The Shape of the Wind
Tonight? Grimble, you must be yoicks. It's not anywhere near the dwenking. It's too soon!" Gylfie cried.
"We're not ready," protested Soren.
"You are ready Soren, I gave you five strokes to get to the chink in the inventorium and you got there in four. Gylfie, I gave you eight and you got there in seven. Tonight is the night."
"Why?" they both said at once.
Grimble sighed. He was going to miss these two. He might miss their questions most of all. It felt so luxurious to be able to ask and answer questions. He had once thought the sweetest taste in the world was that of a freshly killed vole, but now he knew differently. The sweetest thing was a question on the tongue. A word beginning with that wonderful rush of air that w's made. Oh, how he would miss these two young owls. They were lovely to look at, too, in their coats of newly fledged feathers untouched by vampire bats. "The thermals are coming this evening. This is why you must go."
"Thermals? What are thermals?" Soren asked.
"Warm drafts of air. They've arrived earlier than usual. They'll make flying very easy for you once you get out of here. You should meet up with them within a short distance from here. You'll be able to soar."
"We don't know how to soar," Gylfie said. "All we know how to do is flap."
"Don't worry. You'll know exactly what to do when you meet the thermals. The shape of the wind will tell you."
"Who is on guard tonight?" "I ' I "
Its Jatt.
"Jatt!" Soren gasped. "That's terrible. How will you get him to go to the pelletorium?" "I'll think of something. Don't worry. I'll get him out of there. I've already got you a pass for tonight between the third and fourth sleep march."
The third sleep march had just finished. Soren and Gylfie sought out the sleep correction monitor in their area and showed them their passes. He blinked and told them to be off. They made their way silently through the stone corridors of St. Aegolius, alone with their thoughts.
Yet those thoughts were the same, for they were deep in concentration as they tried as hard as they ever had to believe in their own ability to fly. They tried not to let themselves be distracted by the fact that the sum total of their flight experience had covered only a very small range of the usual maneuvers a young and newly fledged owl practices. They had no real knowledge of gliding, soaring, or hovering.
"Words, words, words," Grimble would mutter if they ever brought up these notions that they had heard their parents discussing with older siblings. It was Gylfie who mostly asked such questions. And Grimble would always admonish her. "You're thinking too much. You don't need to know anything about hovering and soaring. All you need to know is rapid takeoff straight up -- THRUST! POWER FLAPPING!"
He poked his head forward as he said each word and fixed Soren and Gylfie in the fierce, uncompromising glare of his yellow eyes. "That's it! That is all you need to get out of here."
So that is what Soren and Gylfie thought of It filled their minds. The power downstroke. The bunching together of the slots on the leading edge of their primaries. The upstroke, the spacing of those same feathers so the air could pass through with no drag. They had become very muscular from all their practice. They were probably the most muscular young owls in the entire academy of St. Aegolius. This alone should make them believe.
Had there ever been an Elf Owl as young as Gylfie who could power flap so strongly?
They arrived at last at the inventorium. Grimble could immediately tell that both owlets were concentrating fiercely. This was good. Now he just hoped that his ruse to get Jatt out would work.
Luckily, Grimble had detected that things were not perfect between the two brothers Jutt and Jatt.
Perhaps it was jealousy. It seemed as if Skench was paying more attention to Jutt than his brother, particularly on battle flights. There was always a bit of contention after a battle as to the dividing up of the battle claws left on a field from the defeated owls. Skench and Spoorn got first choice and then, when they returned to St. Aggie's, the rest of the claws were sorted and handed out according to rank or battle performance. There was an elderly owl, Tumak, who was the director of the main battle claw repository. But now Grimble was going to tell a bold lie that he hoped would get Jatt out of the library he was guarding. He began talking quite loudly. Soren and Gylfie couldnt imagine what he was doing, for he seemed to be speaking not to them but to some invisible owl.
"You don't say! My word. Trouble in the claw repository. Oh, Jatt's not going to like that at all. I think I better tell him." By the time Grimble, and it was only a matter of seconds, got to the guardhouse of the library, Jatt's feathers were puffed and quivering with agitation. He seemed twice his size and was in obvious pain. If any creature could be swollen with questions it was Jatt. And that, of course, was Grimble's advantage that he planned to work to the fullest.
"Don't worry, Jatt. I shall tell you everything. At least all that I know. Now calm yourself. I had heard Jutt talking with Spoorn earlier, regarding those new battle claws and how he felt Tumak was not handling them correctly. Spoorn had said that she would take it up with Skench."
"Oh, no!" Jatt gasped. "Jutt's been wanting to be the director of the repository forever. And we all know what that means. He'll be the most powerful owl around here next to Skench and Spoorn."
"Well, it is my understanding that they are allowing Tumak and Jutt to fight it out. There's a duel about to begin and Jutt has his forces assembled. Go get your troops, Jatt. Quick -- there's still time. I'll stand guard."
"Thank you, Grimble. Thank you. And don't worry. When I am head of the repository, you shall get first choice for battle claws."
"I'm not worried, Jatt. Now, just go while there is still time."
As soon as Jatt turned the corner and disappeared down the long stone crack, Grimble called to Soren and Gylfie. "Come on, you two. There's not a minute to waste." The two owlets raced into the library.
They gasped when they entered the room. It was not the books they noticed or the small array of polished battle claws hanging off one wall. It was the sky, black, chinked with stars, stars that seemed so close that an owl could have reached out with a talon and plucked one. Memories rushed back.
Memories of sky and breezes -- yes, indeed, they did feel a wind, even here. Oh, they were so close. Yes, they believed! Yes, they could do this and, then, just as Soren and Gylfie swung their wings up into their first stroke, Skench burst in. She was ferocious looking in full war regalia. Immense battle claws made her talons twice their size. A metallic needle extended from the tip of her beak and glimmered in the slice of the new moon that hung like a blade over the library.
"Flap!" screeched Grimble. "Flap. You will do it! You will do it! Believe! Power stroke! Power! Two wing beats and you're up." But the two little owls seemed frozen in their fear. Their wings hung like stones at their sides. They were doomed.
Soren and Gylfie watched transfixed as Skench advanced toward them, and then something very peculiar happened. Skench, moved by a power unseen, suddenly slammed into the wall, the wall that had the notches that Grimble had described in which the flecks were stored.
"Go! This is your chance!" Grimble shouted.
An indeed it was. Skench seemed to have been immobilized, paralyzed.
Soren and Gylfie began to pump their wings. They felt themselves rise.
"You can do it! You believe! Feel it in your gizzard. You are a creature of flight. Fly, my children. Fly!" And then there was a terrible shriek and the night was splattered with blood.
"Don't look back! Don't look back, Soren! Believe!" But this time it was not Grimble calling. It was Gylfie.
Just as they reached the stone rim, they felt a curl of warm air. And it was as if vast and gentle wings had reached out of the night, and swept them up into the sky. They did not look back. They did not see the torn owl on the library floor. They did not hear Grimble, as he lay dying, chant in the true voice of the Boreal Owl, in tones like chimes in the night, an ancient owl prayer: "I have redeemed myself by giving belief to the wings of the young. Blessed are those who believe, for indeed they shall fly'.'
