by Cindy Lin
“We’ll just need to do one last inspection down this block,” said the Monkey Heir. “And I want to check the Bug Pit.”
“Certainly,” the Guard said. “I’ll unlock it for you.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Saru crisply. “Just give me the key and I can unlock it myself.”
Mole Face hesitated. “We’re not supposed to give the keys to anyone.”
Goru frowned. “Do you give the keys to the Dragonlord when he comes?”
“Of course,” scowled the Guard. “What’s it to you, little one?”
“Little one?” The Ox Heir looked taken aback, then collected himself. Staring up at Mole Face, he growled, “Little or no, we’re here as representatives of Lord Druk. I’m sure he’d be very interested to hear that his Dragonstrikers were prevented from carrying out their inspection.” He held out his hand for the key. Had he been his usual size, it would have been as big as the Guard’s head. Instead Goru merely looked like a small stout youngling in Striker armor. Usagi bit her lip. Maybe a tiny Goru was a bad thing for their mission after all.
The head Guard snorted. The mole over his eyebrow danced and his lips twitched. “All right, young Striker.” With a shrug, he placed the keys in Goru’s hand.
The Ox Heir jingled them triumphantly and looked at Saru. “After you.”
They strode down the corridor, checking the cells, until they reached a heavy door at the end of the passageway. It was solid, with no latticework or bars to peek through, and locked with a heavy padlock. Inu sniffed. “Blisters. It smells terrible. There’s something that reminds me of the Tigress, but it’s hard to tell.”
All Usagi could detect was the same rank odor as the rest of the cells. “Maybe the stink’s just covering her scent?”
“Gods be good, let’s hope she’s okay.” Saru took the key from Goru and unlocked it.
With a heave, Goru opened the door, revealing a small windowless chamber with an iron grate in the floor. It was empty, save for a bloodied tree stump, a stone basin, and a stool. A dozen beetles scuttled in the sudden light, slipping through the iron grate into the darkness below. Foul damp waves of air, full of putrid rot, wafted from the grate. Inu jerked back, gagging, while the rest of them held their noses and looked down.
Tora peered through the grate. “Gods’ guts, it’s truly a pit.” She gasped and stifled a little shriek. “The ground is covered with bones and dead rats—and there are bugs and maggots all over.”
“What do the bones look like?” Usagi felt as if she were about to throw up.
“Some are animal bones,” said Tora. “But there are quite a few that are . . . not.” She looked up at them with troubled eyes. “Didn’t the Tigress carry a staff?”
Saru stiffened. “Do you see one?”
“Yes.” Bleakly, Tora pointed into the dark.
“We have to go down there and check,” said Inu.
The Monkey Heir reached in her ammunition bag and pulled out a fire starter and a candle. “I’ll do it—I can climb.”
“No, let me,” said Usagi. “I’ll jump down and back up in an instant.”
As Goru yanked the grate off the top of the pit, Saru lit the candle and handed it to Usagi. “If you find any sign of the Tigress, let us know immediately.”
“Oi! What do you think you’re doing?” shouted Mole Face from the observation station.
“Go!” commanded Saru, and as Usagi leaaped down, Saru shouted back, “What does it look like we’re doing? We’re inspecting the Bug Pit!”
Landing with a squish and a thump, Usagi held up the candle. The pit was deep enough to swallow an entire house, with no way of escape. Even if there were more than one prisoner in the Bug Pit, standing on each other’s shoulders wouldn’t be enough to reach the grate overhead. Usagi swallowed a scream as her candle revealed several large skeletons that clearly had once been men, surrounded by maggot- covered dead rats. The stench was overwhelming, and Usagi retched. Just breathe through your mouth. The ground teemed with cockroaches and scorpions underfoot, and her every step crushed dozens with a sickly crunch. Thank the gods for her Striker boots.
She spotted the staff just as Tora whispered down to her, “Look over to your right. It’s by that piece of cloth—I think it’s a robe.” Usagi brushed off a giant centipede and examined the staff in the light of the candle. It was Horangi’s. With a sinking heart, she looked at the crumpled robe on the ground, recognizing the rusty orange color of persimmon dye. But where was Teacher?
Chapter 21
Hall of the Golden Throne
“IS IT THE TIGRESS’S STAFF?”
Usagi looked up at the anxious faces peering at her in the Bug Pit. Nodding, she held up the candle in the darkness so the other Heirs could see the long wooden stick in her hand. “Her robe, too.”
She bent and picked it up, shaking off several scorpions. There was no sign of the old warrior’s body, but the Tigress had clearly been down here. Usagi swallowed hard and clutched the robe close. It was torn and filthy, but she didn’t care.
With another quick sweep around the deep, vermin-infested pit, Usagi checked to see that she hadn’t missed anything beyond the skeletons that lay in crumpled heaps, all either clearly not human, or too large to be the Tigress. “There’s nothing else. I’m coming up. Stand back.”
Usagi blew out the candle, then crouched and sprang straight out of the pit, back into the dank windowless chamber where the other Heirs and Rana were waiting with doleful faces. They crowded around as she showed them the robe and the staff. “What do you think this means?”
Taking the robe into her hands, Saru shook her head. “We might be too late.”
“She’s gone?” Usagi’s voice cracked. Despair rose, threatening to spill over into hot tears. She blinked them back. “But it’s the Tigress. She’s survived so much else.”
Tora put a hand on her shoulder. “Can we check the Mirror of Elsewhere?”
“Yes!” said Usagi, grasping at a tendril of hope. The mirror had showed Horangi alive when she’d been thought dead. Surely it would again. “We must make certain.”
Saru fumbled with her Striker armor, then drew out the mirror. She gazed into it, then lifted her helmet to get a better view. Time seemed to stop as she peered at the polished bronze disk. Finally she let her helmet drop back on her forehead. “I don’t see her.”
“What do you mean, you don’t see her?” Usagi refused to believe it. “What did it show you?”
The Monkey Heir’s pale face was ashen. “I asked to see her and the mirror went dark. All I could see was myself, actually.”
“What about the Land Jewel?” asked Inu urgently. “Can we ask the Mirror to show us that?”
With a nod, Saru went to check the mirror again. The sound of the head Guard’s boots came echoing down the corridor. “Oi, you done with the Bug Pit? What’s taking so long?”
Goru’s expression rearranged itself into a snarl. “I’ll hold him off.” He trundled out of the chamber. “No, we’re not done! We’ll take as long as we like!” he bellowed. As he continued to berate the Guard, Nezu muttered to Inu, “Let’s go back him up.”
“Hurry,” Inu told Saru. “Try to find the bead.” He and Nezu turned and went to give the Guard a hard time.
Saru took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Then she held up the mirror and looked into it, her lips whispering a silent prayer. Usagi’s restless fingers searched fruitlessly for her rabbit pendant, which was tucked beneath the plates of her Striker armor. Finally a look of recognition crossed the Monkey Heir’s face.
“It’s buried somewhere in the pit,” exclaimed Saru. “We’ll have to go back down and try to dig it up.”
“I don’t know if there’s time for that,” said Tora, nodding toward the corridor, where the irate head Guard was sounding increasingly bewildered.
Rana’s eyes sharpened as she gazed into the dark hole. “I can find it with my earth gift. Jade from Mount Jade, right? I just need a little help getting
in there.”
“I’ll take you,” said Saru. She hurriedly tucked the mirror away and put her arms around Rana’s waist. “Hold tight.”
“Breathe through your mouth down there,” Usagi advised.
With grim nods, they jumped into the depths of the Bug Pit. While Usagi and Tora looked in after them, Saru lit another candle. Rana asked what Saru had seen in the mirror, and Saru described seeing first the bead packed in soil, then the Bug Pit itself.
“Hmm.” Rana held out her hands, while Saru lifted the candle and looked around. The Monkey Heir kicked aside some bones, trying to clear the ground as she searched for a possible hiding spot.
Tora shook her head. “We’re going to get kicked out before they find it,” she muttered to Usagi. The boys were still haranguing the head Guard, which was making Usagi nervous. Silently she urged Rana to hurry.
A rumbling sound caught Usagi’s attention, as if a horde of earthworms were tunneling through the ground. “I hear something,” she told Tora. Before long, dozens of rocks came squirming out of the earth in the Bug Pit, almost as if they were alive.
“Oh!” exclaimed Tora, leaning forward. They tumbled across the floor of the pit, rolling over scuttling insects, and lined up before Rana. Saru raised the candle over the dirt-crusted stones, just as Tora pointed. “It’s on the left,” she hissed to them. “A jade bead!”
Rana swooped and grabbed it, and she and Saru bent their heads, inspecting it. They looked up and nodded. “This is it. We’re coming up,” said Saru. She put Rana on her back and climbed nimbly up the sides of the pit. They emerged into the windowless chamber, a flash of green clutched in Rana’s hand.
“Quick, let’s get out of here,” said Usagi. “I don’t know how much longer the boys can argue with old Mole Face.” They dragged the heavy grate back over the entrance to the pit, and Rana stowed the bead away. Usagi stuffed the Tigress’s robe into her pack and grabbed her staff. Then they left the foul, airless chamber and shut the door firmly behind them. Down the corridor, Goru, Nezu, and Inu turned from the red-faced head Guard, whose eyebrow mole was nearly crawling into his eye.
“We are satisfied,” said Saru primly. “Thank you for your patience and accommodation, sir. We shall bring word to Lord Druk of the excellent conditions we found here.”
As they filed past the spluttering Guard, Goru reached up and pounded the man on the shoulder, knocking him slightly off balance. “Good work.”
Marching straight out of the Sunburst, they didn’t say a word to each other until Saru had led them nearly to the Central Court. In a quiet cloister between buildings, they stopped to examine the jade bead. Its curves were still caked with dirt, which Rana quickly blasted away in a puff of dust. On her palm, the polished green stone seemed to glow, almost like the Tigress’s eyes.
Saru’s pale face shone. “You did it,” she exclaimed, and hugged Rana.
Flashing a grin, Nezu patted Rana’s back. “Well done, Earth Snake.” As the others congratulated the Heirling, Usagi felt a stab of anger. Her knuckles turned white around the old warrior’s staff.
“What about the Tigress?” she burst out. “Have you all forgotten? We’re supposed to be rescuing her!”
Rana looked startled, and the smiles on the others’ faces faded.
“I hate to say this,” began the Monkey Heir, “but she didn’t come up in the mirror, and we found her things in that horrible pit. I—I think she’s gone.”
Stubbornly, Usagi turned to Tora. “Can’t you try using your tiger vision?” she asked. “Hold that ironstone pendant in your hand and find her!”
“I’m not a human Mirror of Elsewhere,” said Tora, affronted. “My visions don’t work that way.”
A wave of frustration came over Usagi. “Why are you all fighting me on this? Does no one else care?”
Inu frowned. “What are you talking about? We all care. You’re not the only one who wants to save the Tigress—and you’re not the only one on this mission.”
“We’re here as a team, Usagi,” said Saru. “No one’s fighting you.”
“Here,” said Goru gently. He took the Tigress’s staff from Usagi’s grasp and transformed it into a miniature version of itself with a tap of the Conjurer. “This way we can take it with us—and give it to the Tigress if we do find her.”
Nezu pulled at the whiskers on his lip. “Don’t lose hope, Rabbit Girl.”
Looking at their earnest expressions, Usagi was thrown. Had she misjudged everyone? She took the shrunken staff, now the size of a feedstick, and tucked it in her pack next to the Tigress’s robe. For months, she’d feared being left out, alone, and isolated, but her friends were there all along. Chastened, she took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just . . . forget sometimes. So what can we do?”
Inu’s somber gaze met hers. “We honor Teacher’s wishes and get the rest of the Treasures.”
As the early dusk of winter fell, the shimmering orange sun slid below the horizon like a bright coin into a temple offering box. The curving eaves and carved figures adorning the buildings around them were growing shadowy and dark. There was no time to argue or even to mourn. They had to get to the Bowl of Plenty and Pen of Truth. Usagi nodded. “Let’s go.”
They hurried for the Hall of the Golden Throne at the heart of Central Court. It was the tallest building there, raised on a tiered stone foundation with carved balustrades, overlooking an expansive square. Usagi’s ears pricked. “The Dragonlord is still holding court inside,” she told the others. They ducked below the wooden platform of the covered walkways edging the courtyard. Usagi tilted an ear toward the high open doors of the entrance, framed by brightly painted pillars and an elaborate scrim.
“The increase in production was not what I’d hoped, Commissioner.” The Blue Dragon’s voice was low and even.
“My lord,” quavered the man. “We have instituted double shifts for everyone. But without more food, workers have been collapsing.”
With her rabbit hearing, Usagi caught the tinkle of several rice grains going into a metal bowl. Then she heard a rattle and stifled gasps as the bowl filled up with rice, multiplying what had been placed in it. It was the Bowl of Plenty. “Here,” the Blue Dragon said casually. “Take this back to your workers.” There was a sudden patter of rice grains skittering across a wooden floor. The Blue Dragon must have flung the bowl’s contents to the ground. His voice dropped to a growl. “Tell them that the mines are next—see if that doesn’t get them going.”
She shook her head and told the others what she was hearing. “If anyone could be cruel with the Treasures, it would be the Blue Dragon.”
“Not for long,” muttered Nezu.
Saru peered out at the darkened sky. “Change will be coming soon.”
Through the Mirror of Elsewhere, they’d determined that the watch guard for the Treasures was changed every hour, with a new team of four Strikers relieving the old. The changing of the guard would give them their best chance to slip in.
The sound of a temple bell echoed through the palace compound, struck by the temple in the Outer Court to signify the start of Rooster hour. It was the time of day when the cock came home to roost, the hour when the Dragonlord would dismiss his petitioners and advisers—and leave the throne hall to have his evening meal.
Goru shifted uncomfortably. “Never thought I’d hear that bell again. It’s so strange to be back.” Rana and Tora nodded in silent agreement. As the ringing of the hour faded, they watched and waited in the shadows.
“He’s leaving,” said Tora. The Dragonlord emerged from the building, followed by a retinue of attendants. She hissed out a breath. “They’re coming this way. Duck!”
They dove and held as still as they could, hardly daring to breathe. The footsteps of the Blue Dragon and his entourage sounded on the wooden walkway above. Usagi recognized Tupa’s swaggering stride accompanying the Dragonlord and stiffened, remembering their last encounter. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might rattle he
r armor on its own. As the footsteps of the Striker captain and the Blue Dragon disappeared, she gave an all-clear sign and everyone exhaled.
“Good thing I made myself so small,” Goru said, lifting his helmet and wiping his brow. “I don’t know where I could have hidden if I hadn’t.”
“We would’ve grabbed the hammer and shrunk you ourselves,” said Tora with a glint of her snaggleteeth.
Reaching into her pack, Rana doled out packets of sleep powder. “I added a touch more venom to buy us time. If anyone wakes up sooner than expected, they’ll still be paralyzed for a good while.”
“We’ll make our move just before the changing of the guard,” said the Monkey Heir, pocketing hers. “Everyone ready?”
Usagi’s ears pricked. “The next watch is approaching. Three hundred paces. They’ll be here in a few minutes.” The timing was important—they had to take them out quickly and with as little commotion as possible, so that the Guards and Strikers inside the throne hall would not be suspicious, and anyone near the Hall of the Golden Throne would see nothing unusual.
Quietly they split up and moved into their planned positions near the grand entrance to the building. They lay in wait. The clatter of the Dragonstrikers’ armor grew louder as they drew near, four roaches in their dark leather plates. Click clack. Click clack. Their boots rapped against the raised wooden walkways around the courtyard, and they stepped for the open doors.
Just before they reached the building, Inu, Goru, Nezu, and Saru slipped out and began marching alongside them. “What in the—” spluttered one, and the roaches came to a startled halt.
Nezu flashed a grin. “Hello.” He shoved a handful of sleep powder into the face of the nearest Striker and caught him as he fell. Inu, Goru, and Saru did the same for the other three. Only Goru misjudged the distance and fell short. The sleep powder blew harmlessly away and the roach raised his firecannon, opening his mouth to yell.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Goru lunged and punched him with a swift uppercut. The Striker fell back, out cold, collapsing on the walkway. “Scabs, that was close. Would’ve been nice to be my regular size for that.”
