come to the Beyond, this land of valor, to ask that you join us against these depraved bears.”

  Third’s eye filled with tears as he listened to Stellan’s eloquent pleas. How could Duncan MacDuncan not be moved? Jytte was thinking the same as well. How could the chieftain not be moved?

  But Stellan peered hard as he riddled the chieftain’s mind and knew he had not been moved in the least. Yet Duncan MacDuncan replied in a respectful, gentle voice.

  “You know, bears, that we have only recently returned to this land after the great upheavals wreaked upon us by a cataclysmic earthquake from long before you were born. Now, just two generations past in the time of my great-great-grandfather Chieftain Duncan MacDuncan, the land was broken. The Ring of Sacred Volcanoes flattened. Yet, praise Lupus, they have come back. There was famine—terrible famine as well. We few who managed to finally return have devoted all our energies to rebuilding this, our homeland. We returned against all odds and perilous conditions across the ice bridge from the Distant Blue. It was a costly and risky effort, and now that we are back, we must preserve our energies and not squander them.” Tight paws, Stellan thought. “Therefore, I cannot indulge the demands of an owl king, or princeling bears.”

  All four bears blinked.

  Stellan tried to imagine why the chieftains would ever think they were royal. The bears had never in all their history had kings or queens, princesses or princes. And this word princeling seemed to Stellan somehow demeaning, actually humiliating. As if the bears were attempting to be something they were not. Fake royalty. How should he answer him? He, after all, was the frynmater, but this wolf did not inspire friendliness.