by Lisa Fiedler
It wasn’t a bad theory. Still, Hopper’s head swam with possibilities. There were so many new rodents in Atlantia. One of them could certainly be a spy working for Felina, in which case this could be an evil ploy designed to bring Hopper and his army directly to her lair, where, instead of being caught off guard by their invasion, Felina would be poised and ready to counterattack. It could be a trap.
Or it could be nothing more than a mean trick designed to raise his hopes. He couldn’t imagine who would be so cruel, but he had to allow that it might be the case.
“What are your instincts telling you?” Firren asked.
Hopper closed his eyes and searched within himself. He let his faith take hold and listened to his heart. “I have a hunch it’s real. I think La Rocha really did send this message.”
Firren brightened. “So we’re going to use the map?”
“Yes.” Hopper folded the two notes and slipped them into his pocket. “But just to be on the safe side, we will also continue with our plan to set out for the three other locations the soldiers identified. We’ll just add a fourth battalion—one that will consist of you and the Rangers, my upland friends, Garfield and Polhemus and me—to investigate the place marked by that big X. We won’t be a big army, but we will be a strong one. If this little map does bring us face-to-face with Pup and Felina, I want my best soldiers by my side.”
Firren nodded. It was a moment, though, before she let go of her sword. In spite of himself Hopper began to smile. Then laugh.
“Is something funny?” Firren asked.
“You reaching for your sword like that,” said Hopper. “It reminds me of the first time we met. It was right after the raid, remember? You landed on me after we dove through that hole, and I begged you to run me through.”
“Right! How could I ever forget?” Firren was laughing now too. “I thought I was seeing a ghost when I spotted that white circle around your eye.”
“That was when you told me that you would protect me,” Hopper said. “In fact, you said you’d sworn to protect me long ago. I’ve always wondered what you meant by that.”
Firren sat down on the edge of the bed and patted it, inviting Hopper to come and sit beside her. When he did, she took his paw and gave it a squeeze.
“It broke my heart when I failed to protect my friend Dodger,” she said quietly. “I wasn’t there to defend him from Cassius. Dodge was an excellent fighter and an even better leader. But when it came to swordsmanship . . . well, let’s just say things went better for him when I was around.”
Hopper smiled. He liked finding out new things about Dodger, even if it was simply learning that he was lousy with a sword. Firren continued.
“When La Rocha’s prophecy of a Chosen One appeared, foretelling of Dodger’s son . . . well, to be honest, I only half believed it. I had my theories, as you know, about him heading up to the daylight world, but since I didn’t have proof, I was never sure what to think. Nevertheless, I vowed that if a Chosen One ever did reveal himself, I would do everything I could to keep him safe, to defend him to the death if it came to that, and to make up for not having been able to do the same for his . . .” She paused, then grinned as she corrected herself. “For your father.”
“Thank you,” said Hopper. “And may I say, you’re doing an awfully good job so far.”
But Firren’s smile quickly vanished.
“What’s wrong?”
“I miss Zucker.”
“So do I.” Hopper swallowed hard. “Do you really think he’s dead?”
Firren shrugged. “It stands to reason. But then, there are times when I get this feeling in my heart. This little flutter that tells me there’s still hope. If only we knew where to look, we might find him. Alive.” A tear spilled out of her eye and rolled down her delicate face. “There are so many things I want to tell him.”
“Like what?” Hopper cocked his head. “What things?”
The rebel let out a long, weary sigh. “I would tell him I’m sorry for not trusting in him. I want to apologize for ever believing he could have betrayed me and Dodger and all we had fought for. I kept meaning to mention it, you know, after the battle, but it was all so chaotic with Atlantia falling and Titus being held under house arrest and the exodus and all. Then, even after things calmed down a bit, every time I tried to talk to Zucker . . . well, I guess you could say that by that time the situation between the prince and me had gotten a little . . . well, weird.”
“A little weird?” Hopper raised an eyebrow. “Please! You two were a couple of blithering idiots.”
“Excuse me?” Firren scowled. “We were not.”
“You were too!” Hopper shot her a grin. “And I know why.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Okay.” Firren gave him a sideways look. “Why?”
“Because you and the Zuck-meister are mad for each other, that’s why.”
Firren blushed. “We are not!”
“You are too! Totally and completely mad. And I know this because . . . because . . .” It was Hopper’s turn to blush.
“Because why?” Firren prompted.
“Because it’s exactly how I’ve been feeling lately . . . about Carroll.”
“Yeah, I kind of had a hunch,” said Firren, her eyes sparkling.
“Do you think I’ll ever see her again?” Hopper wondered out loud. “Do you think—”
“Let’s stick to one life-changing event at a time, shall we?” Firren teased. “Let’s focus on the battle for now and plan your romantic future later, after we’ve defeated Felina and rescued Pup.”
“Good idea,” said Hopper.
Firren stood and crossed the room to where the homemade banner still lay on Zucker’s desk. In one elegant movement she unsheathed her sword and neatly cut away two of the stripes that were sewn to the front of her tunic, first a red and then a blue one.
“Would you mind,” she began, putting down her sword and picking up the needle, “if I added these to our flag?”
Hopper’s voice caught when he replied, “I would be honored.”
Firren sat down in Zucker’s old chair and picked up the banner. “Better get some sleep,” she said, expertly slipping the needle into the fabric and pulling the thread taut. “Tomorrow is going to be a very big day.”
Hopper crawled under the blankets of the prince’s bed and snuggled into the mound of pillows.
“Good night, Firren.”
“Good night, Hopper.”
And although neither of them said it out loud, each knew what the other was thinking in the silence that followed.
Good night, Zucker. Wherever you are.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LA ROCHA’S JOURNAL—FROM the Sacred Book of the Mūs:
To her credit, Pinkie does not scream. She does not call for her private guard or bare her teeth, nor does she throw herself across the engine room to plunge her dagger into my heart.
Instead she does something of which I would not have believed her capable.
She weeps.
I would go to her were I not still chained to the metal mountain. Hearing her cry is a far worse punishment than these shackles. At last she quiets with a sniffle, then a deep, shuddering sigh. When she wipes her tear-streaked face with the back of her paw, I am struck by how innocent the gesture seems and how very young and fragile she appears.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” she says at last.
“I don’t have to remind you that you can still arrange for that to be the case.”
Pinkie frowns. “Why now?” she asks. “Why reveal yourself at this point, when so much has gone wrong? Titus killing refugees . . . Atlantia being destroyed . . . the chaos in the tunnels.” Her whiskers twitch. “Mother being taken from us.”
“You must know I would have given anything to save her,” I say, hearing the tremble of grief in my own voice. “The loss of her changed everything for me. I had planned—”
“Planned what? Planned
to bring us all down here into these godforsaken tunnels to fight for the rebel cause?”
“Yes. That was your birthright. And wouldn’t that have been better than being snatched from a cage yourself, only to make your way whole through the slimy bowels of a boa constrictor?”
Pinkie toys with the pink fringe on her gilded cape. “You left me behind. Do you understand how much that hurt?”
“You will never know how sorry I am for that,” I tell her.
She is silent for a moment, then crosses the room and looks me squarely in the eyes. “Tell me everything,” she says. “All of it.”
But this is not the command of a vicious captor to her prisoner. It is the simple and heartfelt request of a daughter to her father.
And so I honor it. And tell her all.
She listens as I recount my fight with the brutal General Cassius and describe the brain-rattling blow to the head I suffered at his hands. I tell her how he abandoned me for dead and that to this day I do not know how long I lay there unconscious. But when I did awake, I knew that I had been given a grand opportunity. I could vanish, disappear. Invisible, I would become an even greater threat to Titus than I ever was in plain sight.
“It is easy to attack the adversary who stands before you,” I explain to my child. “It is far more difficult to defeat an enemy who is everywhere at once.”
“So you went upland and met Mother,” she says. “Tell me about that.”
“That is a story for another time,” I say. “One I will share with you and your brothers when we are all together. It is a beautiful tale, and I would just as soon save it for a less troubling moment.”
Pinkie huffs but doesn’t argue.
I go on to tell her how, upon my return to the tunnels, I met La Rocha.
“The cockroach.”
“Well, no . . . not exactly. The La Rocha I met was a chipmunk. The La Rocha before him was a spotted salamander, and the one before him was a rat—a three-legged one, as the story goes, thanks to an unfortunate incident with a slow-moving subway train. It was the one before the rat that was a cockroach.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither did I until the chipmunk explained it to me. You see, the first La Rocha was, in fact, an insect—a cockroach. He was brilliant and wise because he’d lived for many seasons both in and out of the tunnels. The species has an exceptionally long life span, you know. Some say they can live forever.”
“I’ve heard that,” says Pinkie. She offers me a grape and a crust of bread as I go on with my story.
“That first La Rocha believed that the rodents who dwelled here needed a guide, a benevolent voice to help them through the trials and tribulations that came of living in this dark underworld. And so he began to scatter his wisdom around the tunnels . . . messages of hope he’d inscribe on found bits of paper. He knew these scraps were just human refuse—coupons, grocery lists, sports programs, movie tickets—but to the rodents who deciphered them, they were mysterious and wonderful. He would add his own good advice or inspiration and leave them as gifts for his followers to find. Soon the Mūs compiled them into a sacred book. That pleased the insect greatly. But eventually even a being as nearly immortal as a cockroach grows weary.”
“So he quit?” Pinkie guesses.
“No, he didn’t quit. He decided the position of La Rocha should be a titular one.”
“A what?”
“An office that gets handed down, passed on to begin anew. In that way he knew his spiritual leadership could be everlasting, it would go on eternally, as long as there was always a creature worthy to take up the mantle.”
“In this case a three-legged rat.”
“Precisely.”
“So how did you become part of the legacy?”
“I had not been back in the tunnels long. I was still in hiding, eagerly awaiting the day my family would join me. But when it became clear that this reunion was not to be, I was devastated. I had lost your mother and would never know my litter. The ache in my soul nearly destroyed me, so I decided I would seek out the mystical being in the hope of finding solace. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that he was not some all-seeing cockroach sent down from on high in a platinum chariot pulled by phosphorescent dragonflies. . . .”
At this exaggeration my daughter laughs, and the sound fills the locomotive, as well as my heart.
“The chipmunk La Rocha was growing old. He’d held the title for longer than most. When I told him about Firren and the Rangers and our goals to bring down Titus, he said that if I would be willing to step in and take over for him, I could use La Rocha’s authority not only to bring comfort and direction to the believers, but also to put an end to the evil peace accord and the hunting ground. How could I refuse?”
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell Zucker or Firren that you were alive and fulfilling the duties of the buggy prophet,” says Pinkie.
“Because there were rules. I could not be seen. I could never speak to another living rodent. And I could not disclose the secret, for if the truth was ever revealed, the tunnel rodents would forever more be deprived of their La Rocha, and for most of them that faith was all they had to cling to. And by the way, now that you know this, you are a part of the secret. So you must tell no one, ever. Not Hopper, not Pup. No one.”
Pinkie is quiet for a long time. “I’m still confused about why Mother told Hopper to find the Mūs, and why you put forth the prophecy of the Chosen One. You knew if we came here, we’d be entering a world at war. We’d be exposed to grave danger.”
I nod slowly. “There would be risk, to be sure, but no more than the risk you lived with in the pet shop. Your future there had but one possible outcome.”
“Snake food,” Pinkie grumbles.
“Right. And while I dreaded the thought of harm coming to you and your brothers here in the tunnels, I welcomed the possibility of you knowing what it meant to be truly heroic. What a rare opportunity that is! You see, Pinkie, it is not often that a mouse gets the chance to accomplish something. I wanted you and Hopper and Pup to know the satisfaction of making your mark, of doing something that would be remembered long after you were gone from the world. I wanted you to understand there are things worth fighting for, and those are the things you must protect with your whole heart. Just because the heart of a mouse is small, that doesn’t mean it can’t be brave.”
“I have one question.”
“Please . . . ask.”
“I understand that the first mystic really was a cockroach. But why have all who have followed him allowed that part of the legend to stand? Of all the forms you might have adopted, of all things you could have pretended to be . . . why that?”
“Because, Pinkie, there are so few things in this world that are indestructible. One of those things is the humble cockroach. And the other is—or at least should be—faith.”
Now my daughter, with her white circle and wounded ear, approaches me.
And she unlocks my chains.
They would march under the patchwork banner.
Hopper asked Firren to carry it, because he loved and respected the warrior rat and because he knew Zucker would approve.
The rodents had begun to gather at the iron gate, assembling one by one or in small groups. Hopper saw many familiar faces and a few new Atlantians whom he’d never met. He wasn’t surprised to see that Marcy wasn’t among the group; he knew that if she was choosing not to fight, she had a very good reason.
He was also gravely disappointed that Ace had still not shown up. He tried not to imagine the worst, chalking the cat’s absence up to something as harmlessly simple as being snowed in at the deli or having forgotten the location of the portal on the subway platform that would have deposited him into the tunnels.
Ace is probably fine, Hopper told himself. Still, he worried.
He stood now at the head of his army, their undisputed leader, although in his heart he believed that all who would go into battle this day were equal
ly worthy.
The soldiers were busy dividing the troops into three separate battalions. Each of these would consist of a roughly equal number of mice, rats, squirrels, and chipmunks possessing varying degrees of battle skills and military expertise. These three divisions would be headed up by Bartel, Pritchard, and Fulton. Ketch, much to his disappointment, would not fight due to his injury.
The fourth battalion was Hopper’s corps of specially selected rodents. Garfield stood to his right, and Polhemus to his left; falling in behind them were the basketball rats, Valky, Driggs, and Firren and her Rangers. They would follow the map provided in the note he’d received last night, and to his mind, theirs was the most dangerous path because it was the one most likely to deliver them to Felina’s lair (not to mention Pup’s hiding place). He felt confident that the warriors marching with him were the ones best suited to a battle against the ferals, and he took some comfort in knowing that the well-meaning novices who made up the other three battalions were almost guaranteed not to see so much as a skirmish.
Almost guaranteed.
It was a calculated risk. If he could, he wanted to spare them the horrors of battle, and if the mysterious note was to be believed, that’s exactly what he was doing.
If the note was a fraud, however, these hastily trained rodents with only a handful of actual soldiers among them could turn out to be the ones facing the enemy.
Hopper didn’t think his hunch was wrong, but if it were . . .
He felt sick just thinking about it.
He knew that once they reached the Great Beyond, they would have to disperse, each section heading off into a different area of the tunnels. For the moment, though, they were a single, brave, united force. And the sight of that made Hopper’s chest puff out with pride. He lifted his paws for their attention; the rodents fell silent.
“Thank you all,” said Hopper, “for joining with me today. This fight has been long in coming, and although the thought of it appalls me, I know that we have no choice but to confront the fiend Felina.”
