46
Mulrox sped down the steps, following the curves of the staircase deeper and deeper underground. He would get them out. He would set everything right.
The stairs ended abruptly, spilling him out into a dark chamber. The only light came from patches of glowing fungi that grew along the walls and ceiling. There were papers and notebooks scattered about the floor, lone sheets disintegrating into puddles and stacks so tall they disappeared into the dim haze above him.
He pushed forward, wading through photographs, broken pots, bent wheels, broom handles, and socks. Even through the colossal sea of junk, he could see a series of cages lining the walls. They were fitted with thick metal bars that ran from floor to ceiling. This was where they had been keeping Yvwi and the others while he had been feasting. He had put them here.
Mulrox tried to get his bearings, but his head was pounding, a throbbing ache behind his eyes. There was no question where he was. This was the Vaccus. He clenched his teeth, fighting the numbing sensation that was spreading across his forehead. He would not forget. He peered across a mountain of junk into the nearest cell. Inside, a cluster of malcognitos sat huddled in a corner.
“I’ve come to get you out,” Mulrox said.
One of the malcognitos looked up as he spoke, unwound himself from the others and floated toward the bars. His long flat body was instantly recognizable.
“Rock!” Mulrox shouted.
The malcognito tilted its head. “Who are you?” Rock-like-skin asked.
“It’s me, Mulrox.”
“I don’t think so.” Rock floated back to the others, curling up into a ball.
Mulrox waded to the front of the cage and shook the door. It rattled but stood solid. He didn’t have time for this. He backed up and ran as hard as he could, throwing his full weight against the door. There was a terrific clang as his body connected, but the door did not budge and Mulrox was tossed to the floor.
He had the start of a thought, but he couldn’t quite grab hold of it. What was it? They were scary but useful. They could build anything—a grinder. Tork. The other grinders had grabbed her. Was she down here too?
Tork? Mulrox tried.
If she could hear him, she wasn’t responding.
“Yahgurkin?”
His voice echoed back to him through the cavernous cellar, but there was no other sound.
“Yvwi?”
Nothing. He was alone. He had to do this himself.
The floor rumbled. Dirt and dust sprayed down from the ceiling, covering him in a coat of gray ash. The pain in his head was so strong now that Mulrox couldn’t help but grab the back of his neck.
He needed something… He knew what it was… He tried to call up the image in his mind, but everything was so jumbled. Focus, Mulrox. You open a door with a… a…
There was pop and a translucent idea appeared in front of him. File.
The malcognito set to work on the bars at once, but Mulrox could see straight away it would never work.
Saw.
A malcognito joined his fellow, sending sparks flying.
Cell-key.
A miniscule malcognito appeared and then wedged itself firmly into the lock of the cell. The key turned. He heard the bolts slide free. It was working! The door swung open.
He hurried over to where Rock-like-skin, Spit-on-him, and Trap-the-grinder lay.
“You’re free,” Mulrox said.
Rock raised his dull head and stared at him.
“Rock,” Mulrox said. “We have to get out of here.”
The malcognito curled up tighter.
Mulrox reached out to them, but the world suddenly darkened at the edges. He blinked, trying to clear his vision, but the floor pitched beneath his feet. It would be so nice to close his eyes, lie down.
“Ow!” A sharp pain forced his eyes open.
Through the bars of the next cage over, a malcognito had latched onto his leg and was biting him with all its might. Mulrox knocked the creature away. It rolled and then looked up at him.
“My turn,” Death-with-a-kiss said and pointed at her door.
Cell-key made quick work of the lock, but even as Death-with-a-kiss shot out, a rumble shook the dungeon. Dust rained down from the ceiling, papers flew in all directions, and the discordant clang of broken junk clanging to the floor echoed throughout the chamber.
“Hello?” came a sound from the darkness. “You can’t keep us here!” His breath caught in his throat. He would recognize that voice anywhere.
He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled down the hall running toward her.
The room lurched. Mulrox tripped but managed to keep his feet. Something crashed down from above, sending shock waves through the floor. He looked down. It was a chunk of the ceiling. Mulrox slowed for only a moment to look up, but instead of seeing ground or the hut above him, he saw nothing but a gaping void. He shivered but pushed forward.
Up ahead, he saw a pair of purple arms thrust through the bars.
“Yahgurkin?”
“Mulrox?” Her voice echoed back to him.
He ushered Cell-key forward, and the malcognito got to work.
“Yahgurkin, I’m so sorry. I’ve been such an idiot. You tried to warn me and—” The door was open. “After everything I did, you came back.”
“Mulrox. The malcognitos. They’re fading. All of them, they’re… they’re turning into dendrools.” Mulrox pulled Yahgurkin out of her cage.
“I saw it happen… I don’t know who it was. It was a normal malcognito and then—all those tentacles.”
Cell-key was busy opening the cage next to Yahgurkin’s where Mulrox could see Toad-springs-eternal, Spinakle-rex, and Dinner-bell-of-destruction passed out on the cobblestones in a pool of water. They’d only been in the Vaccus for a day, and already they hardly knew up from down. He might be able to fix them, to heal them like he had with Tree-with-frog-legs, but if Yahgurkin started to forget, he wouldn’t be able to help.
“You have to get out of here,” Mulrox said.
“Yvwi. He’s in the back. We have to get him. He talked to me at first before he got too weak.”
“I’ll get him. You have to leave.”
“No, I’m staying with you.”
“Tabiyeh said as long as you are down here, you will disappear just like the others.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Mulrox turned. There was still row upon row of cages with malcognitos and logosophilos inside wasting away. Some were his friends—others he had never seen before. Who knew how long they had been down here? He could faintly see the small group he had freed clustering around the stairs. They were dragging themselves along the ground, floating aimlessly in circles.
“They need your help.” He pointed toward the handful of freed malcognitos. Death-with-a-kiss was trying to rouse the others to no avail.
“Please,” Mulrox said. “Get them out. I’ll find Yvwi.”
Yahgurkin hesitated, staring at Mulrox even as the ceiling continued to crumble.
“Yahgurkin,” he shouted. “Go!”
She threw her arms around him in a fierce hug. “You can do this, Mulrox. I know you can.”
Then she turned and ran for the malcognitos. Mulrox watched as she skidded to a halt in front of the others. She gathered up the freed malcognitos and chained them together, linking one to the next, and then grabbing hold of Trap-the-grinder who stood at the front of the pack, she sprinted up the stairs, towing the line of malcognitos after her.
There was another violent shake, and Yahgurkin’s cell door fell inward with a loud clang. Mulrox ran as fast as he could toward the end of the dungeon. The Vaccus was coming apart around him. There was no time.
The far wall of the dungeon was coming into view. Mulrox skidded to a halt, his eyes searching desperately through the cages. There were malcognitos everywhere, every possible shape and size and color, but none of them were Yvwi.
“Yvwi!” Mulrox shouted, but there was no reply.
He ran up to each cage, peering in through the bars. But he couldn’t find the malcognito anywhere. But then—there, at the end, in the smallest cage, facedown on the stone floor lay Yvwi.
“Yvwi,” Mulrox said.
The malcognito didn’t respond.
“YVWI!” Mulrox yelled and banged on the door.
Remembering Cell-key, Mulrox flung the door open and rushed to the little figure. He scooped him up and turned him over.
The malcognito twitched. “You?” Yvwi said.
“We’ll get everyone out. I made Cell-key.” Cell-key appeared over Mulrox’s shoulder, looking down at Yvwi.
There was gurgling hiss from behind him. Mulrox glanced over his shoulder and immediately wished he hadn’t. Reaching through the bars of the neighboring cell were two dendrools, their tentacled heads stretching and swiping for them. He tried to push the image from his mind—he couldn’t think about who they might have been.
He turned back to Yvwi. “I’m so sorry.”
“Leave.” Yvwi seemed to be fighting to stay conscious.
“I didn’t know. This whole time I thought she was some mystical being. I thought it was my destiny. I didn’t know.”
“Go!”
“Please forgive me. I’ll—”
“I forgive you, you sack brain, but you have to leave. If you don’t get out, none of it will matter. If you disappear, all of Sounous will too. Everything and everyone in it, gone.”
Mulrox scooped up Yvwi and turned back toward the stairs. He’d get Yvwi out, then he’d get the others.
The floor rumbled. Mulrox fell to his hands and knees. A tremendous CRACK echoed through the Vaccus, and an avalanche of stones poured down from above. Mulrox pulled Yvwi underneath him, shielding him from the falling debris as the world shook to pieces around him.
Then it was over. The quaking stopped. He opened his eyes. It was almost as though he hadn’t—the world was a swirling mess of gray.
He stood up, tossing hunks of the dungeon in all directions. He set Yvwi on his shoulder and inched forward, hands outstretched. Before he had taken three steps, he hit something. In front of him, where the passageway had been was an enormous pile of rubble. He inched along it, checking the corners, the top, anywhere for a space large enough to squeeze through. Nothing.
They were trapped.
He clawed at the stones, digging with rough fingers.
“Mulrox, stop. We don’t have time for that,” Yvwi said.
“We’re stuck!” Mulrox shrieked. Darkness swirled at the edge of his vision.
Tall, jerking silhouettes moved amidst the dust.
He dug faster. For every rock he removed, it seemed like more dust and ash tumbled down into its place.
“You have to think. You’re stronger here.”
Mulrox paused. He felt the slightest rustle of something deep within him, an idea, a small spark. He tried to latch onto it, but in all the darkness, it faded.
“All this is my fault. I made Tabiyeh. All those nights I spent thinking about her just made her stronger. I abandoned Geraldine and Yahgurkin. I betrayed you.”
“Then fix it.”
The blood pounded in his ears, the world slipping away. It was happening again. He had ruined everything, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was back with his parents, standing at the pier, all their things packed into suitcases. Two fake smiles plastered on their faces as they waved goodbye. They never again got to sit around the fire drinking ox-bone tea and telling stories. They missed his first loose tooth and his acceptance into the Raid Brigade. They’d never hear a single poem he’d write.
All his fault. Sitting on the dock as the waves and the wind slapped against him. The ship gone and his parents with it. Staring out into that big blue emptiness that had swept them away and swallowed them up.
“You’ll take them all with you. The grinders, all your ideas, Yahgurkin—they’ll all be gone.”
He tried to calm himself. To picture the endless, tumbling sea.
“Do something.”
He saw the spark again and a flash of steel blue. Mulrox felt a cool gust of wind rustle the stones. Dust swirled around him.
It wouldn’t work. It wasn’t enough. It was a miserable idea like all the others. He could never do anything when it mattered. “I can’t!”
Out of the haze stuttered a dendrool step by slow step.
“Fine,” Yvwi said. “Let’s make it quick then.” Yvwi pushed off his shoulder and limped toward the dendrool.
“No!”
The wind slapped and snapped around him, cold and salty. It buffeted Yvwi back toward him, so Mulrox was able to snatch the malcognito out of the air and hold him firm.
But Mulrox didn’t stop.
He could smell the briny water and feel the spray.
He held the image in his mind and pulled, calling the great gray beast of the ocean to him—every time he had been scared or lonely, every time he remembered, every time his heart called out to his missing parents, she had been there. She was the only thing he had thought of more than Tabiyeh.
Gushing through the rubble, spurting out through every hole and stone came the steel-gray sea. It pooled around his ankles, then rose to his calves, filling the back of the dungeon.
“She’s not big enough yet,” Yvwi said.
Mulrox thought harder, feeding the malcognito with more and more energy. The great expanse quivered, tiny waves and eddies disturbing its surface.
“More,” Yvwi said.
Mulrox was standing chest deep in the malcognito—the water was still rising, rushing away from him toward the back of the dungeon where it rose in a wall nearly as tall as the dungeon itself. It was still growing, a smooth curl of steel blue arching over him, held at the peak of its rise. He held the wave as he fed it more, its frothy white crest reaching higher and higher.
“BIGGER!” he heard Yvwi yell.
He was shaking now, the waters churning against his last remains of strength. But he fed it more.
It was pulling. The pounding in his head was deafening.
And then Mulrox let go.
47
Someone was shaking him.
“Mulrox, get up. We have to hurry.”
Mulrox opened one eye and saw a ceiling bounded by stone arches, wobbling this way and that.
“You’re awake!”
A large purple head popped into view. He opened his other eye. Yahgurkin was soaked and dripping water everywhere, her wild curls limp and sagging.
“Are you okay?”
Mulrox nodded and then wished he hadn’t. A great wave of pain shot through the top of his head. There was a scrabbling noise, and then something thudded against his side. Mulrox looked down to see himself wrapped in a confusion of tools.
Safe!
“Tork.” Mulrox rested his hand on her head.
“You almost tore the whole place down.” Groxor was standing next to Yahgurkin. “It was a mess.”
“It wasn’t a mess. There was just a lot of mud and gunk after the explosion.”
“It was a mess. Look at this place,” Groxor said.
There were bits of stone and wood and chunks of metal from the cells scattered across the floor. Everywhere Mulrox looked were malcognitos and logosophilos and grinders; the imprisoned ideas must have made it out, the wave breaking them free. Fat drops of water rained from above, dripping from the ceiling.
“I tried to haul Yahgurkin back to Ulgorprog, but she wouldn’t go,” Groxor said.
“Of course not. But it hardly mattered. A moment later, there was this incredible roar and then water burst from the cellar door, like nothing you have ever seen!” Yahgurkin shook her head in awe. “We were all tumbling about malcognitos, grinders, dendrools, books, stones, broken utensils, anything you could imagine. All tossed about under the enormous wave of water.”
“Some of us almost drowned,” Groxor continued. “Like the dendrools.”
“You can’t drown inside a malcognito,�
�� said the unmistakable singsong voice. “The dendrools just short-circuited.”
Mulrox rushed to Yvwi and snatched him up in an enormous hug.
“I know,” Yvwi said. “I’m the best.” Yvwi turned back to Groxor. “Tidal-wave could have suffocated you. If you want to worry about something, I’d start there.”
“That was a malcognito?” Yahgurkin said, her eyes growing wide.
“She’s over there,” Yvwi said, pointing to what looked to be a pool of water.
“You’re getting a lot better at this,” Yahgurkin said.
Mulrox knew the truth. He made his way to the malcognito. “Thank you. You saved us all.”
A ripple spread out through the pool reaching out to its tip.
“She’s all tuckered out. It’ll be a few days until she’s back to normal again.”
“How did I––” Mulrox started.
“It’s your mind,” Yvwi said. “You’re the one putting limits on what you can and can’t do.”
Rodenia’s head popped up next to the others. “Not to intrude, but you’re not going to like what’s happening in Ulgorprog.”
Everything was coming back to Mulrox now, Tabiyeh, the Behemoth—“Geraldine!”
Rodenia nodded. “Griselda has the toad. And the rest of Ulgorprog.”
Groxor bounded to his feet and slapped his hands together. “Alright, Mulrox. Time to go. I saved your weirdo land. It’s your turn now. You heard the rat. Up, up, up!”
Yahgurkin helped Mulrox into a standing position. His head spun, the pillars rocking this way and that. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.
“We’re ready when you are,” Yahgurkin said.
Mulrox looked up. Before him stood Yahgurkin, Groxor, and Rodenia and beyond that nearly a hundred ideas of all shapes, sizes. He saw Toad-stool-steps and Cell-key, Tree-with-frog-legs and Toad-springs-eternal, Death-with-a-kiss and Spit-on-him. Malcognitos and logosophilos all jumbled up together until he was no longer sure who was what.
Us too!
Tork tugged at his shirt sleeve and pointed out beyond the malcognitos. There were so many grinders Mulrox couldn’t even begin to count. “All of you? But what happened?” Only minutes earlier, the grinders had been ready to imprison all of them.
Mulrox and the Malcognitos Page 30