Ravenspell Book 2: The Wizard of Ooze (12 page)

Chapter 19

PREPARING FOR WAR

By proper preparation, a wise leader
wins the battle before he ever takes the field.

—TSUN TSU

Is the world really so large?

Benjamin Ravenspell stood in the mouth of the little cave, listening to distant wormsong. Deeper inside, Thorn, Bushmaster, and Amber huddled near the light.

“I don’t understand,” Ben told the others. “Amber sealed the mouth of that worm, but I still hear him singing outside. Won’t he ever shut up?”

“That’s simple,” Thorn said. “Sound travels slowly. The song we’re hearing was sung well before the attack, hundreds of miles in the distance. It’s only making its way to us now.”

“I remember something about that,” Ben said. “Sound travels about a mile in five seconds. My teacher said that if you see lightning, you can count out the seconds to find out how far away it is.”

Thorn did some figuring in his head, faster than Ben could have punched the equations into a calculator. “That means that sound travels about seven hundred miles per hour. Of course, air temperature, humidity, and elevation would certainly affect the speeds.”

Ben nodded. His teacher had said lots of stuff. Ben couldn’t remember it all, but that sounded about right.

“Then,” Thorn said, “all that we have to do is wait until the singing stops, and we’ll know how far it is to the lair of the Great Worm. It has been five minutes since the attack. I think that it’s safe to assume that the time the worm spent digging that hole is negligible.”

“Why would it be safe to assume that?” Bushmaster asked. “It looks like he would have had to spend years digging.”

“Precisely,” Thorn said. “Yet the worm didn’t know that he needed to attack us years ago, or even days ago. So he had to have dug it instantly, thus violating all of the rules of the space-time continuum.”

“How could he possibly do that?” Ben wondered.

“Magic,” Thorn said. He peered down the wormhole and smiled grimly. “If I’m right, this hole will take us straight to the worm’s lair . . .”

“It will be a long walk,” Amber said, “without light, or food, or water . . .”

“We won’t walk,” Thorn said. “We’ll ride on another magical conveyance, like the flying garbage can lid. All we have to do is go down this tunnel.”

“Underground?” Ben asked. “Like riding on a subway?”

“But . . .” Amber said, “won’t it take a lot of magical energy? When I get there, I could be powerless again.”

“Not necessarily,” Thorn said. “If I remember correctly, Lady Blackpool said that mage dust is found everywhere. In fact, the reason that she had Ben walk around in the woods was so that he could collect it. So we should be able to gather mage dust as we travel. And if the travel takes less energy than Ben is gathering, Ben could well reach his destination with more power than ever!”

Thorn climbed up to the wormhole and wiped his finger along the rim. He pulled it out, displaying a grayish gob of worm slime. “Oh, we should have a nice smooth ride with this. It’s a perfect lubricant.”

Ben suddenly saw it in his mind’s eye. They would be riding on a little sled, like a toboggan, sliding along on a cushion of worm slime. And as they traveled, Ben would be sucking in magical energy faster than he used it!

Amber seemed perplexed. Bushmaster didn’t get it at all.

“Ingenious!” Ben said.

Thorn puffed his chest out with pride, and said, “Could you expect anything less from a mouse who’s smarter than Einstein?”

“I guess not,” Ben said.

“Now,” Thorn suggested, “try to get some rest. We’ll all need our strength for the battle.”

* * *

Amber tried to sleep, but she couldn’t. She kept thinking about all of the poor mice who were marching toward their deaths. Until the wormsong stopped, there was little she could do.

She desperately wanted the song to end.

Thorn stood guard in the burrow over her, with Ben at the mouth of the tunnel, listening to the distant wormsong. Bushmaster was fast asleep.

So Amber lay awake for a long time, but sleep stole upon her like an assassin, and she fell beneath its assault.

It seemed like she’d only dropped off for a minute when Ben shook her awake.

“Two hours,” Ben said. “The singing lasted for two hours.”

“Our wizard is over a thousand miles away,” Thorn told her.

Amber felt astonished. She had walked for a couple of miles in her life and had flown farther than that.

But a thousand miles? she wondered. Is the world really so large?

“It should be safe to go out now,” Ben told her.

And with that, the mice hopped to the mouth of their burrow. The worst of the storm had blown over in the past few hours, and now only a few small flakes were drifting lazily from black skies, dropping with a soft crackling sound.

The air smelled fresh and clean but carried a sharp bite. Amber leapt up over the snowdrifts, with the others following. A full moon rode among the tattered clouds, like a rancher among his herd of cattle, driving them east.

By the moonlight, Amber peered out. For as far as she could see, there in the silver snow, every few dozen yards, a dark form hopped or plodded along wearily—mice, tens of thousands of mice.

Amber raced up the hill, passing stupefied mice, leaping up rocks, pawing her way over snowdrifts, to the steep ice sheet that she’d seen earlier in the day.

The coyotes were still there, lying like bloated pillows on their frozen rocks. Their yellow eyes glowed spookily in the moonlight.

Around the coyotes the ground was black with mice, tens of thousands of them, all scurrying up the steep slope and then sliding backward.

Some were youngsters with sleek fur and bright black eyes. Others were old mice, grizzled, with patches of hair falling out.

There were mice of every kind—deer mice and house mice, pocket mice and jumping mice. There were mice with fur of red, gray, and tan, and there were even a couple of white mice like some that had lived in the pet shop.

Even the dead walked. Amber saw a few mice that had bones poking out from their fur. They kept marching, even though their eyes had glazed over.

Amber waded through the mice and went up to the largest coyote, the leader. He was just lying there, so full of mice that he could hardly move. She was tempted to turn him into a block of ice, but instead she just bit him on the nose.

“Ow!” the coyote yelped, rising to his feet.

“There’s a new rule in the woods,” Amber warned. “No eating mice!”

The coyote grinned evilly, his lips pulling back to reveal bright teeth. “Hey, you guys,” he said to the other coyotes, “I hear dinner calling. Any of you other guys hear dinner calling?”

Amber decided to make an example of him.

“You know,” Amber said, “eating mice will make you fat.”

“Oh yeah, maybe I like being fat,” the coyote said, licking his lips.

Amber clenched her fist, and the coyote suddenly began to expand. A huge pocket of blubber seemed to rise like an infected pustule on his back. The skin under his belly and on his legs began to sag.

The coyote whirled to look at himself, and suddenly he plopped down under his own massive weight. He tried to regain his feet. But as he tried to get up, his increasing weight made him thud back down.

Suddenly he looked as if he’d gained a hundred pounds, and then he weighed two hundred more.

The coyote began to whimper. He pulled his ears back and tried to put his fat tail between his legs, but they were so thick and blubbery, he couldn’t tuck it under. He let out a terrified yelp, and the other coyotes leapt to their feet and took off running, leaving him to his ruin.

“Please,” the coyote whimpered. “I’m sorry! I’ll never eat a mouse again. I swear.”

“I know you won’t,” Amber said. The coyote had expanded to the size of a black bear and was still getting fatter. He had to weigh six hundred pounds. The weight of all that fat had stretched his skin tight, and now his fur fit him like a cheap coat.

Amber let him stop growing, turned away, and walked up the hill into the midst of the crowds of mice.

“Please, put me back to normal,” the coyote howled. “I’m so fat, I can’t move.”

But Amber didn’t care to hear his pleas. He had murdered hundreds of mice, and he would have killed her if he could.

“You can move,” Amber said, “if you try hard enough. And when you lose some weight, it will be easier. But you won’t lose any weight eating mice. From now on, each time you eat a mouse, you’re going to gain a hundred pounds.”

The coyote looked stricken. His eyes rolled back in his head and his tongue lolled out; he laid his nose on the ground and began to whimper.

“No mice? But I love mice.”

Thorn strode up to the pitiful coyote. “It’s rather ironic, don’t you think?” he told the creature. “You’re so fat that you might actually starve to death before you can catch your next meal.”

Amber halted amid the herds of mice. Though the wormsong had stopped, they were still held in thrall by the spell. They scurried toward the east, trying to claw their way up the ice sheet and sliding back down.

Amber shouted to them, “Stop!”

But none of them listened. It was as if their minds were too dulled by fatigue to hear.

I know, Amber thought. I’ll
make
them hear me.

And with that she let out a shout, a cry that rang out over the slopes and echoed from nearby hills. To that cry, Amber added her own magical powers, so that it pierced the minds of even the most spellbound mouse.

And she amplified the sound so that it did more than just cover the hillside. It washed over a thousand hills, across thousands of miles.

“Stop!” she cried. “Mice of the world: wake up! Listen to me!”

Suddenly, everywhere, the mice stopped plodding. Most of them turned to listen to Amber, but those that were dead merely slumped to the ground, freed from the worm’s enchantment.

Mice blinked in surprise to find themselves lost in the snow and peered about to get their bearings, as if they had just awakened from a dream.

I’ve done it, Amber thought. I’ve freed mousekind, just as the prophets foretold!

But had she? Amber couldn’t be sure. She’d freed them for a moment, but all too soon the great worm would begin the song once again.

“Hooray!” a mouse cried. “The spell is broken!”

“Wheeee!” another shouted, leaping high into the air.

And then all of the mice were muttering in surprise. One young woman mouse, her belly large with babies, rushed up to Amber, shouting, “Thank you. You saved me—and my children. I heard the wormsong, and I tried not to listen, but it pulled me with it.”

“That’s how it was for me,” a grandfatherly mouse said. “I felt like I was a leaf that had fallen into a stream, and the quick water was bearing me away . . .” Now the old mouse cheered and leapt up and down.

How will they feel when the wormsong starts again? Amber wondered. Will they feel cheated? Will they even know if I fail them?

No, she imagined. The mice wouldn’t know if she failed them. They’d hear the first few refrains of wormsong, and then they would turn and march toward their doom, unable to remember how for one bright moment they had been free.

I’ve got to go fight that worm.

Amber turned to leave, but mice were pressing close to her everywhere, offering their heartfelt thanks, preening her, weeping in gratitude.

Through the crowd, Amber looked out and saw a pair of bright eyes and a face that she knew—Dearth.

“You!” Amber said, using her powers to draw the creature near.

Dearth came hopping toward her, shivering with fear.

“I healed you,” Amber said. “And you betrayed me to the weasels.”

“I’m sorry,” Dearth said. “I was afraid!”

“Fear is no excuse,” Amber said angrily. “You didn’t just betray me. You betrayed all of mousekind.”

She wondered what she should do. She could have cursed the mouse, as she had the coyote, but her heart wasn’t in it. He was just a mouse after all, a scared young mouse like her, desperate and alone.

But, Amber thought, I shouldn’t make excuses for him.

What pained her most was that Amber knew that now she had to go and face a powerful enemy. Her chances of living through it weren’t good. But she planned to go, even if it killed her. She’d try to buy something with her life.

But Dearth had just tried to throw her life away.

“Get out of here, Dearth,” she said, turning away. “You deserve to die, but I’m going to let you live with your guilt.”

All of the mice stopped to peer at Dearth as he plodded away, head bowed in shame.

It was perhaps the sorriest moment in Amber’s life.

Chapter 20

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

Never underestimate a shrew.

For such a small critter, it has a
big
bite.

—RUFUS FLYCATCHER

“And just how do you plan to kill us?” Lady Blackpool demanded.

Back at Ben’s house, Meadowsweet rushed down the tunnel into her warren.

“Lady Blackpool!” she shouted. “There are humans outside! They captured us and forced us to bring them here.”

Lady Blackpool snapped awake, stomach grumbling. She didn’t like the sound of this. Humans were clever creatures and were cruel. Worse than that, they liked to think of themselves as the lords of the planet, and treated everyone else as if they didn’t have any feelings at all.

Other mice followed Meadowsweet into the burrow, shouting and clamoring for attention.

“All right,” Lady Blackpool said. “I’ll have a talk with this human.”

She looked about. Amber had made a light for the room a few days back, a light made from a magic glowing stone. It cast a warm yellow haze through the burrow, the shade of a golden sunset.

Lady Blackpool walked through the light, to the mouth of the tunnel, and climbed to the top.

She poked her head outside. Unlike the mice, she didn’t have to fear the wormsong, and so she didn’t need to wear a helmet. And also unlike the mice, she had no need of a spear. Her magic was her weapon. And as an eastern short-tailed shrew, she also had a poisonous bite if all else failed.

So she poked her head through the burrow, her whiskers twitching at the scent of pine needles, and suddenly there were beams of red light shooting into her eyes, while a huge man wearing a suit made of golden foil peered at her.

He had just set something strange on the ground. It was far larger than a mouse, and it had little electronic flashing lights on it. Right now, the thing was flashing yellow.

Lady Blackpool knew that she was in trouble. She cast a small spell, one that would let her talk to humans in their own language, and shouted, “You there, what do you think you’re doing?”

The man in the golden suit leapt back in surprise, giving a little yelp.

“Sir, the mouse is talking to you, sir!” someone said. Lady Blackpool peered off into the bushes and spotted a human all dressed in black combat gear, wearing a gas mask. It aimed a weapon at her, and it was the light from such weapons that blinded her.

“Turn those things off,” Lady Blackpool shouted, and with a wave of her paw, she flipped off the laser sights on all of the sniper rifles.

The humans backed away, growing leery.

“Now, what do you think you’re doing, waking me from my nap?”

The human soldiers grumbled among themselves, and the man in the gold foil suit got up the nerve to speak. “I’m the one who will be asking the questions around here,” he growled.

Lady Blackpool fixed him with a withering glare. She cast another small spell. “No, you’re the one who will be
answering
questions around here! Now out with it!”

General Crawley coughed and began sputtering. He tried to hold back, but the spell was too powerful for him. At last, the words were wrung from him. “We came to kill you all,” General Crawley said. “We don’t care what planet you’re from; we just want you dead. But of course, if we can, we’d like to steal some of your technology.”

“And just how do you plan to kill us?” Lady Blackpool demanded.

“With that bomb,” Crawley said. “Once it goes off, it will send a cloud of poisonous gas over this neighborhood, killing everything! Even the cockroaches will be dead!” He sounded gleeful and excited to be killing so many innocent animals at once.

“I see,” Lady Blackpool said. The yellow lights were still flashing, but suddenly they changed to red. “But won’t the gas kill you, too?”

“Not while I’m wearing this suit!” the general chortled.

Lady Blackpool nodded.

“I have news for you, general,” she said. “This is my planet, too. I was born here, and I belong here. And there’s a new law in the land. It’s called, ‘Be nice to mice.’ Understand?”

The general didn’t answer. He just scowled at Lady Blackpool. She knew that she wasn’t getting through to him. She wanted to say something to unnerve him, and so she cast a little spell that let her know how.

Then she whispered a poem to him.

Little Miss Muffet,

Sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey.

Along came a great spider,

And burrowed inside her,

And it’s living there still today.

General Crawley’s eyes bugged out, and he recoiled in fear. Lady Blackpool smiled.

The general was afraid of nursery rhymes!

He had been since he was a child, when a mean old babysitter would read them to him, changing the endings so that they would give him horrible nightmares.

Lady Blackpool repeated another.

Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum,

I smell the blood of a simpleton.

Be he alive, or be he dead,

I’ll crawl through his eyehole

And build a nest in his head!

General Crawley yelped in terror, obviously imagining the horrors of having some shrew living in his head.

“Oh, here’s an old favorite,” Lady Blackpool said, feeling inspired.

Suddenly there was a warning buzzer, and the lights on the nerve gas canister began flickering wildly. The general peered at it, sweat rolling down his brow, unable to move by reason of the curse laid upon him, as Lady Blackpool sang.

Three blind mice.

Three blind mice.

They see what you’ve done.

They see what you’ve done.

You stole money from APE for your greedy wife.

It’s hid in a drawer with the carving knife.

Now everyone knows, and you’ll go to prison for life!

Three blind mice!

General Crawley’s face went black with rage, and he roared like a wounded bull. “How did you know? I’ll kill you, you wicked, spying mouse!”

“You’re the wicked one,” Lady Blackpool said, and with the wave of a paw, she made the soldiers’ gas masks disappear.

“Better get running,” Lady Blackpool said, as the soldiers all whirled and peered at one another, their eyes bugging out and their faces turning pale from terror.

The bomb on the ground began to tremble and shake.

Suddenly the hardened soldiers began to shriek, throwing aside their useless assault rifles, running in a blind panic.

General Crawley, in his bulky gold foil suit, was the slowest of them. He ran at the back of the line, shouting, “Out of my way! Out of my way. That’s an order!”

But his troops weren’t obeying orders today.

In one last bit of inspiration, Lady Blackpool waved her paws, and General Crawley’s gold-foil pants suddenly slipped down to his knees, revealing a pair of white boxer shorts with red hearts.

The general tripped as his pants wrapped around his knees, and he went barreling into a blackberry bush. He cried out in pain and began trying to pull his pants up, but there was something holding them down. He reached into his pants and found the bomb. He squealed in fear and threw it away.

All in vain. The spell that Lady Blackpool had cast would never let those pants stay up again. No matter where the general threw that bomb, it was going to wind up right in his pants.

The red lights on the bomb were flashing faster and faster, and now a little alarm blared from it. The general ran and howled like a madman, and Lady Blackpool chuckled.

The bomb would never go off. She had cast a spell that turned it into a dud. But she wasn’t about to let the general know.

* * *

Mona Ravenspell didn’t know that APE was in the neighborhood until she heard General Crawley’s screams.

She opened the back door and peered out just as a dozen Special Ops men in black assault dress came racing through her yard, followed by a man in gold foil whose pants kept falling down. They had an unsightly bulge in them, and she wondered if he had had an accident.

The man in gold foil went staggering through the gate at the side of the house. Mona raced to the front door and saw him getting into an armored assault vehicle with his men.

Mona’s neighbor, Latonia Pumpernickel, came limping out of her own house and shouted. “Where are you going? What are you going to do about the mice!”

The general shouted in his French-Texan accent, “Don’t worry, little lady. We’ll be back with the cavalry—and some bigger guns!”

Mice? Mona wondered. People are attacking mice on my property?

A sudden rage filled her.

My son is a mouse, she thought. At least, that’s what her dreams told her.

I have to protect him.