Guardians Chapter Book #5

by William Joyce

  “Nightlight will change,” MiM told me then. “As will you. But you will become the keeper of his past.”

  The Man in the Moon told me of so many changes that were perhaps in store for Nightlight and myself. I would grow up, that much was certain. But who or what Nightlight would become even MiM did not know. I preferred to focus on our time on that most improbable lake, a lake that seemed more dreamed than real, and I banished all thoughts outside the wistful perfection of the breeze that sent us forward.

  Nightlight was never very talkative, but I always understood what he was feeling. His manner of speaking was so simple and childlike. He called danger “the run-or-fight.” Grown-ups were “the Tall Ones” and children were “the Small Ones,” and he always called me “my Katherine.”

  That has changed. He speaks now in a more mature, almost-adult manner. We sail often on the lunar lake. It is where Nightlight seems happiest and most at ease. He tells me of the dream he had on our way to the Moon. This seems to have had a profound effect on him. It was his first dream, and he is astonished by the notion of dreaming—that he could experience something that feels so real but is not. In his Moondream he is not a Nightlight but a human boy, and he lives with a family. There’s a boy and a younger sister and a pair of kind and caring parents. He speaks of feeling that he belongs and is cared for and that he can be wild and free like any human child. He talks of these things as though they were exotic and amazing. He has never known that kind of life. He has always been a Nightlight, and Nightlights do the caring and protecting.

  Katherine and Nightlight

  It is poignant to listen to him describe this Moondream. I have never understood how outside of the comforting rhythms of life he has always lived. He longs for the life of, as he calls it, “a regular boy.”

  There are most unwelcome reports from the outposts at the edge of the Moon’s darkscape. Moonbot scouts have observed Pitch himself building a massive army of Nightmare Men. We are trying desperately to contact the other Guardians on Earth, but the entire planet is enshrouded in a storm of dark clouds and no communication can be made, not even with our mind-meld powers. Has Pitch’s daughter, Mother Nature, taken his side? Does she make sure the other Guardians cannot help us?

  I am so impressed with the Moon’s eccentric citizens. Their preparations for the coming battle with Pitch are inspiring. Sweet souls these creatures are, but they are also dogged, well-trained warriors. Under the Man in the Moon’s direction, they have set all their defenses around a mountain range called the Ten Bluffs. These ten mountains form a circle that surrounds a taller peak that rises in the center. Between the outer peaks is a shorter series of cliffs and escarpments that make a natural connecting wall. This wall gives the Ten Bluffs the appearance of an otherworldly castle, and the armies of the Moon know every path and crevice, every natural defensive position the rocky fortress offers.

  Along these mountainous walls the Moonbot armies stand ready. Their metal chest plates are shined and polished, and every Bot carries a light spear and a crystal sword. The Moonmice have special hideouts farther down the bluffs from which to spy upon any enemy that may approach. They carry small but potent light cannons and bombs.

  Light is the enemy of Pitch and his dark armies, so the weapons used against him have an element of concentrated phosphorescence: either from stars, our sun, comets, meteors, or the illuminates of the glowworms.

  The Moon’s glowworms are gigantic. Each is roughly the size of a train car. Despite their size, they are gentle creatures with a helpful disposition. Across their backs and stomachs run pairs of evenly spaced, brightly glowing pendants that are used to help illuminate the many tunnels and valleys of the Moon. The tips of their substantial antennae are equipped with orbs that can dim and brighten at will. These tips can also shoot concentrated bombs of light during battle, and at bedtime they make for a lovely way to read.

  Glowworms

  In addition, the glowworms can hum. Beautifully. Any tune. Eventually, glowworms evolve into the even more formidable Lunar Moths, which serve as the air force of the Moon armies. With wingspans of up to forty feet, these furry behemoths can carry a full cargo of comet rockets attached to their stomachs and as many as eight Moonbot Illumineers on their backs.

  The Moonbot Illumineers are the core of the Moon defenders. They’re tough, nearly unstoppable robots. Larger than the other Moonbots, these mechanical men were first built during the Golden Age. They continue their selfless, valiant service to the Man in the Moon, and they are now also the keepers of good dreams. Inside each Illumineer there lives a precious dream of a human child. These dreams are the internal power that sustains the Moonbots, but they are also the precious cargo that the Bots protect from all harm. A Moonbot may become too damaged or torn to move or fight, but inside its unbreakable chest plate, the child-dream will remain forever safe.

  These dreams are the long and short of why the Man in the Moon exists.

  Lunar Moths

  At troop of Moonbot Illumineers

  In these few fraught days I’ve come to understand a simple truth about the Moon and its king. All his armies and works are in pursuit of a single goal: to keep the dreams of children safe. Their hopes, their cheerful imaginings, no matter how silly or impossible, are protected and kept forever. To the Man in the Moon and his helpers, these dreams are the brightest light in all the universe and therefore the greatest force there is.

  The Earth is still covered in clouds, but we have received distressing reports. The Man in the Moon sends thousands of moonbeams down to Earth every night. Their job is to search for any signs of Earthly trouble and to chase away small bands of Nightmares. Since the storm began, none of the moonbeams had been able to make it back to the Moon, but tonight several dozen managed to break through the clouds.

  They tell us the alarming news that the four of the five great relics of the Golden Age had been stolen from the separate strongholds of the Guardians during the night of celebration after winning the War of Dreams. Nightmare Men had taken each relic. But for what purpose? These relics are the supreme source of power for the Guardians. North’s magic sword, Bunnymund’s all-powerful egg, Toothiana’s ruby box, and the Sandman’s Dreamsand.

  The Man in the Moon is deeply troubled. He is certain that Pitch himself engineered the stealing of the relics and now plans to take the fifth and last relic. If Pitch finds this last relic, MiM fears that he will be able to vanquish the Guardians, and the Moon itself will be doomed. MiM’s expression grew most severe and worried. He takes us to the remnants of his parents’ old quarters to the once-beautiful section of the Moon’s golden structures. They are scorched and melted, but we can still see their shattered grandeur. Then he tells us that Nightlight is the fifth relic, the last and most powerful relic of the Golden Age. “Within each Nightlight is the energy of a star,” MiM explained. “No other creature in the universe has more power.

  “Pitch will attack from the Moon’s shadow side,” he continued. “And he will come for Nightlight.” He says this with a certainty that cannot be dismissed.

  I’m terrified for my Nightlight, but he is calm, stoic even. Then Nightlight seemed to become somehow older, or less like a boy. “I think I always knew this deep inside my heart,” he says quietly. “It frightened me to think I had such strength.

  “I know what I must do,” he tells us. “I must dream.”

  The Man in the Moon nods. He seems to understand that this may be the key to our survival.

  MiM escorts us to his childhood bedroom. Nightlight lays upon the beautiful, ornate bed. MiM takes a handful of his own Dreamsand, saved from when, long ago, Nightlight had guarded him, and he smooths it across Nightlight’s brow. The sand works quickly. Nightlight smiles at me as he falls asleep. He lays there, still as death, but I can feel that something extraordinary is happening inside him. Waves of light radiate from him, filling the room and reflecting off the high, domed ceiling. Moonbots stand guard by the door to stop any attempt by Pitc
h to attack or abduct him. I stand next to his bed. Each wave of light gives me hope. I touch his forehead. My hand seems to glow. I stroke his unruly white hair. There is no taming it.

  Meanwhile, there is a secret mission taking place on the Moon’s Dark Side. The hope is to find Pitch’s headquarters and discover his plan of attack. Nightlight’s original moonbeam, which had lived in his staff through many a battle, will lead the mission along with six Moonmice inside a tiny flying machine, the Dark Side Obtruder. I want desperately to help, but the Man in the Moon has forbidden me to do so. It is too dangerous, he says.

  “Besides,” he tells me, “your—courage is large, but the ship is small.”

  I hate that he is correct.

  The Moonmice and a moonbeam came to me after dinner. (A delicious green cheese omelet. Apparently, a herd of several cows from the Milky Way jumped over the Moon, and several landed here. Now these Moon cows supply much of the Moon’s fabled green cheese.) The lead Moonmouse, First Officer Muffet, described to me an interesting plan that, if implemented, would make my joining their mission possible (despite the Man in the Moon’s concerns). Evidently, they have at their disposal a sort of shrink ray that can be used to reduce my size to that of a mouse! I am instantly hopeful—I’d be able to fit in the Dark Side Obtruder. They insist that I go on this mission because:

  1. They like me.

  2. They think I’m smart.

  3. They think I’m brave.

  4. They like me.

  5. What the Man in the Moon doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

  How can I argue?

  I am to be shrunk at bedtime, and we leave at midnight. Fingers of every size are crossed.

  The shrink ray worked splendidly! I am exactly 2.75 inches tall. Luckily, the ray shrank my clothes as well. The moonbeam and the mice hid me in the back of the Dark Side Obtruder, so when the Man in the Moon bid the ship and crew good luck, I remained undetected.

  The obtruder is an ingenious little vessel—compact, swift, stealthy, and about the size of an adult’s shoe. I sat just behind the moonbeam while he steered, and the Moonmice sat in pairs behind us, reading maps, making calculations, and doing other spyish busywork. We traveled at several hundred feet above the lunar surface until we reached the edge of the Dark Side, then we descended quickly to just a few feet over the shadowy ground. There, we stayed above the surface, rising and swaying among the irregular rocks and craters. This side of the Moon is always in dark twilight, and there is an unmistakably haunted quality to the landscape.

  All the tunnels to the Dark Side were sealed long ago for no other reason than the region felt so mournful and bleak. These uneasy feelings gave way to an urgent reality, as we saw plentiful evidence to confirm that Pitch is planning a lunar Armageddon. There are curious trails twined along the powdery ground. The moonbeam dimmed himself to just an ember, and all lights within the obtruder were turned off. The moonbeam and I looked out the front windows while the Moonmice watched from the portholes as quietly as, well, mice. In the meager light the only thing that we could see clearly were the multitudes of stars above, and they gave us some comfort. Yes, even in this eerie place, the sight of stars have that power.

  As we wondered where these trails could lead to, a cluster of stars suddenly went dark. Something was blocking the sky! A giant blackness was moving toward us. We could not make out what this Thing was. It was as dark as the sky, and the only hint we had of its size and shape was from the shifting absence of the stars that it blackened.

  The moonbeam brought the obtruder to a halt. As we hovered behind a column of rocks, we could begin to make sense of this wandering blackness. It was gigantic, an irregularly shaped oval, and extending from this oval, we saw a goodly number of spiderlike legs that must have been three hundred feet in height. The Thing moved gracefully and in almost complete silence. It was walking slightly to the right of us. We assumed it had not seen us, for it continued past. We followed carefully. We were keeping pace with it when we began to hear a low rumbling from behind. Before we could turn, a vast wave of galloping shapes rolled just beneath us, a steady tide of blackness much darker than the Moonscape.

  “A herd of horses!” I whispered, astonished.

  “Miss Katherine is correct,” said First Officer Muffet.

  “A herd of actual Nightmares,” said Ensign Tuffet, another ranking Moonmouse on our mission.

  The Dark Side Crawler aka the Nightmare Cyclops Spider

  Nightmares indeed! And each one ridden by a Nightmare Man. I looked at the moonbeam in alarm. Communication with the Man in the Moon or anyone on the Bright Side of the Moon is impossible from the Dark Side, so we had to sneak away as soon as possible and sound the alarm.

  “How can we find out more?” I asked the moonbeam.

  The moonbeam nodded to the Moonmice, then piloted the obtruder closer to the main body of the giant spider craft. It was picking its way at a steady pace toward the border of the Moon’s Bright Side.

  Once we were within a dozen feet of the spider, we saw the craft was literally coated with thousands of Nightmare Men and other creatures of the night, churning and swaying as the spider glided along. We edged even closer, our small size and the darkness keeping us from being detected. There appeared to be a round window at the front of the body of the spider craft. In the window’s glow we saw the silhouette of a figure. This gave the craft the appearance of having a single large eye. Then I realized that the figure at the center of this evil eye was Pitch himself!

  “Only Pitch could conceive of a thing so fearsome,” murmured Ensign Tuffet.

  “A Nightmare Cyclops Spider,” First Officer Muffet added with a shudder.

  I was frightened too. Still, I urged the moonbeam to go closer. “We must see if he has the four relics,” I explained.

  The moonbeam, ever brave, inched us to the outside edge of the window. As we hovered, he rotated the obtruder so that we were better able to see inside. In the center of the dark oval room was a large, strangely shaped container riveted to the floor with a series of hulking bolts. The material it was made of—at least its outside—I recognized! I pressed against the window of our obtruder for a better look, and then I was certain. The container was molded from the Nightmare Rock that I had been imprisoned within when Pitch had tried to make me his Darkling Daughter. I pulled away from the window, a chill running through me.

  What was Pitch using it for now?

  I thought hard. The rock was made of dark matter—the only substance that can block the light that makes him vulnerable. I thought harder. The light Pitch fears most is emitted from the relics! The relics glow with Golden Age light—it is one of the most powerful weapons against him. I pressed against the window once more. The shape of this container was so odd, with lumps and curves and juts of pointed ridges. It looked like a cluster of things, not a single thing.

  “Yes, yes! A cluster of things. Of relics!” I cried.

  “He must cover the relics with dark matter to shield himself from the light they throw,” I thought out loud. “But how will he use them against the Man in the Moon and his troops? Golden Age light makes them stronger.”

  “The Man in the Moon will understand what it means,” First Officer Muffet suggested.

  “We’ve seen enough,” Ensign Tuffet agreed.

  The moonbeam shifted into full throttle, and we sped away.

  We crossed the border out of the Dark Side and were now flying toward the fortress of the Ten Bluffs. First Officer Muffet and Ensign Tuffet were trying to radio ahead to MiM, to anyone, word of what we’d seen.

  But there was something amiss.

  The mice were shouting (as much as mice can shout) into their radio sets. Their comically high voices sounded urgent, almost angry. They were talking very fast, repeating phrases again and again. Their words were running together like a recording played at too fast a speed.

  “Doyoureadme?Doyoureadme?TenBluffsdoyoureadmeover?!Overover!!”

  “Whattheheckistheprob
lemwhycan’twegetthrough!!”

  “Whywhywhywhywhywhywhy?!”

  “BeatsmeIdunnoIdunnoIdunnoIdunno!”

  “I’mstressedI’mstressedI’mstressed!”

  “MetooMetooMetooMeeeeeetoooooo!”

  “What’s wrong?” I tried to ask, and all six mice began answering me at once while madly flicking at switches and knobs and levers.

  “Wedon’tknowit’sinterferenceinterferenceinterference!!”

  “Pitchit’sPitchit’sPitchmustbePitchPitchPitchPitch!!!”

  I looked at the moonbeam. He was flickering at full tilt. We all sensed it—something was in the air. Strangely, I was not fearful. I could tell that the moonbeam wasn’t either. Can it be that I feel Nightlight’s presence? Then the sky above us brightened with waves of light, exactly like the ones in the chamber where Nightlight was dreaming.

  Our engine suddenly went silent. Everything in the ship stopped working. We lost all power! Yet the moonbeam stayed calm and steadily piloted us closer and closer to the ground. We were gliding downward at an alarming speed, just missing rocks and craters.

  “Deadmicedeadmicedeadmiceohwellohwellohwell,” the mice were murmuring.

  We were mere feet above the ground now. The moonbeam found a stretch of smooth, sandy surface, and he lowered us carefully upon it. Yikes! A rock! We dodged . . . and missed it by a hairbreath . . . then . . . then . . . with jittery ease, we skimmed along the sands, skipping like a stone on water. We began to slow. It was a harsh and lurching few seconds that felt like forever. Our ship skidded into a half circle as we wobbled and swayed and finally . . . halted, facing backward. We sat still. As if frozen. Were we alive? Yes. The mice began to chatter like windup toys with springs that had sprung.

  “Thatwasclosecloseclosesooooooclose!Welivewelivewelivelivelive!”

  “Needasnack.Needasnack.Neeeeeeedaaaaasnnnack!”

  “Cheesecheesecheesecheese.”