“I’ll tell you what happened,” Jinx said irritably. “Whatever that thing is, it picked us up and threw us away like rag dolls. The landing wasn’t exactly pleasant either—but you missed that, I guess. You blacked out.”
Kendra now noticed that Jinx and Oki were both covered in scratches and bruises. Her own belongings were littered about the hollow; her pack had obviously burst open upon hitting the ground. It had been a violent escape indeed.
Kendra stared back down at her scorched hand. “It saved us,” she murmured.
“Saved us?” Jinx snorted. “Is that what you call it? That thing nearly tore me wing to leg!”
Kendra shook her head, trying to organize her thoughts. Unlike her wand, the shard had instantly exploded with power. All I did was touch it, and it worked, Kendra told herself. Just remembering the experience made her heart beat faster.
“Kendra,” Jinx said loudly, snapping her clawlike fingers. “Are you listening to me? I said that thing nearly killed us.”
Kendra looked up at the grasshopper in a daze. She could barely concentrate.
Oki sighed. “Here, Kendra,” he said gently taking her hand. “Let me look at your wound.”
Absentmindedly, Kendra showed the little mouse her palm, and he began dressing it with a bit of ointment and a strip of cloth. Jinx grunted impatiently.
Oki worked calmly and quietly, but once he had completed his ministrations, he looked at Kendra intently and said, “It came from the Wizard Greeve, didn’t it?”
Kendra tried to speak, but the words stalled in her throat.
“What?” Jinx asked, glaring at Kendra then Oki. “What came from the Wizard Greeve?”
“The shard,” Oki replied.
Jinx whistled. “Is he right, Kendra? How in the name of Een did you get that?”
Kendra shuddered. She felt so confused.
“It’s okay,” Oki said. “Just take your time.”
“Sure,” Jinx muttered sarcastically. “We’re definitely safe here. Wherever here is.”
Oki cast the grasshopper a reproachful glare. Then at last, the words began to trickle from Kendra’s tongue. The tale started slowly, and she rambled in many places, but eventually she was able to tell the whole story of how Effryn had given her the shard and how it had been the cause of the tremble back at the yew tree house.
Jinx gazed down at the pointed stone that Kendra was still cradling in her cloak. “Dark magic!” she hissed. “You should have told us all of this before.”
“But it saved us,” Kendra murmured again.
“Stop saying that!” Jinx growled. “How do you know we’re any safer? Where did that thing blow us? How far?”
“I don’t think we’re in Een anymore,” Oki announced abruptly.
“Why makes you think that?” Jinx asked, turning to the little mouse.
“I don’t know,” Oki admitted. “It’s just a feeling I have.”
“Well, isn’t this delightful,” Jinx snarled, shouldering her poker. “You two stay here. I’m going to take a quick snoop about this wood.”
“Eek! Don’t you think we should stick together?”
“I won’t be long,” Jinx assured him.
“But what if Agent Lurk shows up?” Oki fretted. “Or some beastie?”
“I’d advise not thinking of pickles,” Jinx sneered. She turned on her long legs and hopped into the bushes, soon disappearing from sight.
Kendra felt Oki’s anxious eyes upon her, but she had no strength to soothe his fears. Her body felt exhausted, her mind muddled. Thankfully, Jinx was true to her word; in less than half an hour she bounded back into the grove.
“You were right, Oki,” Jinx declared. “We’re not in Een anymore. I found the magic curtain nearby, and we’re on the wrong side of it.”
“Are you sure?” Oki asked.
Jinx nodded. “You know how Een is invisible from the outside? You shouldn’t be able to see into it at all. But as I was creeping through the brush, I heard voices. So I crawled up close. There’s a giant tear in the curtain, and through that hole I could see into Een. That’s quite the little toy you have there, Kendra. I’ve never heard of anything so powerful that it could rip through the curtain.”
“If the shard tore a hole in the curtain, that means we can get back through,” Oki said hopefully.
Jinx shook her head. “Through the tear I saw Burdock and some of the other elders too. Looks like they are going to mend it with their magic—if they can. But that’s not the real problem. Rinkle is there with all the Een guard. They’re armed to the braids—and it looks like they are going to send out a raiding party for us.”
“Eek! What are we going to do?” Oki asked, wringing his paws. “We can’t stay out here. There’re Goojuns and Izzards and Ungers—,”
“We’re all familiar with the list of things that want to squish us—thanks,” Jinx interrupted. “Look, we probably don’t have much time before Rinkle shows up. We’ll have to make a move.”
“I’m going to Krake Castle,” Kendra announced.
“What!” Jinx exclaimed. “Are you absolutely insane?”
“My brother’s there.”
“But Krake castle is full of . . . of . . . Krakes,” Oki murmured anxiously. “And besides, we don’t even know how to get there.”
“Effryn told me,” Kendra said. “And I bet I have a map in one of my books. All we have to do is find our way through Fengir Forest and we’ll end up at the town of Ireshook. Effryn told me we could find a ship there that would take us across the sea to Krake Castle.”
“Right,” Jinx scoffed, leaning on her poker. “We have no money, no weapons, one type of magic that doesn’t seem to work, and another that would tear us to pieces. And you make it sound as if it will be easy.”
“I’m not asking you to come,” Kendra said.
“Don’t play this game with me!” Jinx shouted, shaking a fist at Kendra. “Do you think I’m just going to let you and furball here go bobbing across the Seas of Ire to some monster-infested castle? Oh stop it, Oki. You know you’ll stick with her, whatever she does.”
This sparked a heated debate between the three friends. Kendra was determined to rescue her brother from Krake Castle, while Oki wanted to return to Een. The little mouse suggested cutting a second hole in the curtain so they might sneak back into Een, but Jinx would have nothing to do with the shard.
“Besides,” the grasshopper said. “Even if the shard didn’t harm us, Burdock and the rest will be waiting for us—and we’d back to square one.”
“But what about Ratchet and your uncle, Kendra?” Oki said. “We can’t just set off on this journey and abandon them to the dungeons!”
“Winter told us she would rescue them,” Kendra argued. “They have her—and the professor. My brother has no one.”
“Let’s not forget that he’s an Unger,” Jinx said. “He might not even be on our side.”
“He’s my brother,” Kendra said adamantly. “What if someone in your family was trapped at Krake Castle? You’d go rescue them.”
Jinx sighed. “You know,” she said after a moment, “you’ve saved my life many a time, Kendra. Perhaps I owe you this. You’ve always done the right thing in the past. But I have to tell you, I don’t like it.”
“I wouldn’t think you would like the idea of sitting around here any more than I do,” Kendra said. “And we have to go somewhere—Rinkle is coming.”
“That’s why I’m going to make you a deal,” Jinx declared. “I’ll go along with this little crusade—on one condition.”
“What’s that?” Kendra asked.
“You are not to use the shard again. And just to be on the safe side, Oki must carry it.”
“Eek!” Oki cried. “I don’t want that thing.”
“I know it,” Jinx said. “And if I had it my way, we’d just hurl it to the bottom of a canyon.”
“We can’t do that!” Kendra cried. “Every monster between here and the ends of the earth is seeking t
he shard. If it falls into the wrong claws, all of Een may be doomed.”
“Exactly,” Jinx said. “That’s why Honest Oki carries it. Look what that wretched shard has done to you, Kendra. Keep away from it. Besides, you still have your wand. There has to be some magic in it.”
Kendra glared at her.
“So,” Jinx said. “Is it a deal?”
With Kendra’s nod, it was decided. She gathered up her belongings and handed over the stone to Oki, who carefully (and apprehensively) placed it in his pack.
“I don’t like the idea of carrying this shard,” Oki confided to Kendra as they left behind the wooded hollow. “But I’m glad you don’t have it. I think it hurt you when you used it—and not just your hand.”
Kendra nodded absentmindedly. Little did Oki know that Kendra had quietly and covertly used the Fake Flakes to duplicate the shard while sorting out her belongings. The shard he was carrying was a fake; the real one rested safely inside her pouch, where it thrummed in quiet fury, like an impatient heart.
ALL TOO OFTEN WE TELL OURSELVES small falsehoods to make ourselves feel better about our behavior. I can have another piece of chocolate—we might say—for I ate most of my supper. Or, I’ve worked on my homework long enough—now I can watch TV. And all the while we know that we really shouldn’t have another piece of chocolate or watch any more TV, but those are the things we really want to do, and so we happily tell ourselves little lies to justify our actions.
And so it was with Kendra now. She told herself that she had kept Greeve’s shard because she needed to protect her friends from its dark power. The truth, of course, was that Kendra wanted to keep the shard to herself. She liked the feeling of power it granted her, and she was not about to share it.
For the first few days of their quest, the Eens traveled at a hard and heavy pace, for Jinx wanted to put as much distance as possible between them and Captain Rinkle. They did not see the vile Een, but even so, they kept their pace up. After two days, they reached a river that served as the border to the mighty Fengir, that great stretch of forest that stood between them and the Seas of Ire. Search as they might, they could find no crossing, so at last, Jinx built a small makeshift raft with sticks of wood and a bit of twine. By the time they reached the opposite bank, the raft had crumbled apart, but it had served its purpose, and so they continued on their way, trudging with trepidation beneath the somber shadows of the Fengir.
The way was cold and dark, and they suffered for supplies. After all, they had not prepared for a journey of such length, especially in the late autumn. At night, they slept in the hollows of trees or in small rock crevices, huddling together for warmth. For food, they subsisted on the meager Een cake that Professor Bumblebean had provisioned, along with wild roots and nuts.
“What do you think they’re doing back home right now?” Oki asked one miserable, chilly night as he nibbled on a bit of Een cake.
“Sitting round a warm fire, sipping tea, and telling tales of old,” Jinx mused.
“I wish I had a cup of tea,” Oki said. “Something to warm my whiskers at least. As for the tales—well, I have my own tail.”
“Your puns are growing less inventive by the day,” Jinx told the mouse. “I think your brain is starting to freeze.”
“Everything is freezing here,” Kendra declared.
“We’re headed south,” Jinx said. “Maybe we’ll leave the frost behind us.”
But the next morning, they awoke to a skiff of snow on the ground.
The forest, of course, harbored many perils. One night, several days into their journey, a hungry fox decided the Eens would make a quick and easy snack, but he soon found himself on the wrong end of Jinx’s poker. With a few well-placed jabs, she sent the poor creature yelping and scampering back to its den to lick its wounds and face nightmares of insects wielding weapons of steel.
Then, a few days after the fox incident, the company stumbled upon a ragtag camp of Goojun warriors. The small, toadlike beasts were perhaps more surprised at this encounter than our Een adventurers, but it was Goojun instinct to attack, and attack they did. They had little fight in them, however; it was obvious that they had recently suffered in some terrible battle, for they sported all manner of cuts and bruises. As such, Jinx made quick work of the creatures, swinging her poker and beating them so soundly that, in the end, it was all the slurping Goojuns could do to flee.
There was one more troubling problem that the three companions encountered as they journeyed through the Fengir: They could not shake the feeling that they were being followed. It was Oki who sensed it first; Jinx was quick to dismiss it as jitters, but she came to believe Oki after being awoken one night by the snapping of a twig. To the grasshopper’s trained ear it sounded like a footstep, but a quick search of the area revealed no one.
“It might be Captain Rinkle,” Kendra suggested.
“He wouldn’t sneak about,” Jinx countered. “He’d just come storming in, swords a-swinging.”
They started keeping watch that night, but found no further evidence of a tracker. If someone was following them, he was now using greater stealth.
During the first weeks of the journey, Kendra committed to practicing magic with her Eenwood. Each night, after they had taken a humble meal, she would sit quietly and try to tune her mind to the wand. This met with little success, for she continued to struggle with settling her mind. It did not help to feel the shard pulsing from within her pouch, so close and ever-present; it gnawed at her mind, like a termite feasting on wood. Kendra simply could not focus.
Finally, one night after Oki and Jinx had fallen asleep, Kendra set aside her wand and reached into her pouch. Using an edge of her cloak, she pulled out the shard and gazed upon its dark wonder. Just the sight of it brought back the thrilling sensation of using it. How easily the shard had yielded its power! It was so unlike her wand.
If I could learn to harness the shard’s magic, nothing would stop me, Kendra told herself. I’d be a sorceress to reckon with.
There was another voice in her mind, of course, one that said: This is a darker magic, Kendra. Do not fool with it! Give the shard to Oki, like you said you would.
Kendra frowned at this thought. The second voice was right, of course. But the shard, with all its virulent power, was somehow just too enticing to ignore. I may need it to rescue Kiro, she finally told herself. That’s the only reason I’m keeping it.
But, of course, this too was a lie—and so the battle inside her tiny Een heart continued to simmer.
Six weeks after they had begun their journey, the Eens found themselves witnesses to the war that Effryn had spoken of. They broke through the last of the Fengir to find themselves on a high and rocky ridge; down below was a wide-open plain where two great armies of monsters had amassed, Izzards on one side, Orrids on the other.
Even from such a distance, Kendra and her companions could feel the tension of impending combat. They could hear the booming war drums, smell the smoke of torches, and see the glint of swords and spears and other fierce weapons. In the late autumn light, it was like gazing upon a sea of claws and horns that murmured with snarls, grunts, and groans.
“This will be a messy battle,” Jinx murmured. “And to think, Oki, all of this over the shattered remains of an ancient cauldron. If only those beasties knew you were carrying one of the fragments!”
“EEK!” Oki cried. Even though there was no way that the monsters could spot him high up on the rocks, the little mouse quickly scampered to take cover behind Kendra’s cloak. “Don’t think of pickles! Don’t think of pickles!” he squeaked. “Oh, Kendra, do you think those monsters know the shard is so near?”
“No,” Kendra replied. “We’re safe up here.”
“All the same, we don’t need to linger,” Jinx declared. “We’ll stick to the ridge here and skirt the battlefield. Hopefully we’ll leave these Orrids and Izzards behind before the fighting starts.”
They found a narrow path along the ridge and set off a
gain, three tiny dots against the rocks. As Jinx had hoped, they had left the battlefield behind by sunset, and which side was to emerge victorious in the terrible clash of monsters, they never knew.
The next morning, they trudged onward towards the sea. By noon they could taste the salt in the air, and they knew they were nearing the coast, for even though the three companions had never been to the sea themselves, they had all heard tales of it, mostly from Professor Bumblebean, who had studied about such things in his many books.
By late afternoon the great sea came into view. Kendra had never imagined a body of water so wide and vast. It made her dizzy just to look at it.
“We have to cross that?” Oki asked. “It will take a thousand years!”
In the distance they could see a narrow peninsula of rock that jutted out into the sea like a long and crooked fishing hook. Even though it was so far away, they could see that the peninsula was dotted with buildings and squat towers.
“That must be Ireshook,” Kendra declared. “We’re not far at all now!”
They set off at a more vigorous pace, hoping to reach the town before nightfall. But it seemed it was not meant to be, for only a few moments later, they turned a bend in the path and found themselves confronted by a thick wall of rock. On one side of their path was a sheer cliff, dropping down into a gorge; on the other was a mountain wall, shooting straight upward. They were stuck; it seemed their only option was to turn and go back the way they had come.
IT WOULD BE HARD TO DESCRIBE the despair that our three small companions now felt. Here they were, having crossed river and forest, having survived wild beast and vicious monster, only to find their journey obstructed by a plain wall of rock. They were so close to the town of Ireshook, and yet it might as well have been on the other side of the world.
“Who ever heard of such a ridiculous thing?” Jinx growled. “How are we supposed to reach this miserable town?”
Such was her wrath, that she turned and hurled her poker at the wall. As soon it struck they heard a loud “OUCH!”
Kendra Kandlestar and the Shard From Greeve Page 8