Chapter 27: The Blade That Heals
Bumbastus kept a devil’s bird
Shut in the pummel of his sword
That taught him all the cunning pranks
Of past and future mountebanks
--Samuel Butler, Hudibras
Unlike the coldness outside, the interior of Mooncry felt warm to an intense degree. The layers of clothes Grace, Diana, and Fox wore suddenly seemed inappropriate. While handcuffed, they could not readjust their wardrobes, but right before being shoved into their cheddar cell, the rabbits had removed the bindings. Now, Diana tied her coat around her waist. Grace tied hers over her shoulders. Only Fox remained fully covered, even while no longer needing protection from loose stones.
“The warmth,” explained Anansi, “isn’t on account of flatulence, if that’s what you expect. It originates from the forge.” He preferred walking along walls, occasionally climbing the ceiling. The others had to stick with the floor.
Diana came to a stop. “Forging what?”
“More tanks,” guessed Grace. “Welded together from scrap parts the Djieien sent up. In the throne room, the Easter Bunny talked about invading Earth. How do they mean to get there, though, with something that can’t fly?”
“Maybe they’re building planes, too,” suggested Fox. “Or vimmy-whatevers, like what we flew in.”
“Wait.” Anansi’s eight legs tangled together. He wound up suspended from above. “You have a vimana? The odds of our successful egress have dramatically increased.” No one, as yet, had invited the spider to escape with them.
Fox put her arms across her chest. “We had a vimana.”
“A tank blew it up,” admitted Diana.
Grace’s attention centered on watching for guards, but that alone got them no closer to finding their friends or the cure. She asked Anansi if he knew anything about the castle’s layout.
“Saw bits of it before being locked in my cell, argh-oh-oh-ahhh!” Anansi finally untangled himself. “I know the treasury’s right across from the forge. I imagine anything of yours the bunnies confiscated would be taken there.”
“The treasury or the forge?” asked Diana.
Anansi took pains to inspect all of his legs before answering. “Guess it depends on if they mistake your mystic ingredients for trash. Forge is also where garbage’s burned. Now, I haven’t a clue where your friends might be. But to get near the forge, you only have to follow the heat.”
It took a while to determine the hottest passageway among the many forking halls. Once reasonably sure, Grace led her companions down the far-left path. The different areas of Mooncry were labelled with signs, but in Norse runes. (Which Schrodinger could have translated.) If they heard the bounding of rabbit feet, they dashed into the closest closet or alcove. By and large, spaces were open, and well-lit by torches. Few doors blocked their way.
Grace came round a bend, then turned to shush her friends. It is ironic how something meant to encourage silence always manages to sound louder (not to mention ruder) than what it means to discourage. On this occasion, though, her shushing was vastly overshadowed. Here is what Grace, Diana, Fox, and Anansi saw, though the spider viewed things upside-down:
An assembly line stood between them and blowing jets of hot air. It proved not that dissimilar to the machines in earthly factories, it was the items grinding down the conveyer belt which exposed their far-from-mundane purpose. That, and the fact the workers were naked, silver, and fuzzy.
An equally long line of workers painted grenades to look like Easter eggs. They seemed entirely engrossed in their brush strokes. Grace suspected at least some were already zombified. At the end of the line, the garishly disguised bombs were packed in straw-filled wooden crates.
The companions passed without incident, then had to navigate bubbling vats the size of small volcanoes. Rabbits pushed dollies loaded with barrels, most near-bursting with substances used in candy manufacturing. A container of amber honey jostled by one with white royal jelly. Workers stopped, trying to discern a cask of marzipan from an identical one of cyanide. There was a great deal of sniffing “Bitterness.” A rabbit complained of smelling humans before being told to get back to its fourth shift.
Grace and her friends initially hid behind barrels—dodging past shredded coconut before resting by unshelled peanuts—but since they were constantly being wheeled there and here, barrels made poor cover. Much easier to remain undetected near the giant vats. They had to step carefully around floor grates where rivers of fire traveled to heat the vats’ contents. The streams flowed in from only one direction, which Grace figured was to the forge. She made sure her companions crouched very low, for the workers milling on platforms above would easily spot them if just one looked away from crushing cocoa beans.
The scent of melted chocolate hit Grace’s nose, briefly masking the ubiquitous cheese stink. It smelled far less pleasant than it might sound. This was like no chocolate she ever tasted. Pewter cauldrons hung from the ceiling on chains. It took whole teams of rabbits to tip one over, adding spicy peppers to the melted cocoa. Another cauldron carried the sharp, metallic scent of blood. Grace tried not to think whose.
Tracking the heat source forced the escapees up a flight of gorgonzola steps, by the office of the candymaker’s overseer. Anansi knew the place, and who resided there. He grumbled “Ostara’s first lieutenant is named Tecciztecatl. Always in a torture-y mood, I heard because he lost a foot in a New Orleans cemetery on a Friday the 13th during the full moon. Dunno what he was doing there in the first place. Imagine you wouldn’t recall either, if humans suddenly appeared and chopped off a part of you to make a lucky charm that won’t even work.”
“So he got a silver peg-leg,” whispered Grace. Whoever decided a rabbit’s foot would make a not-at-all disgusting accessory, Tecciztecatl had recovered it. She saw it behind glass while sneaking through (not past, as she hoped would be possible) his office. The rest of the rabbit was there, too.
“But the sword won’t melt down, boss,” Tecciztecatl complained.
Grace realized he was speaking to Ostara, and at that exact moment, pushed herself back, blocking others from entering. Diana’s forehead bumped into her, but made little sound.
“But the sword won’t melt down, boss,” Tecciztecatl repeated, in a more pleading tone. The deceptively merry voice of the Easter Bunny never responded.
Grace slooooooowly peeked around the corner. Tecciztecatl was alone. One paw fiddled with the latch on the glass case. The other gripped Ridil by its dull edge.
“Even with phoenix fire, boss!” Tecciztecatl paused. “She won’t mind if I get some use out of it, then? She’s promised her ‘nature god magic’ would make me whole for eighty years!” The scruffy rabbit slumped into a stool. With a swipe of his paw, the glass case was opened. The silver peg-leg thudded to the floor. He lined his exposed stump with the severed leg, rubbing Ridil against the divide. None of the usual red sparks danced out to join the old wound. The separate parts remained so.
Grace turned back to Diana and Fox. The three had a silent conversation of facial movements and hand flapping basically translating as:
‘Ah, just come back for it later,’ said Fox’s expression. ‘Get the bag and our friends. Then double back when Legless leaves.’
‘We need the sword now!’ Grace insisted with her eyes. ‘He already said he’s meant to destroy Ridil! This may be our only chance. Besides, we might not have time to double back.’
‘Fine,’ Fox responded with her hands. ‘But it’s not like we can just ask nicely.’
‘Why not?’ Diana said with puffed-out cheeks. ‘He needs help, and clearly resents his boss.’
‘Huh?’ Fox said with a slam of a palm to her forehead.
“Anansi, you Muffet-scaring, waterspout-crawling insect!” Tecciztecatl yelled.
Grace noticed the spider in a raincoat no longer lurked behind them. The girls creeped into the office. The rabbit was hopping on one foot, trying to smash Anansi with his peg-leg.
“Every other detail in your insult may be accurate!” Anansi easily scaled the walls, always keeping an inch away from the improvised club. “But come on. I’m not an insect! I’m an arachnid! Get basic taxonomy right. See how I’ve got eight limbs instead of six?”
“Oh, you’ll have six limbs when I’m done with you!” Tecciztecatl continued failing to kill Anansi. “Or no limbs! How dare you come to my private sanctum!”
“Sorry to catch you in such a…compromised position.” Anansi laughed. “Guess you don’t have a leg to stand on!” He rolled more eyes than Grace, Diana, and Fox combined in one direction. His message was ‘The sword’s unattended. Take it now!’
Grace did just that. Diana and Fox hustled to the opposite doorway. Thumbs-ups confirmed the chamber beyond was clear of coasts. Grace sheathed Ridil as silently as she could, having one foot past the threshold when she heard Anansi scream.
The deliberate teasing of Tecciztecatl came to a splattered end. The spider curled on the ground, his eight legs buckling to his torso. Green blood leaked out his side. The rabbit hopped over, raising his peg-leg to strike right where the Groucho glasses hung askew. Anansi used his thimbled thumb to convey one final message to Grace. ‘Leave.’
Grace chose to ignore it. “Wait! Um, mister rabbit, I see you were trying to fix your leg with my sword.”
Tecciztecatl snarled. “Yeah, what’s it to you?” It was surprising such a gravelly voice could come from a bunny, even one so rough in appearance. “Come to gawk at me, huh? Folks like you are why I left Earth!”
“Uh, no.” Grace’s grip on Ridil slackened. “But if you need healing…I can help.”
“How could a little girl know swords better than me?” Tecciztecatl turned from Anansi, who was unlikely to go anywhere. “Y’know how many blades I’ve wielded in war, always victoriously?”
“No. But the sword of Paracelsus isn’t like any other.” Grace unsheathed Ridil. Ostara’s lieutenant showed no alarm on having it brought near him. He already knew how dull it was. Besides, he clutched a makeshift club.
“I figure,” said Grace, “you have to truly want to fix another’s injuries to bring out Ridil’s magic. It can’t just be used selfishly.”
“Weren’t you supposed to be locked up?” Tecciztecatl sounded more curious than worried.
“Ostara pardoned her,” Anansi said while holding his wound. “You surely heard:
the boss wanted our augur to join your charming racket of crime-cum-world-domination. After an in-depth counsel with me about the adequate dental plan surely provided by toothsome lagomorphs, Miz Grey agreed to an accord, as long as I came to facilitate any legal wrangling, to the benefit of all parties involved.”
“Wha?” asked Tecciztecatl.
“I’m the girl’s attorney,” Anansi said with as much dignity as possible when spitting out blood.
“Since when are you a lawyer, Anansi?” Tecciztecatl rotated the peg-leg between his paws.
“My dear cottontail, lawyers were my idea, falling under the heading of ‘flibbertigibbets.’”
Tecciztecatl scowled at Grace. “This so?”
Grace nodded. “The bird city exiled me, right when I was trying to help them! I went through this whole quest, collected a bag of magic ingredients—have you seen it?”
“Sure.” Tecciztecatl nodded. Almost amiably. “All set for destruction in the forge, across from the treasury.”
“Good.” Grace followed Anansi’s lead in lying. Well, she did not want to think of it as ‘lying.’ Playing pretend. Yes, that was an easier way to picture it. “Those birds made me furious!” (Fine, Grace’s words were not all pretend.) “The more I thought of it, the more I decided your boss was right. I want to see that bag, and destroy it myself!” Using something up is sorta destroying it she thought.
“Okay, yeah. Yeah!” Tecciztecatl slapped his thigh, or would have. “Wait! Weren’t there two other girls with you?”
“Well, ah.” Grace forced herself not to glance where Diana and Fox left. “To test my loyalty, Ostara had me, er, kill them.”
“And eat them,” added Anansi.
“Yes, that’s right.” Grace sweated from her scalp to her soles. The rabbit could call in guards—Ostara herself—at any time. “I ate my friends. So, if you go and look in our cell, you won’t find anything.”
“To be fair, I helped, too,” said Anansi. “Drank their bodily fluids through a curly straw.”
“Right…” agreed Grace. “So, since we’re all on the same side now, how about I heal your leg before destroying the sword at the forges? I can show you first by healing Anansi!”
Tecciztecatl called this a brilliant idea.
Anansi had a thumb to his mouth, trying to keep blood from passing his mandibles. Other legs continued putting pressure against his side.
In Grace’s hands, red sparks all but jumped off Ridil. She did not even need to come close to Anansi, which she appreciated. Though the spider proved himself a friend, he still creeped her out. Other than green stains on the floor and peg-leg, no evidence was left he suffered any injury.
Tecciztecatl called (really begged) for Grace to fix him. Together, they lined the severed leg up with its stump. Over the years, it had withered, nearly mummified. In proximity to Ridil, though, it wiggled, tapping a toe on the ground. Grace concentrated. Life flowed from the living rabbit into its former member. She pulled away. Leg and owner were back together.
Tecciztecatl hopped on his own two legs, promptly falling down. “Urg, it’s like my leg’s asleep. Going to have to get used to this again!”
Grace tried to smile. “We’re happy to get out of your way, so you can do that privately.”
“Oh thanks.” Even when expressing gratitude, Tecciztecatl’s voice was gravel. “Remember to destroy the sword. Imagine if our enemies could heal all their wounds!” He cackled.
Anansi had to cup both hands and several legs over his mandibles to keep from snickering.
Diana and Fox had not left Grace and Anansi behind. The foursome snuck down the hall with a perfect balance of stealth and speed. A stench unlike the usual cheesiness welcomed them into an open-topped, diamond-shaped courtyard. Ice crystals flittered down, carried by cold, dusty winds. Grace had almost forgotten what the lunar surface felt like. The chill, however, was ultimately rebuffed by merciless heat blowing in from the left hall.
At the heart of the open space was the source of the distinct stink. Myriad piles of compost and trash: so tall all existed in the precarious state of toppling over. There was scrap metal, but also remnants of rabbit meals. Inedible pits, seeds, stalks, and roots, plus a mess of bright-colored candy wrappers. Fox wanted to forge ahead, but Diana stopped to stare.
“I used to gaze at the moon a lot,” Diana finally said. “Before the Institute, I mean. It seemed so pretty, remote, and…and sad. But in a beautiful way. Now I know there’s a junkyard on the moon—which just feels wrong.”
At the time, there was nothing they could do to clean things up. There existed one last hurdle before the forge, which was obviously close. Grace, Diana, and Fox all received free, brand-new coatings of sweat. Anansi swore he would sweat along if he could.
Here was the source of the junkyard’s scrap metal. Masses of rabbits toiled a military-style hangar. No decorations, just tanks loaded with ammunition by workers on ladders. Others took it upon themselves to paint the panzers—formerly green and brown camouflage—pastel pinks and yellows. A third group attached huge retractable wings.
“That’s how they mean to fly to Earth,” whispered Fox.
“Plus that.” Grace spotted a vimana. Partly hidden under a tarp, and shaped like a disc instead of a boomerang, but that was the only thing it could be.
“Bet it’s just for the Easter Bunny to ride in,” said Diana.
The soldiers preparing for war existed in such a constant panic, none noticed three girls and a spider slip past.
The streams of fire beneath grills converged on a pit of magma, geysering up to become lava. Burnt cheese walls were caked in layers of soot. The chamber filled with smoke that had nowhere to go. The forge was entirely closed off, with no openings besides the doorway just stepped through. Even that automatically melted behind them, like the entrance to the jail cell.
Of work places, there were several. But under the one farthest from the pit, Bennu lay in blue-white coals among what looked like lizard skeletons. Though clearly miserable being chained to an iron stake, he did not complain about his lot. He simply lacked the fire to fight. That is, until he saw his friends.
“Gracie? Foxy? Di? How’d you get free?” A bit of color creeped into Bennu’s plumage. In a spit above him was suspended the leather bag. The front flap had torn so much ingredients were in danger of spilling into the coals.
Grace caught it in time while Diana and Fox tried to free Bennu. Fox cursed her iron allergy.
“Mind if I refurbish your bag?” Anansi was already yanking a line of yarn from under his raincoat. “Honest labor’s a bit of a vacation to me.” Without galoshes, his eight limbs worked rapidly. One would hardly believe minutes ago he was near death. When he handed Grace the satchel, the leather had been mostly replaced by silk.
At first glance, it looked thin and wispy, but proved strong enough to support every ingredient, minus Anansi’s own venom. There were even separate compartments, holding the bandages and supplies plundered from O’s stores. In the firelight, a rainbow of colors glinting on its silky surface, reminiscent of Bennu’s train.
Diana and Fox backed away as Bennu melted his own chains. The phoenix and spider appraised each other coolly, but around the girls, Bennu flaunted his warm side. While hardly an ideal spot for a reunion, they greeted each other gladly. Then, the mood shifted as they somberly mourned their murdered ally. They finally settled on hyperactively plotting what to do next.
“Argh, so much iron in this forge!” complained Fox. “Allergies seriously acting up.”
Diana claimed to have a stomach ache from accidentally swallowing cheese. “Grace, would you mind healing us before we look for Goldtalon?” In turning her head to see if the griffin was already present, she saw something which set her screaming.
The figure was tall, shaped like a human except with chrome metal instead of flesh. There was no face, but a red eye extending from one side of the head to the other. In a mechanical hand, he (yes, the robot seemed like a he, not an it) held a steel hammer with a long handle.
“Klaatu barada nikto gort.” Grace raised her hands above her head to show she was unarmed. “That’s what you say so robots don’t attack you,” she explained to her friends, who had no idea what she meant.
Grace heard this phrase when her mother took her to see a new movie. Several times, actually, until it was no longer new to them. Grace’s father got tired of it on the eighth viewing, but whether with her husband, daughter, fellow nurses, church friends, alone, and once with Grandmam after persuading the old woman to come out, Grace’s mother saw it forty-eight times. Grace recalled the story easily. An alien came to Earth spreading peace, then got shot by the army for his trouble. The alien was not nearly as upset by this as his robot friend, who could only be pacified with those words.
The metal giant froze, then gently lay the hammer on a char-blackened anvil. A thick hand went to the red eye, flipping it up to show: a regular human. His eyes, skin, and hair were all the same shade of brown, the last of these cropped very short. It only seemed clear in hindsight the cyclopean face was merely a welder’s visor.
“I’m no robot,” said the man. “Though that would be amazing, uncanny, weird—in the best way! Machines are more efficient, simpler, easier to get along with than people. The latter refuse to be fixed, improved, repaired even when most requiring help. I’d ask what brought you here, but your phoenix friend already explained, informed, told that it was my gold scroll. Guess I won’t be checking that library item any time soon, anon, immanent.”
“You’re Iron Will Henry,” said Grace.
The tall man nodded. “And some, part, a few of you are changelings. Past a certain age, it’s easy, basic, simple to recognize each other. After my fairy heritage became apparent, clear, obvious, I was imprisoned in an asylum. Schrodinger’s company helped, aided, assisted me through the worst. Wish I could have been a better student, pupil, apprentice. I was sorry, regretful, distraught to hear about the death of our mutual acquaintance. Also, angry, furious, enraged.”
“Surely the old tabby wasn’t on his ninth life?” Bennu asked himself more than anyone. “He’ll return.” Grace patted his back. Despite coming straight from a clump of embers, he did not feel all that hot.
As William Henry was also shackled, Bennu burnt his chains as well. The tall man stretched, awkwardly, for he still wore a full-bodied metal suit. The visored helmet was kept under one arm. With the other, he picked up his hammer.
Fox clutched her stomach. It grumbled, but not from hunger. Ridil did what it could for her pain, the same with Diana. Bennu waved off Grace’s assistance, saying he had plenty health for a griffin hunt. A burst of purple fire melted a hole in a cheese wall not only spacious enough for the remaining companions to walk through, but also Anansi and William Henry.
As Anansi claimed, the treasury was across from the forge. Thankfully upwind from the hot gales which made the journey to the forge such a perspiring endeavor. It figured a griffin, whose deepest instincts drove him towards treasure (even in the Silent Forest) would find such a place his natural element. Goldtalon was there, all right. But rather than marveling at the horde of jewels, precious metals, and uncounted other valuables, he merely stared ahead with an impassive, unblinking gaze.
A rabble of rabbits roughly plucked feathers from his sides and wings, but the griffin did not so much as flinch. The purloined plumage was used to fill a pink silk pillow taller than every bunny combined. Grace doubted it was for anyone other than Ostara’s comfort.
Before anyone realized, Anansi skittered behind, biting each rabbit in turn. All fell to the floor, helplessly kicking their feet in the air and giggling. “‘Just doing our jobs’ my eight feet,” mumbled the spider. “They know what an evil piece of work their mistress is. Won’t be the worst thing leaving them in stitches for a while.”
Grace and her friends decided here would be the place to try creating the cure to Radixomniummalorum bokor. Bennu dug around in the silk bag, putting ingredients in a neat order. Fox hefted—then dropped—a gold cauldron for mixing. Diana picked out a pan of platinum, a silver strainer, and an emerald-encrusted ladle.
It fell to Grace to lead Goldtalon over. She stroked his side. He did not curl into her as cats are expected to. She could have ordered him to follow her, but worried it might worsen the spore’s effects. His head might explode right when everything was set up! Then she worried their “cure” would not succeed at all. How can we be sure we picked the right ingredients?
She clasped Goldtalon by his paw, leading him where Anansi filled the cauldron with his venom. The griffin came willingly, but blindly, needing her guidance every step of the way. His eagle eyes were not merely glazed, but covered by a sick yellow film. They looked more evil than Chiaroscuro’s, but not in the sense Goldtalon himself was evil, rather that something truly unforgivable had been done to him.
“Okay.” Anansi readjusted his Groucho glasses and picked up his thermos of strawberry soda. “Pretty sure there’s forty gills of spider spit right there.”
“Next step’s thirty-two grains of sleeping sand,” said Bennu. “No more.” In their times quibbling over who had proper ownership of the scroll, Schrodinger had grilled the formula’s specifics into his bird brain.
Grace added the Sandman dust the cat embedded in her coat fibers. Diana carefully portioned out what sand was in her pockets.
With Bennu, Diana, and Fox all reminding her of the directions, Grace opened the jar swirling with the pink vapors Chang’e belched. A rush of sad sounds shot into the cauldron. Grace quickly shut the container, echoes of the toad-woman’s lament still ringing in her ears. Diana handed Grace a strainer. The grains of sand—now dyed pink—were placed in the platinum pan. Anansi’s venom had been a translucent yellow. Now, the liquid turned opaque.
Next, Grace teased out four locks of Aiken Drum’s hair, which she flicked into the pot. Bennu twisted open the container holding the viscous silver sap of the Flesh-Eater trees, which took its own sweet time dribbling out. William Henry helped carefully measure seventy-two drams, since no one else knew the conversion units.
The contents of the cauldron turned black. The pink sand in the platinum pan was subsequently emptied in. Time for Grace to use Ridil. The scroll specifically called for stirring “widdershins.” There arose a debate whether that was old-timey speak for “clockwise” or “counterclockwise.”
Fox threw her hands in the air. “How much difference could it possibly make?” Grace wound up stirring the brew counterclockwise.
Between their palms, Diana and Fox held the fragment of Goldtalon’s agate meant to serve as a cup. Grace carefully ladled potion into it, sure not to spill a single drop. This might be their only chance to concoct the cure. Rabbits still giggled their heads off, but if more arrived Anansi would unlikely be able to incapacitate them all.
Bennu lit a feather from his tail the same time as he plucked it. He let it burn directly beneath the agate. As instructed, this was done four minutes exactly (earth-time). Liquid boiled, settling into a thick substance the color of mustard. It looked far from appetizing, but was the only remedy they had. Given the measurements for “pounds” varied over the centuries, setting aside twenty-four drops to every fifty-six pounds of Goldtalon consisted mostly of guesswork.
“How much difference could it possibly make?” Fox repeated.
At a nudge from Grace, Goldtalon’s sharp beak opened. Positioning so the contents could be poured down his pink throat without the whole shell falling down his gullet put her in a dangerous state. If the griffin happened to bite down, she could lose a head or arm! But the only worry she felt was that her friend would not recover. He swallowed the sip of elixir without a problem. It seemed impossible so small an amount could fix this large creature.
While not as dramatic as an instant transformation, the film over Goldtalon’s eyes gradually thinned, exposing the original orange with green flecks. Then, in the more typically exciting fashion: round, green, hairy spores exploded from his orifices. The fungal spawn coalesced into a cloud, ready to find new hosts. Before anyone else could be infected, however, spores were chased down by a troop of red sparks Goldtalon breathed out. They were burnt to less than cinders.
Since being found, Goldtalon made little noise beyond shallow breaths. Now clear of parasites, his lungs pumped like bellows. When he glanced at his friends, it was like seeing them for the first time. (Which was literally true in the case of Anansi and William Henry.) The whole while, he made noises most faithfully transcribed as:
“Hahaha…zzzzzzzz!” (Preceded by a yawn.) “Woo—ohhhh, boo!” (As a single tear fell from his eye.) “Hey! Hey! Haaay…rrrrrrrahhhh-ubub!” (Accompanied by a mighty stomach rumble.) “Hmm, ehhh!” (Where his tongue smacked the insides of his mouth.) “Horaaaargh!” (With a stomp of his four feet.) “Ommmmmmm!”
Goldtalon’s countenance and bearing became one of total serenity. He had the honor of being the first soul permanently freed from the zombifying spores of the Root of All Evil. The friends were afforded little time to celebrate, however.
