Gregor and the Code of Claw

  "Yes," Nerissa said, making her way to the door by supporting herself against the wall. "Yes."

  "Nerissa, you have been invaluable today," added Ripred, and she acknowledged this with a nod.

  Boy, the rat really was in good spirits if he was complimenting Nerissa! If Ripred was happy, Gregor was not. But he knew that arguing with Lizzie at this point was no good. And Ripred had made up his mind to keep her.

  A couple of Underlanders came in wheeling carts of steaming food, and Gregor realized how hungry he was. He made a gigantic roast beef sandwich smothered in mushrooms and sat back against the wall to try to figure out another plan while he washed it down with a quart of milk.

  Lizzie, whose stomach was also empty, took a slice of buttered bread at Ripred's insistence. "Now come and meet the rest of the code team," said the rat, wrapping his tail around her and guiding her around the room. "I know they all must look very strange to you, but believe me, you've got more in common with them than you do with Prince Gregor over there."

  "Why?" asked Lizzie, shooting a nervous look back at Gregor.

  "Because you think alike," said Ripred. "Oh, by the way, you don't sing, do you?"

  "Not much. I don't like music with words," said Lizzie.

  An audible sigh of relief came from around the room.

  "Good. Good," said Ripred. Then he leaned and whispered in Lizzie's ear so Gregor could barely hear it. "You'll have to be patient with some of them. They're very shy."

  It was the perfect thing to say to Lizzie, who could be almost crippled by shyness herself. She'd always had great difficulty making friends. To be honest, she'd only ever had one friend, a weird kid named Jedidiah. He was in her grade at school and, like Lizzie, way beyond the other kids academically. He was just eight, but he could tell you how anything worked. A car, a telephone, a computer. Once, when he'd come over for a play date, he'd spent, like, an hour talking about their oven. Gregor had finally taken the pair of them out to the playground and tried to get a game of kick-ball going. Lizzie got cold and Jedidiah became fascinated with a traffic light. It was hopeless. Also, Jedidiah always insisted on calling Lizzie by her full name, Elizabeth, and got very upset if you called him Jed or something. Listening to the two of them having a conversation made Gregor feel like he was hanging out with a couple of Pilgrims. "What do you think, Jedidiah?" "I do not know, Elizabeth." Still, the whole family was grateful for Jedidiah. If it weren't for him, Lizzie would have no friends at all.

  The fact that the other code-breakers were also shy seemed to give Lizzie courage. She gave them each a polite "hello" as they were introduced. They must have liked her, because they began to come out of their rooms. Daedalus fluttered out almost at once, but bats and humans were most comfortable with one another. Min emerged slowly. She was an old cockroach, so old in fact that she made creaking noises when she walked, and her shell had a funny grayish tint to it. Heronian struggled to her feet, dragged herself up to Lizzie, and gave her a little bow, to which Lizzie gingerly bowed back. And finally, Reflex delicately stepped out, greeted her, and scurried back to his web. Then Ripred took her over to the tree carved on the wall. "This is the Tree of Transmission. It was created years ago to make communication easier over long distances. Humans, rats, mice, spiders, cockroaches, and bats developed it together, which was, in itself, an extraordinary achievement. It was in one of our rare times of peace, you see. We can all still use it today, though. Look at it a moment and tell me your impressions," he said.

  Gregor gave the tree a hard look and this is what he saw:

  "It looks like a Christmas tree decorated with the alphabet," was Gregor's first thought. But even he could see it must be related to the code.

  "I think ..." began Lizzie hesitantly.

  "Go on, don't worry about being wrong," said Ripred.

  "Well, maybe you use these sounds ... click, scratch, tap ... to make letters," said Lizzie. "One click is an E, one scratch is an A, and one tap is an I. Right?"

  "Exactly right," said Ripred. "So what if you heard one scratch and then two taps?"

  Lizzie followed the tree branches with her finger as she spoke. "One scratch takes you up to A, the first tap takes you to the right to D, and the second tap takes you to the right to the letter O." Her eyes lit up. "It's sort of like Morse code. The way we use sounds to send messages on a telegraph. With dots and dashes."

  "Yes, except Morse code only uses two sounds and we use three sounds. How do you know about Morse code?" asked Ripred.

  "My dad showed me," said Lizzie. "Only he didn't have a tree; he had a chart with dashes and dots next to each letter."

  "More like this?" asked Ripred, nodding to the floor.

  For the first time Gregor noticed the chart carved into the floor. He stood up to get a better view of it.

  "Yes, this is like the Morse code chart," said Lizzie. "So, it's just another way of showing the Tree of Transmission."

  "Right again," said Ripred. "Some find it to be a helpful learning tool. Of course, the best way to learn it is by hearing it. Scratch-scratch-click. Tap-tap-scratch. Because that's how it's transmitted."

  Gregor had been there during the Morse code lesson with his dad, too. It had been somewhat interesting but hadn't stuck much in his brain. Lizzie had been fascinated by it, though, and wanted him to learn it as well so that they could send each other messages. The only thing he could ever decipher was the SOS distress signal that they used on ships and stuff to call for help. Dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot. SOS. It was sent as one string with no gaps to even indicate there were three separate letters. SOS. She'd really drilled that one into him. She had played it on the bedroom wall, tapped it out with her fork at dinner, and even used a flashlight to send it with quick flashes for the dots and longer ones for the dashes. Finally Gregor had to cut her off. Lizzie would have had them practicing five hours a day. Like Gregor didn't have enough homework without her assigning him more.

  "Well, if you already know how this code thing works, what's the problem?" said Gregor.

  "This isn't a code, Gregor. This is just a way to send any message. Like if you picked up a phone and talked into it," said Lizzie. "And anyone could understand what you were saying."

  "You've heard it before. Rat claws scratching, tapping, and clicking," said Ripred.

  Gregor remembered waking up one night in a cave in the Firelands to such sounds. Ripred had told him to go back to sleep. "Like in the cave," he said.

  "Like in the cave. Those messages weren't in code. The rats didn't believe there was any danger in sending them in plain English," said Ripred. "But now, with the war in full swing, everything is in code." The rat pulled one of the strips of white fabric covered in chicken scratch off the table and waved it about. "This code! The Code of Claw! The one in 'The Prophecy of Time'! And this is what we need Lizzie to help us break!"

  Gregor finally understood. The clicks, scratches, and taps were not the code. They were as simple as knowing your ABC's. But the messages the rats were sending now made no sense, because they were written in code. An A might be a B or a Q or a V, depending on how the Code of Claw worked.

  Lizzie took the strip of fabric and sat down on the ground with it, studying the letters. "Is it like a cryptogram? One letter stands for another letter?"

  "Not exactly," said Heronian, settling down by Lizzie. "We would have broken a regular cryptogram in minutes. But there's something else involved."

  "There is some trick to make it more complicated. Some sort of substitution," said Daedalus.

  "Found it not, have we, found it not," said Min, creaking her way over.

  "But the thing is, we haven't much time. Tick, tock, tick, tock," said Ripred, shaking his head in frustration. "Oh, now I'm hungry again." He went over and stuck a whole roast chicken in his mouth.

  "Did you get the cookies I helped make?" asked Lizzie, without looking up from the code.

  "No, I did not get the cookies you helped make," said Ripred, scowling at Gre
gor. "Where are my cookies?"

  "In my backpack in the hospital probably. I brought them to the battle. Sorry, I just couldn't find the right moment to serve them," said Gregor. "You want me to get them now?"

  "I do. I'd better come with you to make sure there are no more mishaps. And I'll make sure the note has gone to your father," said Ripred. He touched Lizzie lightly on the head with the tip of his tail. "Will you be all right here now?"

  "What?" said Lizzie, pulling her attention from the letters. "Oh, I think so."

  "Good. I'll be back soon," said Ripred.

  Gregor stopped at the doorway to double-check that Lizzie wasn't going to become hysterical when they left, but she was discussing some letter sequence with the others. Even Reflex had ventured out to join them. It made a cozy picture, all of them together on the floor. Freakish, but cozy.

  Ripred waited until they were out of earshot before he began. His voice -- in fact, the whole conversation that followed -- was strangely subdued. "Listen, don't fight me on this. Let her stay. We need her to break the code to save people you have come to love."

  "I love her, too. She's my sister. And she's real smart but she's not strong," said Gregor. "Not like you have to be to survive down here."

  "I know," sighed Ripred. "I know. But Solovet will know she's here by now and have already given orders to prevent her from leaving while the war is on. And after the war, what then?"

  "Then it's not a problem. I can take her home myself and --" Gregor came to a standstill as he remembered "The Prophecy of Time."

  When the warrior has been killed

  He would not be around to take anyone anywhere. "I've got to get Lizzie home now, somehow. And Boots and my mom, too. While I still can," Gregor muttered more to himself than to Ripred.

  "You can't. No one can. But if you let her stay now, without a fight, I swear I'll get all three of them home safely after the war," said Ripred.

  "No," said Gregor angrily. "What kind of deal is that? If the war's over, there's no reason to keep them here, anyway!"

  "Think about it, boy. If we win the war, Solovet will call the shots. Do you really believe she plans to let any of them return?" His voice had dropped to a whisper. "She has told me otherwise. If Solovet has Boots, she has the cockroaches on her side, and if Lizzie is who I think she is ... well, she'll be worth her weight in gold as well. No, your father will come to find them and your family will essentially be prisoners down here for the rest of their lives. Unless I help you."

  This was a frightening dimension Gregor had never even considered: his whole family condemned to life down here. Once Ripred had said it, Gregor knew it was not only possible, it was likely. "How do I know I can trust you?" asked Gregor.

  "I give you my word," said Ripred.

  "As a rat?" asked Gregor bitterly.

  "As a rager," said Ripred. "As one rager to another. I will get them home."

  As Gregor was trying to decide what a rager's word was worth, if anything, the horns began to blow. Ripred cocked his head and listened to the pattern. "The rats have reached the walls to the north. The ones that surround the farmlands."

  Gregor could be ordered out there at any moment. He might not come back. Then what?

  "What do you say, Gregor the Overlander? Do we have a deal?" asked Ripred.

  There was no choice but to trust him. "Yes," said Gregor.

  "Good. Now go find yourself some body armor," said Ripred. "I'll see you on the field."

  ***

  CHAPTER 11

  Gregor's body felt weighed down by the conversation. Although he had admitted to himself while he was in the museum that he would die, he had been waging a psychological campaign against the idea ever since. Denying it, dodging it, immersing himself in the present to avoid thinking about the future or, more specifically, how he wasn't going to have much of one. There was no other way to keep functioning. But sometimes, like now, reality came right up and slapped him in the face. There was nothing to do but keep moving forward and make the moments count.

  As he walked through the halls, Gregor could see his resolve reflected on many other faces. There was a war. He guessed the Regalians didn't need a prophecy to know there was a good chance they'd be dead at the end of it. And they had family and friends to worry about, too. Gregor felt a little less alone knowing that others were experiencing the same emotions he was. Less alone, but no better.

  He was unsure of where he should get the body armor Ripred had mentioned, but there was a big supply room filled with nothing but weapons and stuff, so he thought that would be a good place to start. When he arrived, the armory was buzzing with people suiting up for battle. Even though it was crowded, an old Underlander woman with a tape measure was at his side in a moment.

  "You have come for protection?" she asked. Gregor nodded. "I am called Miravet. I can assist you." And then she was whipping that tape measure around him so fast it was practically a blur. "You fight how? With only the sword? In the right hand?"

  "That's right," said Gregor, wondering how many other options there were.

  "What does your left hand do?" she asked.

  "Nothing. Sometimes I tape a light here to help me see," said Gregor, indicating his forearm.

  "That is all?" Miravet gave his forearm a slightly disapproving look, as if it wasn't holding up its end of the bargain somehow. Then she led him to a wall covered in breastplates hanging from hooks. "For the chest," she said, and took down a highly polished number made of silver metal and mother-of-pearl.

  As Miravet was holding the breastplate up to him, a voice came from behind him. "No, Miravet, I want him entirely in black."

  Gregor didn't have to turn to know Solovet was coming up behind him. He gritted his teeth at the prospect of seeing her again.

  "Why is that?" asked Miravet with a frown. Gregor found himself liking her for not immediately jumping to do whatever Solovet suggested.

  "To blend with his flier and give an overall impression of darkness," said Solovet.

  "The gnawers will not be impressed by an impression of darkness," Miravet said, still stubbornly holding the breastplate she had chosen.

  "No, but the humans will. It implies deadliness and strength and will give them confidence to follow him," said Solovet.

  "As you wish," said Miravet. She returned her breastplate to the wall and chose another of black metal and some kind of shiny ebonylike shell. "This?"

  "It should do nicely," said Solovet. She stood by silently as Miravet made Gregor change to a black shirt and pants. Then she dressed him in the breastplate and other bits and pieces of armor. None of it was particularly heavy, which was good because he didn't need anything slowing him down.

  As he was being fitted for a helmet, Gregor caught sight of himself in a mirror, dressed from head to toe in black. "Great. I couldn't look more like the bad guy if I tried," he thought. And here he was going in to fight the Bane, whose coat was so white it almost hurt your eyes. If he were in a movie, Gregor would definitely be the one the audience was rooting against. On the other hand ... on the other hand ... there was something powerful about the blackness, and part of Gregor couldn't help thinking he looked pretty cool.

  But Miravet shook her head as she examined him. "You only emphasize his youth by dressing him so. He has not the hardness of countenance to wear this."

  Gregor was not sure what she meant. He thought countenance had something to do with your face.

  "He will," said Solovet. "Come with me, Gregor." When they had left the armory she added, "My sister is an expert in armor but not in character." Her sister? Solovet. Miravet. The names sounded kind of the same, and it explained why Miravet was not afraid to stand up to Solovet.

  "Speaking of sisters, I hear another of yours has joined us," said Solovet. "Remind me of her name?"

  It was just the two of them, walking down a quiet empty hall. Gregor felt he could no longer refuse to answer her without making a really big deal of it. He didn't want to wind up back in t
he dungeon, especially now that he had to keep an eye on Lizzie, as well as Boots and his mother.

  "Lizzie," he said.

  "And you have no issues with her staying?" asked Solovet.

  Sure he did. Plenty of issues. But he had made the deal with Ripred. "Not if she's the code-breaker," said Gregor gruffly.

  "That remains to be seen. I myself am not convinced that it is not Boots who will be the key." They walked along in silence for a while. Then Solovet spoke up again. "Perhaps it was too harsh of me to put you in the dungeon. But you are part of our army now and, in essence, you disobeyed a direct order. In an army, one head must give direction to the rest of the body. If not, there is chaos. That is why discipline is so important. If we lose it, we lose everything."

  Gregor considered this. He guessed you probably did need someone making a plan and other people who could be counted on to carry it out.

  " Do you think yourself capable of following orders ?" she asked.

  "Maybe. Maybe not," thought Gregor. "It would depend on the circumstances." For instance, if Solovet had ordered him to secretly develop the plague as a weapon, he would never have done it. But he only said, "Seems like I'm always following Ripred's."

  "Well, let us see if you can follow mine today," said Solovet.

  When they reached the High Hall, Solovet's bond, Ajax, was waiting for them. Gregor knew him mostly by sight. He was a massive brute of a bat with fur the color of dried blood. Once Gregor had asked Ares what he thought of Ajax. "I do not care for him. Almost no one does. Of course, very few care for me, either." So Gregor tried to keep an open mind about Ajax.

  Gregor and Solovet flew out of the palace, over the high wall that signaled the end of the city, and headed north over the farmlands. Half the people of Regalia seemed to be in the fields, working at a frantic pace. "It is our policy, when the gnawers are so close, to harvest or destroy all we can. We do not wish to leave them any food sources," said Solovet.

  The farmlands ended at another wall. This one was not quite so high as the one that bordered the back of the city, but it was at least twelve feet thick, providing a sturdy base from which to launch the army. It was packed now with heavily armed humans mounted on bats. An area in the middle of the wall was relatively empty, apparently having been reserved for the commanders.