Ravenspell Book 2: The Wizard of Ooze (9 page)

Chapter 13

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

Water may flood your burrow. 

Wind may leave you battered. 

But no matter what storms confront you in life, with courage and determination you can weather it.

—LADY BLACKPOOL

The owl was all white, with just a few patches of brown feathers on her back.

Amber felt bleary eyed when Thorn woke her well before dawn. The moon was riding high in the sky, reflecting on the snow almost as bright as day. The pines in the fields nearby were nothing but black shadows.

With the rest of the mice, she went to work digging under the tree, looking for more pine nuts.

She was so bleary eyed that she didn’t see the owl before she struck.

She was digging in the snow one moment, and the next she became aware of a huge shadow rushing over her, the thunder of beating wings. She whirled to see an owl lifting Bushmaster into the sky.

Bushmaster struggled for a second but dropped his spear as he rose into the air.

“Hey!” Amber shouted. “You bring him back here!”

She pointed her finger, and suddenly the owl spun down toward the ground and released Bushmaster just a few feet in the air.

The poor vole fell into the snow face first and groggily pulled himself upright.

“Just for that,” Amber told the owl, “you’re going to give us a ride over the mountains.”

Amber peered up at the owl. She seemed huge, twelve times taller than a young mouse. The owl was all white, with just a few patches of brown feathers on her back.

“A snow owl!” Ben said. “I saw one like that a couple of winters back. My dad said that if the snow owls fly south, it means we’re going to have a storm.”

Ben asked the owl, “Is there a storm coming?”

“Of course,” the owl screeched. “Can’t you feel it? It’s a big one.”

Bushmaster sat in the snow for a second, rubbing his paws over his shoulder. The owl’s claws hadn’t pierced his skin. He wasn’t bleeding, but Amber felt sure that he would be bruised and sore.

Bushmaster looked at the mice and then nervously eyed the owl. Amber could tell that he didn’t want to ride. But bravely he said, “We’d best be on our way.”

So they climbed the owl. Ben looped one end of his fishing line around the owl’s neck and then secured himself and his friends to the other end of the line so they wouldn’t fall off. Then Amber cast a small spell that made the owl begin her climb. She kept low, flying just above the treetops, and made her way over the forests high into the mountains.

After only a couple of hours, they were climbing through an area of stark pines, barren of any leaves. A few years earlier, the gypsy moth beetles had infested the forest, killing the trees. Now all that was left were dead trees with black branches thrusting up through the snow. They looked like skeletal fingers raking the sky.

The wind became blustery, and the snow owl seemed to buck and veer. Gray clouds swept in from the west, like a huge gray hand, and already its fingers reached above them.

Down on the ground, Amber could see mice hopping through barren fields. At first she saw only two or three, but as the owl climbed higher, she became aware of dozens more, maybe hundreds. Little brown mice, wet and cold, hopping through the snow in broad daylight. Most were common house mice, grayish in color, but there were plenty of deer mice with their brown backs and white feet, and jumping mice like Ben with reddish backs, and even a few pack rats.

“Hey, you guys?” Amber called down to them as the owl climbed a steep rise, her wings beating like thunder. “Where are you all going?”

The mice said nothing. None of them spoke or looked up. None of them even hesitated. It was as if they couldn’t hear her, couldn’t see her. Instead, they slogged forward in mute silence.

Suddenly the owl topped the rise, and the trees gave out completely. There, on a steep sheet of ice, Amber saw tens of thousands of mice darkening the ground, trying in vain to climb up the ice sheet. The sun glaring off of the snow nearly blinded her, but Amber saw mice scurrying up the steep slope, some hopping, others feeling their way timidly.

A pack of coyotes waited for them at the base of the ice sheet, just lounging about. The coyotes had hair in dozens of shades of gray and brown, worn and grizzled. They were so full of mice already that it looked as if they’d swallowed pillows, and they didn’t even bother hunting anymore. Most just lay atop a rock, sunning. Perhaps when a mouse scurried over them by accident, they’d eat it.

Only one coyote bothered to try hunting—if it could be called hunting. It was lying in the snow at the bottom of the ice sheet, with its mouth open. The mice were so thick on the ground, that it was black with them, and every few seconds, a mouse or two would step into the coyote’s mouth, and it would simply snap the helpless mouse up and then swallow.

Amber watched the scene in horror, feeling dazed. She’d seen something like this in her vision last week while peering into the newt’s eyes. She’d seen mice marching blindly toward destruction. Somehow it hadn’t seemed real.

Now their plight struck her to the heart.

And suddenly she was up above the ridge, the owl cresting the mountain, and she heard wormsong even through her helmet of carved walnut:

Nectar pools in silver flowers,

Sweeter than a winding stream.

Drink and thirst no more forever,

In the wellspring of your dreams.

The song hit her like a numbing blast, and all of her thoughts left her, all of her hopes.

Amber heard the voice, and took a step out into thin air . . .

Chapter 14

CREEPY CRAWLY

When our enemy sees the face of pure evil,

it had better belong to one of my troops.

—GENERAL CRAWLEY

The human peered down, breathing heavily through the respirator on the suit.

Meadowsweet the vole crept under the fence into the yard behind Latonia Pumpernickel’s house, leading a contingent of mice and voles on a raid of the garbage can.

They skirted a huge fir tree, using a forest of mushrooms as a screen to hide them from predators. Meadowsweet was armed with a spear made from a wooden toothpick, and she wore a helmet made of walnut shell, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

She stopped for a long moment and peered toward the garbage can. Something was wrong.

She sniffed the air for Domino the cat. She and the mice had chased it off a few nights ago, but cats had a way of returning.

All she could smell was humans. Nothing strange about that. They were, after all, right behind a human’s house.

Meadowsweet reached the clearing at the edge of the lawn and took one last look toward the midday sky. No sign of hawks or crows or other flying predators.

With a squeak, she took her spear in her mouth and raced to the nearest garbage can.

The pet shop mice followed her with shouts of triumph. As Meadowsweet waited at the base of the can, gripping her spear and watching for predators, other mice raced up.

One of them hurled a grappling hook over the lip of the garbage can, then began climbing the knotted fishing line.

In seconds, half a dozen mice were in the can, and last of all, Meadowsweet climbed to the very lip. There she whirled and looked about, still on guard duty.

Dozens of tantalizing odors assailed Meadowsweet. She could smell lettuce and leftover cucumber salad. She smelled freshly baked granola and peanut butter cookies.

Meadowsweet’s stomach rumbled from hunger; her mouth began to water.

“Score!” one of the mice shouted as he found something wonderful. There were chattering cries of delight, shouting, “Oh, my gosh!” and “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

Meadowsweet heard the mice shuffling through papers and diving deep into the garbage.

She was so hungry that she couldn’t help peering down into the garbage can to see what the others had found.

Craning her neck, she spotted a wonderland. There was a huge pepperoni pizza lying in a bed of salads. A forest of tender peeled carrots rose up from the pizza, and in its very center was a mountain of blueberries.

Lining the sides of the garbage can were cookies and fudge of every description.

Meadowsweet peered at it all, her heart pounding in delight.

But something was wrong, she decided. There was too much food. This wasn’t like the other garbage cans, filled with nasty papers and old boxes. Here was food, copious amounts of food. No human had ever tasted it.

“It’s a trap!” she shouted.

At that instant, she heard a cracking noise above her and whirled to look up.

A dozen humans had surrounded the garbage can. They looked like Special Forces troops decked out in solid black night gear. They carried automatic rifles, had night goggles covering their right eyes, and wore thick flak jackets.

A dozen rifles were pointed at Meadowsweet’s chest, the little red dots from their laser sights shining on her like a brilliant red sun.

A lone man pushed his way through the crowd. He wore a special bio-terrorism suit made of gold foil, with a thick green glass on the faceplate. His suit was especially made not only to keep out chemicals, but also to withstand the radiation and heat of a nearby nuclear blast.

The human peered down, breathing heavily through the respirator on the suit, and growled something in the human tongue.

General Crawley aimed his own pistol at the mouse, and said, “Listen to me, you little Martian nutcase vermin: my name is Ira Crawley, and I’m a general in APE—Americans Protecting Earth. You might even call me the Big APE. This here is my planet, and if you try to poke me with that needle of yours, I wouldn’t give a ball of boiled snot for your chances of survival. You hear me? Now take me to your leader!”

Meadowsweet, of course, didn’t understand a single word that he said. But she could sense the rage in his tone, and she knew that she was caught.

Trembling in fear, she dropped her little spear and surrendered.

Chapter 15

THE STRAGE BURROW

When you’re weary to the bone,

Even the humblest burrow

Feels like home.

—A SAYING AMONG VOLES

The burrow smelled clean and healthy, like sweet hay.

Amber woke to find Ben holding her. She was dead tired and covered with sweat. Her heart was beating wildly and she panted for breath, as if she’d just got done with a long, hard fight.

Ben’s paws were wrapped around her, covering her ears.

It happened again, she realized. I succumbed to the wormsong.

Something clobbered her on the head. Startled, she looked up. Snow hurtled through the air in huge, white flakes large enough to brain an unfortunate mouse. A fierce storm was battering the mountains, raging all around.

To her surprise, she was on the ground, waist deep in snow. The last thing she remembered was flying a white owl. In the blinding storm she could see no sign of her ride.

She was still tied to Ben with the fishing line, and Bushmaster was tied to her. Last on the line came Thorn, who even now was struggling blindly uphill, enthralled by wormsong, trying to head east into the storm.

Bushmaster fought him, trying to hold him back. Overhead, gray clouds loomed, and Amber could hear the distant growling of thunder, like a predator in the heavens.

“Where are we?” Amber asked.

“On the west side of the ridge,” Ben panted, because he was heaving in great breaths. “The wormsong . . . is quieter here. Come on. There’s a cave up ahead, here in the rocks.”

“But where is our owl?” Amber cried. She was panting too. She realized that she had been fighting Ben.

“You fell off. It was lucky that we were tied together. It was the only thing that kept you from dying in a fall. Once I got that stupid owl to land, I let it fly away.”

Ben pulled her to her feet and stood with his paws still covering her ears. Amber could see that he was sweating. Dimly she could still hear the alluring song.

I must have put up quite a struggle, she thought. She realized dully that she was sick with fatigue. Every muscle in her body ached, as if a cottontail had clobbered her, and her legs and lungs were burning from effort.

It was dark outside, darker than even the heavy clouds could account for, and Amber realized that it must be near sundown. Yet last she remembered, it had only been noon.

“How long was I out?” she wondered as she and Ben dragged their weary tails toward a large burrow up among the rocks, stopping only momentarily to give the line a jerk, thus pulling Bushmaster and Thorn along.

“Six hours,” Ben said. “You and Thorn have been in a trance all afternoon. It wasn’t until the storm kicked up that the sound began to blow away.”

Amber could hardly believe it. She had been fighting poor Ben for hours.

He’s saved my life once again, she thought dully.

Wearily, she staggered over a hay pile and hesitated at the mouth of a large hole. Ben kept his paws over her ears the whole way.

She could smell some animal inside the hole. Not a rat or a mouse, something more like a vole. The burrow smelled clean and healthy, like sweet hay. More importantly, here it was utterly silent. The stones and dirt protected her in a way that her little helmet could not.

“In here,” she said, climbing into the mouth of the burrow. Then she, Ben, and Bushmaster pulled on the fishing line until they hauled Thorn safely inside.

Once inside, young Thorn collapsed on the ground and just lay there panting.

“What kind of burrow is this?” Amber asked.

Bushmaster shook his head wearily, unable to answer.

Outside the wind screamed and howled as it made its way up the canyon. Amber crawled deeper into the burrow, and found that the floor and walls, everything, was lined with sweet-smelling herbs. The grass and leaves beneath her feet were springy and comfortable.

The walls were all stone, and it could have been cold and bitter here, but mountain grasses and dried flowers stuffed into every nook and cranny provided insulation from the weather outside. Just as importantly, the vegetation was all slowly rotting, and the bacteria growing inside gave off its own heat so that the little burrow was far warmer than Amber would have thought possible.

The grasses still had seeds in them, and there were flowers, dried fungus, sweet-smelling tubers, savory bark, and dried berries all about. Crevices into the rock led deeper into the hillside, into other tunnels, and from the smell of them, they were also lined with food and insulation.

We’ve found a fortress, Amber realized, staring about in wonder. But she couldn’t smell an occupant. It seemed that the owner had abandoned the place within the past few weeks.

In her mind’s eye, Amber recalled the mice that were marching up over the ice, and shook her head in sadness. They were in the storm still, marching blindly. They were all as good as dead.

Ben and the others followed Amber into the burrow. Poor Thorn dropped wearily onto the soft fodder and fell asleep. Bushmaster nibbled at a stalk of wild watercress but was too tired to eat much, and soon just lay with his eyes closed.

Ben said softly, “We should eat—keep up our strength,” and found himself some dried flowers to eat. Amber picked at some seeds, but she felt horrible about what she had done and soon gave up.

Ben has saved my life twice now, she thought. I owe him more than I can ever repay.

She looked at Ben, and gratitude welled up inside. “You heard the wormsong, didn’t you?”

Ben nodded.

“But it didn’t pull you?”

“It did,” Ben said. “But I guess that maybe I’m still more human than mouse. I heard the song, but it didn’t work on me. I just thought to myself that the Wizard of Ooze could use a few voice lessons. He was worse than some of those folks on
American Idol.
”

Amber nodded.

Ben nuzzled up against her for warmth, and muttered, “One of us should stay awake and keep guard.” But he dropped off to sleep almost before he finished the sentence.

Amber lay for a moment, thinking. From so deep in the burrow, she couldn’t even hear the wind outside. She had nothing to fear from the wormsong. Instead, the cozy burrow, so warm and inviting, seemed to lull her. The light was failing, and the coming shadows invited her to sleep.

But somehow, Amber didn’t trust that temptation.

We could live in this burrow for years, Amber thought. There’s enough food lining the walls and the floor alone, that all of us together couldn’t eat it in a lifetime.

But food doesn’t gather itself. Some animal did this. But what kind? And where is the owner?

It didn’t smell like a rat in here, with its bitter scent. The owner had had a mellower scent, more like a rabbit. But the aroma of sweet grasses and food overwhelmed everything.

Amber wished for light, and a bit of wheat grass suddenly blazed with a magic aura, pure and white. It lit up her little room.

Amber took Ben’s needle and carefully began to explore the burrow. She climbed up overhead, between a pair of rocks, and found an escape hole. She stood in the mouth of the tunnel, nose twitching, her whiskers brushing the floor. It smelled of stone and cold dirt, a distinctly metallic scent. She followed the hole beneath a pair of boulders, and went twenty feet up the mountainside, until the tunnel opened into another pleasant burrow very much like the one that she had come through.

She climbed back down, and explored a tiny exit that went off to the right. She had not gone far when it opened into a vast chamber.

Amber lit another bit of grass, and discovered that this chamber looked as if something had lived here. Indeed, the grasses and herbs had been chewed down a bit, and furrows in one corner showed where something had made its bed. Whatever had lived here was as long as a mouse, including the tail, and much heavier. Not as heavy as a rabbit, but closer to the size of a squirrel.

Amber could see no sign of the builder of the burrow, and that made her feel uneasy.

Where could they have gone? They had plenty of food and good shelter. If they’d died of illness, their bodies would be here, slowly rotting.

Or perhaps they’d been killed by carnivores.

They could have been outside, among the rocks, and been taken by owls or hawks. Amber had seen coyotes about, though they looked so fat and lazy, she almost couldn’t imagine them hunting.

Amber tasted the air. She could smell something like wild garlic among the bedding, and she caught the coppery scent of blood.

Predators. Something had been in here.

Amber suddenly felt frightened. Outside she heard the whisper of a scream. It might have just been the wind. But it might just as well have been the spirits of the dead.

She ran back through the tunnel to her friends.

They were all sleeping soundly.

There was only one last exit to explore, a small crack between the rocks off to her left. Amber went and poked her nose into the hole and saw a pair of bright black eyes!

“Who’s there?” Amber cried.

She made a light blaze, and saw the outline of a mouse. Or at least it looked like a mouse. It had large eyes, grayish hair on top, and white feet.

“Muh-muh-muh-me,” the creature answered in response, falling back in terror.

The little creature cowered back several paces and just sat there quivering, too afraid to speak. It was a mouse, Amber decided from the smell, but not like any mouse she’d ever seen before.

“Who are you?” Amber asked. He didn’t answer. “You can come in here,” she said at last. “I won’t hurt you.”

“What?” the mouse asked, turning his head to hear better. “Speak up.”

There had been a kitten in the pet shop once that couldn’t hear. Amber listened to the strange way the mouse slurred his words and realized that this mouse was deaf, too.

It was such an easy thing to fix. Amber cast a small spell and asked, “Who are you?”

The mouse jumped in the burrow, startled by the loudness of the sound. “I can hear!” he cried. “I can hear you. I can hear the wind outside!” He rushed toward Amber, peering into the room. “I can hear those mice breathing!”

“I’m a wizardess,” Amber said. “I cast a spell so that you’d be able to hear me.”

“Oh no,” the mouse said. “But . . . now I’ll be able to hear the song—like all of the others . . .”

Amber peered at the mouse and suddenly realized that it was only his deafness that had kept him alive, kept him from wandering off to the east.

“You can’t hear the wormsong so long as you stay down here in the burrow,” Amber assured him. “I’m Amber, and you are . . . ?”

“Dearth.”

The mouse sat there trembling and then scurried forward into the lighted room. When he reached the center of the chamber, Amber saw that his fur was short and glossy, and he had large feet. He peered at the glowing wheat stalk, the seeds shining like golden lamps. “You really are a wizardess.”

Amber was afraid that she and her friends were all trespassing. “Did you dig this burrow?”

“Oh, not me,” Dearth said. “This was dug by rock rabbits.”

“Rabbits?” Amber asked.

Dearth peered at her. “Not rabbits, rock rabbits. They look kind of like big mice but without tails.”

“What happened to them?” Amber asked.

“I don’t know,” Dearth said. “I only got here a few days ago. All of the other mice were following the song, so I came after. But I never could hear very well, so I couldn’t hear the song. I climbed the mountain but finally found this burrow, so I stopped. I’ve been here all week.”

“What kind of mouse are you?” Amber asked.

“A pocket mouse,” Dearth answered.

Amber nodded. She dimly recalled that she had heard of such a mouse before.

“Are you going to stay long?” Dearth asked.

“Just for the night,” Amber said.

“You’re welcome,” Dearth whispered. He began to tremble as if he were very nervous. “You could stay for a long time. You could stay forever if you wanted to. I wouldn’t mind. I’d like some company.”

“Thank you,” Amber said.

“There’s food everywhere,” Dearth went on. “The burrow goes on forever. There were a dozen rock rabbits here, harvesting hay and seeds all summer. We could live here for years and never be able to eat it all.”

“I can see,” Amber said.

Dearth reached out a paw and touched her on the elbow, as if he were begging. “I’d give you the best rooms in the burrow. I’d welcome the company. It’s very lonely here.”

Amber felt sorry for the pocket mouse. He looked so forlorn. She wondered what horrible things he had been through. His family and all of the mice that he had ever known were gone. And it must have been terribly frightening to be deaf, to be alone in the wild and unable to hear if a fox were digging at the mouth of the burrow.

“We’ll stay the night,” Amber said. “And in the morning, when we leave, maybe you’ll want to come with us.”

Dearth was so surprised by the offer that he leapt back and tripped over his own tail.