Amber was filled with despair. Nightwing had been right. She hadn’t wanted to turn Ben back into a human. Her mind might have said yes, but her heart told her no.
Amber desperately wanted to go find Ben.
But even if I found him, what could I do against a powerful sorcerer?
She looked at the huddled forms of the mice, nuzzled together like round boulders in a small stream. She had a responsibility to Ben, and with all of her heart she wanted to set things right, but she had a responsibility to her friends too. Old Barley Beard had told her that it was her destiny to free the mice of the world. It was to be her life’s work.
Now she’d set a few mice free, but free to do what? They had no home, no shelter. They knew nothing about how to forage in the meadows or dig a burrow or hide from hawks and pine snakes. Had she freed them only to let them die in the wilderness?
No, she decided. I’ll have to find a home for them.
“Bushmaster,” Amber said. “Do you think that Old Vervane will take my friends in? Teach them how to feed themselves and keep from being eaten?”
“Of course,” Bushmaster said. “He loves being a know-it-all.”
“Okay, then,” she said. “If the bat went west and we’re going west, then we’ll drop the pet shop mice off with Vervane and go after Ben.”
Amber trudged over to the nearest pizza and began to shout, “Wake up! It’s time to go. The owls have gone to roost, and the hawks have yet to wake. It’s time for us mice to travel.”
Amber stopped after she spoke. She realized how much she had just sounded like Vervane.
I’ve grown in the past two days, she thought.
The pet shop mice woke as she poked their fat tummies with her nose, and then they filed off into the shadows.
* * *
The pet shop mice spent the morning in damp travel, slogging through fields where rainwater pooled among the grass. Mud puddles seemed like lakes to the mice, and water was everywhere, which made the travel safer in some ways. For with the intermittent rain, the cats and hawks both stayed undercover, leaving the mice to travel in safety.
The only danger they faced was when they crossed some railroad tracks. They didn’t go over them, but instead elected to go under, traveling through a drainage pipe. Even then, a train came rumbling overhead, making the ground shake as if the world would tear apart.
Then the most horrible thing happened. The train blew its whistle. The shrill noise was horrifying, and several of the mice, who were already weakened from travel, fainted at the sound.
Amber and Bushmaster had a hard time reviving them.
“You have to watch out in the mornings,” Bushmaster said as he and Amber ushered the injured mice from the pipe. “Loud noises after dawn can be dangerous for a mouse. Your body knows that you should be asleep, and so a noise that wouldn’t bother you during the night can leave you stunned or even dead if it comes near dawn.”
Amber hadn’t known that, and now she filed it away in her memory. It made sense when she thought about it. There were times, early in the morning, when sounds seemed unnaturally loud to her ears, loud enough to leave her irritated and angry.
By noon, the sun had come out and the mice had reached higher ground. But still the going was slow, for the world was filled with wonders that the pet shop mice had to investigate—dewdrops and ladybugs, wild roses and old green bottles.
Bushmaster and Amber led the mice carefully. Hop, stop, and look.
Without her magic, Amber was just another mouse. And her responsibility weighed heavily on her.
* * *
It was completely by accident that Doonbarra spotted a newt that afternoon.
“Over here,” Doonbarra called, as they were climbing the hills above the millpond. They found him—a lizard with a chocolate brown back and an orange belly—in a small clearing covered with moss, in a place where rills of rainwater tumbled over small stones beneath a canopy of wild blue mountain orchids. The newt was struggling to tug a worm from the ground. He had it in his mouth, and both the newt and the worm were grunting from the battle.
Amber desperately wanted to please the newt, so she said, “Here, let me help with that.”
She grabbed the worm and pulled it from the ground like a slimy rope. The worm cried as the newt gulped it down, “Help, I’m a sentient being! I think, therefore I am. And I am being swallowed.”
“Ah, that was a fine worm,” the newt said as the worm went wriggling to its doom. “Sturdy and juicy, with just a hint of compost. I thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Amber replied. Then she waited, wondering how to bring up her question. “Uh, I’m looking for an evil bat, a sorcerer who took my friend.”
The newt got a faraway look in his golden eyes, and his slit pupils constricted. He nodded and whispered in a deep voice, “Three answers you may have of me: ask what is now, what shall come, or what may be.”
Three answers? Amber wondered. Ask what is?
“Okay,” Amber replied. “I want to free the mice of the world, and my friend Ben is one of them. But how are they bound, and where can I find them?”
Amber worried. Technically, she had just asked two questions, and she was afraid that the newt would notice. She looked deep into the newt’s eyes and watched as they suddenly turned red and glassy.
Then it seemed to Amber that she was flying high above the world, a colorful ball of blues and greens with white clouds above. And she saw the mice of the world in their cages. Thousands of mice. Hundreds of thousands of mice. Millions and billions of mice.
She saw them as if in a vision—a sea of mice, white and brown and black, each of them yearning for freedom.
They were everywhere. In cities and towns that spread from the ice sheets of the north to the far Antarctic.
But as Amber peered, she looked down into the deserts over America and saw hordes of mice on the march. They were coming from everywhere, wild mice, cunning in the ways of stealth and evasion.
They were marching toward a dark hole, like a great cavern in the earth. But even the newt’s magic vision could not show Amber where they were going.
It was as if the darkness, the hole itself, were aware of Amber.
And as she watched, she realized that many of the mice that she saw hopping through tufts of desert grass or scampering over rocks were barely alive.
Many of them looked haggard, their frames weak from lack of food, as if they were starving. But the worst were more than starved.
Amber could see flesh rotting away from their skulls and bones showing through patches of fallen hair.
Is this a symbol? she wondered. Am I to free the mice from death? Or is there really a dark hole that they are going to?
Amber shivered inside, recalling Vervane’s warnings. The mice around here were gone and had been leaving all winter.
No, this wasn’t a metaphor for death. This was a real place, and the mice were being drawn to it.
Amber peered toward the blackness, the great hole. It was in a desert of red rock, in a place ringed with sharp stones, like worn teeth.
She tried to move toward it and thought she saw shapes in the darkness. Foxes and owls, perhaps.
There are more than just humans to deal with, Amber realized. There’s something else here—sorcery.
And then the vision faded, and she saw Ben, an ugly little tick huddling among the reddish fur of a vile-looking creature with wings and huge ears. A bat, Amber realized. Ben looked miserable, clinging to its fur.
The bat was mushing creatures together, mixing quails with slugs and leeches with spiders, creating an army that would shake the balance of the world. Indeed, he had just finished mushing a new monstrosity.
A huge rattlesnake was half slithering, half walking across the floor. It was a dozen feet long and had the wings of an eagle and an eagle’s talons and sharp beak, but the body of a snake.
“Behold, my masterpiece,” Nightwing cried, “the Conqueror Worm!”
Sud
denly from the cave came the cries of Nightwing’s monstrous minions, yammering for blood, howling for war. The bat laughed maniacally even as he wrapped his wings over his ears to protect them from the harsh noise.
Amber felt a tug in her mind, and the newt’s voice came to her now, “Three answers you have had from me,” the newt whispered. “None are left unto thee.”
“Urp,” Amber said. So the newt had noticed. Not only had he noticed that she had asked two questions, but he had provided three answers—showing her not just Ben, but also the mice in cages around the world and the mice that were being drawn into the shadow.
Amber felt as if she were being pulled away from Ben, back from his hole, back through the Weird Wood of slithering vines and poisonous nettles and piles of bones that surrounded Nightwing’s fortress beneath Shrew Hill.
She kept pulling back and back through endless forests and over rugged mountains, past churning rivers and limitless lakes, until she found herself standing beside the newt.
Amber’s heart seemed to stop as the vision faded. A cry of despair rose from her throat as she realized, I could never walk that far. I’ll never make it.
Chapter 16
THE EYE OF NEWT
He who is best prepared wins his fight before he ever sets foot on the battlefield.
—NIGHTWING
“Three answers you may have of me: ask what is now, what shall come, or what may be.”
INSIDE NIGHTWING’S CAVE, the monsters were finally going to sleep.
Nightwing had stayed up all day, herding in prisoners to create new monstrosities and then pitting them against one another until he’d created his ultimate warrior—the Conqueror Worm.
Only then did he tell his minions, “Go search the forests. Bring me eagles and rattlesnakes, a thousand of each! And with them I will build an army that all of the forces of SWARM cannot repel.”
Ben felt sickened by the barbarity of the display, the endless bloodshed.
He wanted to run away, but he’d seen what happened to Darwin when he tried to escape. So instead, Ben took a little comfort in knowing that one day was almost done. If he had to serve Nightwing for a month, that meant that he only had twenty-nine days left to go.
Many of the monsters went out that night to hunt for snakes and eagles. Ben suspected that in the morning, Nightwing would begin creating a whole new race of monsters to fight his war. And within a day or two, they’d go to war.
Right now, the cave was relatively empty. Only a few guards remained.
Before they went to sleep, Nightwing ordered Fanglorious the snake, “Bring me a fresh newt!”
In moments, a rubbery brown lizard was squirming in the snake’s jaws, trying to escape. The snake wriggled up to Nightwing and dropped the lizard at his feet. The newt cowered before Nightwing and said, “Eat me and you’ll die! My skin is poisonous, you know!”
“I know,” Nightwing said. “But it’s not your skin that I want, just your eye. Now, will you show me what I want, or will you make me rip it from its socket?”
The newt stared blankly, then said in a deep voice, “Three answers you may have of me: ask what is now, what shall come, or what may be.”
“Show me my ancient enemy,” Nightwing commanded, “Rufus Flycatcher, the High Wizard of SWARM”
The newt’s eyes glowed fiery green. Ben peered into them.
He saw a gorgeous scene. It was sunset in a swamp far, far away. Green dragonflies cruised lazily through skies painted gold from a setting sun, while cypress trees cast blue shadows upon the dark water.
Frogs were singing everywhere—croaking so loudly that to Ben it sounded as if he were in a football stadium. There were leopard frogs, bullfrogs, green frogs, tree frogs, spring peepers, carpenter frogs. The calls were so loud and insistent and varied, Ben had never heard anything like it.
The vision zoomed in, down around the roots of a huge cypress tree. There on the cypress knees—knobs of wood that poked up from the black water—sat a handsome bullfrog. Baby alligators patrolled the waters behind him like sentries, while a beautiful white heron watched the bank above, and a pair of turtles—large cooters—sunned on a log nearby. Fireflies danced in the air around his head, their green lights dipping and rising.
Ben had a terrible longing to take a jar and catch the fireflies.
Rufus Flycatcher was busily instructing some young frogs, most of which hadn’t even lost their tails yet, about the difficulties in repairing the damaged wings of fireflies.
“The problem,” Rufus was saying, “is that fireflies aren’t real flies. If y’all look close, you’ll see that they’re beetles, and like any beetle, the real wings are hidden beneath an armored shell, called the elytra. So these wings, constantly banging agin’ this shell, get worn out quicker than a butterfly bucking against the wind of a tornado . . .”
“Perfect,” Nightwing chuckled upon seeing the old bullfrog. “This looks just perfect.” Suddenly the bat hissed a loud curse, then magnified his voice as he addressed the frog, “Rufus, I’m coming for you.”
Through the newt’s eye, Ben could hear the bat’s words repeated, only there in the swamp the voice seemed to come from everywhere, booming from the sky, bouncing from the waters, filling every corner of the cypress forest.
The fireflies dipped in the air, startled from their flight, while young frogs and tadpoles croaked in fear and leaped for the safety of the water. Even the alligators dived for safety.
But Rufus Flycatcher boldly held his ground, sitting on a mossy cypress knee while green algae floated all around him. “Nightwing?” Rufus said. “So, you’re still alive? I figured for sure that you’d be toasting like a marshmallow in you-know-where by now.”
“I’m more alive than you are,” Nightwing said. “Your time has come.”
“You still runnin’ that school of yours, SADIST? Not much of a magic school, from what I hear. What kind of magic do you teach?”
“Like most schools,” Nightwing admitted, “we don’t profess to teach much at all.”
“You know, you’re one sick puppy,” Rufus said. “It’s all that evil in you, poisoning you. I tried to heal you of it once. But you clung to it like a baby possum clinging to its mama’s belly. Now, if’n you’d free yourself of evil, you’d be a whole lot better off.”
“Why, I thank you for your concern, my old master. But I don’t want to be healed. I like being a sick puppy. It’s the only thing that I really excel at.”
Rufus Flycatcher shook his head sadly. “Once, there was a time when you were a man, a man who could cast a spell over an audience with just the sound of your voice. You’d stand there and recite a poem and folks would just gasp in amazement. Women would throw themselves at you and swoon at your feet. What I want to know is whatever happened to that feller?”
“Ah, well,” Nightwing said, “Poets have fallen out of favor in the past hundred years.”
The fireflies were still bobbing in the air around Rufus. They brightened a little, believing that the danger was gone.
Nightwing said, “I’ll be seeing you soon. You’d better get some rest. You’ll need it.” Then, in a falsely sweet voice he offered, “Here, let me turn out the lights for you.”
And with that, Nightwing hissed a second curse. The fireflies exploded in midair and went raining down into the water, leaving trails of smoke and debris in the air until they hit the brackish pool, sizzling.
“You can’t scare me. I’m from Texas!” Rufus said in a challenging tone. “I got warts on my armpit that are scarier than you!” He let out a strange croak, which started deeply, causing the whole cave to thunder and shake from the sound. But as the croak ended, it rose to a piercing shriek that caused Nightwing to hiss and throw his wings up over his ears.
The bat’s eyes got wide with terror, as if the continued shrieking would kill him. In desperation, Nightwing waved his wing.
Instantly, the newt’s eye cleared, and the vision faded.
Nightwing stood for a moment
, trembling in pain, trying to compose himself. Ben realized that the bat’s ears had been too sensitive to withstand the bullfrog’s sudden assault.
Ben was still gasping in shock at the murder of the fireflies. Though he had gone the whole day without eating, he felt as if he would be sick.
Ben crawled to the edge of the rock and began to gag, remembering the fireflies burning in the water.
Nightwing turned on him and angrily stalked closer. “What, you don’t want me to kill the little froggy?”
Ben shook his head sadly.
“You don’t like what I’m doing with your power?” Nightwing demanded.
Ben looked up, frightened, and shook his head.
Nightwing snarled, “What kind of tick are you? A luna-tick? A roman-tick? Or are you just fran-tick?”
Ben didn’t answer. He sat there, squirming, until Nightwing shouted, “Your attitude displeases me. One day shall be added to your term of service!”
Ben’s heart froze. He had dared to hope that in twenty-nine days he would be free. But Nightwing had just made it an even thirty again.
The bat sneered at him, and Ben could sense the creature’s game. For every day that Ben served, the bat would think up some excuse to keep him a day longer. Ben would never be able to serve Nightwing well enough to get free.
I’m his slave, Ben realized. I’m his slave forever.
The very thought made all eight of Ben’s legs so weak that he collapsed to the ground like a rock, his legs clattering around him like broken sticks.
Chapter 17
THE FLIGHT OF THE OWL
Wake up to the miracles that happen all around you.
We grow old only when we lose our sense of wonder.
—RUFUS FLYCATCHER
The owl grabbed her in its talons, and Amber feared that it would crush her.>
By noon, Amber could tell that the journey to Ben’s house was definitely going to take more than a day. The pet shop mice hiked through the fields all day, skirting puddles and temporary creeks, and moved only as quickly as the slowest mouse.
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