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

  An instant later, he was gone. Holding his staff aloft and shining brighter than ever, the boy flew into the sky, swooping and circling till he was sure every one of Pitch’s soldiers had spotted him. Then he rocketed toward the clouds. The armies of darkness banked left and followed.

  The endgame was on!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Longest Night

  KATHERINE HEARD THE SPECTRAL boy laughing as he led Pitch’s legions away from her. How amazing he was. Risking everything for her and her friends.

  He was fast and clever, there was no doubt. Perhaps he could perform a new miracle that would save them, or find help from some quarter that she did not know.

  But for now she must make sure they weren’t discovered by any of Pitch’s stragglers. She quickly and quietly had the reindeer cover the entrance to the cave by using their antlers to shovel snow from the floor till there was only a small lookout hole left.

  But despite the blockade, it was still terribly cold. Katherine’s fingers ached; her toes were going numb. She had no means of building a fire, and even if she had, she knew even the thinnest tendril of smoke would let Pitch know where they were. So she wrapped North and Ombric more tightly in the collar of her coat and huddled against the reindeer, who were far more suited for the frigid weather.

  As for North, though he could not move, couldn’t even blink, his mind raced on. And what was this dashing bandit, this ex-Cossack, this long-feared warrior thinking? He was not plotting his battle plan or picturing how he would defeat Pitch. No. North was worrying about Katherine’s coat. Was it warm enough? He imagined the coat he would make for her if they ever made it back to Big Root, using an old Cossack trick of double-layering the fur. Katherine gave a shiver, and North’s feelings of helplessness were excruciating—she was cold, colder and sadder than any child should be.

  Katherine was also deeply tired. She struggled to stay alert, tried to focus on what to do next, but the rhythmic breathing of the reindeer soon lulled her into a gentle sleep, North and Ombric tucked tightly under her chin.

  When children have nightmares, they struggle to awaken, knowing that comfort lies just beyond their tightly shut eyes. But for Katherine, the nightmare was all around her, and so sleep was her escape. She spent the night drifting in and out of dreams. But hers were no ordinary ones.

  There’s a rare kind of dream that children have, a dream that unfolds like a storybook, but a story in which the dreamer does not take part. They watch, instead, the adventures of someone dear to them in a sort of movie of the mind. And the dream Katherine was having starred Nicholas St. North. North was a hero of a thousand adventures. He was not a wizard, a thief, or a warrior, but a powerful figure of unending mirth, mystery, and magic, who lived in a city surrounded by snow.

  This kind of dream is so rare that most dreamers do not understand the magic it holds; it plays in tandem somewhere else, the same exact adventure and images rolling through another person’s sleep.

  And that was what was happening now. As North lay there helplessly and nearly without hope, he began to see Katherine’s dreams in his own head. A city of snow in a flurry of activity and him—as he’d never imagined himself or even thought possible—happy and at home. He was the master of this domain.

  For the second time in as many weeks, North realized that this was how Katherine saw him. In the drawing she’d given him for the djinni’s chest box, she’d depicted him grander than he was in real life. And now she saw him as having an important place in the world.

  Then the dream did something that only dreams can do: It became a part of North, became his dream. It lived in his heart now and would never die.

  With a violent suddenness the dream ended. North was awake again, but he could not see. Katherine’s coat covered his eyes. There was a blast of cold air. Then shouts, and he felt himself being jerked up. He heard the furious neighing of the reindeer and the sound of hooves and antlers clattering against metal.

  Pitch had found them.

  North felt another jerk and heard Katherine screaming, “Get away!” Then something shadowy pressed tightly around him. Katherine’s coat was gone from his face and he could see her curled in a tight ball on the ground, surrounded by Fearlings. The reindeer were struggling wildly in ropes and chains of shadows, but the restraints held tight, and they dashed their hooves on the cave floor with fury. North was caught in the grip of a Fearling. He was suddenly turned around and saw the giant face of his djinni glaring down at him, Pitch’s laugh rumbled out from its metal chest.

  “Little man,” Pitch said in a voice oozing with malevolence, “how useless you’ve become.” Then his gaze shifted to Katherine. “I once had a Fearling prince slip out of my grasp, but it won’t happen again. But before I turn you into a Fearling princess, I want to hear one last scream.” He smiled wickedly at the Fearling holding North. “Crush him. Now.”

  The Fearling threw North violently onto the rocky floor. The sound of his hitting had a sickening sharpness. The toy North lay shattered.

  Katherine, using a might that surprised even herself, broke away from the Fearlings. She would not scream. She gathered the pieces of North’s body quickly and carefully. Ombric had taught her—Ombric had taught them all—that magic’s real power is belief. And she’d seen it happen with her own eyes. So it could happen again. It had to.

  She raced to the back of the cave.

  Pitch was just steps away. In a moment’s time she’d be taken, turned into a Fearling. Pitch’s cackle boomed through the cave. “What a feisty Fearling you’ll be,” he laughed. The djinni’s robotic arms, the same ones that had carefully caught her that day back by Big Root, cut violently through the air. Then. They. Stopped. Pitch could not move closer. He strained with all the strength he possessed, but the machine arm would not obey. “This cannot be!” he hissed in disbelief.

  Katherine didn’t waste a second. Her hands worked nimbly, and as she set the last piece of North’s form into place, she took a deep breath, and whispered Ombric’s first spell, “I believe, I believe, I believe. Please be real again. This will work. I believe . . .”

  But before Katherine could even finish her plea, a terrific rumbling came from outside the cave. At first she thought it was thunder, but as it grew closer, louder, she realized it was coming from the ground and the sky. She looked toward the cave entrance, as did Pitch and his Fearlings. The sky outside was brightening. The rumbling intensified until the cave began to shake. Outside could be heard the calls and howls of Fearlings and Nightmare Men.

  Then, without any forewarning at all, the entire top of the mountain blasted away. They ducked down to shield themselves, but in the haze of snow and pulverized rock, they realized they were safe. They stood exposed now. In the open air they could now see all around. It was an epic sight. On every mountain and valley, on the ground and in the air above were swarms of Nightmare Men and Fearlings. Every inch was nasty with shadowy hordes. But closing in from all sides was a wave of magnificent hairy creatures, white as snow, as big as the bear, and armed to the teeth. They were cutting through Pitch’s creatures like surf does to sand. With a deafening clap of thunder the clouds above parted and the moon shined down. From it came a fleet of moonbeams led by none other than the spectral boy. They raked the skies, felling every dark creature that faced them.

  His anger sharpening to a deadly point, Pitch turned again to Katherine and the others. What he saw enraged him even more.

  North stood before him. No longer a toy, but a man, with his head cocked back defiantly, his cape blowing in the wind, and a saber at the ready in each hand! Katherine, or something, had broken the spell!

  “Dark and sinister imp,” he said to Pitch with cheerful sarcasm, “how annoying you’ve become.”

  Then he fell on Pitch with a fury. Their blades struck at a pace that seemed impossible. Katherine could barely believe what she was seeing. North had returned and he would not be denied. If Pitch was faster than any human, then North was
now his match. Their sabers exploded with strobes of fire and sparks. They taunted each other as they fought.

  “How does it feel to have your own invention best you in every way?” challenged Pitch.

  North smiled and replied, “What I make I can destroy.”

  “I’ve scuttled whole planets, burglar. You’re just another inconvenience.”

  North shook his head, then lowered both his swords. He stood up straight, spread his arms, and closed his eyes. “Do your worst, Pitch,” he said calmly.

  “What sort of trick is this?” asked Pitch. “I can slice you in two before you can lift a sword.” But there North stood, insultingly at ease. He even began to whistle.

  Pitch could not resist. He swung his blade with all his might, but his metal arm stopped just an eighth of an inch from North’s brow.

  Pitch was flabbergasted yet again. North opened his eyes, glanced Katherine’s way, and winked. “It’s the drawing in his chest,” he said slyly. “He can turn us into toys, but with his own hands he can’t do us real harm. Your artwork is very powerful, my girl.”

  Pitch had just enough time to process what North said—and to realize he was beaten. For now.

  Katherine almost giggled with relief and amazement.

  Pitch looked out at the battle raging around him. He could see the tide going against his troops. He was no fool. He turned sharply back to North and Katherine. “I’ll keep the djinni as a gift. Let’s just say it ‘suits’ me.” Then he took to the sky, transforming into the djinni’s flying machine. Within seconds, he and his Fearlings were mere black specks on the horizon, vanishing westward, just ahead of the coming dawn.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Journey’s End

  ONLY MINUTES HAD PASSED since Pitch’s retreat, but they had been filled with wonders and revelations.

  Pitch’s spell of enslavement had only partially afflicted Ombric. Like North’s, his physical body had been turned into a toy, but eons ago, Ombric had learned how to separate his mind from his body. He called it “astral projection” and used it only rarely.

  “It’s quite risky,” he explained to North. “One can never be entirely sure what the body may be up to while the mind is out and about, and it depletes one’s energy rather severely. I’ll be hungry for months now.” And, in fact, Ombric had been eating provisions from the infinity bag nonstop since he’d returned to his body. He seemed to relish telling North and Katherine about his adventure, for he paced back and forth excitedly.

  The moment Pitch had cast his spell, he’d told them, Ombric had projected himself to the Temple of the Lunar Lamas. The Lunar Lamas were a mysterious brotherhood of holy men who devoted their lives to the study of the Moon. Their temple, or, as it was properly called, their Lunar Lamadary, had been Ombric’s true destination throughout their journey.

  History has no accurate record of how the Lunar Lamas had come into existence or how exactly they had become devoted to the Moon and the Man who ruled it. Ombric had first heard of them as a boy in Atlantis and even the greatest minds of that long-lost place found them allusive and confounding. But Ombric knew in his ancient bones that these men would at least be interested in Pitch’s return and had to be helpful in ways no one else on Earth could be.

  A cluster of Lunar Lamas

  The Lunar Lamas were extremely secretive and cautious. They never made contact with the outside world, not even with wizards of Ombric’s stature. And they had not been welcoming when Ombric first arrived. Ombric had pleaded with them: Did they have a relic from the Moon Clipper? Something that had fallen to Earth? Something of great power? But the Lamas had sworn to keep all they knew a secret until ordered otherwise.

  Apparently, they had a way of conversing directly with the Man in the Moon, though it was invoked only under the most extraordinary circumstances.

  “What circumstances could possibly be more extraordinary than these?!” Ombric had demanded. “Pitch is here! His hordes are on the other side of these peaks! The sworn enemy of your master has returned armed to the teeth and means to make something considerably more than mischief!!!!”

  But the Lunar Lamas were the most serene men on Earth, and no amount of arguing could get them to hurry. They’d gathered in the courtyard, padding silently in silver slippers, their hands hidden in the sleeves of their billowing silk-spun robes, their round Moonlike faces as pleasant and inscrutable as melons.

  “We appreciate your concern,” said one Lama.

  “We understand your frustration,” said another.

  “We sympathize completely,” said the next.

  “We regret the situation,” said the fourth.

  “We must receive a sign,” said another.

  “We hope you understand,” said the last.

  “Sorry,” concluded the one who had spoken first, smiling.

  Their response had left Ombric livid. It was fortunate that he was astrally projected, for had he been in physical form, he might have punched each and every holy man squarely in his Moon-shape face.

  Then a most auspicious thing had occurred. Streaking down from the sky came the spectral boy. He landed in the courtyard of the Lamadary, skidding to a stop right in front of where Ombric and the Lamas stood, his staff in hand, the diamond dagger glowing brightly at its tip.

  Ombric had recognized him immediately—it was the very same boy who’d driven away the Fearlings back in Santoff Claussen. And it had been instantly apparent that the Lamas had recognized him as well. Their response to the newcomer couldn’t have surprised Ombric more. They’d murmured excitedly among themselves, then knelt and bowed until their foreheads touched the floor. Ombric drew a deep breath, willing himself to hold his tongue. And it took great, great restraint. Here he was, the greatest wizard in the land, and yet those Lamas were bowing—bowing!—to this . . . this . . . boy! Heads still pressed to the ground, the Lamas all began speaking at the same time.

  “’Tis the sign we have been waiting for!”

  “Since the beginning of our order!”

  “The guardian of the Man in the Moon!”

  “The one with the diamond dagger!”

  “The one who stopped Pitch!”

  “He is called Nightlight!”

  Nightlight. Ombric had never seen that name in his ancient texts, the texts about the Golden Age. He eyed the boy. He seemed all arms and legs and grin, and he emitted the soft glow of a young firefly. Could this ghostly slip of a boy be of such importance?

  The Lamas gestured toward a huge gong that hung behind them, beckoning Ombric closer. It was clearly one of their most prized possessions. Ombric felt a shiver of great excitement as he examined it. The gong wasn’t simply a beautiful instrument—the elaborate carvings were actually telling a story . . . the story of the Man in the Moon! “Tsar Lunar related it to us centuries ago,” said the Grand High Lama. “It is as he saw, experienced, and remembered.”

  There it was, in picture after glorious picture as described by Tsar Lunar himself. The majestic Moon Clipper at full sail. The merry Moonbots and Moonmice. Ombric could barely still his mind to take it all in, and then, there, on the far side, was the part of the story that had always been a mystery to him. Ombric glanced from the boy in the picture to the boy in front of him. They were the same. It was true! This boy had been the loyal friend and guardian of the young Man in the Moon. He had protected the Prince from nightmares, and his diamond dagger had pierced Pitch’s black heart at the height of the great battle. It was this act that caused the great explosion that saved the Man in the Moon and sent Pitch’s galleon plummeting to Earth, where it had crashed like a meteor and lay hidden deep under the ground for centuries. This spectral boy was a true hero.

  “NIGHTLIGHT!” the Lamas shouted in unison.

  “Nightlight, indeed,” concurred Ombric with surprise.

  The boy rocked on his heels before them, a puzzled look in his pale green eyes. It was so long ago, yet that name still existed within him as distant memory. He cocked his
head, then shook it. What mattered to Nightlight was the here and now. The battle was still on! He swung his staff toward the sky. The Lamas and Ombric looked up. Pitch’s minions were diving toward them. They’d followed Nightlight there, just as he’d hoped. He’d observed the Lunar Lamas, and he knew they had the best weapons against these shadowy creatures.

  To Ombric’s amazement, the Lamas switched from whispering statues to men of action. Bells rang. Horns blew. And a great rumbling, as if Earth itself were growling, filled the courtyard.

  Ombric looked out through the columns that marked the entrance of the building. A legion of giant, hairy snow creatures was gathering outside of the Lamadary, already in military formation. It was an army of Abominable Snowmen! Ombric had read about them but had never seen one. They had an amazing arsenal of gleaming clubs, swords, and spearguns, all forged with the dust of fallen stars. The creatures stilled as the Lamas began to blow their tribal horns, the horns that sounded the battle charge.

  And charge they did, with Nightlight leading them, through the mountains and toward the peak where Pitch had trapped Katherine and the others. The Lamas accompanied the army, whirling like tornadoes, dervishes, banshees!

  Ombric instantly projected himself after them. And arrived, evidently, at the most opportune time—just as the battle had reached its tipping point and North was turning back into his full-size self. But Ombric did not know that; he was still up in the sky above. He feared he was too late to save his friends, and had blasted the mountaintop to smithereens in a desperate attempt to intervene. Though Ombric hated to admit it, he now felt he’d overreacted, ever so slightly.

  “Most unsubtle bit of conjuring,” he conceded as he finished his story. “More like something you, Nicholas, would have done in your early days. . . . I could have accidentally hurt someone—one of the reindeer or even young Katherine. Can’t imagine what got into me.” Even an astral projection can blush with embarrassment, and Ombric, for the first time in several hundred years, did that exact thing. North laughed in astonishment.