Guardians of Ga'Hoole 08 - The Outcast

her eyes now. They were a lovely tawny yellow. And if he looked deeper he could see the question in her eyes: What would Coryn choose? Yes, the time had come for him to make a decision. He must go to Beyond the Beyond or elsewhere. He could not live here in this nest forever. There was meaning to his life and he must go out into the world to find it. He was glad for his new name but, in truth, it was not the name that had made him feel different and new; it was what he had learned. He had learned to read and to write like the owls of the great tree. He had learned about the constellations in the sky and how to use them to navigate. And he had learned of his parents’ bloody history. All of this made him a very different owl.
    Still he knew that he would be treated as an outcast wherever he went. A new name did not change how he looked. He would be considered indistinguishable from his treacherous parents and their violent history. And it was knowing this that helped him with his decision. He must make his own history if any owl on Earth were ever to distinguish him from Nyra and Kludd and the Pure Ones.
    “It’s time, isn’t it?” Coryn asked, looking deep into Mist’s eyes. “You probably already know my decision, don’t you?”
    “No, actually, I do not,” Mist replied. Zan and Streak pressed closer. Slynella and Stingyll draped themselves over a limb.
    “How come?” Coryn was surprised.
    “I willed myself not to read what you were thinking. It was hard but I just exited your mind. I didn’t want to influence you.”
    “But you did,” Coryn replied.
    “Oh, dear. How?”
    “By everything you taught me. I know I must go to Beyond the Beyond. I am not sure what awaits me there. I am afraid.”
    “Only fools pretend not to be afraid.”
    “But stronger than my fear is my longing to go to the great tree, to meet my uncle Soren and aunt Eglantine, to find the good part of my family. I know before I go there, I must do this. I must go to Beyond the Beyond.”
    “And you have chosen to do this of your own free will?” Mist asked.
    “Yes, of my own free will.”
    And so it was planned that Coryn would leave the next night.
    “I must tell you one more time, Coryn, of the rumors.”
    “Yes, Mist, I know.” She had told him that Zan andStreak had reported rumors and sightings of the Pure Ones gathering new troops and capturing young, defenseless owls.
    “They’ve even gone in for egg stealing like St. Aggie’s did years ago in Ambala,” Streak said. “But this time it seems to be up in the borderlands between the Shadow Forest and Silverveil.”
    “Yes, of course, they have the old eggorium at St. Aggie’s there in the canyonlands. I suppose they could start that up again. There is yet another rumor,” Mist continued, “that one of Nyra’s top lieutenants has deserted her. They are out tracking him, too. You must be careful, young’un,” Mist said.
    “I promise I will.” Coryn wondered if his mother’s old lieutenant, Uglamore, was the deserter. He had had his doubts about how loyal Uglamore was to Nyra and the whole idea of the Pure Ones. It had been Uglamore who had tried to intervene and save Phillip from being killed in the ritual known as the Special Ceremony. But Uglamore was old now. Where in the world would an old broken-down lieutenant for the Pure Ones go? Beyond the Beyond. Of course, Coryn thought.
    He left at First Black. The two eagles and Slynella and Stingyll accompanied him as far as the border of Ambala.He had said his good-byes to Mist privately. Mist, never a strong flier, had chosen to stay behind.
    “Glauxspeed!” Streak called out and Zan signaled. The two flying snakes had been joined now by two other snakes, and the four of them wrote across the silver of the full-shine moon:
Glauxspeed Coryn
    And to think, Glaux is not even the spirit of their kind. How good of them to wish me well in the name of a spirit that is not theirs.

CHAPTER SIX
A Cry in the Night
    C oryn set a course due west. The constellation of the Little Raccoon was just climbing out of its burrow beyond the horizon and into the sky. To keep this course, Coryn must fly two points off the first claw of the raccoon’s port front paw. How glad he was to have learned navigation. The Pure Ones navigated by certain dim instincts that were not nearly as accurate as star navigation. On this course he would fly over The Barrens, skirt the edges of Silverveil, then angle his flight north by northwest and