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Cleve said. He had taken a sliver of ice and was poking at the half-frozen blob on the floor of the cave.
    “Incipient beak,” Otulissa murmured.
    “Some embryonic feather shafts, rather long,” Cleve whispered.
    “Some ocular cells—but such a bright yellow!” Otulissa’s voice registered shock.
    Otulissa turned slowly toward Cleve. “You’re right. No ordinary mis-hatch. It was to be a hagsfiend! But something scared the ‘mother’ off, if whatever brooded over such an egg can be called a mother. She tried to escape with the egg but it broke.”
    “Let’s hope this was the only egg,” Cleve said.
    “Well, I don’t think we can be sure. They might have rescued others.”
    “Where would they have taken them, though?” Cleve asked.
    “Perhaps to the old Ice Cliff Palace where Siv took the egg of Hoole.” Otulissa spoke in an almost trance-like voice. “Just like in the legends.”
    “Surely they would not know about that, Otulissa,” Cleve said.
    “Why not? You forget that at one time, before we knew how terrible the Striga was, he had Coryn’s confidence and the run of our library. They spent long evenings together. Coryn could have told him the stories of the legends. Siv finding refuge in the Ice Cliff Palace with her egg and her faithful servant, Myrrthe. It was all written down in the first legend by Grank.”
    “Of course,” Cleve replied in a low tremulous voice. “Grank, the first collier.”
    “And as far as the Book of Kreeth, well, I said that I had the book under lock and key, but who knows—perhaps Coryn was reading it and the Striga glanced at it. And for a brief time before the Battle of the Book, it was in Nyra’s possession.”
    “We have to get a message back to the great tree and inform them of what we have found.”
    There was a Jossian unit messenger stationed on the Ice Dagger. Otulissa and Cleve left immediately to report this latest and most dire news.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Stirrings in the Dragon Court
    F ar away, in the Middle Kingdom of Jouzhenkyn, Taya, a blue owl who served as a page in the Dragon Court of the Panqua Palace, was troubled. She had been a page for perhaps one hundred years and recently had detected currents of—for lack of a better word—energy among the court owls. She had never before felt such currents there. Was it restlessness? Such disquiet was almost unimaginable amid the thick lethargy of the Dragon Court owls. Their vanity linked with their dullness of wit had kept them subdued. The excessive pride they took in their plumage had led them to grow their feathers to such extravagant lengths that they could hardly fly, and for the most part were towed about the jeweled interior of the palace by bearers. There had been the unfortunate incident of Orlando, who had managed to pluck his feathers secretly untilthey were a reasonable length for flight and then escaped. How he had ever managed to learn how to fly was still a mystery. But as far as Taya knew, the other owls of the Dragon Court were too listless to have even noticed.
    Taya had detected this strange energy perhaps two or three moon cycles previously. At first, she thought it was her imagination. But now she began to wonder again when she saw two azure-colored owls whispering with a new brightness in their eyes. She watched carefully as they were towed side by side through the Hollow of Benevolence and Forgiveness in the wake of the Empress Dowager. The empress seemed as dull-eyed as ever. Taya sensed an impatience in the two azure owls, as if they wanted to move faster. This was unheard of. Taya also observed that their feathers seemed somehow different. She decided she had to discuss her concerns with the steward. A pompous old owl, he was only the third steward since the creation of the Panqua Palace nearly one thousand years before by Theosang, the first H’ryth. Taya was not looking forward to this meeting but it needed to be done. She proceeded toward his office, the Jasper Chamber