To Fly
More flap, deeper flap. Your wings must almost meet on the upstroke of the flap ..." Grimble directed.
Soren and Gylfie were exhausted. This was much harder than anything either one of them had ever seen their parents or oth er siblings try to do.
"I know you're tired, but the only way out of here is straight up. You have to build your muscles. That's why I am not even having you practice hopping or branching. You do not have the luxury of gliding gently down from a nest. You have to develop your power-flight skills. So try it again."
"But once we're out Ť" Soren asked, "how will we know what to do?"
"You'll know. What did I tell you? The still air has no shape. In the sky You won't need mass of air as it moves around your wings- You * will sense its speed, if it is bumpy or smooth, hot of cold- And you will know how to shape it and use it. Wind always has shape but there is no wind in St. Aggie's. It is too deep for the wind to reach. And in these small spaces it is hard to even feel the air. It is dead, unmoving air in here. So you must work extra hard to give it a shape with your power strokes, your flapping. Your downstroke is your most powerful. On your upstroke, you want the air to flow through easily. That is why both of you have those feathers with slots, tip slots at the end of your wings.
They separate and let you go up easily."
Grimble demonstrated. He pressed forward just a bit, extended his head, and lifted his wings. And that was it -- he was suddenly airborne. Twice Soren's size or more, yet Grimble seemed to float up effortlessly. Would they ever learn? Had they even improved?
Grimble almost seemed to read their minds. "This is just your third lesson. You've grown stronger. I can see that. But you must believe it."
And then, by their fourth lesson, it did seem easier and that was the first time they began to perhaps feel the belief in their gizzards. They could feel the air parting above them. They had each flown higher in the deep stone box of the inventorium than they ever had before. They tried to imagine bursting out of it into the welcoming blackness of the moonless night. They could begin to sense the contours of the bubble of air that formed beneath each wing and buoyed them up into the darkness. The newing would last for another two nights and then their learning sessions would begin to dwindle as the moon swelled, and they would be required to stay in the glaucidium for longer and longer exposures to its light for moon blinking. Finally, after the moon had grown fat and full and the first phase of the dwenking began, they would leave. They must leave at that time, for the vampire bats would be returning. It would be their time, as fully fledged owls, to submit to the bats and then there would be no hope of escape.
Although they had not yet been in the library, they would go there on the night of their escape, for, indeed, it was located higher and closer to the sky than any other region aside from the hatchery.
Grimble planned to tell the library guard on duty for that night that he would relieve him for a few minutes as a disturbance had been reported in the pelletorium, in the very area that this guard supervised during the day. Grimble promised them that flying would seem easy after all their practice in the deep hole of the inventorium. They were curious about the library. Grimble had tried to explain what it looked like and how the books and the feathers and the teeth, the bones, the flecks, and all the bits that they picked out of the pellets during the day were arranged and stored. It was also in the library that some of the best battle claws were kept. Gylfie and Soren were very curious about them.
"They don't make them here, do they?" Gylfie had asked.
"No. They don't know how. Oh, how they wish they did. I hear Spoorn and Skench talking about it all the time. It requires a deep knowledge of metals, I think. They steal them- They go on raids to various kingdoms where owl chiefs keep fighting owls. They go into fields after battles and collect them from dead warriors. But they don't know how to make them. You see, you think these owls are smart here at St. Aegolius, but Skench and Spoorn are so frightened of any owl being smarter than they are ... well, that is why they moon blink everyone. No one else really knows how to read here. No questions allowed. So how can anything be learned, be invented? It's impossible. They've been trying to figure out flecks for years, but I doubt they ever will. They never let anyone else study them and maybe find something out. Why, look at you, Gylfie. You, just through wondering and having feelings in your gizzard about flecks, probably know almost as much as they do -- because you're curious. But enough talk.
Come on you two, time to practice. I want you each to go for that highest chink in the stone wall tonight. Soren, you get five wing beats to do it. Gylfie, since you're smaller, I'll give you eight."
"You have to be kidding," Soren gasped.
"I am not kidding. You're first, Soren. Make every downstroke count. If you believe, you won't ever go yeep."
Soren closed his eyes as he stood on a low stone perch that jutted from the wall. He lifted his wings then, with all his might, powered down. I can do this! I can do this! He felt his body lift. He felt the air gather under his wings on the next upstroke. It was a big cushion of air.
"Good!" whispered Grimble. "Again. More powerful." Soren was halfway up the wall to the chink and he had used only two downstrokes.
J can do it, I can do it! I feel the air. I feel the force of my strokes. I am going up. I am going up. I shall fly....
