by Adam Kline
And as Leek recalled the last turnip that had presented itself to him, so bawdy and so fine, he sprang to the she-rabbit’s side.
“Wait! Morel! This turnip is a trap!”
But the trap had already sprung. Rising from the earth around them, with speed the naked eye could scarcely catch, came a mammoth paw of iron. As it emerged, its talons sprang forth, like the claws of some great cat, and snapped shut together at their tips. Leek could only rush to the rigid bars before him and peer out as the cage ascended into the air, pushed from beneath by a mighty iron arm. And as he stared, in shock and deep regret, the cage rose to the height of the fortress walls, where dark legions came forth to greet them.
At their head was Millikin.
“I really should have thought of this sooner.” The cat grinned. “What a bad little kitty I’ve been. To think we’ve been after you all this time, and what finally puts an end to your ridiculous quest is a common turnip. It boggles the mind! But it’s all gone right in the long run, or tragically wrong, depending on your perspective, and that’s what counts.”
“What happens now?” snarled Leek.
“Now?” Millikin smiled. “Oh, you’ll be delighted to know I’ve arranged some very cozy quarters for you two in the pit of our darkest dungeon. And while you rot, for the rest of time and beyond, I’ll be busy crossing Cecil’s path. I plan to begin directly after brunch, in fact. My boy and I have quite a bit of catching up to do.”
“He isn’t yours!” screamed Leek. “He’s my boy! The human Bean is mine and mine alone!”
“Not anymore,” said Millikin. And with that, he turned away, his sinister tail swishing to and fro in glee. Millikin giggled to himself. At this rate, he’d be happy in no time. With Leek defeated and imprisoned, nothing would stand in his way. And if a little boy’s lifelong misfortune couldn’t make him happy, what else possibly could?
Cecil raised the lid of the trunk and peered out. He wasn’t quite sure whether he liked what he saw or not. This was no tidy village. This was the Great Big City. Loud motorcars whizzed by, blaring their horns in rage at who-knows-what. Street vendors strode amid the crowd, hawking various foodstuffs that, to Cecil, didn’t seem fit to eat.
For his part, Imbrolio was tremendously busy, making preparations for his show. Imbrolio loved the Great Big City, mainly because he never felt alone there. In tiny country villages, you see, Imbrolio’s dishonesty stood out, at least to him, like an enormous throbbing sore thumb. But in the Great Big City, dishonesty ran rampant, and that made Imbrolio happy, since it made him feel less bad. Misery loves company, as the saying goes, and villainy adores it.
As Imbrolio bustled about, assembling his rickety stage and stuffing colored scarves down his pants, he whistled a sinister tune. And so deep was his happy reverie that Imbrolio failed to notice entirely as a small boy emerged from the trunk atop his caravan, slipped down its side, and melted into the hubbub.
“This,” said the charlatan to himself, “will be a show to remember.”
Morel strained at the iron lattice before her and cursed a dark blue streak. Her sword and spear stripped from her desperate paws, the rabbits would now be held captive, forever and ever and then some. At Morel’s back and sides were walls of heavy granite, ten feet thick or more, and she knew the gate would have to age and rust and rot away before she might hope for escape. They’d never last that long, she thought, even on full stomachs. And so she turned to Leek, in hope of seeing his smile.
Leek was asleep in the corner, curled up like a tiny croissant. His fur was filthy and matted, and even in his slumber, he whimpered in defeat. They had come so far, so very far, only to be beaten. Morel sighed. She hadn’t even had a chance to fight, and in that, she once again felt useless.
But Morel had one weapon left, which no cat could ever take away. It was now almost forgotten, unused as it long had been. Yet even in their darkest hour, Morel recalled the words she had spoken in the land of snow and ice. She now remembered well her promise: “We will give each other luck.”
Morel strode slow and soft to her companion and knelt by his tiny side.
“Leek, dear Leek,” she whispered, “oft have I watched, with spear in paw, as you have given luck to others and sought nothing in return. And as I have borne witness to your small brand of courage, I have done naught but roll my eyes. Now, dear Leek, you must not give but take. If any luck remains within my warrior’s heart, I now offer it to you.”
Morel reached out and gently brushed Leek’s forehead with her paw—just as long ago she had often brushed against her girl. Leek murmured in his sleep, and even in the dark, his face grew calm and came alight with a glow. For deep within his slumber, a song began to sound.
The melody reached deep inside him. There, in the hidden valleys of his soul, it discovered all the secret things that made him sad and banished them forever. Leek felt that he was floating, and his body tingled from the tips of his whiskers to the end of his cotton-ball tail. Leek hoped the song would never stop.
Then he sat bolt upright and smiled.
“Hamlin!”
“This,” came a voice from behind them, “is all a terrible mistake.”
The rabbits turned, and there stood Hamlin, grinning. In his paw was his faithful flute, and on his back was slung a potbelly bow and a quiver of gray arrows.
“Hamlin!” cried Morel. “Most noble of mice! The sight of you is welcome, as is the sound of your song! But how is it, in the name of all good luck, that we now come to hear it?”
“Well,” said the mouse, “it wasn’t easy. There I sat, amid Kadogo and his tribe, as they sang your funeral dirge. Quite a depressing tune, I can assure you, and I had to cover my ears, for fear of sorrow—and subsequent dehydration. But then along came Gordon to assure us you yet lived.”
“Gordon!” gasped Morel. “He saved us in the caves.”
“Oh yes.” Hamlin smiled. “He told us all about it. Though to hear him tell the tale, it was you two who saved him. He’s terribly grateful, you know. And so he led me through the caves and showed me his back door. There I found your tracks, which I’ve been tracking ever since. I’ve become quite a remarkable tracker, you know, for a minstrel.”
“But how did you ever pass the Dimmer-Dammers and find us in our prison?” exclaimed the she-rabbit in ever-mounting wonder.
“I rode in on one.” Hamlin grinned. “In secret—and, I might add, relative comfort.”
“How clever!” said Leek, in admiration of the mouse.
“Well, I shouldn’t like to brag,” said Hamlin. “And besides, there isn’t time. Now then. I’ve borrowed the key, and Morel, I’ve brought your weapons. So you just take them and make for the tower and return to the world that has a sun. Perhaps we’ll meet again one day, and only then will we speak at length of our collective cleverness.”
With that, Hamlin turned to go.
“But Hamlin!” cried Morel, fitting the great key to its lock, “wherever are you going?”
“To play a game,” came the response. “A game of cat and mouse.”
Chapter Nine
The cats were all very busy clapping Millikin on the back when the mouse went sprinting by. For a moment, all were struck quite dumb, as no mouse had ever walked the confines of their fortress, let alone a mouse so rude.
“Losers!” sang out Hamlin, even as he ran. “Eat my dust! That’s all the taste you’ll have of me this day!”
Then their instincts kicked in, turbocharged with rage. A thousand cats scrambled instantly after the mouse, while ten thousand more sprang for their various weapons. Still more leaped to the Dimmer-Dammers, which immediately rumbled to life. And as the ebony army chased after little Hamlin, Millikin was left alone. For much as he would have liked to chase the mouse himself, you see, a stronger instinct forbade it. That instinct was fear.
So, fingering the hilt of his rapier, Millikin turned from the chase and strode instead for the tower.
The rabbits emerged from the depths t
o behold a courtyard of fine black stone. Morel peeked, noiseless, from shadow as the tower guards abandoned their posts, leaving them quite unguarded. To the spire’s iron door, Morel guessed, was a sprint of some three hundred yards. Tired as they were, she was certain they could reach it.
“Can you run?” she asked Leek.
“I’ve never felt faster,” came the staunch reply, “for only speed will help me reach my boy. But we can’t abandon Hamlin to the talons of the cats!”
“Hamlin has grown wise in the warrior’s way,” said Morel, “and we must now honor his courage, for such was his last wish.
“And besides,” she added with a grin, “maybe he’ll get lucky.”
“Then let us run,” said Leek, “to the tower and our humans beyond.”
And so they ran, two dusty blurs across a court of pure, pitch black. But even as they neared the mammoth door before them, and certain escape within, the realm of Hat laughed yet again, pitiless and cold. For Hamlin, brave as he was, was but a stranger to these grounds. As the mouse careened throughout the fort’s broad roads and narrow alleys, he took a wayward turn, which led back to whence he’d come. To his horror, Hamlin spied his friends, for whom he had braved all. As he skittered to a stop, in grim shock at what he’d done, the cats pulled up behind him. They too saw the rabbits, and when they did, their taste for mouse was quickly cast aside. Never had their sacred monolith been breached by those unworthy of its secrets. And as one, the cats arose, a teeming, writhing mass that hissed with hate as it surged forward to attack.
“Hurry!” cried Leek. “We can beat them yet and bar the door behind!”
Morel did not hurry, or even listen, but paused to gaze at the black tide roaring toward her. This was the foe from which she long had hidden. This was the foe that had suppressed her kind, and in turn her human, the girl Morel so missed. This force, she knew, now sought to bring her ruin, and perhaps it would bring just that. But she would not share such a fate with Leek, for this was her moment, of which her tribe might sing.
“Go,” she said, even as Leek pried the doors apart. “Go and find your boy. Bring him fair luck for as long as he should live. When he sleeps and you rest in your own hole, then think of me, the she-rabbit who loved you.”
“What!” yelped Leek. “Never! Never without you, Morel!”
“Take this,” said Morel, handing Leek her sword, “and GO!”
With that, Morel kicked Leek hard in the chest with her mighty hind leg. And as he sailed through that great arch, where no rabbit had ever gone before, she reached forward, against her every wish, and drew the doors shut with a fateful clang. In the silence that ensued, she closed her eyes and whispered softly to her spear.
“And now, great spear, old friend, at last our time has come.”
Morel turned slowly to face the army of cats bearing down. She voiced no threat or words of courage. As she leaped to attack, she simply grinned, for she had not proved useless.
Leek blinked and blinked again as his eyes adjusted to the light, or lack thereof. As soon as he had caught his breath, which Morel had quite knocked away, he leaped to his feet and, in panic, sought the door. But where some knob or handle should have been to help him, there was only iron, smooth and cold to the touch. In deep dismay, he turned to stare agape.
The citadel rose infinite above him, a cylinder without end, stretching to the sky. Lining its walls, spaced only inches apart, were innumerable hatches, wrought carefully of iron and marked with curious signs, as if scratched there by some craftsman’s sharpened claw. On each hatch, too, there was an iron ring, which one might turn should one wish to enter.
“Portals,” gasped Leek in sudden wonder. “These must be portals to the world that has a sun. But which one, of all these many paths, will lead to Cecil Bean?”
Praying his luck would hold for just one moment more, Leek thus strode to the nearest hatch. There he found that its ring swiveled lightly on its mooring, and the hatch popped promptly open, with a snort and a hiss of hot steam.
“I hereby do honor, with humble thanks and deep humility, to Hamlin, the minstrel mouse,” spoke Leek in solemn voice, “and to Morel, mightiest of all rabbits trapped in the world of Hat, and the one that I love most in this world or any other. May my human boy await.”
Leek peeped into the hatch. Before his feet had even thought to follow, his head had emerged from a storm drain. Looking about, he saw a great many humans, but these were humans the likes of which he’d never seen before. The men all wore felt hats with little feathers at their sides and short leather shorts suspended by matching suspenders. The women seemed comprised primarily of ruddy cheeks and jowls, which shook with laughter and song. All held great flagons brimming with bubbling froth, and several merry souls swayed and stumbled as they danced.
As Leek stared upward in confusion, he caught the gaze of a sparrow perched at the shindig’s edge.
“Guten tag!” it chirped.
Leek retreated at once and promptly shut the hatch, sealing it tight with a twist.
“Well,” said the rabbit with a sigh, staring up at the countless hatches above, “it must be here somewhere. I suppose I should try one more and then another. The third time’s usually the charm.”
“You will find no charm within my tower,” came a voice, “the third time or any other.”
It was Millikin. And as he strode forward from shadow, his rapier glistened and gleamed.
“No rabbit has ever beheld what you now see before you,” he sneered. “And by all that is dark and unholy, I swear you shall be the last.”
But while Millikin was really quite certain that Leek would tremble in fear and that his blood would run cold in his veins and that he would scarcely have time to beg for mercy before meeting his untimely end (a circumstance that seemed to Millikin entirely overdue), that’s not what happened at all. On the contrary, Leek got mad. And as he held the sword of Morel before him, he spoke with surprising conviction.
“Rapscallion,” he said. “Long have we vied, in this world and the other, for the fate of Cecil Bean. But I have grown weary, in my long travels, of idle talk and banter. Now I, Leek, the luck-giver, make this fell decree, with only my foe to bear witness. Tonight, our battle ends. And before you fall, know this: never again, in all the days that follow, shall my boy ever step in dog poop!
“Have at thee!” he added in passion.
“With pleasure,” hissed Millikin. At that, their swords flashed as one and met with an epic ring.
Quite the crowd stood waiting. As they peered and pointed at the ramshackle caravan, even the savvy city-folk murmured in great anticipation of the magical wonders to come. They had their business affairs and their politics to consider, and almost everyone assembled considered themselves terribly and irrevocably important, in one way or another. But with the promise of magic to come, all that was put on hold. Everyone loves magic, you see—even very important businessmen.
In their midst stood Cecil Bean, a simple country lad perhaps, but an adventurer as well. And Cecil had bigger things to consider than Imbrolio’s cheap parlor tricks and chicanery, for the boy had a riddle to solve. Two riddles, really, but the one that weighed more heavily on Cecil was the matter of bad luck—and precisely how to avoid it. The mysterious gentleman had done it, and his cat had up and quit. But why?
As Cecil thought and thought, his stomach chose to whine. It hadn’t had a bite in ages, after all, and could hardly be blamed for complaining. But even as Cecil’s tummy cried out in mutinous tones, his nose caught the scent of hot scone.
“Fresh scones!” cried a shriveled old woman, carrying her basket before her. “Fresh scones, piping hot, the finest in the land!”
Cecil, betrayed by both his stomach and his sniffer, couldn’t help but look, and lock eyes with the shrunken hag.
“Fresh scone, my boy?” asked the woman, who had just the hint of a beard.
“No thank you,” said the boy. “I haven’t any money, I’m afraid, though t
hey do smell quite delicious.”
“Delicious? Why, these are the finest scones that a boy could ever buy, and if I’m not mistaken, I suppose you wonder why. Just what might it be, you ask, that makes my scones so fine? That, dear boy, is a secret, and the answer’s purely mine.”
“Well,” said Cecil sadly, much to the disappointment of his stomach, “I suppose the point is moot, since I am too poor to buy one.”
“Ah, but you may have one free of charge,” said the woman with a genuine smile, “with kind regards to your stomach. And you may have the secret, too, for what it’s worth.”
“Thank you!” said Cecil as he commenced to munch on his scone. Truly, it was the very finest scone on which he’d ever munched.
“I make them myself, from scratch,” whispered the woman, with a wink from her one good eye. With that, she hobbled away and soon disappeared in the crowd.
Not much of a secret, considered Cecil as he munched.
Then, in a sudden flash, the boy’s eyes widened in abject revelation. His mouth agape, a single crumb of scone fell to the concrete below. And just at his most desperate hour, Cecil Bean experienced a moment of startling clarity:
He would have to make his own luck, all by himself, from scratch.
The duel raged on within the confines of the tower, and Millikin had to admit, the pair were evenly matched. Though Millikin was larger and well-schooled in the arts of war, Leek’s passion was no small one. Though his sword swung wildly, with little discipline or skill, it nonetheless swung hard. Leek sought to smite the black cat time and time again, and Millikin could only dodge and parry and leap from the ladders and railings that lined the tower walls. Leek did not dodge or parry. He only advanced, crying his battle cry.
“For Bean, for Bean!” he bellowed.
As it slowly dawned on Millikin that he required some advantage, and preferably an unfair one, he hugged the tower wall and turned an iron ring behind him. As Leek came sprinting toward his foe, Millikin hissed and stepped into the portal, the rabbit just behind.
