The Golden Tree

The Golden Tree



Credits
Author:	Kathryn Lasky
Cover Art:	Richard Cowdrey
Cover Design:	Steve Scott
Details
Publish Date:	March 1, 2007
ISBN Number:	ISBN 978-0-439-88806-6

Summary
	The golden age is dawning. Does it bring doom or boon?
Previous Book:	To Be a King
Next Book:	The River of Wind

The Golden Tree is the twelfth book in the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series.

Description[]

Soren and the band are back. Coryn has retrieved the Ember, and it seems a golden age is dawning at the Great Ga'Hoole Tree. But all that is golden is not necessarily good. Soren, Twilight, Gylfie and Digger face their biggest challenge yet as the young king, haunted by the suspicion that haggish blood flows in his veins, hunts for the truth. His wanderings imperil himself and the good guardians who travel with him.

Meanwhile, back at the Great Tree, the influence of the Ember is strong-and strange. The Tree changes, as do the Guardians, left to govern in the young king's absence. Otulissa objects to the strange new ways, and her outspokenness puts her in grave danger. Someone must get word to Soren and the band. But who?

Eyecatcher[]

Chapters[]

Prologue

A Golden Glow
A Journey is Planned
What About the Ember?
The Band Takes Flight
Tell It! Tell It!
Bess of the Chimes
The Palace of Mists
Otulissa Perplexed
Coryn Sneaks Out
The Nature of Hagsfiends is Discussed
The Ether Veil
A Visit with Trader Mags
The Coronation Teacup
The Rabbit at Last
The First Prisoner
Cracked
The Shape of the Flames
Most Distressing News
An Owl with a Mission
The Tunnel of Despair
Race the Moon
The Book, the Battle, and the Band
Mysticus!
Not Twilight
Other-ish

Epilogue

Spoiler Warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Plot[]

The Band, in order to divert Coryn from his obsession about Nyra, who he fears is a hagsfiend or some reincarnation of one, go on a journey with him across the Southern Kingdoms. Before they leave, under pressure from many members of the Parliament, who have become obsessed with the safety of the Ember of Hoole, Coryn directs a group of Guardians from every chaw and nest-maid snakes from all the guilds to guard the Ember, which, according to some, especially a Whiskered Screech named Gemma who claims that Ezylryb valued vigilance above all else, wasn't adequately sheltered. Coryn and Soren's band travel up into Silverveil. Soon, they find a hollow to spend the day, and the Band tell Coryn about finding Bess, the daughter of the heroic Grimble (who is a secret they originally swore only to reveal to Otulissa, Ezylryb and Strix Struma) and the Palace of Mists when they were younger and seeking artifacts of the Others to complete with Mags' trader business. They leave but stopped due to a strong headwind. While the others were asleep, Coryn thought about what they told him before about Bess and dreams of a building that contains a statue of Kreeth. Determined to find out if his mother was a hagsfiend, or something worse, like a descendant of one of the arch-hagsfiend Kreeth's more successful experiments, he flew away in broad daylight without being discovered by the others.

Meanwhile at the Great Tree, many owls (except Otulissa) were becoming more and more obsessed with the Ember and its security. So much so they, against Coryn's orders, establish foolish ceremonies and an “elite” group of Guardians (known as the Guardians of the Guardians of the Ember) with the task to “better protect” the Ember, despite the opposition of Otulissa, the other remaining Chaw of Chaws, and an elderly Northern Saw-Whet: Fleemus. Primrose, however, has become quite taken by the ceremony and become an 'acolyte of the Ember'.

Coryn, meanwhile, was searching for the mystical Rabbit who he had met during his first escape from the Pure Ones, but never succeeds. Coming back, he finds his path to a grog tree that he infiltrates as a gadfeather. There, he discovered Mags selling wares to the troubador owls and finds out that the magpie had obtained The Book of Kreeth, an ancient book inscribed with the design of a Puffowl in which Kreeth had written all her experiments of nachtmagen within. Knowing that without his botkin, he was unable to retrieve the book, and he flew to inform the Band of his discovery.

Back at the hollow, Coryn reveals to the Band how he had thought for a long time about the identity of his mother, and what he had discovered about the book, expressing how closely Nyra's lack of true owl feelings resembled Kreeth's haggish ones and even recalling the similarities between his early life and Lutta's. Soren, in order to reassure Coryn and the others, told them that there was no evidence that Nyra was a hagsfiend and not to worry, but he is disconcerted by Coryn's revelation of the Book of Kreeth. They go off to find Mags in her home and to their retributions, Twilight, in answer to Mags' claim that she cannot say what happened to the book, rips of her patch, which his chawmates instantly reprimand him for. They discover that Stryker, though Mags cannot name him, has bought the Book of Kreeth. They decided to head toward the Canyonlands once belonging to St. Aggie's, not discussing their terrible fear: that Nyra intends to summon forth Kludd and restore him to life. On their way, they find the mystic Rabbit who revealed to them that the Book was in a cave with Nyra. Meanwhile, Nyra and Stryker discuss the importance of owls who were born on an eclipse, just as Nyra, Coryn and Hoole had and Nyra tells Stryker that she intends to recreate a creature already hatched, but this time she would improve him. Nyra, however, has suffered a crippling loss in what remained of her troops and of the Barn Owls that fought for Kludd, only she, Stryker, Wortmore and a mated couple named Spyke and Gebbles, remain, with the rest of the 20 or so survivors of the Battle of the Burning either perishing, fleeing into either the safety of the Northern Kingdoms or wastes of Beyond the Beyond or abandoning the whole idea of Tyto superiority in the hopes of starting anew. As such, though Nyra has been able to amass a small force with her newest recruits, even allowing Ifghar, a non-Tyto, and Gragg to join her for their military knowledge, she now is seeking other assets.

The situation at the Great Tree deteriorates to such an extent a prison-hollow was created, where owls who committed “crimes against the Ember” where detained. The first to be imprisoned was Otulissa. She was accused of crimes against the Ember for having hidden Madame Plonk’s coronation teacup, which the GGE wanted to claim for use in its Ember ceremonies (she had done so at Madame Plonk's request). Madame Plonk was placed under "tree arrest," not actually jailed on account of her singing being required for the Ember ceremonies. She speaks with Bubo, expressing how she regretted involving Otulissa, and getting her imprisoned. She took advantage of the fact that she wasn’t so controlled, due to her voice which snapped while she was singing (she claimed she needed space to heal). She flew away from the Tree to look for the King and the Band to inform them of the trouble at the tree.

The king and the Band continued to travel towards the canyons. Soren realized he thought that they were rushing too much and needed more information. He asked Coryn to watch in the flames of a fire they kindled. He, saw in the flames (though he does not recognize them) Ifghar and Gragg flying with the rest of Nyra's group, then the she-wolf Gyllbane. Soren was right, and they changed course toward the Beyond. They arrived and heard tale of the Tunnel of Despair. Gyllbane and Hamish, Coryn’s wolf friends, along with Gyllbane's maimed son, Cody, said that it was the tunnel where the MacHeaths saw Coryn's old enemy and Nyra's ally, MacHeath went stumbling into after word of the events of Coryn's retrieval of the Ember reached him, which had sent him into a severe distemper. When MacHeath returned, he came with a mysterious female dire wolf he had taken as a mate: Brygdylla. Both wolves, ragged, sickly and with eyes that were without a describable colour, soon called a meeting of the MacHeaths and led them out into the open under the full moon and turned into vyrrwolves under the moonlight, massacring the entire clan, apart from Cody, who they saw as worthless, and a small group of the most twisted MacHeaths, who were depraved enough to join their madness. Their description of vyrwolves was very similar to hagsfiends and Coryn fears that if Nyra, the most wicked of owls, and Dunleavy B. MacHeath, the most evil wolf, were again in an alliance, they could wreak unimaginable destruction, no matter how small their army was or who held the ember. It was decided to send Gylfie in to explore, since she was the smallest and would have an easier time maneuvering the twisted passageways, after which she would report to Coryn in the Shadow Forest, while Coryn, Hamish and Gyllbane attempted to collect what few dire wolves they could (it being mating season) to join the fight.

Madame Plonk made it across the Sea of Hoolemere, only to collapse into an exhausted heap. She was stirred awake by Doc Finebeak, who joined her in the search of Coryn and the others, offering his services in the hunt and revealing his past with Coryn. Plonk, as she and Finebeak depart, feels a fluttering in her gizzard, the sign of a feeling of attraction.

Gylfie, after exploring the tunnel and returning to the meeting point, reported to the Band that the end of the tunnel was the entrance of the cave where Twilight killed Kludd, and that she had seen Nyra and the vyrrwolves, who are drinking from the transformation pools, are holed up in there with The Book of Kreeth and what remains of Kludd's Tyto acolytes.

The Band and Coryn decided they had to attack them and retrieve the dangerous book. They were aided by wolves who arrived from the Beyond and were led to the canyons by Gyllbane and Namara and include Coryn's old ally, Duncan MacDuncan and his lieutenant, Fitzmore McFang, the chieftain of the McFang Clan (who Gyllbane had joined after The Outcast) and his mate and son and, along with Namara herself, a trio of wolves from the MacNamara Clan that consist of Namara's mate, son and daughter. During the battle they wanted to ensure the vyrrwolves wouldn't reach the moonlight and transform, but also they couldn't let them go too deep in the cave and lose them. Unfortunately, the strategy failed and Nyra, after seriously wounding Twilight, escaped deep into the cave while Gyllbane and her pack leap into the fray to assist the Band in fighting Nyra's army. Even worse luck, a shaft of moonlight is found and, as some of the battle spills out into the open air, several MacHeaths begin to transform under the lunar glow. Then Digger, after having spotted Madame Plonk, who arrived there with Doc and, through the power of Mysticus, had sent the transforming MacHeaths collapsing to the earth, writhing in pain, told her to go to treat the Great Gray, and then he too went to chase Nyra, along with Coryn. At last Coryn faced Nyra and made her go yeep, due to an irradiation of green light flowing from his eye, which, as he’ll found out later, was the power of the Ember which “flowed” through him. Shortly after Nyra and her troops retired, all the vyrrwolves are slain and their bodies swallowed up by the earth and it was discovered that Cody, Gyllbane’s son, who had completed the task of steal the book to Nyra, was killed, to the tearful grief of his mother, who rhetorically asks what her only pup had sacrificed himself for. Instead Twilight was cared by Stingyll and Slynella, brought there by Soren and Doc Finebeak and after few days he returned along with the Band, Coryn, Madame Plonk and Doc to the Great Tree. Before they leave, Gylfie gives Gyllbane her condolences, as while Twilight was brought back from the brink of death, the snakes could not resurrect a creature, but understands Gyllbane must grieve in her own way and keeps her distance.

Once arrived they eliminated all the nonsense made up for the Ember, including the prison-hollow. Coryn also scolded harshly the members of the Parliament who consented to do such things and sends Gemma, Penfold, Felix, Yeena, Humbert and Elyan to their hollows while he considers their punishment. Finally, in order to avoid similar events the Band along with the King, and the counsel of Otulissa, put the Ember with the others in the Bubo’s hollow, who was immune to its influence. Meanwhile, in the Canyonlands, Gyllbane howls her heartbreak to the moon, but then watches in tearful encouragement as Cody's spirit, after farewelling his mother, makes the beginning of its journey to the Cave of Souls.

End of Spoiler Warning