"It's not helping the grand plan. I have enough to overcome as it is. And you reap what you sow, Solovet," said Ripred.
"Is this what you came to tell me, Ripred?" Solovet said, unmoved.
"No. You know what you're doing. Or at least you flatter yourself you do. I came to deliver Twitchtip and to teach Gregor another trick he can't learn from you." Ripred stuck an entire loaf of bread in his mouth and pushed back from the table. "Ready, boy?"
"For what?" Gregor asked, watching the crumbs fly out of Ripred's mouth.
"Your first lesson," Ripred said with a big gulp. "It starts now."
***
CHAPTER 9
"Echolocation?" Gregor said blankly. "You're going to teach me echolocation?" He was standing in a circular cave somewhere deep beneath Regalia with nothing but his mini flashlight.
Ripred slouched against a wall. Even for a rat, he had terrible posture. When he fought, everything in his body seemed to align and crackle with energy and power. The rest of the time, he wasn't much to look at. He reminded Gregor of one of those big baseball pitchers who kind of lumber around with their stomachs almost popping off their uniform buttons. You wouldn't bet they could make it around the bases without having to stop and catch their breath. But put them on the pitcher's mound and they'd fire off a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball that left the batter cross-eyed.
As if even slouching had been too much of an effort for him, Ripred slid down and lounged along the wall of the cave. "Yes, echolocation. Tell me what you know about it."
"I know bats use it. And dolphins, maybe. It's like radar. They make a sound and it bounces off of something and they can tell where it is without seeing it," said Gregor. "But people can't do that. I can't do that."
"Anybody can do it, to some extent. In the Overland, some blind people use it with excellent results," said Ripred. "The Underland humans don't give it much attention, but in this, they are fools. All the rest of us down here use it to some degree."
"You mean, the roaches and the spiders and --" started Gregor.
"All of us. Generations in the dark have helped the skill evolve. But if you could master even the most rudimentary elements of it, echolocation would be invaluable to you," said Ripred. "Say, for instance, if you lost your light in a cave with a rat." Gregor saw Ripred's tail coming, and his hand lifted to block it, but the rat was ahead of him this time. It was actually his hind foot that smacked the flashlight out of Gregor's hand and sent it spinning into the cave wall twenty feet away. The beam pointed into the stone, leaving them virtually in the dark.
Ripred's voice startled him. "And now I'm back here," the rat said from behind him. Gregor whipped around and, from somewhere off to his left, Ripred whispered, "Over here now."
The flashlight came spinning back across the floor and bumped into Gregor's feet. He picked it up and saw the rat was again slouching against the wall, on the far side of the cave from where the flashlight had been.
"So teach me," Gregor said, unnerved.
Ripred began by having him close his eyes and make a clicking sound, bouncing his tongue off the roof of his mouth. Then he had to listen very carefully to how it sounded. It was supposed to sound differently when he directed it toward a cave wall than when he directed it at Ripred. Then Ripred had him turn off his flashlight and click and listen and point it wherever it sounded like the rat might be. He really did try, but he'd only had about three hours of sleep in the last two days, plus all the craziness of being back in the Underland and the prophecy and the training and --
"Focus, Overlander! This could save your life!" Ripred snarled as Gregor miscalculated his position for the tenth time in a row.
"This is stupid, Ripred -- it all sounds the same to me!" Gregor snapped back. "I can't do it, okay?"
"No, not okay. You will practice. Every time you get a chance down here and when you go home, if you get home, whenever you can," ordered Ripred. "You may not master it, but clearly you can only improve!"
"Okay. Fine. I'll practice. Are we done?" Gregor asked with some attitude. He'd about had it with the rat.
Suddenly Ripred's nose was inches from his own. The rat's eyes were narrowed in anger.
"Listen, Warrior," he hissed. "One day you will find that it matters not if you can hit three thousand blood balls if you cannot locate one in the dark. Understand?"
"Yeah," Gregor managed to get out. Ripred didn't move. "So, I'll practice. I will," said Gregor. "For real."
"Good. Now let's go get some sleep. We're both done in," said Ripred.
As they silently made their way back toward the city, Gregor wondered if Ripred would think twice about killing him. When they had been on the quest to get his dad, Ripred had kept him alive because they had mutual need: Gregor needed Ripred to find his dad. Ripred needed Gregor to help defeat King Gorger so that he could be the leader of the rats someday. Ripred must still need Gregor for "The Prophecy of Bane." But when Gregor had stopped being of use to the rat, would he be expendable?
Gregor's feet dragged as he climbed up the flights of stairs toward where he thought his bedroom was. It was very late here -- probably about the time he'd come into the city the previous night -- and everyone was asleep. He got lost and couldn't find anyone to give him directions. As he was wandering around, looking for a guard, he came upon the wooden door that shut off the room filled with Sandwich's prophecies.
The door was cracked open. This was strange; he thought they kept it locked all the time. Someone must be inside. He pushed the door open wider and stepped in. "Hello? Anybody in here?"
At first he thought the room was empty. The lamp was still lit under "The Prophecy of Bane," but no one appeared to be reading it. Then he heard a faint rustling sound in the far corner, and she stepped into the light.
"Oh!" Gregor jumped, not just because he was startled but because the sight of her was spooky. He had only seen Nerissa Once. She had been saying good-bye to her brother, Henry, as they left on the quest. He remembered she was very thin and seemed nervous. She had given him a copy of "The Prophecy of Gray" to take on his journey. Luxa had told him she could see the future or something.
If she had been thin before, she was now emaciated. Her eyes shone huge and hollow in the torchlight. Where Luxa had lilac circles under her eyes, Nerissa's were underscored with dark purple crescents. Her hair, which fell down far below her waist, was loose and tangled. Even though she was wrapped in a thick cloak, she acted like she was freezing.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to -- I'm just -- I was just looking for sleeping -- I mean, looking for where I sleep. My bedroom. Sorry." Gregor started to back out of the room.
"No, wait, Overlander," Nerissa said in a tremulous voice. "Stay a moment."
"Oh, okay, sure," Gregor said, wishing very badly he could get out of there. "So, how've you been, Nerissa?" he said, and then cringed. How did he think she'd been?
"I have been unwell," Nerissa said tiredly. But it was not self-pitying, which somehow made it sadder.
"Look, I'm sorry about your brother, about Henry," said Gregor.
"I think it is best he is dead," said Nerissa.
"You do?" Gregor said, taken aback by her bluntness.
"When one considers the alternatives," said Nerissa. "Had he been successful in banding with the gnawers, we would all be dead. You, your sister, your father. All of my people. Henry, too. But, of course, I miss him greatly."
Well, she might be a wreck, but Nerissa was not afraid to look things in the eye. "Do you know why he did it?" Gregor ventured to ask.
"He was afraid. I know that. And I think somehow in his mind he felt that joining with the rats would give him the security he longed for," said Nerissa.
"He was wrong," said Gregor.
"Was he?" Nerissa said, and she smiled. Which was extra spooky.
"I thought so. Didn't you just say...if he'd got his way, we'd all be dead?" said Gregor. Maybe she was kind of crazy, after all.
"Oh, yes. His methods were
undoubtedly flawed." Nerissa lost interest in their conversation and wandered over to "The Prophecy of Bane." Her bony fingers reached up and ran slowly across the letters, as if she were reading Braille. "And what of you, Warrior? Are you ready to face the Bane?"
The Bane. Ripred had said something about the Bane. "You mean...the prophecy?" Gregor asked, confused.
"Vikus did not tell you? We call the white rat 'the Bane,'" said Nerissa. "Do you know what that means?"
"Not exactly," Gregor admitted. - "It means a scourge," said Nerissa.
Wow, that was helpful. A scourge. "Still not clear," said Gregor.
"A calamity, an affliction." Nerissa searched his face for signs of understanding. "A very bad thing," she said finally.
"Oh, I got you," said Gregor. "Well, yeah, the rat. Vikus says I'm a threat to it or something. I'm supposed to help you guys kill it."
Nerissa looked bewildered. "Help us? Oh, no, Gregor, you must drain its light. See, it is written here." Her fingers rapidly passed over a line on the wall.
Will the warrior drain your light?
When Vikus had gone over the prophecy the night before, Gregor had been so consumed with the rats wanting to kill Boots, he hadn't focused much on this line. And Vikus hadn't elaborated. For the Underlanders, the word "light" was interchangeable with the word "life." So, when they talked about draining something's light, they meant killing it. The mission was to kill the Bane. He knew that. But Gregor had assumed the Underlanders would send a lot of soldiers with him. Trained soldiers.
The line pounded into his brain.
Will the warrior drain your light?
Gregor began to get a very bad feeling. "Oh, man," he said. "You mean, there's this giant white rat...and you guys expect me to...by myself...you mean, I'm supposed to..."
PART 2: The Hunt
***
CHAPTER 10
Maybe you didn't actually have to have sleep. Maybe it was something people got used to having, and thought they needed, but could really get by without. Gregor hoped so, because despite his complete state of exhaustion, he'd just spent the night without a wink of it.
Mostly he'd been trying to imagine the big white rat he was supposed to kill by himself. A rat much larger and, presumably, stronger than Ripred. So Gregor figured the Bane was at least twice as tall as he was and probably weighed, oh, nine or ten times as much. Who cared if Gregor could hit a bunch of blood balls? This thing would squash him like a fly.
Of course, Vikus hadn't gone into any detail about it. The same way he had never really spent much time dwelling on the fact that four of the twelve questers would be dead when "The Prophecy of Gray" was fulfilled. He had a way of sidestepping issues he thought Gregor couldn't handle. How long would Vikus have put off telling him he had to kill the Bane alone? As long as possible. Gregor pictured himself gaping in terror at the salivating white giant while Vikus tapped him on the shoulder and said in an upbeat voice, "Oh, yes, and by the way, according to Sandwich, you have to kill him single-handedly. Off you go, then!"
Gregor remembered when he was standing in Central Park, barely over a day ago, and how his biggest worry had been how they were going to afford Christmas presents. Nothing like one of Sandwich's prophecies to put your whole world in perspective.
He shifted his chin to his other hand and tried to focus on the babble of voices around the stone table. Vikus had called a council meeting to discuss his journey to find and kill the Bane. The council was a group of older Underlanders who would govern Regalia by committee until Luxa turned sixteen and was of age to rule.
The only thing the members agreed on was that Gregor needed to get moving as soon as possible. Since the rats knew that Gregor and Boots were in the Underland again, they would surely take extra measures to conceal the Bane and hunt down his sister.
Apparently Regalian spies also had brand-new information and had just locked in on an area where they thought the white rat was hiding. Although none of them had personally seen the creature, their sources indicated it was in a place called the Labyrinth. The word meant nothing to Gregor, but Ares whispered to him that a labyrinth was a maze. Lizzie and her puzzle book flashed before his eyes. She would be so much better than he would at finding her way around a maze. Thinking of Lizzie made him think of the rest of his family waiting and wondering above, and the thought was unbearable.
"Yeah, let's get going. The sooner the better!" Gregor said, and everyone looked at him in surprise since it was the first thing he'd said all morning and the council was currently talking about which way to travel to the Labyrinth.
Although they examined several options, every route that went through the web of Underland tunnels was judged too dangerous. While the humans controlled a much wider range of the Underland than they had before the war, the Labyrinth was situated in a remote corner of the rats' land. So remote, in fact, that most rats never even went there. But if they had the Bane there, it was sure to be guarded.
"That leaves the Waterway," Vikus said with a frown. "It is not ideal, but it is the least treacherous."
"What of the serpents? Their mating season is nigh," said Howard. Gregor didn't know why Luxa's cousin had been allowed in the meeting. He was just supposed to be on a family visit.
"A good point," agreed Vikus. "And yet another reason to begin the journey at once. Perhaps the party can slip by before the serpents awaken."
"Yippee, serpents," Gregor thought, and he remembered a twenty-foot spiked tail he'd seen flipping out of the Waterway when Ares was flying them home. He wondered what was attached to the tail.
"Now, Gregor, there is something we need to address," said Vikus. "It is the opinion of the council that Boots should remain under guard in Regalia while you pursue the Bane."
Gregor had anticipated this coming up. It would be terribly dangerous taking Boots on another Underland trip. But how could he leave her here when he had seen Ripred and Twitchtip get into the arena so easily? Sure, Ripred was extra smart, but none of the rats seemed dumb. He and Boots would stay together, like his mom always told them to do.
"She's coming with me or I don't go. End of discussion," said Gregor. He knew this sounded uppity, but at this point he was too tired to care.
There was a pause in which everyone glanced around, acknowledging that this had been out of line. But what were they going to do?
Vikus sent him off to prepare for the journey. He went to the museum to look for some light sources. The museum was full of stuff that had fallen from Gregor's world. There were a lot of cool, really old things, like a wheel from a horse-drawn carriage, an actual quiver still filled with arrows, a silver mug, a cuckoo clock, a top hat. More recent items, like wallets, jewelry, and watches, were neatly laid out in rows. There were lots of good flashlights, probably because anyone who had been in the tunnels below New York City would have needed one. Gregor selected four and dug out a lot of batteries.
A couple of life jackets caught his eye, and he took these, too. The last time, they had been traveling through stone tunnels. This time, he guessed they would be flying over the Waterway. Boots was too little to know how to swim. He added to his supplies a roll of duct tape and a couple of candy bars that didn't seem too stale.
As he was leaving, he saw their regular clothes folded in two neat stacks by the door. Vikus must've said it was okay to keep them. Gregor didn't care what they smelled like; he was wearing his boots.
When he went by the nursery to collect Boots, he was told that Dulcet had already taken her down to the river. That was to be their departure point.
Gregor thought that made sense, since flying down the river had to be the quickest way to get to the Waterway. But when he reached the docks, he saw a team of Underlanders loading up two boats that were suspended by ropes at dock level above the river. They were long, narrow vessels that reminded him of boats he'd seen in the museum back home, boats Native Americans had used hundreds of years ago. But secured to the bottom of each was a large gray triangular fin
-- a real fish fin-- that must've come off a whopper of a swordfish or something. Strapped along the sides of the boats were more fins that could be extended and retracted horizontally as needed. A curved bone was attached to the back of each boat as a rudder.
"What's with the boats?" he asked Vikus, who was overseeing the loading. "Aren't we taking the bats?"
"Ah, yes, but the Waterway is vast and provides few hospitable places to rest. No bat would have the stamina to cross it, so much of your trip must be by sea," said Vikus.
Gregor didn't know much about boating except that, compared to flying, it was slow. It was going to take forever to get to the Bane by water.
Just then, Twitchtip slunk out onto the dock. "Oh, great," thought Gregor. "I bet I end up riding with the crazy rat."
Dulcet helped him secure the life jacket on Boots. It was too big, really, but they belted it on as best they could. Gregor wasn't sure what to do with the second jacket -- he could swim pretty well -- until he saw Temp shivering at the edge of the dock, looking at the churning river below.
"Hey, Temp, are you going with us?" he asked.
"Vikus says I may, he says," said Temp. So Gregor put the extra jacket on Temp. The bug allowed it because the princess was wearing one, too, and because Gregor got through to him that it would help him float.
As he stood up from strapping Temp in, he saw Luxa, Solovet, Mareth, and Howard come out of the palace. Luxa and Solovet were wearing gowns, not the long pants they had traveled in before.
"Wait a minute -- you're going with us, right?" Gregor said to Luxa.
"No, Gregor, I cannot. I was only allowed to join you on the first quest because 'The Prophecy of Gray' dictated it. This has been deemed too unnecessarily dangerous for a queen," Luxa said, glancing at Vikus.
Gregor thought she at least could have put up an argument. Maybe even Luxa wasn't keen on chasing down the Bane. It made him kind of mad, though.
"So, who's going, then?" asked Gregor.
"Well, first you should know that we had no lack of volunteers," Vikus said, as if to reassure Gregor that this was going to be a guaranteed good time. "But the openings were very limited. Besides yourself, Ares, Boots, Temp, and Twitchtip, we will be sending Mareth and Howard and their fliers."