Gregor and the Marks of Secret-4 (18 page)

"Tell them from this day on, the humans consider the stingers their allies. Tell them we wish for nothing but peaceful relations between us. Tell them when they let Thalia live, they entered our hearts."

Hazard relayed the message. The scorpions came back with a similar, if less emotional, pledge. But then, since they'd had very little experience with the scorpions and there were several different languages to take into account, no one could really judge its tone. You had a scorpion speaking in Crawler to a seven-year-old boy who had only recently learned Crawler and spoke a mixture of Overland and Underland English. Things could have been lost in translation.

Gregor just considered it a huge victory that everyone got out of the situation alive. And there did seem to be the beginning of trust. Boots's affection for the babies had made a good impression. The scorpions were trying to help them evade the rats.

"You know who'd have loved that? Your grandpa," Gregor told Luxa as they started down a tunnel on Aurora's back.

"Yes, Vikus is very fond of peaceful resolutions. So am I. I just believe that in his eagerness to achieve them, my grandfather can trust too soon. Remember when we visited the spinners? We ended up as their prisoners," said Luxa.

"But they didn't kill us," said Gregor.

"They almost killed me!" said Luxa.

"Well, you were trying to escape," said Gregor.

"And then it took Gorger and his army slaughtering the spinners for them to ally themselves with us," said Luxa.

"They might not have ever done that, though, if they didn't trust Vikus," said Gregor.

"Perhaps not," said Luxa.

"I'm just saying, it's nice when nobody gets killed," said Gregor.

"That is pretty talk for a warrior," said Luxa. "Not the sort of thing you will want to be shouting out before a battle." She mimicked his accent. " 'Remember, it's nice when nobody gets killed!'"

Gregor laughed. "Who knows? Maybe that's exactly what I should be shouting before a battle."

He was in a strangely good mood given the circumstances. He was far from home, surrounded by enemies, many of his companions were wounded, his family was worried sick, the mice were being driven who knew where, the Bane had turned into some sort of evil genius leader, and there was some ominous prophecy lying in wait for him. And here he was joking around with Luxa. Maybe it was just the relief of still being alive. Or maybe it was something else....

Luxa was leaning against his backpack again, her head on his shoulder. Howard flew by and gave Gregor a disapproving look. What? He hadn't made the seating arrangements. Howard had. It was more comfortable riding with someone to lean on. Probably Gregor was in for another speech about dates and queens and things. About how nothing was right about him liking Luxa.

"Oh, who cares? My mom will probably send me home the second we reach Regalia, anyway," thought Gregor. But the idea didn't make him feel happy. The walls and floor of the tunnel began to transform from a dull gray to a shiny black. Light from Gregor's flashlight and Boots's scepter danced off the surfaces and reflected to other spots. When they landed at a spring-fed pool for a break, Gregor stooped down and ran his fingers over the surface beneath his feet. It was smooth. Almost slick.

Luxa examined the ground beside him. "It is like black glass."

"I think it might be obsidian," said Gregor.

Boots quickly discovered the slipperiness of the floor. "Look, Gre-go, I ice-skate!" she said, sliding wildly over the black surface, waving her scepter.

"I want to try, too!" said Hazard.

Howard grabbed Hazard before he could work up much speed. "Oh, no, you do not, Hazard. The last thing you need is another head injury."

Luxa was still focused on the floor. "What is obsidian?" she asked Gregor.

"It's a kind of rock you only find around volcanoes. It's made from cooled lava," said Gregor.

"You must be right. The Firelands are known for their volcanoes," said Luxa.

"Active volcanoes?" asked Gregor. "Do they still work?"

"Why would they not?" asked Luxa. "They cannot break."

"They can become dormant. Asleep," said Gregor.

"I do not know, then. No human has ever stayed long enough to study them. The air is too bad for extended visits," said Luxa.

Suddenly all four of the bats lifted their chins, usually a sign they had sensed something alarming.

"What is it, Aurora?" asked Luxa.

"I do not know. Some creature moves within," said the bat, nodding in the direction Boots was heading.

"I cannot detect its shape," said Ares, in a puzzled tone.

"Come back, Boots!" called Gregor. But either she wasn't listening or she was ignoring him. "Hey, I'm not kidding!" he said, taking off after her. After about ten steps, he lost his footing and landed on his rear end. "Boots!"

"Wheee!" said Boots as she spun across the floor, and then suddenly she gave an

"Uh-oh!" and dropped out of sight.

"Where is she?" exclaimed Hazard.

"Ow!" said the little voice from the dark. "We bumped." Her sandals pattered around. "I know you!" she said. "Oh, ow...." But this second "ow" was a sound not of pain but of sympathy.

Gregor ran toward her voice and would have fallen as well had Howard not caught him by the arm and lifted him back. They were at the edge of a large pit that was about twenty feet deep. The obsidian walls were very steep and smooth.

"Gre-go! Gre-go!" Boots was trying to climb out of the pit, but she slid back down its side almost immediately. "Gre-go, see who is here! Ow!" She pressed her hand against her teeth and then pointed her scepter at the creature beside-her.

A scrawny rat lay a few feet to her right, panting for air. His front teeth were way overgrown, at least by a foot, and had locked together, spreading his mouth in a horrible grimace and distorting his face painfully.

But Gregor could still make out the scar on the agonized face. "Ripred," he said.

The rat locked eyes with him but was unable to speak.

"Don't move," said Gregor. "We're coming."

***

Gregor turned to Howard, figuring he was the best person to handle a medical crisis.

"What do we do?"

But even Howard was at a loss. "I do not know. Perhaps we can file his teeth down some way. I doubt pulling them is an option, but if we must —"

"Oh, move aside!" said Luxa impatiently, pushing by them. She stepped sideways onto the slope and slid, one leg extended, one leg bent at the knee, straight down into the pit. She landed on her feet and drew her sword, sweeping it back as if to attack. "Stand back, Boots!" she ordered, and the little girl cleared out of the way. For a moment, Gregor thought Luxa was going to kill Ripred. She had certainly done nothing to stop the rat from suffocating in quicksand when they'd met up with her in the jungle that time. But instead of cutting Ripred's throat, her blade smashed into his locked teeth. The ones on the left half of his mouth cracked off in jagged points.

Ripred emitted a guttural sound of pain at the impact but lifted his head up for her to swing again. Luxa's second hit shattered through the other half of Ripred's teeth, and he slumped forward on the ground, gasping. The uneven edges left by the blow cut into his gums, causing them to bleed, but his jaws were freed.

Ripred stared at Luxa for a minute, then spoke in a hoarse whisper. "You remember ... in the jungle ... you said you would be in my debt..."

"If you told me Hamnet's story. About the Garden of the Hesperides," said Luxa.

"Consider the debt... paid in full," said Ripred.

"A story for your life? That is not a fair exchange. I believe you owe me now," said Luxa.

"I hate that," sighed Ripred.

"I bet you do," said Luxa with a grin. "Ares, can you bring him up?"

Ares flew down, clamped his claws into Ripred's shoulders, and hauled him out of the pit while Aurora brought up Luxa and Boots.

"Water," was Ripred's first request.

Howard opened up a skin and held it while the rat drank his fill. "I have a rough stone, a small one, for sharpening blades. Shall I try to even up your teeth?"

Gregor knew it must be killing Ripred, who was so relentlessly powerful, so universally feared, to be sitting there while a human filed his teeth. Guessing an audience would only make things worse, Gregor mobilized the others. He asked the bats and Temp to fish in a nearby stream. Hazard and Boots helped Luxa fill the water bags. Cartesian was too medicated to really matter.

When the fish started to arrive, Gregor busied himself by chopping some up into tiny pieces. He stirred in some water and a handful of dry bread crumbs. By the time Howard had the edges of Ripred's teeth smoothed out, Gregor had a nice big bowl of fish mash waiting for him.

Boots wanted to feed him, but Gregor thought that would be too much for the rat, so he scooped the food into Ripred's mouth himself. Although Gregor had made several pounds of fish mash, several more bowls were needed before Ripred was satisfied.

"All right. I'm all right now," he said, finally pushing away the bowl, with a few remaining bites of mash stuck to the bottom. The rat gingerly opened and closed his jaws. "Can I see that rock?" Howard gave him the rock, and Ripred worked a little on his teeth, shaping them into his usual style. After a while, he stopped gnawing and sized up the group for the first time.

"So, what brings the Children's Crusade into the Firelands? I don't flatter myself you were looking for me."

"We got lost on a picnic," said Luxa.

"I know I'm down, but don't humiliate me further with transparent lies, Your Highness,"

said Ripred. "Don't I always tell you the truth?"

"You lied to me about 'The Prophecy of Blood.' You said I just had to come to a meeting when you knew I had to go to the jungle," said Gregor.

"Not exactly. If you think back, my comments were very open to interpretation. And you happen to be easily misled," said Ripred. "As for the queen, who is difficult to lead anywhere ... I have always been and intend to be entirely straightforward."

Luxa considered this for a moment. "We went looking for the nibblers," she said. "One sent my crown, as a plea for help. The jungle nibblers have disappeared. Those by the Fount are being driven here to the Firelands."

"My little charge, the Bane, doesn't fancy them much, does he?" said Ripred. "And what do you mean to do by following them?"

"Draw the Regalian armies after me," said Luxa. "I said 'The Vow to the Dead' in Hades Hall."

"Did you indeed?" said Ripred. "It seems like only yesterday you were a baby bouncing on your grandpa's knee. And now you're starting wars. They grow up so fast."

"And what would you have done?" Luxa asked.

"Now I'm in an awkward position, Your Highness. Ordinarily, I'd have said I'd have hunted down the Bane myself and killed him, hopefully disabling the serpent by beheading it. Of course, as you've just rescued me from a pit where I was being slowly tortured to death on the Bane's command ... my advice seems to have less impact," said Ripred.

"You could not leap out?" asked Howard.

"No, the walls are too high to clear, too slick to climb. And there wasn't so much as a pebble for me to gnaw on. So my teeth kept growing. Mine locked, as opposed to growing up through my brain. Lucky for me, if not the Bane," said Ripred.

"He put you in there? He outfought you?" asked Gregor.

"Who, the Bane? Please. His soldiers did," said Ripred.

"But... no one can touch you!" said Gregor.

"Even a rager can be outnumbered, Gregor," said Ripred. "I start to crack at about four hundred to one. You, I hear, crumbled in the face of three. Of course, there were extenuating circumstances."

"What is he talking about?" asked Luxa.

Gregor didn't answer. It was too embarrassing to think that Ripred knew about his episode with Twirltongue. That all the rats knew and were laughing at him.

"You might as well tell her, before someone else does," said Ripred.

"Three rats kicked my butt in the tunnels under Regalia," said Gregor.

"What were you and three rats doing under Regalia?" asked Luxa accusingly.

"I'll take that. See, I'd brought the Bane with me to echolocation lessons, so Gregor could meet him and help me kill him. Unfortunately, my pearly friend sneaked off in the night. I had to chase him, of course, and when Gregor came down the next day for the assassination, he found not me or the Bane but three of the Bane's pals," said Ripred. "Now the warrior, as I understand it, was actually doing quite well, until... ?" He looked pointedly at Gregor.

"Until I lost my light," muttered Gregor.

"And at that moment he realized that all along he'd been wrong about being so uncooperative during his lessons and that... ?" Ripred waited again.

"You were right, Ripred," said Gregor.

'"You were right, Ripred,'" said the rat slowly, savoring every word. "You know, I think it's all been worth it just to hear those words, from that mouth," said Ripred. "Any more fish mash? I'm hungry again."

Ripred stuck his nose in the remaining fish mash and lapped it up.

Gregor could feel Luxa's eyes burning holes in him.

"So when did you plan on telling us about the Bane and his three friends running around under our palace?" said Luxa.

"Never, if possible," said Gregor. "It didn't seem to matter."

"It would matter a great deal to you, if it was your home," said Luxa.

"Vikus said the door was solid," said Gregor.

"And was that door barred when you were fighting those rats?" asked Luxa.

"No," admitted Gregor. If he had not waylaid them with the lamp, nothing would have stopped the rats from entering the palace. "But I didn't know they were there. I thought it would only be Ripred and the Bane."

"They are everywhere, Gregor," said Howard softly. And that's when Gregor knew how careless he had been. Howard didn't fly off the handle like Luxa. If he was concerned, there was a real problem.

"I always left the door unbarred during my lessons," said Gregor. "Vikus never told me different."