The moment Mulrox stepped into the mist, he felt his skin prickle as though hidden behind the veil were thousands of eyes that had suddenly blinked into life. He could see trees on either side of him, but it looked as though he was heading toward a giant wall of hazel light. As they continued, the fog grew so thick that all Mulrox could see was the ground below his feet and the dancing lavender droplets of water spinning all around him.
“Mulrox,” Yvwi said. Yvwi’s voice sounded far away even though he was only a few feet to Mulrox’s right. “Make sure you’re not leading us off a cliff. You’ll be no use to anyone as a pancake.”
“I think we’re almost there.” He tried to sound more confident than he felt.
They pushed on.
As they walked, something began to nag at Mulrox. A sound, a squelching, like something being pried out of mud. It was quiet at first, off to his left, but as they continued, it grew louder and took up echoes until the sound was all around him.
He stopped. All he could see were the tiny, swirling droplets.
Something shifted off to the left.
“Yvwi, are you—” The words dried up in his throat and Mulrox stumbled backward.
A towering outline emerged from the mist.
“Mulrox.” He heard Yvwi’s voice. “I think we have a problem.”
He felt the malcognitos cluster in close behind but didn’t take his eyes off the thing in front of him.
“Yes,” he croaked.
It was at least fifteen feet high. Two curved legs supported an armless, tube-shaped torso. But the head was what terrified him most. Atop the boneless body was a mess of flailing tentacles like an upside-down jellyfish. The tentacles reached and curved and twisted, and Mulrox caught a glimpse of a dark, gaping hole in the center of its head.
“Dendrool,” Mulrox squeaked. The word hardly escaped his lips.
Dark shapes emerged on all sides of them. “What do we do?” Yvwi whispered.
“I…”
Something cold and wet snatched at Mulrox’s leg. He stumbled backward out of the thing’s grip. But before he could scream, before he could turn, the nearest dendrool threw itself at him. Its long, tubelike body smacking into him, twisting about his torso.
Mulrox went down.
Tentacles wrapped around his head and shoulders.
“Help him!” Mulrox heard Yvwi yell.
Mulrox struggled, but as its mouth descended, he froze, all the will to fight slipping out of him like sand through his fingers. Already the malcognitos seemed far away. The fog like a blanket. He was drifting.
“Mulrox!”
Mulrox blinked. Yvwi was in front of him. The malcognitos were all there, pulling and wrestling and prying the tentacles loose.
What was Yvwi doing? Mulrox gave a giant shove and threw the dendrool off him into the cloud of purple mist.
He rolled to his feet. But there were more of them now, many more, closing in.
“Do something!” Yvwi yelled.
His mind was blank.
“Anything,” Yvwi said.
Mulrox tried to focus, but the most absurd items slipped into his mind. A sharp umbrella. There was a pop behind him. No. An egg. No. A tennis racket. The newly formed malcognitos were doing their best. Sharp-umbrella was jabbing at the dendrools’ bodies, Giant-egg was rollicking about under their legs, and Tennis-racket was smacking at the tentacles with all her might, but the monsters took little notice.
A dendrool reached out and seized Yvwi by the leg. It flipped him upside down and then snatched him from view.
“No!” Without thinking, Mulrox leapt forward, snatched the tentacle in both hands, and twisted them in opposite directions. There was a low hiss, and the tentacle retracted, loosening enough that Yvwi was able to slip free from its grasp and back to the others.
Mulrox whirled from one side to the other, his arms held out before him. He had gotten lucky, but tentacle twisting was not going to defeat even one of these monsters, let alone the dozen that were closing in around him.
The fog, Mulrox thought. They live in the fog. Maybe if I could…
Mulrox gasped as a malcognito popped into existence in front of him. It was exactly as he had pictured, a propeller on the end of a pole. Mulrox grabbed the malcognito and held it up.
“Spin,” he said, and the malcognito began to turn.
The mist hardly budged.
He needed more. A field of pinwheels.
It sounded like someone had set off a string of firecrackers as all around him, malcognitos were popping to life, falling into Veralby.
“Spin!” he yelled. “Please! Spin now!”
At first, nothing happened. But slowly, so slowly, the fog began to swirl, then thin out, and finally recede. In front of them, no longer concealed, stood six enormous dendrools, their heads flopping in the wind as they shuffled around the edges of the mist.
“Faster,” Mulrox whispered.
The malcognitos were moving so fast now that he could no longer make out the individual blades of their fans.
“That way!” he said and pointed down the path, the direction he had come. Mulrox felt the surrounding air drawn forward and thrown out with a gale force.
The dendrools could no longer stand upright and were slipping backward, their long arms reaching out for anything to keep them from sliding down the path. The wind was coursing so hard now that it uprooted bushes and overturned rocks, sending everything rolling down the mountain. Tentacles flopped wildly but found no purchase as the dendrools were pushed back.
The malcognitos regrouped around Mulrox. “We have to keep moving,” he said. “We’re almost there—I can feel it.”
The dendrools were several yards down the trail, but he could see them starting to recover. They were linking arms, wedging themselves against stones and trees.
The group inched toward the portal. They moved step by slow step. His heart was pounding in his throat. It seemed as though they were hardly moving. The dendrools would catch up to them. The pinwheels wouldn’t be enough.
A sort of tingling ran down his back. Mulrox stopped.
In front of him a foot or so off the ground floated a patch of fog that rippled as though someone had dropped something into a pool of water. Mulrox put his hand up against it and pushed.
There was a clink and rays of brilliant sunshine burst through the fog. They formed the outline of a glowing rectangle about half of Mulrox’s height.
“Whatever you’re doing back there, you better hurry,” Yvwi said.
The dendrools were stuttering forward on their short legs, their top-heavy bodies flopping this way and that as they surged up the trail. The pinwheels were still turning, but the monsters were fighting against them as though they knew Mulrox was escaping.
Mulrox shoved again, and this time the purple haze fell away completely. He was looking down on rows of flowering pink and white trees. “Through here.”
The malcognitos shot forward through the portal. Mulrox took one last look at the dendrools as they raced back up the road, tentacles snapping out every which way, their stiff legs bounding forward. He didn’t need more encouragement.
Mulrox jumped.
And then he too was falling through the mist and into the warm sunlight.
36
Mulrox landed on something soft and springy, a bed of perfectly manicured grass. He stood up and looked around him. He was in a grove of flowering trees. The sweet smell and overwhelming shock of color was such a contrast from the miserable mountaintop that he had to take a moment to catch his breath.
“What is this place?” Yvwi asked. Tree-with-frog-legs had already ripped a bloom from a branch and was wearing it as a hat over his stumpy branches.
“We made it,” Mulrox said, laughing. “Don’t you recognize it? It’s Sounous.”
Yvwi froze.
“Come on,” Mulrox said, and he started down the path through the trees. In front of him, he could see the full colorful array of the garden and, at the e
nd of the path, the gazebo.
“Is this the garden behind the wall?” a sweet dreamy voice said from behind him. Mulrox turned. It was Toad-springs-eternal. “I never imagined it would look like this.”
She could talk. Mulrox’s mouth dropped.
“It’s just a bunch of plants,” grumbled the malcognito next to her. Spinakle-rex stabbed a flower next to him.
“I like it,” said Tree-with-frog-legs.
“You all can talk!”
“We could always talk,” a morose voice grumbled. Rock-like-skin slumped toward them. “You finally decided to listen.”
“Rock!” cried Toad-springs-eternal.
“It’s true,” he said.
“It’s because we’re home,” said Spit-on-him.
Yvwi shook his head. “This isn’t right.”
Then from deeper in the garden came a voice. “You did it!” The crackle and hiss of her voice was unmistakable.
“Tabiyeh!”
“Come, let me see you.”
“Mulrox, I don’t think––” Yvwi was tugging at him, but he sounded far away. Anyway, it didn’t matter. Whatever it was could wait. He was exactly where he was supposed to be.
He batted the malcognito away and headed down the garden path. He could see her now, the column of purple light spinning, sparkling in the sun.
The air was warm and heavy, and the world hummed in tune to the buzz of the vortex: the bees floating lazily over the flowers, the trees and the swaying branches, the beat of his heart inside his chest, the very ground vibrating ever so slightly in key.
It had worked. Despite everything, he had made it. He was in another dimension, in Sounous. Everything was as Tabiyeh had said it would be.
He stopped a few feet from Tabiyeh and looked up in awe at the tornado of light. His heart beat a little faster.
“Wait.” Yvwi was rushing up behind him. “I don’t like this. You should—” His voice was drowned in the buzz from Tabiyeh.
“Mulrox, come. Hold out your hands.”
“Get away from that thing!”
Mulrox turned back toward Yvwi. The malcognito was floating a few feet behind him, changing shapes so rapidly Mulrox could hardly keep track. What could Yvwi possibly be worried about? They were back in Sounous. It was what they had been working toward. Maybe the dendrool had rattled Yvwi’s brain.
“It’s okay,” Mulrox said. He stepped forward and held out his hands.
The vortex moved toward him. The hum grew louder, and his skin prickled as all the hairs on his body stood upright.
“This is Tabiyeh. From the dreams, remember. She’s promised to fix everything.” He wasn’t sure he was ready for what would come next, but Mulrox took a deep breath.
“No, she’s not—” Yvwi’s voice was drowned out.
Mulrox’s hands disappeared into the vortex, and for a moment he was engulfed inside the violet light and could hear nothing but a low buzz. He expected a jolt or shock or for the hum to rattle his teeth, but instead a wave of warmth was washing over him.
The light receded, and Mulrox looked down. The fuzzy feeling was still there, radiating from his palms. His hands were covered in a sparkling white powder. He stared at them, marveling at the sensation. He curled his fingers, and the warmth rushed up his forearms. He laughed.
He wiggled his arms, and the feeling spread up to his shoulders. He was light, like a floating speck of dust.
“Stand beside me,” Tabiyeh said.
Mulrox nodded. The feeling was still spreading down through his chest, up his neck. He wanted nothing more than to be by her side.
“What are you?” Yvwi said, his voice cold. “I demand to know what you are doing here.”
Mulrox could see and hear the malcognitos now. They were rushing toward him with Yvwi in the lead. He stared at their waving arms and cross faces. Something was wrong.
Mulrox tried to turn toward Tabiyeh, but only his legs responded, his upper body fixed in place, suspended as though in warm honey. But even as his feet turned, he felt the warmth from his torso seep down through his legs.
“Go away, Yvwi,” Tabiyeh said. “We have no more use for you.”
“Wait,” Mulrox said. The buzzing was spreading again, creeping up his throat, filling it. His tongue was so heavy he could hardly move it. “But you—” It was all he could get out.
He tried to step toward the malcognitos, but his legs refused to budge. The feeling was spreading up through his cheekbones to his eyes. He could feel the tingling now at the very tip of his head.
“What are you doing to him?” Yvwi said.
“To Mulrox? Nothing.”
Mulrox tried to move his mouth, to wiggle his eyebrows, even to blink. Nothing. He was suspended in a world of fuzz.
“This was the plan all along,” Tabiyeh continued. “He would pretend to help you while he led you here to me. I promised to get rid of you for him.”
Yvwi looked from Mulrox to Tabiyeh and back.
“We have more important things to attend to than malcognitos,” Tabiyeh continued, smiling. “The Behemoth for one.”
“Don’t listen to it.” Toad-springs-eternal hopped up next to Yvwi and nudged him with her head. “We know who Mulrox is. Let’s hear him out.”
“I don’t know. They look awful chummy,” Spinakle-rex grumbled.
“What does it matter?” Rock-like-skin slunk up and leaned over the others. “This whole thing was pointless. We should have stayed here and taken our chances with the dendrools. I told you all not to bother.”
“It wasn’t pointless!” Tree-with-frog-legs butted in. “We met Mulrox and Yahgurkin, Tork and Geraldine.”
“And then they did this. No one has ever liked a malcognito.” Rock-like-skin sighed. “Why would they start now?”
“I don’t need to be liked,” Death-with-a-kiss said.
“We should have crushed them all when we had the chance,” Dinner-bell-of-destruction tolled.
“We never had a chance, you ding-dong,” buzzed Cloud-of-locusts.
Something moved in the trees above the malcognitos. A wink of light glinting off something bright and metallic amidst the flowering tree branches. Mulrox tried to point, to say something, but all he could do was watch as the malcognitos, oblivious, squabbled below.
The branches parted, and to Mulrox’s horror, three grinders emerged from the trees, a net clasped between them. And then they pounced.
The malcognitos tried to flee, but they all turned in different directions, bumping and tripping one another as the net descended over them.
“Do something—help!” shouted Toad-springs-eternal.
Mulrox wanted to scream, to charge forward and throw off the grinders, to run. But he couldn’t. He stood there frozen, that dopey grin locked on his face.
Yvwi scrambled to the front of the pile of malcognitos and glared out at Mulrox. Mulrox waited for him to say something, anything, but the malcognito just stared at him. Mulrox’s stomach felt like it was being ripped to shreds. He strained and pushed, but even his eyes would not twitch. He was helpless.
“That’s quite enough.” Tabiyeh said. “Get them out of here.”
Tabiyeh turned, and as she did so, Mulrox felt his body move with hers.
The grinders hauled the net of malcognitos under the shade of the gazebo and then disappeared. He could now see the mouth of a tunnel leading under the garden.
“I don’t understand. What’s happening?” Toad-springs-eternal’s voice echoed from below.
Mulrox could hear shrieks and moans from inside the net.
“We’ve been betrayed,” Yvwi said.
Mulrox throat burned. Tears were falling into his open mouth and dripping from his chin.
“Come. There’s much left to do,” Tabiyeh said.
The vortex moved forward, and Mulrox felt his body pulled along with hers up into the gazebo and then down a flight of steps until they stopped in an enormous underground chamber.
The room was dizzying. Everywhe
re he looked were pillars and arches, repeating and diminishing into darkness as though the room never ended, a perpetual echo of itself. The flagstones were arranged in intricate patterns, and in the flickering light of the torches, he caught a glimpse of decorative swirls painted along the underside of the arches. Grinders skittered here and there, rushing from one place to another across the giant hall. It was exactly as Tork had said.
Far ahead of him, the net of malcognitos were being dragged off into the darkness. As they disappeared from view, something tore deep inside of him, as though a spark he had carried through the darkness suddenly and completely went out.
A strangled moan escaped from his lips.
Tabiyeh turned toward him, the golden light inside her pulsing dangerously. “Tears?” her voice was cold.
Mulrox felt rather than saw another wave of the powder settle along his skin.
“It’s best that you rest now,” Tabiyeh said.
The world tilted and spun, and Mulrox found himself on the ground. The legs of grinders pounded past him in every direction.
“It will just take some getting used to.” Tabiyeh paced above him. “He needs our help. He always has.”
His eyes were closing. He could hardly stay awake.
“He’ll come around,” she was muttering to herself. “Of course he will. You’re his favorite.”
37
Yahgurkin slept soundly the entire night through. She opened her eyes to the morning light creeping in through the cave entrance and sighed.
She was still sore from her fall. Her wrist ached and had swollen to nearly twice its normal size. She set her arm snugly inside the sling Mulrox had made and adjusted the strap, trying not to hiss as she did so. It hurt, but she had to make sure she didn’t let it show, or Mulrox would demand that she rest when what she needed to do was find a portal. She glanced about the cave, worried Mulrox might already be on to her. But he was not in his pile of leaves nor anywhere else in the cave.
“You ridiculous ogre!” Yahgurkin slapped her forehead. “You were supposed to be on watch. Mulrox must have taken your shift.” That was like him, always taking care of everyone while pretending not to. It was her turn to take care of them now. After Rodenia’s message, Yahgurkin couldn’t have been more sure that it was her turn to take the lead. She had been afraid of what Mulrox would think, but he hadn’t even laughed—he was special like that. No one but Mulrox would have thought she had a shot to be the hero.
Mulrox and the Malcognitos Page 24