Of Mice and Magic Page 6

Nightwing smiled and chuckled evilly.

  “What did they say?” Darwin shouted, leaping up and down with excitement.

  “There’s trouble in paradise,” Nightwing snickered. “And I didn’t even have to stir it up myself. The boy doesn’t like being a mouse, it seems.”

  Nightwing glanced down at the tick and considered. “Darwin, what do you do when someone hands you a lemon?”

  The tick thought, then answered, “Run like the wind before it squishes me?”

  “No, you gluttonous little gob sucker,” Nightwing said. “You smash the lemon against his face and rub his snout in it until it turns to lemonade.”

  “Oh, I get it,” the tick said, completely baffled.

  “Quiet,” Nightwing hissed. “They’re speaking again . . .”

  * * *

  “So you intend to go through with it?” Vervane asked Amber. “You’re going to risk a trip to the pet shop with this human?”

  “Yes,” Amber said.

  “Can you really trust him?” Vervane asked in a low, secretive voice. “I mean, he is a human. What do we know about them?”

  “Not much,” Amber admitted.

  “He did save me,” Bushmaster reminded them. “I think he’s a good human.”

  “How do we know if there even is such a thing as a good human?” Amber objected.

  “Look at him,” Vervane whispered. “There’s not a hint that he ever was human. What he once was and what he shall become are two different things. He’s a handsome mouse now. Princely even, I’d say.”

  Amber agreed. “Wonderfully, terribly handsome.”

  “I wonder,” Vervane asked. “Did you make him handsome, or was he already handsome as a human?”

  “I don’t know,” Amber replied. “Humans all look ugly to me, with all of their bald skin. I didn’t think much of him, especially when he kissed me.”

  “He kissed you?” Vervane asked.

  “Yeah,” Amber said. “And when he did, I looked up his nose. It was spooky up there.”

  Vervane chuckled, an old man kind of chuckle. Amber laughed too, more of a schoolgirl titter.

  There was a scuffling sound as Ben rolled over. Amber glanced at Ben, wondering if perhaps he’d been awake, listening to them talk about him. But he breathed evenly, and he looked as if he were asleep.

  “Still,” Vervane grumbled, “my heart warns that you should be careful with Ben.”

  “Oh, I’ll be careful,” Amber replied. “If he tries to bite me or tries to run away, I’ll just zap him!”

  “Magical powers may keep him under control,” Vervane said, “but they require vigilance. In time, you’ll wear yourself out trying to force him. There is a greater power at your command . . .”

  “What?” Amber asked.

  Bushmaster had been listening quietly, but he swiftly interjected, as if the answer were obvious, “Friendship.”

  “Friendship,” Vervane agreed, gratified that his son had reached the conclusion so swiftly. “You want to make him your slave, and I’m sure that he will march with you for as long as you force him, but a friend would walk with you eagerly, no matter how dark the path becomes.”

  “I don’t think he likes me much. So how do I make him a friend?”

  “You do not make friends,” Vervane said. “You can’t force someone into it. Instead, you must give friendship, as the singing voles do.”

  “The singing voles?” Amber asked.

  “They live far to the north,” Vervane said, “and I have never met them, though their fame has spread wide. The singing voles live in huge cities where dozens of burrows are connected by underground tunnels.

  “Sometimes, when a wolf attacks, it will try to dig through the tunnels. And that’s when the voles band together to protect one another.”

  “How?” Amber asked.

  “They sing,” Bushmaster said.

  “Sing?”

  “Yes,” Vervane offered. “They sing. While the wolf digs into one burrow, a vole will go to the mouth of another and begin to sing in a warbling voice until the wolf chases after him. Thus, he risks his life for his kin. He offers everything that he is or hopes to be. And when the wolf gives chase, the singing vole dives back into his burrow, while another on the far side of the colony goes out and takes up the song. Eventually, the wolf tires and wanders away, searching for easier prey—like a moose or a bear.”

  Amber fell silent.

  Bushmaster said, “Those who offer their lives to their friends are called The Givvin. It’s a great honor to be so named.”

  “I’m not giving that poopy human anything,” Amber said. “Not after what his kind did to my mother and friends.”

  * * *

  From his vantage point, Nightwing considered. He could attack Amber now. She was ignorant of the ways of magic, and that gave him an advantage. But she was also very powerful. One false move, and he could end up squashed like a mosquito on the windshield of a truck.

  No, he saw something more to his liking: Ben. He wanted Ben. The human boy was filled with magic power, a vast ocean of it, just waiting for Nightwing to drain it.

  But in order to get that power, he would have to break the umbilicus magicus, the magical connection that allowed a flow of power between Amber and Ben. Normally, he’d just have killed the wizardess in order to steal her familiar.

  But Nightwing saw a safer way to handle this, a way to steal Ben away without risking his own life.

  Still, I’ll need help, he decided. He cast a small spell that silently sent a message to a fellow wizard, one who lived far way, near Shrew Hill. “Meet me near the freeway an hour past dawn.”

  Distantly, the reply came, “Yea, master, I do thy bidding.”

  Nightwing glanced up at the moon, and it filled him with longing.

  In an effort to learn the distance to the moon, he let out a shriek in such a high pitch that even dogs couldn’t hear, then counted the seconds. But no echo returned. The huntress Diana remained ever mute to his call.

  He saw an opossum struggle over a fence into someone’s backyard and tiptoe to a bowl of dog food while its owner snored and twitched in slumber.

  Darwin the tick was asleep, sucking blood like a babe with a bottle in its mouth. One of Nightwing’s veins collapsed, and Darwin began making loud sucking sounds, as if he were drawing air through a straw. The noise startled the tick from his slumber. He pulled out his proboscis. “Hey,” he said, “you’re a pint low! Why don’t you go catch a mosquito? I could suck the blood out of it before you gobble it down.”

  “Because, you gore-bellied bloat,” Nightwing said, “the chill night air is as void of insects as your heart is of kindness or your head is of reason.”

  “Why do you always insult me?” Darwin asked. “Aren’t we friends?”

  Nightwing shot back, “In this world, there are only two types of creatures: victims and accomplices. Be grateful, Darwin, that you are my accomplice—for now.”

  Grudgingly, Darwin jabbed his proboscis back into the bat, his mandibles digging in almost to Nightwing’s spleen. Angered at the jab, Nightwing grabbed the tick’s bloated belly and gave it a squeeze. The tick’s belly was like the bulb on an eyedropper. As soon as Nightwing pinched, the blood in the tick’s gut squirted back into Nightwing’s veins. Immediately Nightwing felt a boost of energy.

  Darwin pulled out and whined, “Hey, give that back!”

  “You wanted more to drink,” Nightwing said, “so drink up. It’s on me—or in me, to be more accurate.” He gave a simpering laugh and wrapped his wings around himself to conserve heat.

  Dawn was coming. Nightwing hoped that Amber or Ben would show themselves before sunrise. Though he wasn’t a vampire, Nightwing still feared the touch of sunlight. It made him feel vulnerable, naked somehow, and he dared not challenge a strange sorcerer beneath the sun’s baleful gaze.

  Chapter 7

  THE RESCUERS

  Sometimes it is time to leave,

  even when you don’t know whe
re you must go.

  —RUFUS FLYCATCHER

  Rufus Flycatcher just stared at them with big bullfrog eyes.

  AS BEN LAY SLEEPING in his vole hole in Oregon, back in Louisiana, Rufus Flycatcher took timid little hops as he entered a forest deep in the bayou near Black River. The moonless night gave only the thinnest starlight, and even that was swallowed in a dense fog. He summoned a will-o’-the-wisp to light his way along a trail that was curtained by thick, gray spiderwebs. The smell of mold and death was strong in this place.

  Finally, Rufus reached a small hole. His heart beat wildly as he croaked, “Howdy. Anyone home?”

  He almost hoped that no one would be there.

  A voice so full of murderous rage that it screamed like a buzz saw chewing through a chicken coop shot out of the hole, “What do you WANT?”

  In his most innocent tone, Rufus Flycatcher called sweetly. “I, uh, just realized that it has been a coon’s age since I’ve, uh, had the pleasure of your, uh, company, uh, Lady Blackpool.”

  “Oh, shut yer yap,” the voice screamed, and suddenly a long gray snout came out of the hole, and Rufus stared eye to eye with the speaker—a mangy ball of fur that was quivering with rage, its left eye blinking incessantly from some nervous disorder. “Don’t try to sweet talk me,” the creature spat. Then her voice became low and dangerous. “No one ever comes to visit me unless they want something . . . desperately.”

  “Uh, yes, ma’am,” Rufus rumbled. “See, the thing is, I got a whale of a problem. There’s this wizardess that just bloomed into power—right in the enemy’s backyard. Now, I ain’t got all the details yet, but I kind of need me someone to go out and eyeball the situation fer me. You know, the usual. Save her if you can, kill her if you have to, and maybe take on an army of enemy sorcerers to boot.”

  “And you want me to do it because . . . ?” Lady Blackpool demanded.

  Rufus knew what she wanted him to say, but he hesitated. He needed her precisely because she was a shrew. It was early spring, still, and he’d have to send someone over the Rockies. That meant that he’d need someone who was warm-blooded. He couldn’t send one of the fabulous lizard wizards that roamed the swamp or an insect. He needed a bird or a mammal. None of the birds that he knew were tough enough for this job. No, it was down to the shrew or a weasel, and Rufus suspected that a mouse would be terrified of a weasel. So it was the shrew.

  “You need me because?” she demanded.

  Rufus gave in. “Because you’re the shrewdest shrew I ever knew,” he said with a groan.

  “Ah, hah, hah, hah,” Lady Blackpool gleefully cackled like an old witch. “That’s right! That’s oh so right! And what else?”

  “And because you’re a Ferocious Furball of Felonious Intent, and the Scariest Sorceress of the Seven Swamps.”

  Lady Blackpool leaped clear from her moldy hole and danced around Rufus. “Oh, Rufus, you do know the way to a lady’s heart! Did you bring me a little present, my pet? Maybe something from Pappa Gumbo?”

  Pappa Gumbo was the chef at SWARM, the Small Wizard’s Academy of Restorative Magic, where Rufus Flycatcher served as the Headmaster. Pappa Gumbo, an enormous cockroach, was the greasiest critter in the swamps, and just maybe the finest cook in the world. As if just remembering, Rufus pulled out some treats that he’d been carrying laboriously in his little paw. “Why, I do believe . . .”

  “Candied crawdads!” Lady Blackpool cried. “With slug sauce! How did he know that I had a hankerin’?”

  “Pappa Gumbo always knows,” Rufus said, and it was true. Papa Gumbo had a strange way of discerning what things you liked most. And if he approved of you, he would reward you accordingly. Then again, if he didn’t like you much, you’d quickly find out when one of his meals took a wrong turn somewhere down in your stomach.

  Lady Blackpool leaped on the candied crawdads and began chewing and salivating and making appreciative noises. Between mouthfuls, she talked as best she could. “So, do you just want me to eyeball things?”

  “We don’t know squat about the little lady yet,” Rufus said. “Word is that she’s a mouse of the snake-bait variety—straight out of a pet shop.”

  Lady Blackpool seemed to consider that bit of news. She stopped and gulped loudly. She fell silent, and it seemed that the night closed in, and even the curtains of cobwebs went still, as if listening. “So, she was born to be snake bait, eh? They’re a barbaric lot. Uncouth, ill-mannered, ignorant of even the most basic lore of mousedom . . . Why should I save her—”

  The shrew fell silent and stopped twitching for a second. That alone seemed miraculous. But then her eyes began to glow a bright magenta, and she looked to the west and focused on something miles and miles away. Rufus knew that the witch was having a vision, and she’d want to use all of her concentration to see and hear.

  “I see her there,” Lady Blackpool cried. “I see Amber, the Thirteenth Mouse—and the forces of darkness are gathering against her!”

  The Thirteenth Mouse? Rufus wondered. That was more news than his spies had been able to obtain. Did the enemy know who she was yet?

  Distantly, Rufus could hear something—the growl of thunder—and he could see lightning flashing in Lady Blackpool’s eyes, as if reflected in them, and he could hear the screams of death and war, and he saw strange shadows—mice in a pitched battle, carrying weapons. “A storm is coming. A storm that will sweep the world,” Lady Blackpool said.

  Suddenly, the vision ended, and her glowing eyes faded to a dull purple with only the slightest hint of light. Lady Blackpool whispered desperately, “I’ve seen the future. I must go to her. Now.”

  The shrew raced past Rufus, down the trail, while curtains of cobwebs stirred in her wake. She was in such a hurry that she left her candied crawdads.

  She ran to the edge of the swamp, and Rufus followed in big hops, trying to keep up. Just where the ground surrendered to water, Lady Blackpool shouted, “Sea Foam, Lord of the Deep, I summon you!”

  The water, dyed black by the tannins of cypress bark, began to swirl in a wide vortex, and waves lapped against the shore. An alligator made a burping noise and dove for cover. The water whirled faster and faster, like a whirlpool, only in reverse, for instead of sinking down, the water began to bubble above the surface, rising in a column.

  Suddenly from out of the black water, an enormous sea turtle sprang up, flopping into the air.

  He arced up into the trees, then dropped to the ground on his back, and lay there flapping his flippers in shock, trying to turn over.

  He began to sputter, “What’s . . . what’s going on?”

  “No time for chitchat,” Lady Blackpool said. “I need help, and you owe me.”

  Sea Foam gulped and looked around with wide eyes.

  “He owes you?” Rufus asked.

  Lady Blackpool ignored the question, and Rufus suspected that he knew why. Though Lady Blackpool screamed and ranted and did much to nurture the impression that she was the wickedest witch in the swamps, she had a good heart and had probably done something to help the sea turtle at one time or another. She would just never confess to it, of course.

  So instead she said in a venomous tone, “I need a ride, Sea Foam, in an armored vehicle. And you’re it.”

  The turtle gulped and flapped his flippers helplessly. “I’ll give you a swim wherever you want to go—if you’ll just help flip me over.”

  Lady Blackpool went to the huge sea turtle, who had to weigh three hundred pounds, and flicked him with a finger of her left paw. The turtle whirled in the air and fell—splat!—on the ground. He looked about, panting, with a dazed expression.

  Lady Blackpool hopped into his shell, just in the crook of his neck, and stood there muttering an incantation.

  “Where to?” the poor turtle begged.

  “That way!” Lady Blackpool said in a determined voice. “We’re going out west. Where, I don’t know, but I’ll steer you true when we near the spot. Now fly!”

  “Fly?” Sir Sea Foam
said. “But I can’t—”

  “We’ve got a couple of thousand miles to go, with lots of crotchety weather in between and no time to get there,” Lady Blackpool shouted.

  “But—” Sea Foam began to say. Before he could muster another word, fire and hot gases came whooshing out of his tail hole, nearly cooking poor Rufus.

  The bullfrog watched the turtle shoot into the air like a rocket and immediately begin to spin out of control. Sea Foam rose like a cannonball, screaming in fear as he spiraled toward oblivion.

  In the distance, Rufus could hear Lady Blackpool shouting, “Steer, dang it! Wave those flippers!”

  Sea Foam held his flippers out experimentally, and the turtle seemed to stop his wild spin.

  In seconds, they were gone from sight, far out over the swamp.

  Rufus Flycatcher just stared at them with big bullfrog eyes, his mouth having fallen wide open. Smoke and steam curled up from the ground beside him.

  “Good-bye, Lady Blackpool,” he croaked, “and vaya con Dios. You’re a good-hearted woman.” That last bit he said softly, not wanting her to hear. But it was true. She was the only shrew that he knew who would gleefully ride a flaming turtle through a lightning storm toward an evil army—all for a couple of Pappa Gumbo’s candied crawdads. What a woman, he mused. What a woman!

  Chapter 8

  A GATHERING OF WEAPONS

  Few critters seem to be born to be of great stature.

  Instead, they become great as they rise to mee the challenges of a dark season.

  —RUFUS FLYCATCHER

  The spider leaped down from its web, came close, and stared at Ben with all eight eyes.

  BEN DREAMED THAT he was a mouse running through the morning dew, laughing at the sun, the grass-tops scrubbing his belly clean, when suddenly he realized that some terrible flying monkeys filled the sky overhead while the Wicked Witch of the West—who looked suspiciously like his mother—cackled and shouted, “Bring me Amber, and her little mouse too!”