“When I strive for perfection, I see my reflection—” she started.
“In hundreds of myriad ways,” Mulrox finished.
He remembered the warm feeling every morning as he awoke. She understood him. She wanted to help him. “You believe in me.”
“Of course. It is your destiny to come up with an idea. The absolute best idea you’ve ever heard. It will make you famous. It will change the world. It will be perfect.”
“When?”
“Soon. But we cannot guarantee the outcome unless things proceed exactly as planned. And the malcognitos…”
“I know.” Mulrox shook his head. “We’re almost to the portal. We should have been there today, but Groxor–– We’ll be in Sounous tomorrow and then I’ll be rid of them.”
There was a rush of static and the light flickered.
“Listen, Mulrox. There’s no time; you have to go home. You are alone in this. You can’t rely on any of them.”
“But the sheep and the grinder—”
“Have never hurt you.”
“I saw them attack Oogin and Broxli and Griselda.” They hadn’t exactly been on his side.
“Your destiny is waiting, but there is no room for mistakes. The malcognitos are a dangerous distraction. A distraction from your true calling. Think of it, Mulrox: the perfect idea.”
Mulrox let his mind slip to the Beatific Behemoth. There he was onstage, the other ogres cheering his name. The garden began to fade until he was dreaming of bone-meal biscuits the size of houses with honey butter running down their sides.
18
The next morning, they set out for the portal as the sky was beginning to lighten. Through the treetops, Mulrox could just make out its pale-white hide through the wall of green and brown. Everything was wet. Small droplets drifted through the air, thick enough to see as they floated up and sideways and down. There were beads of dew over his blanket, his pack, his arms. He brushed himself off and tried to warm up, but a dull, persistent ache nagged at his joints.
Yvwi hovered off to his left, watching as he packed up his things.
“Weren’t you going home?” the malcognito asked.
He wanted to. What did he owe the malcognitos? After the things Tabiyeh had said, could he even trust them? Maybe they had done this on purpose, were scheming against him, and this was an elaborate ploy. Mulrox peered at the creatures. They were taking turns dive-bombing Groxor and poking him with sticks. It seemed unlikely that they had a coordinated plan. Yahgurkin and Geraldine were ready, whispering to one another and standing on the road that cut deeper into the heart of the Woods Mercurial. Mulrox sniffed and shouldered his pack.
“Just make it quick,” he muttered.
They no longer needed to drag Groxor. Instead, he followed along by a lead wrapped round his wrist. Groxor, in turn, had his own leash looped around the neck of the sheep, Fleecefuz. As they walked upstream following the river, Yahgurkin took full advantage of the situation, attempting the cures she had promised last night. She reeled the reluctant green ogre in toward her and force-fed him the contents of her pouches—a handful of leaves, a blue powder, a salve, a smooth stick, a handful of tiny mushrooms. The list went on and on. So far, nothing had had an effect. Groxor was as batty as before.
Mulrox stayed several paces ahead of the others and followed Death-with-a-kiss and Spinakle-rex as they dashed between the trees at the head of the group. Behind him, the others continued to fuss about Groxor with their continual chatter. He wanted no part of whatever they were up to.
As he walked, his mind returned to his dream from the night before. The dream was always strange, but this had felt different. He had smelled the perfume of the flowers, felt the warmth of the sun, and heard the soothing tones of Tabiyeh’s voice. He knew he was probably just wishing, but it felt like it meant something. That his fate, as she had called it, might be real and the most perfect idea of all time—his idea—was out there waiting for him.
Yahgurkin caught up with Mulrox and walked along next to him in silence, casting a few shy glances in his direction.
“What?” he demanded.
She extended a nubler half to him. Mulrox nodded and took the fruit from her. He was dying for a steaming mug of ox-bone tea, but he would have to settle for this.
Closing his eyes, he opened his mouth and tipped back the viscous orange tube as he had seen Yahgurkin do. His mouth was at once filled with a slimy, chunky liquid. Yahgurkin’s description of a salty mash-up of pumpkin and banana had been generous. It was disgusting. Mulrox fought back the urge to gag and swallowed instead.
“Yuck,” he spluttered.
“It’s an acquired taste.”
Mulrox wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You seem in a better mood this morning,” Yahgurkin said hopefully. “I mean besides from the near drowning.”
Mulrox snorted, but she was looking at him expectantly.
“Good news?” she asked. “I could use some.” She twisted at her dripping sleeve, producing a stream of water. “I’ve gone through half a dozen ideas on Groxor, and nothing has worked. Albion’s Tonic works on everything. A few drops and you’re good as new. I poured half the bottle down Groxor’s throat to no effect.” She rubbed her nose with the back of her arm and then leaned in toward him conspiratorially. “We even tried Yvwi’s ideas. I’m not sure he got the point of what we are trying to do.”
Mulrox gave her a half-hearted smile, so she continued.
“He had Groxor stand on his head and eat charred tree bark, and then he had him roll around in a pile of dead leaves while the malcognitos jumped on him. His last idea was to have Groxor lick a banana slug one hundred times. Groxor didn’t understand and swallowed the slug on his third lick.”
Mulrox gagged. He almost pitied Groxor.
Yahgurkin took out a pinch of powder from a pouch at the back of her belt and dropped the contents in her palm.
“What’s that for?”
“It restores vision. He’s not blind exactly, but he doesn’t see things right.”
Yahgurkin reeled in Groxor, and when he was only a few feet away, she dropped the rope and, holding out her palm, blew the powder straight into his face. The green ogre coughed and spluttered and then took off into the trees.
“Groxor, how do you feel?” Yahgurkin shouted.
A pine cone arced out of the trees and landed at their feet.
Yahgurkin sighed.
“He seems more like the normal Groxor,” Mulrox said.
“So, what has you perked up?” Yahgurkin asked, turning her back on the raging ogre.
Mulrox wasn’t sure he wanted to tell anyone; it was just a dream. And a part of him felt it was a betrayal, as if saying it out loud might make it less real. But Mulrox looked at Yahgurkin’s glowing eyes and wide smile and couldn’t help himself. If anyone would believe him, it was the ogre who had turned her garden into a twisted wonderland, who took malcognitos at face value, and who thought Groxor was worth saving.
“I keep having this recurring dream,” he whispered.
“A vision! I’ve always wanted to have a vision. I have dreams, but they never make any sense.”
“I think I may have been seeing this for some time, but recently it’s gotten much clearer.”
“Clearer how?”
“I’m in this beautiful garden.”
“Like mine?”
“Yes… and there’s this spiral of purple light who speaks to me.”
“That’s strange.”
“She tells me things.”
“What sorts of things?”
“She told me to return home. She thinks the sheep and the grinder are not my enemies. That it’s the malcognitos that are leading me astray.”
“Hmm, not a great start, given the sheep attacked us and we saw what they did to our houses. Maybe the dream was more symbolic, like the sheep are other ogres and the malcognitos are your aunt, and the forest is your future…”
“She said ot
her stuff too—about me and my future, my destiny…”
Mulrox glanced at Yahgurkin, expecting scorn, but her eyes had grown even wider and her mouth was hanging open.
“Well? What did she say?”
Mulrox shook his head. He doubted he would ever get used to Yahgurkin. But he started from the beginning, telling her as much as he remembered.
“I don’t know,” Yahgurkin said when he had finished. “Don’t you think it’s a bit silly, this one-perfect-idea business?”
Mulrox frowned. “No,” he said. “Of course not. Everyone’s waiting for their best idea.”
“But ideas aren’t like that. They like company. Where there’s one idea, there’s bound to be a gaggle of others. A good idea won’t wander into town on its own, all shiny and perfect. They are wilder. They grow and change as you tend to them. Bad to good, good to bad. Like in a garden. Sure, there are pests that will wreak havoc, but you try to get rid of all of them and nothing will grow right. It’s a delicate ecosystem.”
“Your garden or my brain?”
“Both! You try to keep out the bad ideas, and your other ideas will get jammed up.”
Mulrox hardly wanted his mind like Yahgurkin’s terrifying garden. “I’ve been waiting for my good idea for years. You’ve seen how good I am at producing bad ones.” He waved at the malcognitos. “But I take only the very best ideas for my poems. If you strive for perfection—”
“But that’s ridiculous; there’s no such thing as perfection. What in the world does a perfect poem even mean?”
“If you don’t revise and delete and redo, all you have is a mess. You have to make sure every word is perfect. That’s what Vroktar always says, and that’s what I do too.”
“But how could you finish anything if every word needs to be perfect?”
Mulrox thought back to the journals of crossed-out words and half-started attempts. His ears grew warm. “What do you know about it?” Mulrox snapped.
Yahgurkin looked up at him. The creases around her eyes puckered and she looked away. “Nothing, I suppose,” she said.
“What are we talking about?” Yvwi floated over and thrust himself between the two ogres.
“You,” Mulrox said.
“A most excellent topic!”
Up ahead, the pillars of the stone bridge poked their way through the branches. It was wide enough for two ogres to walk across side by side and comprised of stones the size of Mulrox’s fist. The bridge had seen better days and was covered in the brilliant green moss that coated everything in this part of the forest. Large chunks of stone were missing, and a section of the railing lay in the roaring gray rush of the water below. The river was so swollen that the bridge sat only a foot or so above the waterline.
“This is the bridge? But it’s falling apart.”
“It worked for us!” Yvwi said, following the rest of the malcognitos as they floated across the river, never setting foot on the stone walkway.
“Who even made this?” Mulrox couldn’t imagine any ogre except Yahgurkin spending long enough in the Woods Mercurial to construct this.
“Humans,” Yahgurkin said. She dropped Groxor’s rope and pushed past him and up onto the bridge. “You take Groxor.”
“Humans!” The bridge suddenly looked a lot less stable.
“What’s a human?” Yvwi asked.
“They’re like small, defenseless ogres. Or so I’ve heard,” Yahgurkin said.
“They’re not defenseless! They run the empire!” Mulrox said.
“They’re very ingenious.” She stopped midway across the bridge and turned back to Mulrox and the others. She rapped several times on the stone railing and then brought her turnip nose up to a pillar.
“They’re pests! No ogre should ever associate with them,” argued Mulrox.
“I’m not associating with them; I’m just crossing this bridge.” She straightened and then leaned over the rail, peering down to the burbling white water.
Even looking at her made Mulrox dizzy.
“Rivers are full this year!” she said, leaning even farther.
“Yahgurkin, don’t—”
“It’s fine. It’s perfectly sturdy. See—” She leapt up in the air and stomped as hard as she could on the walkway. The bridge shuddered. “Safe!”
Mulrox’s stomach shrank to the size of a pea as he watched Geraldine hop out after Yahgurkin.
“Let’s get a move on,” Yvwi said.
Mulrox shuffled up to the edge of the bridge, but that was as far as his feet moved. He closed his eyes and was overtaken by the image of him trotting along between his parents as they crossed over the bridge that day on their way to the docks. They were going to teach him how to swim that summer. His throat began to ache, and Mulrox tried to clear the past from his mind by imagining the sleek gray wave—his happy place. But in his mind, the smooth swell twisted to fierce white caps, and Mulrox saw himself trapped beneath the water. He shook his head.
“What’s the holdup?” Yvwi asked. “Are ogres afraid of water? That explains the smell.”
“Not at all,” Yahgurkin said. “My aunt lives on the water. She’s a captain of the high seas.”
“Then what’s wrong with him?” Yvwi asked.
Yahgurkin stared at Mulrox for several moments and then walked up to the far end of the bridge.
“I’m going to say a word. I want you to say one that rhymes.”
“Yahgurkin, this is stupid. I’ll find another way across.”
“Every time you say one that rhymes, you have to take a step forward.”
“That won’t do anything.”
“Ash.”
“Smash” Mulrox said without thinking.
“Good! Now step forward.”
Mulrox set one foot on the bridge.
“Yeast.”
“Beast.”
He took another step forward.
“Near.”
“Leer.”
“Drown!” Yvwi shouted.
Mulrox felt his legs wobble, and he looked down. He was now midway across the bridge and could see the water below his feet through the missing stones.
“Don’t look down! Look at me,” Yahgurkin said.
Mulrox pried his eyes up. “Crown.” He eked out the word and took another wobbly step forward.
“Good! Good! Rule. What rhymes with rule?”
“DROOL!” roared a voice from behind him.
The next thing Mulrox knew, something had slammed into him from behind and he was falling forward.
“Groxor, no!” Yahgurkin shouted.
Mulrox reached out his hands to stop himself, but there was nothing to grab and he tumbled off the bridge into the river. The cold slapped him as he plunged into the icy waters.
“What’s Mulrox doing in the water?” Yvwi said.
“Swim!” Yahgurkin chanted from the bank. “It’s not that far! Come on.” She was a blurry purple shape on the other shore, reaching out her arms to him.
He kicked and slapped at the water, trying to bring himself to air, but every time he surfaced, more water crashed over his face and into his nostrils.
“He’s definitely not swimming.”
“Help!” Mulrox tried to say, but the water rushed down his throat.
“Huh, that’s funny. I think he’s drowning.” Yvwi hovered just offshore.
“Mulrox!” A splash sounded from the shore, and when Mulrox looked up again, there was a shape in the water coming toward him. He tried to push it away, fight it off, but it grabbed him around the arms and flipped him onto his back in one movement.
“Stop struggling,” came a voice next to his ear. “You’ll make it worse.”
It was Yahgurkin. They floated back to shore. He tried his best to relax, but the water kept splashing into his nose and mouth. They were both panting by the time Yahgurkin dragged him onto dry land.
“What was that about?” Yvwi asked.
“I can’t swim,” Mulrox said, and then he spat water onto the brambly shore.
“Seems like a rather large oversight.”
“Flying kite!” Groxor shouted.
Mulrox glared over at the ogre. Groxor, covered in mud, splashed in the water at the shore’s edge.
Mulrox turned to Yahgurkin. “Thank you.”
Yahgurkin nodded and continued to wring out her clothing.
It was still gray and misting, and with everything soaked, it would be a miserable slog. He was tempted to stop and start a fire, suggest they dry themselves off, but the memory of the dream lingered. It was probably nothing, his imagination running wild, but in case it wasn’t, he didn’t want to disappoint Tabiyeh. He needed to be done with the malcognitos as fast as possible.
“Crow’s Nest Clearing?” Mulrox asked. At least if they kept moving, they would be slightly warmer.
“Straight ahead,” Yvwi said.
19
“Are we almost there?” Mulrox was soaked from head to toe, and the gray afternoon wasn’t doing him any favors. He desperately missed his warm home.
“Yes, Spinakle-rex and Death-with-a-kiss have this under control. The clearing is straight ahead. We’ll be to the portal in no time. And then it will be time for sweet Groxy here to shine.”
Yvwi floated back to Groxor and landed on his shoulder, nuzzling his neck. The ogre bellowed and tried to slap the malcognito off him. Yvwi easily dodged Groxor.
Now that he mentioned it, Mulrox could see that straight ahead, the dark green of the forest was opening up to the whites and yellows of the morning sunlight.
They soon found themselves at the edge of a small clearing. The ground was littered with the black and charred remains of burned pine cones, needles, and branches.
In the center of the clearing stood a lone tree, or what was left of one. The trunk was deeply charred with long gashes running down its side. Instead of needles, the mess of bony branches was covered with nearly a hundred fierce-looking crows. In between the birds were messes of grass and twigs heaped together that Mulrox supposed served for a nest. The clearing was filled with the gurgling thrum of the crows’ calls. Geraldine tilted her head at the sound as though they were trying to send her a message.
Mulrox and the Malcognitos Page 13