The Guardians

by William Joyce

  But Ombric was quiet. Katherine could tell from his expression that even this was not fast enough. Then she saw the locket he clutched in his hand. “What’s that?” she asked. Ombric was lost in thought and didn’t seem to hear her. She gently took the locket from him and opened it to see the picture of the young girl, who was close to her own age. Katherine looked intently at the lovely girl with raven-black hair and haunting eyes.

  “She’s Pitch’s daughter,” said Ombric, his own eyes closing as he tried in vain to reach the owls. “I saw him holding it, back in time, before he became evil.”

  Katherine was amazed. She had no memory of her own father. And though she tried to imagine what he looked like, the image in her mind was never very clear—she’d been too young when she had lost him. It was equally difficult to imagine Pitch ever being a father. Or that he had ever been good. She remembered with a shudder that Pitch had vowed to turn her into a Fearling princess. But mixed with that feeling of dread was now a sadness that twined with her own sense of loss and longing.

  Pitch had a daughter. What had happened to her?

  And what had happened to Nightlight?

  Kailash had found her way from the back of the tower. She honked and struggled to squeeze through the door of the main cabin, and with one great shove, she made it. She snuggled next to Katherine, her long neck twisting around her protectively, her feathered body a warm brace to lean against.

  North looked at Katherine’s sorrow-filled face. He was glad that Kailash was there to comfort her. He knew from Ombric’s concentrated silence that things in Santoff Claussen would be perilous.

  So he steadied himself for the darkness that lay ahead.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Delicate Darkness

  BEFORE THE TRAVELERS KNEW it, their craft started dropping in elevation, flying lower and lower, until it was practically skimming the treetops of Santoff Claussen’s enchanted forest. They had to squint to see the village. Clouds blocked the Moon and the stars. More unsettling was that not a single light shined from any window. The village was a shadow.

  The airship landed with surprising silence at the edge of the forest. North carefully opened the Moon-shaped door, and they all gazed out on their village. It had never been this quiet. North looked to Ombric with a tense, questioning expression, then unsheathed the magic sword and climbed out first. “Stay behind me. Run if I say so,” he told Katherine. The sword was transforming itself as he spoke, its light emerging magically from the blade. The glow lit their way. North sensed a vibration—was the sword signaling danger? He was not sure.

  They walked toward Big Root slowly, scanning the mournful landscape for any signs of life.

  Katherine had never seen a night so black or heard a silence so quiet—not even on the night when Pitch had first found her and her friends in the forest. It was as if all the life of the place had gone away. There was no movement. No breeze. Not one firefly or night bird flew to greet them. Even the raccoons and the badgers were nowhere to be seen.

  Katherine reached for North’s hand and kept the other on Kailash’s neck. “Where is everyone?” she whispered.

  Instead of answering her, Ombric stopped short. Something was glinting in the light from North’s sword. Ombric stooped to pick up what appeared to be a small piece of glass. He held it up to the light: It was a tiny porcelain squirrel. It was like a toy. Turning it this way and that, he said, “It appears that Pitch has further mastered the spells of enslavement.” He looked troubled and began to walk forward again, his eyes continuing to search the ground.

  Though the eerie quiet persisted, the thick cloud cover began to dissipate as the threesome made their way into the village, so at least some moonlight began to penetrate the gloom. But this simply allowed them to better see the horror all around them.

  In every direction, Katherine saw small porcelain versions of living things. Whole platoons of squirrels, raccoons, and foxes all looked to be frozen in midbattle.

  Try as she might, Katherine couldn’t keep the tears back. Had Pitch frozen everything? She nearly stumbled over the Spirit of the Forest. The Spirit’s normally flowing veils hung still and stiff, her gemstones were dulled with the lifeless shine of ceramics. Her frozen expression was one of fierce determination. In her hands she clasped a jeweled sword. She had clearly been petrified at a moment of intense struggle, just as she had once done to all who had fallen under her spell.

  Katherine peered into the Spirit’s glassy eyes and noticed something she had never expected to see there: fear. Then Katherine wiped her tears and willed herself to shed no more; she needed to keep alert. She jogged to catch up with North and Ombric.

  North was barreling ahead. Katherine desperately hoped to find that at least one living thing had escaped Pitch’s enslavement spell, but when they neared the village and Big Root, she realized that that was not to be. Every breathing creature in Santoff Claussen had been turned into a china doll. Even the bear. Again Katherine had to fight back tears. The bear looked so small and helpless now.

  North’s horse, Petrov, was lying on his side in front of Big Root’s shattered door. He looked as if he had been on his hind legs in the midst of kicking the shadows away when he’d been overwhelmed by Pitch’s spell. North ran to him, speechless.

  Ombric walked among the parents of the children. They lay surrounding the tree, frozen, terrified expressions marring their faces. His fears turned to outrage as he swept into Big Root itself. The owls sat immobile on their perches around Ombric’s globe. The dozens of honeybees and ants that resided in Big Root lay scattered on the floor like tiny china game pieces tossed aside by an unruly child.

  Ombric and North surveyed the damage in stunned silence. The library was stripped bare. Not a single book remained. The beakers and test tubes Ombric used for his magical experiments had been dashed to the ground.

  “No books and no children,” Ombric said quietly. “And where is Mr. Qwerty?”

  Katherine came up behind him. Where was Petter? Sascha? All the Williams? She sank to her knees, carefully brushing her insect friends to one side so they wouldn’t be stepped on. Then one glittering piece of crystal caught her eye. She reached for it. Only then did she notice a sliver of a blade nearby. Then another. And another.

  Her hand shook as she examined the pieces. Glistening drops, like beads of light, surrounded them. “It’s the tip of Nightlight’s staff,” she gasped.

  Ombric and North crouched beside Katherine. A small tarnished moonbeam—Nightlight’s moonbeam!—was hidden beneath the largest piece of the shattered blade. With great care, Katherine cupped the beam into her hands.

  “What happened, moonbeam?” she asked gently. “Where is everyone?”

  Only Ombric spoke moonbeam, so he waved his staff and suddenly the little fellow’s memories were displayed on the round glass of the globe bed.

  The moonbeam shimmered with all the strength it could muster, and though it wavered and flickered, Ombric, North, and Katherine could see and hear the terrible story of Pitch’s return.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Moonbeam Tells His Tale of Woe

  WE ARE IN THE Big Root tree, began the moonbeam, on the limbs outside a window. We watch the children in their beds. The Katherine book is telling stories of the Kailash. All warm and happy the children are! And so are we, my Nightlight boy and I. But we feel something that is a bother to us. A Pitch kind of scariness. It comes like a wind. We cannot see it. But we are feeling it. The clouds come dark and quick, and the moonlight and the stars are gone all suddenly. So my Nightlight boy looks out to the forest. All around is a badly sound. The forest creatures from every side are a-chatter and screamly.

  So fiercely fast the shadows come. Out of the forest. Toward the village. Toward the Big Root. Toward us! The Forest Spirit lady, she is fighting most ferocious, but the Pitch cannot be stopped. He wears the metal djinni suit and has a sword so dark. It takes all light that comes near. The Pitch says words—spells, I thinks—and
all who are close go changed. They’re made small and still, and they move no more.

  My Nightlight boy, his face is wild. He has the look of a knowing plan. This look I seen whenever he is about to do a deed most smart and daring.

  So I listens as he tells me with his thinking talk: The game I try will be most tricky. Don’t be fooled by what you see.

  Then he looks close at me and says fiercely strong, Fly straight and true and never fear.

  Then he takes the staff on which I am tied and points me at the Pitch. He throws me with all his mights. So fast I go. Fast as light. And into the metal I hits. The diamond dagger in which I live goes quick through the metal of the djinni armor and into the darkness of the Pitch himself. I hear the Pitch make a moan of deepest hurt, and I feel him fall. But I can see the cold black heart of him. I have not pierced it. All around me is the darkness. The cold heart still beats.

  The Pitch, he is moving, I can tell. But what is happening outside I cannot see. I hear many shouts and screams most loud. I hear the bear a-roaring and the horse make his battle sounds, but one by one, they all go quietlike.

  I hear the Pitch.

  He breathes hard and heavy, but he is a-shouting now. “WHERE IS IT! TELL ME!” he’s asking most meanly.

  Then he makes a groan sound, and I feel the pulling. Then I am out of the Pitch, but he is pointing me. Pointing me at my Nightlight boy. We are in the Ombric library, but there be no books. All are gone. The little wormly is gone. Just my Nightlight boy and the childrens. He is a-front the childrens, as if to protect them, but he is much hurt. On his knees from the hurt. But his face is not fearish. Neither are the children’s. And this makes the Pitch anger get bad. Very bad.

  So he’s a-shouting, “I WANT THE BOOKS! THE BOOKS OF SPELLS!” Not any of the Williams or the Petter boy or the Sascha girl tells a word. Fearlings, they are all around the room now. Coming closer, closer to my Nightlight boy and the childrens.

  But my Nightlight boy says loud and clear, “We fear you none!” I’ve never heard him speak with his voice. It is a magic voice he has. Like faraway memories and echoes of long ago. Then he laughs at the Pitch and leaps to attack. But the Pitch throws me and the staff at my Nightlight boy, and then all around is strangeness. The diamond tip hits my boy! And there’s lights and shatterings. The diamond, it did not pierce my boy, but it is brokened into many pieces. And my boy lays still. On the ground! He shines not bright, but dim and flickering.

  My broken dagger has let me loose. I am free. So I goes to my boy, but the Pitch hits me with his dark sword and it hurts me. Takes some of my light. So I am weak-feeling and cannot help my boy. The childrens look a little feared, but they muster strong and stare angry at the Pitch and his Fearlings.

  “I need those books!” says the Pitch, all quiet and scary. “Ombric must give them to me. So you little ones will be my bait!” Then he opens his dark cape. It seems to eat the light as it wraps around the room. In a blink all is gone. The Fearlings gone. The childrens gone. My Nightlight boy gone too. And the Pitch.

  Just me left. And the toy-turned owls.

  Then the moonbeam turned to Ombric and the others. The childrens need us! My Nightlight boy said his game was most tricky and to never fear. I am trying. I hates the feeling I am having. A scaredy feeling. But I am stronger by the telling of the tale!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A Moonbeam, a Mystery, and a Muddle

  MOONBEAM WAS EXHAUSTED AND dimmed again as he lay in Katherine’s palm.

  Ombric, North, and Katherine were each trying to make sense of everything the moonbeam had told them. They knew the situation was dire, but they kept surprisingly calm. They had been growing increasingly confident since taking the Man in the Moon’s oath. And now the three began to work almost as one, as one mind. Ombric had read that friendship could produce a sort of magic. North was new to the concept, but he was keenly aware of its possibilities, and Katherine, the youngest, was, in this case, the wisest. She knew in her bones that friendship was a magic with powers beyond words or possibilities. And so the magic grew stronger. They could feel one another’s thoughts coming together, sorting through the various threads of what the moonbeam had reported. Discovering questions. Searching together for answers. This curious union caught them completely off guard, especially Ombric. Never in his centuries of conjuring had he felt this sort of shared purpose. A mental mind melding of sorts, he mused. It was strange. Thrilling.

  Katherine wondered the first question aloud. “Where has Pitch taken Nightlight and the children?”

  “What is this new sword he wields that can devour light?” North asked next. “And why the devil did Pitch want the library?”

  “The diamond dagger was shattered!” Ombric declared. “All is strangeness.”

  The wizard’s mind became totally focused as he tried to fathom the muddles and mysteries the moonbeam had presented to them. His mustache and beard began to twirl on their own at a lively pace. He felt Katherine and North connecting to his thoughts.

  Ombric suddenly strode over to his empty bookshelves and began examining each intently. Only a few tiny scraps of paper remained, a bit from Spells of the Ancient Egyptians, another from Interesting Unexplainables of Atlantis, some tattered corners of random maps and charts. Even Katherine’s storybook was missing. There was no denying it. The library Ombric had carefully amassed over hundreds of years had utterly disappeared.

  Ombric closed his eyes and concentrated, casting about for remnants of leftover magic. “I find no evidence of a vanishing spell,” he said, his voice edged with small relief. “No magic was used. The books still exist—somewhere.” Then his eyes grew wide. The tips of his shoes stood on end. Katherine and North stared at him warily.

  “He’s taken them to the Earth’s core!” Ombric proclaimed triumphantly. “That’s where Pitch obtained the lead. His saber and cloak are made with it!”

  North cocked his head. “Lead? What’s so special about this lead?”

  “Lead found at the core of Earth has been there since the planet was first formed,” Ombric explained. “It has never known light—of any kind—so no light can penetrate it. It absorbs it. That’s how Pitch was able to attack Nightlight and the moonbeam. He stole some of their light.”

  “The madman is growing more wily by the day!” North exclaimed. “And the library? Why was he after that?”

  Ombric spoke more carefully, as if figuring it out as he went. “Pitch needs all the spells and enchantments in my volumes to become more powerful. To become, perhaps, invincible,” he added with some measure of awe. “But, somehow, the library disappeared before he could get it.” Ombric frowned. “And that’s the part I can’t make heads or tails of.”

  “Without magic, how can all those books just disappear?” North asked.

  “Exactly!” said Ombric. “That’s the puzzlement.”

  Katherine took in all of this new information. Her mind worked with lightning speed as she pieced together all the clues herself. What the moonbeam had told them, what they had found here, and what she thought it might all mean. Then suddenly she knew. “It’s Nightlight!” she shouted. “He told the moonbeam not to believe everything it sees. He found a way!”

  North and Ombric considered the idea, both becoming lost in thought. Then North’s mustache began to twirl on its own, as Ombric’s had moments before.

  “If Pitch is at the planet’s core, it’s a trap!” North said, restraining his rage. “He knows we’ll come to rescue the children.” He drew his sword. “But he has not faced this blade since the Golden Age. And never with me at its command.” He turned to Ombric. “How do we get to the Earth’s core, old man?”

  Ombric felt so proud of them. They were becoming a very potent and powerful team. But this elation gave way quickly to disappointment. He had no answer to the question. “That is a journey no man has ever made,” he said with a furrowed brow.

  Then North’s sword began to glow and clatter. The cover of the blade’s grip
began to twist and unfold as it had before. One of its stones started to shine brightly.

  All three of them peered at it. North’s heart surged. “This is what I’d started to tell you about earlier, old man!” he cried. In a flurry of words he laid out what he’d discovered thus far of the sword’s powers. “The sword is telling us where we must go. Where the next relic lies.”

  Ombric nodded sagely. His brows unfurrowed. He almost smiled. He almost began to laugh.

  “What is it, old man?” asked North impatiently.

  “Why, it’s a map of Earth!” replied the wizard. “We must go to Easter Island!”

  “Easter Island?” asked North.

  “Yes! The legend says that’s where the Pooka lives.”

  The trio began to think very hard.

  Mustaches, beards, and eyebrows were twirling wildly on the men as they concentrated. As for Katherine, though she did not notice it, a single curl right in the middle of her forehead was twirling too.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Wherein the Friends Must Separate

  KATHERINE SPOTTED PETROV AND the bear lying just outside Big Root’s door and winced. They didn’t look as though they were in pain, but still, it must be terrible to be unable to move or talk or even blink. “Can we unfreeze them now?” she asked Ombric. “Maybe they can tell us where the books are.”

  “I say we fly to the center of the Earth and rescue the children!” North blustered. Every muscle in his body strained to do something—anything—to help the children.

  “How do you plan to do that?” Ombric asked, folding his arms across his chest.

  “I’ll figure it out on the way,” North said.

  “Let’s take things one at a time, shall we?” Ombric told him, looking around. “Perhaps Katherine is right, and the animals can tell us what became of my books. But an enslavement spell this powerful can’t be reversed quickly. It needs to be done carefully and well.” He shook his head. “It’s the work of many, many hours.”