The malcognito beamed and floated next to Yahgurkin’s shoulder.
“I think I gave you the new branch,” she whispered. “I really focused on your foliage. You were all so brave up there.” Yahgurkin walked among the other malcognitos, promising to think of them each in turn. “We’ll have you all back to new in no time.”
Mulrox sighed.
Yvwi floated over to Mulrox. “Thank you,” he said.
Mulrox shook his head.
“What were you expecting?” Yvwi asked.
“I don’t know, something more dramatic.”
“If it was more dramatic, you’d have hundred-foot malcognitos wandering about. It takes time and repetition for any of us to grow strong. Like myself. I’ve been with you a long time, and I can tell you think of me often.”
Mulrox looked at Yvwi. Even now, the malcognito was changing shape, from a rat with four tails to a table with ogres seated all around it to a banana and then back to an amorphous blob.
He was too tired to squabble with the malcognito. Instead, he looked back up to the hole they had fallen through. It was some forty feet above them, very steep and very slick. Mulrox wasn’t much of a climber on his best days—they wouldn’t be getting out that way.
Mulrox put his head in his hands.
Things did not look good. Tork had shown him a portal, but all he had seen was a clearing full of sheep. That could have been any pasture anywhere in Veralby. Without Tork to lead the way, he’d never find it before they were attacked again. Mulrox looked around at his companions: Geraldine was locked in a cage with malcognitus; Yahgurkin was wandering about the cave, cradling her broken wrist with a dazed, faraway expression; and the battered malcognitos floated only an inch or two above the ground as though they had neither the will nor the strength to rise any higher.
“Things will only get worse,” he muttered to himself.
“What was that?” Yvwi asked.
But he was saved from explaining himself by Yahgurkin’s shout of delight. The malcognitos zoomed to her side.
“What is it?” he called.
“There’s a passage back here!”
34
The journey through the cave was difficult. It was dark and cramped. Mulrox slipped and fell more than once, and there were several sections where the ogres had to crawl to fit through the tight openings. Even when they could walk upright, they had to step carefully to avoid the rock formations that sprouted from the ground and ceiling in mirrored spikes that reminded him of Great-Aunt Griselda’s oversharpened teeth. Everything down here was wet and oozing, and even the tiniest drip of water echoed endlessly down the tunnel’s walls.
They stopped to sleep in a cavern with a small underground river winding through it. The sulfurous smell of rotting eggs wafted up from the water. Occasionally, they heard the screech of bats or the scurrying of little clawed feet echoing down a tunnel, but they saw no other creature. After a few hours of fitful sleep, Mulrox woke stiff and sore. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he couldn’t stand being alone with his thoughts a moment longer. He woke the others and they pushed on.
After hours of scrabbling through the dank caverns, a circle of blinding white light appeared. At first it was the size of an acorn, and then it grew until it was nearly all they could see. They slipped and slid their way through the last few feet of tunnel, landing in a spacious cave with a large opening that led to the outside world. They could see leaves and sunshine and a clear path out to it.
Yahgurkin wasted no time and raced out of the cave, a stream of malcognitos trailing behind her. “We made it!” she hollered.
Mulrox let them go and took a quick survey. It seemed like as good a place as any for a hideout. They could stay here. It was protected, hidden. Perhaps he could even find something to conceal the cave entrance.
He joined Yahgurkin out in the open air and felt the darkness lift off him like a weight. Mulrox spun around once and then stopped halfway through. Rising up over the trees was the top of a purple mountain. Dread prickled down his neck. He turned his back to the peak and went to sit next to Yahgurkin. She was picking clover flowers and stringing them together in a chain.
“I’m never going in a cave again! I always wanted to be a master spelunker. The name alone is so glorious, but nearly falling to my death in a cave turns out to be enough.”
She looked to be more mud than ogre.
He started giggling. “You look ridiculous.”
“Me?” Yahgurkin sputtered, pointing at him. “You look like a mud pie’s dirty cousin.”
He looked down. He was caked in mud. Mulrox started to laugh. The malcognitos too were doused in the stuff. Only Geraldine had made it out clean, and if anything, she looked jealous.
He collapsed into the clover, soaking in the sun and the blue sky. “I can’t believe we made it out.”
“Me neither. Yvwi don’t you think…” Mulrox flipped over to look at Yahgurkin. She was staring at the bedraggled malcognitos as they floated listlessly among the flowers.
Then as if she had realized it for the first time, she said, “Tork is gone. We lost our way to Sounous.”
“It appears so,” Yvwi said.
She stared thoughtfully out ahead of her.
Mulrox bit his tongue, weighing his options. “Yahgurkin, I—”
But she was already down a train of thought of her own. “We can still do this. Sure it would have been easier with Tork, but I’m sure I can find the portal.” She scrambled to her feet with her good hand and began pacing. “Tork said the portal is in a field. There’s only so many of those in the Woods Mercurial, so that narrows it down. And you said it was only a day from where we were. So the search radius is relatively small.” She stomped off into the trees and returned with a stick. She began to scratch things in the dirt as she muttered to herself.
“Yahgurkin.” Maybe he could tell her. Maybe she would understand.
She looked up. “Don’t worry, Mulrox. I’ll find us a way to Sounous.”
* * *
Mulrox left Yahgurkin to her machinations and scurried off to the water, desperate to quiet the voice within in him.
He tried to picture the ocean, the soothing rush of water swelling and falling, but the image kept getting jumbled up in his head. The wave would grow and twist, and then it was an image of Yahgurkin’s pain wracked face, Tork flailing under a torrent of waxwings, Geraldine gnawing her cage. He tried rhyming—stone alone, river shiver, rain pain—but it did not help. Everything was falling apart.
Mulrox didn’t know exactly what he was doing at first. His hands snatching mushrooms off logs, scraping them from tree trunks, and plucking them from the ground. But his brain was happy to hide in the simplicity of the task. He moved mechanically, searching out glowing fungi in the fading light, feeling the breeze against his wet cheeks. He grabbed anything that glowed or remotely resembled what had hung around his neck. Assembling was harder. He broke the bit of twine around his neck and fastened a pine needle to the end in order to thread on the new additions. His thread was soon full, and he tied it off and held up the result. It was considerably smaller and lumpier than the previous mushroom necklace, but it glowed fiercely.
No matter what he did, he kept hurting people. All his ideas led to pain. Just like before. Just like when his parents had left him. Mulrox tried to push the memories away, but they were rushing back.
He hadn’t meant to do anything wrong. The human child had been hungry, always so hungry, and Mulrox’s family had more than enough. He didn’t know the other ogres would react like that when they saw the family of humans, his small friend at the front, come traipsing into Ulgorprog. There was so much yelling and hollering. Ogres always said that humans were dangerous, but when Mulrox had stumbled across the tiny human wandering alone in the woods, the boy hadn’t seemed threatening at all. They had been roughly the same age and equally curious of one another. They drew on trees with sticks and berries, played hide-and-seek, and took turns maki
ng rude noises with their armpits. The child wasn’t out to get him, all he wanted to do was find salamanders and toads down at the river. It had been the human who found Geraldine.
Mulrox tried to focus on that moment, finding Geraldine hiding by the river, holding her small tadpole body with just the hint of legs sprouting from it. But the image faded back into the screaming chaos of that night in Ulgorprog. Everyone running in different directions, all the accusations and fear.
His mother ensured the humans escaped and took them back through the woods to the edge of their own village. But she paid the price. The neighbors knew, the council knew, everyone knew what Mulrox had done. But somehow his parents had managed to convince the council that he should be spared, that it was their fault and theirs alone. Before the month was out, his parents were on a boat set to leave Ulgorprog and never return. He sat on the dock that morning, straining his eyes as first their faces, then their outlines, and then all trace of the ship slipped from view, disappearing out beyond the horizon. It was the last time he had seen or heard from them.
* * *
By the time Mulrox made it back to the cave, it was dark. The malcognitos were out in front keeping watch, and Yahgurkin had started a fire inside the cave. The light reflected against the mouth opening, bouncing and flickering with an orange glow. He dropped the necklace at Yahgurkin’s feet and sat down across from her.
She picked it up and began running the mushrooms through her fingers. “You made this?”
Mulrox nodded. “Yahgurkin, I’m scared.”
“Me too.”
They didn’t say anymore for some time. There was nothing much more to say. He watched the fire’s shadows flicker against the cave walls, his mind turning.
“What was that?” Yahgurkin’s words startled Mulrox from his thoughts.
“What?” Mulrox said.
“That sound!” she said. “Shh.”
Mulrox closed his eyes and listened. He heard only the crackle and snap of the fire. Then faint at first, but growing closer, came a tapping.
“What is it?” He didn’t think he could take any more surprises.
“I think something’s in the tunnel.”
Mulrox scanned the floor for anything he could use to defend the group and settled on the rock he had been using as a pillow.
As the sound continued to draw closer, Mulrox pushed himself up into a sitting position and cleared his throat. “Look, we hear you. Whatever you are, just come out.” He hoisted the rock behind his head.
There was more scratching and scrambling, and then out of the darkness stepped a familiar cloaked figure with a long, bushy tail.
Mulrox dropped the stone and stared at the squirrelmonk.
“Rodenia? What are you doing here?” Yahgurkin said.
“Hello, ogres. I’ve come with another message.”
“A prophecy?”
“More of an addendum.” The squirrelmonk looked down and off to the left.
“Rodenia!” Yahgurkin exclaimed. “Your tail, it’s fixed!”
The squirrelmonk looked back and, smiling dreamily, began stroking her tail. “Yes.”
“And your fur is so shiny. You look amazing. Have you been taking some time off?”
“You’re too kind, ogress. Yes. I have been undergoing a very careful recovery process. As you can see, it has worked wonders.” Rodenia lifted her head even higher as she straightened out her cloak.
“Why are you here?” Mulrox said.
“You’re stuck,” she said. “But you already have the answer.”
“We do?” Yahgurkin asked.
Mulrox squirmed as Rodenia’s shiny black eyes burrowed into him.
“You know what to do. But you must act, or all will be lost.”
“Can you give us more of a clue about where the portals might be?” Yahgurkin asked. “I think I’m close, but it will go faster if you can narrow it down a bit. Come look—”
“She is waiting,” Rodenia said. “There is only one way.”
Mulrox bit his lip and shook his head.
“Only one?” Yahgurkin asked. “But you said there were lots of portals. Maybe there is only one big enough? Is that right?”
Rodenia gave Mulrox a meaningful stare. “It’s time” was all she said.
Then in a blur of movement too fast to follow she shot out the cave entrance into the night.
“She’s so mysterious.” Yahgurkin sighed. “But not very helpful.” She made her way back to the fire. “Mulrox?”
Mulrox was still standing, looking at where Rodenia had been. “What?” he said finally, pulling himself out of his thoughts.
“Why do you think she said we knew what to do?”
Mulrox blushed. It was all he could do to shrug.
“I think it might be because of me,” Yahgurkin whispered.
Mulrox turned to her. She was looking into the fire.
“I’ve had this feeling since you knocked on my door that night. Like I was supposed to do something important. I think I’m going to defeat whatever is waiting for us in Sounous. I know it sounds crazy, but I think if I listen really closely, I’ll know what to do when the time comes.”
Mulrox couldn’t say anything.
“I know you’re worried about me, Mulrox, but I’ll be fine. My arm doesn’t hurt that much and I’m strong.”
It was too much. “I need to sleep,” Mulrox muttered.
“Yes.” She sighed. “You’re probably right. It’s hard to sleep, though, when you have so many ideas floating through your mind.”
“Yahgurkin...”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
Mulrox shrugged and gave a half-hearted smile.
He said nothing more that night. He lay there, pretending to sleep as Yahgurkin snored somewhere across the cave. Arguments sloshed this way and that on the current of his mind. He could wake her up. He could tell her. But she might stop him. She might insist. He didn’t want to go, but everything was stacking up, pushing him one direction.
He rolled toward Geraldine’s cage. It was too dark to see her, but he knew she was asleep from the faint warbles coming from inside. How much more damage did he need to do before he learned?
Mulrox took a deep breath and got to his feet. He crept to the mouth of the cave as quietly as he could. At the entrance he hesitated and turned back.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered and then stepped out into the night.
The malcognitos were outside. Instead of being on watch they were in the middle of some complicated game of hide and seek.
“Is it time already?” Yvwi asked when he saw Mulrox. “I thought we had another few hours left in our shift.”
“We’re leaving.”
“What do you mean? Where’s Yahgurkin and Geraldine?”
“They’re not coming.”
Yvwi looked hard at Mulrox. “Mulrox, what’s the meaning of this? You—”
“With us gone, they’ll be safe.”
“I think we should talk to Yahgurkin,” Yvwi said.
Yvwi started back for the cave but Mulrox caught him. “Stop.”
If Yvwi went back in the cave, then Mulrox would go back, and then he’d never have the nerve to leave. No more improvising. He had to stop listening to his own disastrous ideas and focus on what Tabiyeh, and now Rodenia, had told him. If he did as they instructed, everything would work out. It had to.
“I said I’d help you and I will. But we are leaving now.”
The malcognitos were silent. They looked to Yvwi.
“This way,” Mulrox said. He started into the woods, heading toward the purple peak that dominated the southern skyline. He didn’t bother to see whether they followed.
“Do you at least have some sort of plan?” Yvwi asked.
“Yes,” Mulrox said.
“Care to share?”
“We’re going to Sounous.”
35
Mulrox and the swarm of malcognitos walked all
through the night and into the next morning, the light from the nearly full moon guiding their way. Though he tried to stop them, his thoughts kept returning to Yahgurkin and Geraldine. He hoped that when this was all over, they might eventually forgive him. Perhaps Tabiyeh could help with that as well.
They had almost reached the top of the mountain. Mulrox was so tired he felt like he was walking underwater with sandbags tied to his legs. His head was mushy. All he wanted to do was curl up on the ground and sleep.
Mulrox leaned against the cliff face, not daring to sit in case his legs wouldn’t let him back up again. The malcognitos floated up behind him, looking more like a cloud of wet dishrags than their usual selves.
“This is classic Mulrox. Of all the portals in all of Veralby, you pick the one at the top of a mountain.”
“It’s the only one we know of.”
“I liked the sound of the one the grinder talked about. A flowering field. What’s a few angry sheep compared to a sleepless death march up a forsaken mountain?”
“Yvwi—”
“Why don’t we waltz up this mountain? Sure, that’ll be fun. Well, I’m not following you anymore,” Yvwi said. He was skimming along so close to the ground now that he looked more like he was dragging than floating. “I’ll be following that rock.” Yvwi pointed to a pebble. “And it says to lie on the ground.” Yvwi collapsed next to it. “Old Rocky might not be the brightest, but at least he won’t make me walk until my feet fall off.”
“You don’t even have feet. How hard could it possibly be to float?”
“Hard,” Yvwi moaned.
As Mulrox leaned against the mountain, he felt something cool and slightly damp drift across his skin. He looked up. A thin purple mist was gathering up on the path ahead of them. They were getting close.
“I think we should keep moving,” Mulrox said.
“Oh yes, of course.”
Mulrox and the Malcognitos Page 23