Gregor and the Marks of Secret-4 (10 page)

It was ridiculously large. For two people. On a date.

"It is none of your business, Howard," said Luxa in a dangerous tone. "Go and let us be."

"I cannot. Though it be at the risk of intruding," said Howard. "You see, Nike and I, we know about the crown."

There was a pause.

"Hermes mentioned he delivered the crown to you in passing," said Nike. "And I told Howard its meaning. Of how you gave the crown to the nibblers in the jungle and instructed them to send it to you if they ever had need of your help."

"Oh!" Luxa literally stamped her foot on the ground. "You cannot come!"

"Let them come, Luxa," said Gregor. "We might need their help."

"Stay out of this!" said Luxa.

"I tried to, remember?" said Gregor.

"Here are your choices. You take Nike and me along on whatever mad scheme you have cooked up, or I go directly to Vikus," said Howard.

And as if on cue, Vikus appeared, an armful of scrolls rattling under his arm. "Did I hear my name? What is all this, then? A pleasure outing?"

"A picnic," said Gregor, Luxa, and Howard in unison.

"A picnic?" asked Vikus. "I wish I had time to join you. That's quite a basket. How many are you expecting?"

A flutter of peach-colored wings drew everyone's attention, and Thalia landed in the High Hall. That could only mean one thing. And there they were — Boots, decked out in her princess attire, and Hazard running in to meet the bat. Temp pattered along behind them.

"Hazard, I thought you and Boots were with the nibbler pups," said Luxa.

"We were. But it is time for flying at the arena," said Hazard. His face lit up as he spotted the basket. "Oh, are we going on a picnic? You didn't tell me."

"It was meant to be a surprise," said Luxa. "I was just about to send for you."

"Well, mount up, then," said Vikus. He lifted Boots up onto Ares behind Gregor.

"Now what?" thought Gregor. It was bad enough that they were sneaking off to the nibbler colony on their own, but if his mom found out he'd taken Boots along ... well, he'd rather face another round of snakes than that.

Temp skittered up next to Boots as Vikus settled Hazard on Thalia's back. "Enjoy yourselves and be home for supper," he said.

"Yes. Supper. Off we go!" said Luxa, taking her seat on Aurora.

"Pic-a-nic! Pic-a-nic!" sang Boots, drumming on the back of Gregor's head with her scepter. The whole princess costume thing had been a mistake. Next time he'd get her a coloring book.

They soared out over the city and then made a U-turn and headed to the north. Beneath them lay fields of grain, illuminated by an elaborate system of gas lighting. Underlander farmers were harvesting the grain with long curved blades attached to poles. The blades were like something people used in movies about olden times.

Once they had cleared the fields, a terrible fight broke out among them. Luxa laid into Howard for interfering, at Nike for telling Howard about the crown, at Gregor for taking Howard's side. She was probably furious about the date thing, too, although she didn't mention it.

And she was absolutely determined to go on, even with Boots and Hazard along.

Gregor had plenty of misgivings about that part, but Luxa brushed off his concerns. "If there is danger, we will send them directly on to the Fount."

"The Fount? Where are we going?" asked Howard. Gregor filled Howard and Nike in on all that had happened regarding the nibblers and on their plan to journey to the colony by the Fount.

"It is most troubling. But Luxa is right. Appealing to the council for help would be worthless. We must go ourselves," said Howard.

The trip to the nibblers' colony took at least twelve hours. For most of it, they flew up the wild river that flowed from the Fount down past the colony, past Regalia, and then emptied into the vast Underland sea known as the Waterway. About halfway, Thalia, who was still several months from being full-grown, ran out of steam, and they had to rearrange everyone so she could ride on Ares's back. Luxa took Hazard, Boots, and Temp on Aurora, and Gregor joined Howard on Nike.

It was during this leg of the journey that Howard brought up the whole date subterfuge.

"Gregor, as Luxa has no older brother, I feel I must speak for her. As I would speak for one of my little sisters. I know you used what you called a date with her as a cover, but in the future you must think of an alternative."

"Why?" said Gregor, although he could guess.

"Because she is a queen, because you are an Overlander, because you are both too young, and because even if you were not, such a pairing could have no happy future," said Howard.

"The process of finding a spouse in the Underland is a long and delicate one."

A spouse? This was getting entirely out of hand. "Howard, it wasn't a date in the first place," said Gregor.

"I understand. But for you to even mention it as a possibility shows how little you know of the Underland," said Howard. "Remember, too, that you expected me to believe your lie. And ask yourself why you thought it was a plausible one."

That pulled Gregor up short. He could feel himself blushing as deeply as Luxa had. At the time, he guessed he had expected Howard to at least entertain the possibility that he and Luxa might like each other. And worse still, there had been that moment when Howard looked like he was buying it.

"Dates aren't a big deal in the Overland," Gregor said lamely. They would be for him, but he knew kids his age who sort of dated. Went to movies. For pizza. Which was kind of like a picnic. Except inside.

"Well, they would be monumental here," said Howard. "Especially with my cousin."

"Got it," said Gregor, who was really ready to drop the whole subject.

As they neared their destination, Howard and Gregor flew ahead to scout out the area.

The nibblers' colony began with a large open area just off the river. A honeycomb of small caves and a network of narrow tunnels flanked it. With its access to the river for fishing and clean water and its natural nesting places, it seemed an ideal location for the mice.

But there were no mice around today. Luxa's greetings were met with silence. The bats could pick up no signs of life through echolocation, either. For closer inspection, they had to land on the beach.

"This area officially belongs to the Fount, but my father allowed the nibblers to use it. He has always been sympathetic to their plight," said Howard.

"What exactly is their plight?" asked Gregor.

"They have great difficulty finding a home," said Howard. "They have been driven out of lands by cutters, by spinners, and most often by gnawers, who particularly hate them as they have always been our allies. They have ended up scattered in colonies around the Underland, trying to carve out a life."

"Well, then it seems weird they'd leave here," said Gregor.

"That is just the point," said Howard. "I do not believe they would leave here on their own. They must have been driven out again."

"We must check the caves," said Luxa.

What they found inside was spooky. Half-eaten meals. Rumpled nests. A pattern of small stones on the floor suggested a game had been in progress. It was as if one second before they'd entered the colony it had been alive and bustling with nibblers, and then
poof!
They had all vanished without a trace. As to where they had gone or what had compelled them to go, there was no clue.

By the last cave, Luxa seemed about ready to lose it. "What can have happened to them?

There is no rhyme or reason to any of this!"

Just then Hazard gave a sharp cry from the back of the cave. They all ran to him, certain he must be injured, but he was backing away from something on the wall. When Luxa reached him, he wrapped his arms around her and held on tight.

"Hazard, what is it?" she said, running her hands over him to search for injuries. "Are you hurt? Why do you tremble?"

The boy pointed to the cave wall. Howard held his torch to the wall, and in the flickering light Gregor could see a mark had been hastily scratched into it. A familiar mark. A straight line with a thin beaklike appendage.

"Ares and I found this same thing under Cevian's body. We thought she was trying to make a letter, a
P
or a
B.
To spell out someone's name," said Gregor.

"No, no!" said Hazard in a shrill voice. "It is one of the marks of secret."

"What's that?" asked Gregor.

"A secret means of communication. An old collection of symbols that you could use to pass information to your allies but that were unknown to your enemies," said Howard.

"But, Hazard, no one has used the marks of secret for centuries. They have lost all meaning," said Luxa.

"Not in the jungle," said Hazard. "We use them. Frill taught them to my father and he to me. That is the scythe."

"And that means something bad?" said Gregor, nodding to the mark.

"It means death," said Hazard, and he was starting to cry.

"It means someone will die?" said Luxa, holding him close.

"Not just someone," said Hazard. "It means us! It means we who see it will die!"

***

Despite many reassurances from Luxa, it took Hazard quite a while to calm down. Even when they had left the cave and assembled on the shore of the river, he was still traumatized by what he had seen. Gregor couldn't think of any symbol that would be so scary in the Overland, but then compared to Hazard, he'd led a very safe life.

"What is a scythe, anyway?" Gregor asked.

"It is a tool used for harvesting grain. The farmers were using scythes today as we flew over the fields," said Howard.

Gregor remembered the tools then, being swung from side to side. "So, why do those mean death?"

"Because they cut down life. In old scrolls from the Overland, sometimes the figure of Death, in a hooded black robe, also carries a scythe. To cut down humans' lives," said Howard.

"Oh, yeah. That's where I've seen it," said Gregor.

Howard built a small fire to try to cheer things up. Unfortunately, in the ghost town that was the mouse colony the shadows the flames threw against the stone walls only made the place feel more eerie.

Boots, who was puzzled by the whole situation, squatted next to Hazard and patted him on the leg. "Hazard is crying. Hazard is sad," she said.

"It's okay, Boots; everybody is fine," said Gregor, picking her up for a hug.

"No, we are not fine. We have seen the scythe," said Hazard.

"And yet we still live," said Luxa, stroking his curls.

"Yes, perhaps that mark was meant for someone else," said Howard.

"Or they made it during the plague," said Luxa. "Before the cure was found and all warmbloods were as good as dead."

Hazard quieted a minute to consider this. "I don't know," he said. "In the jungle everyone dreads the mark."

"Did you ever see it yourself? In the jungle, I mean," said Gregor.

"Once. There was a swarm of flying insects. Their bite brought quick death," said Hazard.

"But you did not die, Hazard," said Howard encouragingly. "Or you would not be here to tell us of it."

"My mother died," said Hazard wanly. "Frill outran them, but my mother was bitten first."

There was nothing to say after that. No explaining to Hazard that they were safe. Around any corner could be another swarm of stingers. Another plague. Another way to die.

Some mouse had scratched that mark in the cave wall. Cevian had made the same mark at Queenshead. Why? What threat was upon them? Gregor didn't believe it had to do with the plague. Or the snakes.

"Hazard, when you lived in the jungle, how did the nibblers get along with the snakes?"

asked Gregor. "The ones that look like vines."

"You mean the twisters?" said Hazard. "They avoided each other. The twisters eat the nibbler pups, and the nibblers eat the twister eggs," he said.

"It is true," said Luxa. "The twisters never came near the nibblers when I was there. I believe neither thought it was worth the risk."

"So you think the twisters only moved in after the mice had left?" asked Howard.

"That is my hope," said Luxa. "But also my fear. It would mean that not one but two colonies of nibblers have left their homes because of an unknown threat."

"It sounds as if they have a lot of enemies," said Gregor. "The spinners, the cutters —"

"Those were land disputes. Once the nibblers had left their regions, neither the spinners nor cutters had any interest in pursuing them. I can think of only one animal that would do that,"

said Howard.

No one had to mention the rats. They all knew who Howard was talking about.

They had snacked from the picnic baskets on the flight, mostly eating whatever was on top. Now Howard laid out the delicacies the cook had prepared. Spicy fish salads, a dozen kinds of cheese, pickled vegetables, roasted chicken, sliced beef, stuffed eggs, several loaves of bread, and a variety of sweets. It was an amazing spread, but no one really enjoyed it except Boots. She ate until her belly stuck out like a basketball. "See?" she said to Gregor, pulling up her shirt. He poked her stomach and shook his head. "Talk about eating like a shiner!" he said. She was probably about to hit a growth spurt. At least, he hoped so.

By the time the picnic was over, everyone was dropping from fatigue. Except Boots, who'd had a nice long nap on the trip and was ready to play. They broke up guard duty into two-hour shifts. Gregor and Temp volunteered for the first watch.

Gregor dug in his backpack for something to keep his sister quiet. Since he hadn't planned to bring her along, he hadn't come prepared to entertain her. The best he could do was the binoculars.

"Look, Boots, magic glasses," he told her. He had to take a few minutes to show her how to look through the binoculars. She was fascinated by the magnified images. She peered into the eyepieces and then dropped them down repeatedly. "Temp is big. Temp is small. Temp is big.

Temp is small."

"Shh. Everybody's going to sleep," said Gregor.

"Temp is big. Temp is small. Temp is big. Temp is small," whispered Boots.