The Guardians: Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King; E. Aster Bunnymund and the Warrior Eggs at the Earth's Core!; Toothiana, Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies

by William Joyce

  “I knew it’d catch her. I built it that way,” North blustered as everyone cheered. But that didn’t stop his heart from pounding until the djinni tipped Katherine firmly onto the grass.

  “What if it’d missed her?” cried William the Almost Youngest, sounding a bit disappointed that things had gone so smoothly.

  “Djinni, I want to be able to become invisible!” demanded William the Absolute Youngest.

  Sunlight glinted off the djinni’s shoulders. It paused, then, giving a sweeping bow, said, “That is a wish I cannot grant.”

  “But why not? You’re supposed to do anything we ask!” said William the Almost Youngest.

  “I am a djinni of the possible. I can do anything a machine or mortal may, but more effectively. To make you invisible would take magic. And magic is only for those with the wisdom to wield its power.” Then it bowed again humbly.

  Ombric gave a cough and strode up to the djinni, peering at every inch of it. He did not say a word. The villagers held their breath, half expecting Ombric to be displeased, though they weren’t sure why. And North knew to bite his tongue entirely. Tough old bird, he thought. I’m sure he’ll find fault.

  But to North’s surprise, Ombric tapped at the djinni’s chest, traced a finger over the silver key, and pronounced, “Admirable piece of work. Well built and wisely conceived. It will be of great use for our journey.” He turned to North and stamped his staff on the ground. “Nicholas, pack your things and ready your djinni! We leave on a mission of greatest importance at dawn.”

  Katherine glanced up. “Am I to come too?”

  The old wizard’s face softened. “No, my girl.” He took her hand. “You must stay here. I expect you to help the bear and Petrov protect the village while we are gone.”

  Katherine swallowed hard and agreed, but she was deeply disappointed. If adventures were to be had, she wanted to see them and drew them in her sketchbook. North felt disappointed for Katherine as well—there was nothing like an adventure to make the blood race and the cheeks flush. The djinni, of course, could feel nothing—it was just a machine.

  But that would all change soon enough—and Katherine would have an adventure to match any in her young life.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Anger, Age, and Fear Make an Unwanted Appearance

  THE REST OF THE day was wild with activity and confusion: Things were packed and reconsidered and packed again. No one in the village could recall an instance when Ombric had ventured on a journey away from Santoff Claussen, so this was an occasion of considerable conjecture. North, having been a warrior, understood the need for secrecy—before he’d come to Santoff Claussen, he’d only truly ever trusted Petrov fully. So although Ombric hadn’t told North, or anyone, where they were going, he headed straight to work. With the djinni’s help, he crafted a new set of swords and daggers forged from bits of the ancient meteor that had marked the founding of the village. “Rich with stardust,” North remarked to the djinni. “The old man claims they can ward off any shadow.”

  “So let it be done,” replied the djinni with a bow. The mechanical man’s response bemused North.

  The Tickler

  Royal Slavic Hacker

  Ottoman Field Clearer

  North stood in the middle of Big Root, sharpening the new swords. “One must be more cunning than the enemy,” he remarked thoughtfully to Ombric, who had wandered over to see how he was coming along. “And Pitch is as crafty as they come.”

  The old man nodded and replied, “Clever lad.”

  And though wild Cossack horses couldn’t get him to admit it aloud, North basked in the old man’s rare compliment.

  By nightfall the packing was done, the preparations made, and Katherine had insisted on helping them every step of the way, but she’d been quieter than usual. In fact, Ombric realized, she’d barely said a word since he’d informed everyone that he and North were leaving. She was overtired, Ombric decided, so he conjured up her room, making sure to thicken the oval of moss that served as her carpet and adding an extra drop of richness to her hot chocolate.

  But that wasn’t at all what Katherine wanted. What she wanted—desperately—was to go with them. “I’m big enough!” she insisted. “I could help!”

  “What do you think, Apprentice?” Ombric asked North as he lit her candles. “Should she journey with us? Or stay, as I suggest?”

  North considered long and hard before he answered. Katherine grew hopeful that North would side with her. He must. He was her champion! But though he hated to say it, North knew the wizard was right. “It’s too dangerous, Katherine. Your place is here. It’s best for you and for us.”

  To Katherine, these words seemed a total betrayal. So when North wished her good night, she refused to respond. He said good night a second time, and she turned her face to the wall in stony silence.

  North understood—he, too, had never been one to take no for an answer. But her silence hurt him. I can outfight anything that breathes, and yet this child wounds me worse than any bullet or blade, he thought, and steeled his resolve to keep her at home, safe. Still, as he left her room, he waved his right hand with an angry jerk that caused all the candles in the room to extinguish—a spell he had just learned and, in his anger, perfected. He tromped up the stairs to the lab and slammed the door.

  Ombric hovered by Katherine’s bed, frowning in the dark. “The boy is brave but unruly,” he muttered. “He may never make a proper wizard.” No sooner had he said this than he heard a cough come from the lab, and with a soft hiss, a single candle on Katherine’s night table relit itself. A dim but warm glow returned to the room.

  Just as quickly, Katherine leaned over and resentfully blew out the candle. She flopped back down and pulled the sheets over her head.

  Ombric shook his head in bemusement. All this drama and anger. Well, that was what youth was like, he remembered. Calm comes with age. And Ombric had been feeling very old of late. The fight with Pitch and the bear had left him weary and uneasy; his confidence shaken. Was he powerful enough to stand up to Pitch again? Would Nicholas be ready to take over if the worst were to happen? North had not been tested as a wizard yet, and this, too, worried Ombric. But he knew he must stay the course now. Stay focused and steady. Pitch counted on fear. Used it as a weapon. And Ombric could not let it get the best of him.

  He summoned a glowworm to provide a spot of light in Katherine’s room, then headed for the lab himself, the climb never having felt so exhausting. But he was pleased to see that North was in the process of double-checking their gear for the trip. They were bringing a vast array of instruments, books, elixirs, potions, and weapons, but everything fit in a smallish backpack. He called it his “infinity bag”—he designed it to hold whatever anyone put into it. “I once packed an entire mountain and castle in it,” he’d explained when North had looked at the satchel skeptically.

  It did, however, weigh as much as whatever it contained. “A problem I’ve never been able to solve,” Ombric admitted. “But that’s why your djinni will come in most handy. I assume it can handle the load?”

  “And then some,” North assured him. The djinni bowed in agreement.

  “Then we must rest, for we leave at first light,” said the wizard, and he climbed into the highly unusual assemblage that constituted his bed. North had been dumbfounded when he’d first seen it—a giant globe that swung open into sections as Ombric neared. The inside was hollow except for a wooden rod near its bottom, which Ombric stood on. The globe was surrounded by a dozen or so owls on perches with their wings tucked at their sides, their eyes shut. Ombric assumed a stance that very closely mimicked theirs, and closed his eyes as well. The globe then folded shut, each owl letting out a quiet hoot as it did. Ombric was now settled in for the night.

  Nicholas St. North had slept in many odd places—in trees, on the edges of cliffs, under the bed of a sleeping maharaja—but those times were about making do. Ombric clearly preferred this bed; it was his home. Wizards were an odd b
unch, it seemed to North.

  But that’s not what he pondered that night. Nor did his mind spin with worries of the upcoming journey and what they might face. Instead he thought over and over about Katherine, and how she was still angry with him. He forced himself to think of something else.

  He wondered if the djinni actually slept. North softly treaded to the workroom and peered in. Ombric’s globe, high above, sighed with gentle snores. The djinni was upright, but seemed to be resting.

  “Good night, Djinni,” North whispered.

  “As you command” came the reply.

  North hadn’t intended it as an order, so the response amused him. When he returned to bed, he began to imagine other things that one could say that the djinni would misinterpret. If North mentioned to the djinni in passing to “have a good day,” would the djinni try to make a rainy day sunny? Soon he was distracted from Katherine’s anger and at last fell asleep. . . . But the djinni did not.

  A small black spider was lowering itself down on a single strand of silk toward the djinni’s left ear. Spiders were quite common in Big Root; Ombric spoke to them often. But this spider was different. It scampered delicately into the djinni’s ear.

  Pitch was indeed as clever as they come.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Twist and Turn

  WHEN KATHERINE AWOKE THE next morning, Big Root was quiet. Too quiet. There was none of the jolly clatter that accompanied the beginning of their days. She did not hear North’s wild laughter as he tried out new spells or Ombric’s distracted humming.

  They left without saying good-bye! she realized, her heart sinking. There was, however, a full breakfast hovering next to her bed and, with it, a small box with a note. She reached for the mug of warm cocoa and took a sip. It was Ombric’s brew. He made it with less chocolate than North, who always put in just a little more than necessary. She was never sure whose she liked best; they were both good in their own way. Then she turned to the box. She suspected it was North’s doing—Ombric would have at least wrapped it in muslim. As she slowly opened it, she thought, This is their way of telling me they will miss me. Wizards, she was learning, were more about deeds than words.

  Inside the box was a round device. It was gold and weighty, like a clock. But it had only one hand and no numbers; on the tip of the hand was the single letter N. She unfolded the note that lay underneath. It read:

  Dear Katherine,

  If there is trouble, you can always find me.

  The arrow will point the way.

  Yours,

  N

  Her unhappiness dissipated a fraction. It was so like North. Only he would make a compass that pointed to himself.

  Katherine also knew it was his way of testing her. She could leave and follow them if she wanted. But they had asked her to stay with Petrov and the bear to keep an eye on things, and so she would. Still, she couldn’t help but wish there would be a smidgeon of trouble, so she would have an excuse to go after them. The thought made her grin. But Ombric always said, “Be careful what you wish for.” She finished her cocoa and decided that wizards were annoying. Still, she threaded the compass’s chain through her buttonhole and admired it once more.

  Katherine went about her day as she’d promised, freshening Petrov’s hay and keeping the bear company, her new compass dangling against her blouse. She vowed not to look at it, but every hour or so she glanced down, keeping an eye on which way it pointed. North and Ombric were moving quickly southeast, she could tell, and it couldn’t have been much past dawn when they’d snuck off.

  North and Ombric had indeed left at dawn. It had been a massive undertaking, with lots of equipment and contraptions packed into the infinity bag that complicated the journey. Ombric had to admit that North’s ingenious djinni was a major breakthrough in the blending of ancient magic and the magic of man. As they’d prepared to leave, Ombric had lamented how, even with the djinni carrying all of their supplies, it would be a slow and exhausting trek. But North had had a surprise for the old wizard.

  “Djinni, take us up!” he’d commanded in a voice too chipper for that early in the morning. The djinni bowed as usual, but suddenly from its back, shoulders, and arms there began to emerge the most beautiful and elaborate flying sleigh! Its every floorboard, deck, and bolt was a mechanical extension of the djinni itself.

  With their gear finally aboard, North turned to his teacher, trying not to look overly pleased with himself.

  “We are ready, I suppose?” asked Ombric slyly, but he didn’t wait for an answer. He climbed aboard, sat in what was obviously the captain’s chair, and proceeded to examine the controls. North attempted to explain how the flying machine worked, but Ombric interrupted: “Doubly clever you are, Nicholas, but I have studied Master da Vinci too.”

  The old man recognized that North had taken much of the craft’s design from the famous Leonardo da Vinci’s sketchbooks, which were in the Big Root library as part of Ombric’s conjured collection.

  “Da Vinci and I were good friends, you know,” the wizard continued. “However, his design never worked properly.”

  North shrugged. “I’ve made some improvements.” He pulled a lever, touched a button, then twisted a key. The propellers began to spin, and within seconds, the “flyer” took to the sky.

  By evening they were more than a thousand miles away from Santoff Claussen. Every now and then Ombric glanced at his pocket globe and determined where they should turn next.

  “Head twenty degrees to the west!” he shouted above the wind, and the djinni, of course, piloted them as ordered. Ombric still hadn’t shared the secret of their destination, but North had a pretty good idea of where they were. In fact, their destination filled the sky in front of them. It was impossible to miss.

  “The Himalayas!” The tallest mountains in the world—vast, snow-covered, beautiful, and forbidding. North had never seen them—there’d never been anything there he’d wanted to steal. Thievery was not on his mind at the moment, though. Just excitement and anticipation. What’s the old boy got us into? he wondered. Would there be a battle? North hadn’t been in combat for months. He hadn’t tangled with so much as a stubborn jar lid since Pitch had attacked Big Root. Still, he felt certain that by adding his new knowledge of magic and spells to his arsenal of weaponry, he’d be more formidable than ever. Plus, the djinni was armed—North had given it one of his best swords. What a warrior it’d make! With the strength of a hundred men and the obedience of a trained wolfhound, nothing short of an avalanche could stop his invention!

  Travel by djinni is more comfortable than one would think.

  While North reveled in confidence, Katherine was mired in boredom. It had been a long, listless day back in Santoff Claussen. She’d ridden the outer perimeter of the village over a dozen times, hoping for some small trouble or adventure, but apparently, all was well. Petrov was equally restless, and he savored any chance to ride with Katherine. And ride they did. A horse was so much easier to handle than a reindeer; plus, there was a saddle! Katherine loved to ride hard and fast just for the thrill of it. The bear had come by several times to assure Katherine that the forest was calm, quiet, functioning as usual. Some of the fur on his chin was turning back to black, which made him appear to have a rather dashing goatee. It reminded Katherine of North.

  The bear

  The only event of consequence that day was also the worst: Petrov had tripped as they rode back to Big Root for the evening. His left hoof had gotten caught by the uneven gash where Pitch had melted back into the earth all those weeks ago. Everyone in the village avoided the spot except for Katherine and Petrov, who took a certain pleasure in galloping over it, stomping it down further each time.

  Fortunately, his leg wasn’t broken, but he’d given it a good twist and was limping badly as Katherine walked him to his stable by Big Root. They wouldn’t be riding again for at least a few days.

  As she readied for bed that evening, Katherine had an unsettling feeling. Perhaps it was beca
use of Petrov’s accident, or maybe Big Root felt empty without Ombric and North. It felt worse than loneliness: It felt more like dread.

  Katherine’s last chore of the day was to feed Ombric’s owls. She’d been so distracted by this uneasy feeling that she’d nearly forgotten about them. Dressed in her nightgown, holding a candle in one hand and the owls’ favorite tidbits in the other, she made her way to Ombric’s lab. When she opened the door, she stared in surprise. His library was uncharacteristically messy. They’d left in a hurry, to be sure, and North wasn’t quite as fastidious as Ombric, but still, what a mess!

  Thinking how pleased they’d both be to come back to a neat workplace, Katherine began to straighten things after she’d fed the owls. She could barely make heads or tails of the peculiar writings and drawings—they were in Latin or French or some ancient language she didn’t yet know. She was surrounded by things that were at once familiar and yet strange and unknowable.

  As Katherine was about to close one of the books, something caught her eye. There were several odd indentations in the soft, pulpy paper. Ombric took impeccable care of his books; he even wore gloves when he leafed through some of the most ancient of them. She’d never seen anything like these marks in his books before. She turned a dozen or so pages and found the same small dents. But they weren’t dents at all—they were fingerprints!