by Colin Meloy
“Have at thee!” he shouted, applying a healthy dose of old-world accent to his words as he fought. “Stay your blade, cretin!” was also used liberally, as was “To the Overworld with you, scamp!” Prue couldn’t see his face through his helmet, but she could imagine him smiling from pink furry ear to pink furry ear.
While the enemy was thus engaged, the siege towers of the Knights Underwood had quickly made it through the first phalanx of defending soldiers and were now up against the outer wall, emitting a steady stream of knights into the first tier of the city. The multiple-pencil battering ram was pounding against the flattened colander portcullis as a multitude of knights waited impatiently behind it to pour through the gate. It held fast; one of the soldiers on salamander-back turned to Curtis and hollered, “OVERDWELLER!”
It took a moment for Curtis to find the voice among the thousands-strong throng of battling moles. “Yes?” he asked when he’d finally found the source.
“WILT THOU USE THY DIVINE STRENGTH TO THROW THE PORTCULLIS?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Curtis. “No problem.”
Arriving at the wall, which came up no higher than his knee, he reached around the back and, finding the edge of the gate, pulled away the flattened piece of metal. The Knights Underwood yelled a cry of victory and went rushing through the opened gate, knocking down all who stood in their way. Curtis felt a pinch on his finger as he retracted his hand from the scene; it was a red-balled sewing pin, lodged in the fleshy webbing between his thumb and forefinger.
“Ouch,” he said. He looked down; a mole from the opposing side was standing there, needle-less, pointing his snout in Curtis’s general direction. He appeared to be sniveling with fear. For a moment, Curtis briefly considered picking him up and throwing him against the wall, but the tactic seemed too brutal, too inhumane. The idea frankly disturbed him. Instead, he plucked the stuck pin from his hand and tossed it across the chamber. “Watch it,” he said to the mole, who scurried off into the fray.
The Knights Underwood, however, were not so merciful to their foes. Sir Timothy’s warning, that the denizens of the city turn against the forces of Dennis the Usurper or die by the Knights’ swords, was carried out with a marked consistency. Curtis blanched as he watched the moles pile into their enemies, tearing them apart with every weapon or instrument at their disposal. Blood ran freely in the gutters of the city’s narrow streets; screams of anguished pain curdled the air. A baby mole, separated from its parents, sat on a side street and howled in fear; a mole in a blood-spattered dress stood in the doorway of a burning building and wept loudly over the body of a fallen soldier. Curtis looked over at Prue, who had stopped acting wrathful completely and was instead watching the proceedings with a look of disgust and pity.
“Ugh,” she said. “This is terrible.”
Curtis walked back to where she stood at the edge of the chamber and joined her in her witness of the events. The moles had broken through the second wall of the city; thin streams of smoke were now curling up from several houses and churches. The cacophony of the battle, the clashing of pins and bottle caps, echoed in the air.
“Can we stop it?” ventured Prue.
Curtis looked around; the streets of the city were swarming with frenzied warrior moles. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think we just have to let it run its course.”
The third wall had been breached. The lifeless bodies of fallen moles curled limply over the ramparts.
“We have to,” said Prue. Bent on the task, she approached the City of Moles, carefully watching each footfall so as to avoid adding any undue bloodshed to the chaos. She stepped easily over the first wall; the streets at this level were nearly deserted, save for a few moaning wounded; the thrust of the battle had forced most of the defenders up to the apex of the city. She crossed the second wall, then arrived at the third; the city here was too dense to allow the foot traffic of a human. Instead, she stopped and addressed the warring moles. “STOP!” she yelled. They weren’t listening.
Gathering a deep breath, she summoned as much volume as she could muster: “STOP!”
Again, no response. The moles, lost in a stupor of violence and bloodlust, could not hear her. A group of defending moles were launching flaming arrows down onto the approaching army; a detachment of reinforcements were making their way down the spiraling streets to join their brothers-in-arms at the fray. Prue looked up to the very top of the tower in the center of the city and saw a single mole, dressed in what looked to be pajamas, taking in the goings-on indifferently.
“You!” she yelled. Even accounting for the diminutive footprint of the mole city, she was still easily fifteen feet away from the tower’s top.
The mole seemed to have heard her. He flinched a little and pointed his eyeless snout in her direction.
“You make this stop!” she called. She could only guess at the mole’s authority; the fact that he was neither fighting nor particularly disturbed by the untold number of deaths occurring at his feet led her to believe that he was someone of importance.
The mole, hearing her words, only shrugged. The war continued to wage.
“NOW!” she cried. She could feel her face contort as an unmitigated rage overtook her. The mole in the tower, evidently sensing her anger, gave a little squeak; he turned and ran for the cover of the tower’s inner chamber.
“No you don’t,” hissed Prue, and she began climbing the pyramid of the mole city.
As her feet came down on the framework of the structures, she could feel them start to give way; it was clear that the city had not been built to withstand the weight of humans. Nonetheless, with every building, hovel, and home that was destroyed beneath her boot, she decided that it was all for the good of peace. The battle below her fell into a lull as each mole, regardless of their alliance, stopped to witness the massive Overdweller step across their heads and approach the Fortress of Fanggg. Arriving at the base of the tower, she braced herself against the aluminum shaft and stood, her eyes arriving at the level of the cupola.
Inside the dome she saw what appeared to be an ornate bedroom. Resplendent tapestries lined the walls. A miniature four-poster bed stood in the center of the room. It was there that Prue saw the pajamaed mole; or rather, she saw him under the bedsheets, creating a kind of mole-sized lump on the bed, a lump that was quivering with fear.
“Out of there, you,” said Prue. “I can see you perfectly.”
“NO THANKS,” said the mole. “I’LL JUST STAY HERE.”
“No you won’t,” said Prue, and she reached her arm into the bedroom and flicked the covers aside, revealing the cowering mole. Before he was able to scurry away, she’d picked him up by the hem of his pajama pants and pulled him, screaming, from the protection of the cupola. She held him that way, dangling from her fingers, and brought him close to her face so she could better inspect him.
“Are you Dennis the Usurper?” she asked.
“NO, I’M NOT,” said the mole. His voice was struck through with fear.
“YES, HE IS,” came a voice from Prue’s feet. She looked down; it was one of the knights. The fighting had stopped as both sides looked on at Prue’s interrogation of the mole. “THAT’S HIM, ALL RIGHT. I’D KNOW THAT VOICE ANYWHERE.”
Dennis Mole seemed to curse his luck; he kicked impotently in Prue’s grasp.
“I want you to stop this,” said Prue, trying to look the mole in the eyes, despite the fact that he didn’t really have them. “I want you to tell your soldiers to lay off.”
“REALLY? I MEAN, NOW?”
Prue swung her arm around in a quick, fluid motion; she dangled him high above the clutter of the city streets. The soldiers below gasped; Dennis shrieked. A little wet spot developed in the crotch of his pajamas.
“I’ll do it,” said Prue. “I’m not above sacrificing one mole for the good of the entire city.”
“OKAY, OKAY,” sputtered Dennis. He waved his little arms above the gathered crowd below. “I GIVE IN! YOU CAN HAVE YOUR STUPID FORTRES
S OF FANGGG BACK.”
The cheer that met this proclamation, even issuing from such small creatures as the moles, was overwhelming. Whatever noise the battling armies had created during the siege was dwarfed by this one unified shout of pure joy. The Knights Underwood hefted their swords and halberds; the army of Dennis the Usurper threw down their weapons in a shower of tiny metal instruments. The two sides rushed together at the declaration of peace; long-separated family members were reunited; friends rent asunder by the division were once more trading hugs and handshakes. The scene was so moving to Prue that she nearly forgot she still had Dennis suspended in the air by her fingers.
“SO CAN YOU LET ME DOWN NOW?” he asked.
“Oh, sure.” She paused, eyeing the former despot warily. “Though I think I should probably hand you over to the authorities. Where’s Sir Timothy?”
A cry came from the crowd at her feet. “MAKE WAY! MAKE WAY!”
The tone of the celebrations suddenly grew somber; Prue turned to see the gathered armies part to allow passage to a group of stalwart knights bearing a makeshift stretcher on their shoulders; on the stretcher was none other than the still body of High Master Commander Sir Timothy. Septimus walked at the head of the procession, his patchwork armor stained in the blood of the fallen. As the moles recognized the nature of the procession, they each in turn fell to their knees in mournful silence. Prue put her hand to her mouth.
“Is he okay?” she asked.
Septimus removed his helmet and threw it to the ground. His brow was drenched with sweat. He shook his head sadly in response to the question.
“HE’S GRAVELY WOUNDED,” responded the Seer Bartholomew, who stood by the rat.
The sound of weeping could be heard welling up from the crowd; a few shouted, “NOT SIR TIMOTHY!”
“We were side by side at the end there,” recounted Septimus. “Fought like a true hero.”
The stretcher was placed in the middle of a city square, just beyond the third wall. The surviving knights gathered around it. Prue, holding Dennis Mole’s pajama bottoms tightly in her fingers, knelt down. Sir Timothy was struggling to speak.
“ARE WE,” he said, his voice brittle and quiet, “ARE WE VICTORIOUS?”
A knight at his side choked back his tears and said, “YES, SIR TIMOTHY. THE DAY IS OURS.”
A faint smile played across the lips of the wounded mole. “IS THE OVERDWELLER WARRIOR STILL BY MY SIDE?”
Septimus stepped forward and took his hand. “Yes, Sir Timothy.”
The knight smiled warmly at his battle companion. “WHAT OF YOUR FELLOW DEITIES? HAVE THEY SURVIVED?”
Prue looked over at Curtis, who’d been hovering just beyond the outer wall. She gestured with her head; he should hear this. Curtis nodded and gingerly stepped into the mole city, trying to avoid further disturbance to the ravaged streets of the metropolis. He joined Prue, though there was little room for them both to kneel down.
Another furor was taking place; shouts sounded from within the Fortress of Fanggg. Within moments, a troop of Knights Underwood appeared from one of the lower portals, leading a mole in a white robe. The crowd surrounding Sir Timothy’s stretcher hushed; someone said, “THE SIBYL!” As soon as she saw the wounded knight, the robed mole overtook her liberators and ran to his side.
“GWENDOLYN!” said Sir Timothy, after feeling her paws touch the bloodied metal of his armor.
“BROTHER, IT IS I.” The mole was fighting tears.
“GOOD SISTER,” said Sir Timothy, “YOU ARE FREED. IT IS THE THING I MOST DESIRED. I GO NOW, SISTER, TO THE OVERWORLD, TO THE BOSOM OF THE OVERDWELLERS.”
“SWEET TIMOTHY,” said Gwendolyn, “SWEET, BRAVE TIMOTHY. YOU HAVE NOT GIVEN YOUR LIFE IN VAIN. YOU HAVE FREED YOUR PEOPLE FROM THE THUMB OF THEIR OPPRESSOR. YOU HAVE FREED ME FROM MY SERVITUDE. YOU HAVE LIVED A VALIANT LIFE; YOU GO TO THE OVERWORLD IN GLORY.”
Sir Timothy attempted a smile, though his face fell as the racking of a cough overcame him. Little flecks of blood speckled his worn armor. “OVERDWELLERS,” he said, beckoning to Prue and Curtis. “COME CLOSE.”
The two children did as they were told. Septimus kneeled at the dying knight’s side.
“YOUR DIVINE PRESENCE WON US THIS DAY. WHILE IN MY HEART OF HEARTS I NEVER DOUBTED THE JUSTICE OF OUR STRUGGLE, YOUR APPEARANCE, YOUR REVELATION, CONFIRMED MY GREATEST HOPES. PERHAPS WE FOUR WILL BE REUNITED WHEN I WALK AMONG THE GODS IN THE OVERWORLD.”
Prue found that she was fighting tears. “Sure, Sir Timothy,” she said. “We’ll do that.” It seemed like an inappropriate time to lay bare the real nature of the so-called Overworld. There was no sense in disturbing the brave knight’s solace.
Holding his sister’s paw tightly, their long, fleshy fingers intertwined, the knight turned his face to the sky. As if compelled, the velvety fur of his face contracted and he seemed to be endeavoring to open his eyes. Two tiny black dots appeared on the fur of his face as his brow contracted. “I SEE,” he rasped, in delirium. “I … SEE!”
And then he spoke no more.
It was, no doubt about it, a road. Rachel stood in the middle of it with her arms akimbo. She kicked at the dirt, as if testing its realness. Then she turned to her sister.
“Yep,” she said. “It’s a road, all right.”
“What do we do now?” Elsie was sitting on the remains of a tree stump, taking a bite out of a crisp apple.
“Wonder where it goes?” asked Rachel, having ignored her sister’s question.
Elsie supplied her own answer. “We should find Michael and Cynthia,” she said.
“Right,” said Rachel, snapping from her trance. “We should.”
It had taken a while for Elsie to find her sister in that maze of woods, but once she did, she was able to lead her back to the road with some ease—she’d marked the way by tying little strands of ivy to the tree trunks that lined the rabbit’s path. Having confirmed the existence of the road, the two sisters dove back into the veil of woods and began following the waymarks back to the interior of the Periphery. They hollered the names of their hunting companions as they went. Before long, they found the two teenagers setting a little wire trap beneath a tussock of branches.
“What’s up?” asked Michael when they’d arrived, all breathless and flushed.
“A road!” Elsie blurted.
“Elsie found it,” added Rachel. “It’s not far.”
Cynthia shot Michael a glance. “That’s not possible,” she said.
“I swear,” said Elsie. “It’s really there.”
“We’ve been over every square inch of this godforsaken place. We ain’t never seen a road.” Michael was coiling some wire at his hip as he spoke; he hadn’t actually used the word godforsaken but rather another word that Elsie had only heard aloud once before. Her father had dropped the lid of a Dutch oven on his foot; the word had resounded throughout the house.
“What, are you calling my sister a liar?” asked Rachel, suddenly annoyed by the older kids’ attitudes.
“Don’t get all worked up,” said Michael, laughing. “I’m just saying, if there was a road here, we’d have found it by now.”
“Maybe it’s a trick of the light or something,” suggested Cynthia. “Sometimes the forest can look kind of funny at certain times of the day.”
“It wasn’t,” said Rachel. “I saw it. With my own eyes.”
“Come on,” Elsie said. “Just come see it. It’s really not that far off.”
Michael looked at the two sisters calmly, measuring them up. Finally, he shook his head and continued coiling the wire. “Listen,” he said. “It’s getting late. We should really be back at the cottage. Carol’ll be expecting us. It’s getting on dinnertime.”
“Really?” asked Rachel in disbelief. “You’re not going to just come and see it?”
“We’ll set out tomorrow, promise. First thing. Then we’ll all get a good look at this road of yours.” He threw his arm over Elsie’s shoulder and gave her a little rub on her hair with his knuckl
es. “Plus, you got a line of kids waiting for those dolls you make; you got some work to do.”
Elsie smiled briefly, then said, “But we’ll go see the road tomorrow?”
“Promise,” said Michael.
“A road? What, like a paved road?”
Carol had paused in mid-puff and was staring in the direction of the two girls’ voices, his pipe poised only inches from his lips. It seemed to be frozen there, as if it too was suspended in the same gel as the movement of time in the Periphery.
Elsie looked at her sister hesitantly; she sipped at her mint tea. She and Rachel, with the two teenaged hunters, had cornered Carol after they’d bused the dirty plates from the house’s five dinner tables and stacked them on the counter by the sink. Two boys laughed quietly over some shared joke as they ran the dishes through the soapy water. The younger children had been sent to their beds; the older children were scattered about the house, enjoying the last few moments of the evening.
“Not paved, so much,” said Rachel. “More like a gravel road. Or maybe there were some stones there. It looked like it’d been there for a long time.”
The two wooden eyes shifted in Carol’s head; still, in the half-light of the candles, they showed two bright blue irises. Elsie could even see the brush marks.
“And there was a pillarlike thing, like a mile marker or something. On the other side.” This was Elsie.
Michael had remained silent for most of the conversation; he, too, was packing his pipe with tobacco. The boy finally spoke up. “What did it say? Did it have anything on it?”
Rachel nodded; she’d seen it up close. When Elsie had brought her to the site of the road, she’d mentally jotted down the carved insignia in her explorations. “An arrow, with a picture of a bird,” she said.
