The Guardians of Zoone Read online

  “How?” Ozzie asked.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Aunt Temperance admitted. “The truth is, I still don’t understand where we are exactly. Explain it to me again, Fidget.”

  “I just remember what my grandfather taught me,” the princess replied. “We’re in the interstitial cosmos. It’s no different than the track we were on to Zoone, except that track is a specific tunnel between two places. Out here . . . this is just a vast directionless sea.”

  “So, you can get to any world from out here?” Aunt Temperance asked.

  “I think we’d have to find a track,” Fidget said, considering. “The pirates bore into them with their drill. But how would we get to one anyway? We’re too heavy for Tug to fly us all that far.”

  “I saw some lifeboats up on deck,” Aunt Temperance said. “We can steal one and use it to reach a track.”

  “We’re just going to row across the cosmos?” Fidget asked skeptically. Then she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. In case you haven’t noticed, we have another problem. This cage.”

  “There’s a door on this side,” Ozzie said, rattling the bars. “We’ll have to steal a key or something.”

  Aunt Temperance dropped to her knees and began sorting through her belongings, which were still scattered across the floor of the cage. “We’ll figure something out. We’re lucky that Captain Traxx didn’t confiscate all our resources.”

  Fidget guffawed. “This stuff? The reason she didn’t take any of your junk is because it’s useless.” Then, seeing Aunt Temperance’s brow knit into a frown, she added, “Oh, sorry. I meant, entirely essential supplies. Shall we blend our way out of here?”

  “First, it’s time to bolster our attitudes,” Aunt Temperance lectured as she began organizing her supplies. “We’ll escape this pernicious predicament, you’ll see. We just have to find the right moment.”

  As it turned out, that moment didn’t come until a few days later. Until then, they idled in their cell with little to do. Once or twice a day, the pirates brought them watery gruel to eat. Ozzie and Fidget complained about the taste. Aunt Temperance complained about the questionable nutritional value. Tug complained about there not being enough of it.

  The bathroom was a bucket in the corner. Thankfully, they could use Tug as a giant blue wall to give them a modicum of privacy during these awkward moments and, perhaps more thankfully, Aunt Temperance’s pack included a bottle of hand sanitizer and a roll of toilet paper. Even Fidget begrudgingly admitted that these were essential.

  The hardest thing to deal with, in Ozzie’s opinion, was the boredom. They couldn’t get much exercise in the cage, and the portholes in the brig were tiny, which meant they couldn’t even gaze out at the cosmic vistas. Aunt Temperance had brought a copy of The Tempest, and she often read sections of it aloud, but it just made Ozzie feel even worse. He was used to the old-fashioned language—Aunt Temperance often read Shakespeare to him in Apartment 2B—but it needled him to hear about a magical island when the magical place he kept trying to get to seemed so far out of reach.

  “Lots happens in Shakespeare’s story,” he griped on the third night of Aunt Temperance’s reading. “But nothing is happening here.”

  “Bad things have happened,” Fidget pointed out.

  Ozzie kicked at the bars of their cage. “We almost made it to Zoone,” he moaned. “Just a few more steps, and we would have been through the door.”

  Aunt Temperance lowered her book. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, dwelling on what could have been isn’t helpful. We—”

  “We’re farther away from Zoone than ever!” Ozzie interrupted. “And now—”

  Suddenly, there was a loud, rumbling boom from outside, causing the entire ship to tremble. Anxious shouts came from above.

  “Oh, good,” Tug said.

  “What’s good?” Fidget snapped.

  “Something’s happening,” the skyger replied.

  Fidget fired a glare at Ozzie. “Yeah, be careful what you wish for. You wanted Tempest-level excitement? Looks like we got it.”

  The ship shuddered again. One of the pirates—his name was Skelly—was just descending the stairs with their nightly gruel when he slipped, dropped everything with a clatter, then slid the rest of the way down. The ship tilted and he ended up tumbling right up against the bars of their cage, a look of terror in his amber eyes.

  “It’s just a storm, isn’t it?” Aunt Temperance questioned Skelly. “Surely, a crew of your ilk isn’t afraid of a little inclement weather?”

  “Cosmic storm,” Skelly mumbled feverishly as he pulled himself to his feet.

  “What’s that?” Ozzie asked.

  Skelly didn’t answer; he simply turned and scrambled up the stairs, leaving them alone in the brig with a slick of gruel trickling into their cage.

  “Is he going to bring more?” Tug asked, cleaning up the slop with his blue tongue.

  “I think we have bigger problems,” Ozzie said as the ship jerked in the other direction, sending everyone staggering to the far wall of the cage. They heard more panicked screams from above.

  “This isn’t a problem,” Aunt Temperance declared, straightening her glasses. “This is an opportunity. While the pirates are distracted, we’ll make our escape.”

  “You do realize that we’re still in a cage, right?” Fidget pointed out.

  “We need a Zitro Kitchen Knife,” Tug suggested. “I saw one story on TV where they used it to cut through metal. So cool.”

  Aunt Temperance was on the floor, rooting through her pack. “I don’t have a Zitro Knife, but—ah, here!” She produced a hairpin from the depths of her bag and, because the ship was rocking so violently, she crawled on her hands and knees to the cage door.

  “What are you doing?” Ozzie asked.

  “I’m going to pick the lock.”

  “You can do that?”

  “There was an escape artist in our circus,” Aunt Temperance answered, jiggling the hairpin in the door’s keyhole. “She taught me a trick or two.”

  “You mean, you could have busted us out of here three days ago?” Fidget cried in exasperation. “I’ve been peeing in a bucket all this time for nothing?”

  “We’ve all had to pee in a bucket, Your Highness,” Ozzie retorted. Fidget swung at him, but the ship lurched and she missed.

  “I was waiting for the opportune moment,” Aunt Temperance explained. “Besides, I’m not sure if I actually can do thi—wait, there it goes!”

  There was a click and she swung the door open.

  “Ta da!” she sang as they scrambled out of the cage. “Once we reach the deck, we steal that lifeboat and soar away from this dreadful ship.” She hefted her canvas bag over one shoulder and began climbing the stairs. “Everyone stay together!”

  She led them through the door, then up another flight of stairs, before arriving at a hatch. They could hear wind howling above them—and the pirates. It sounded to Ozzie like they were about to have front-row seats to absolute chaos—but the instant they stepped onto the deck, he realized he had gotten it slightly wrong. It was chaos all right—but they weren’t in the audience. It was more like being center stage to a riot.

  Gale-force winds mercilessly pummeled the ship. Pirates were everywhere, buzzing back and forth across the deck like manic bees trying to save their hive. Some were clutching rigging lines and tying down sails. Others were cranking flywheels and banging fists against reluctant control panels. They rushed past Ozzie and his friends or, in some cases, between them, as if they didn’t realize—or care—they had escaped.

  Ozzie stood there, gaping, until a swell of wind blasted across the deck with such vigor that it ripped him from his feet. He clamped onto Tug and managed to steady himself, but it felt like his stomach had scampered up and decided to hide in his throat.

  “Is that all you have, beast?!” Ozzie spotted Captain Traxx standing on a spar halfway up a mast, shaking a fist at the sky. Then, to her crew, she bellowed, “Skelly! Rosa! Xango!
Fire, you weak-kneed knaves! FIRE!”

  A cluster of pirates rushed to the side of the ship and began discharging their pistols and muskets, though at what, Ozzie couldn’t tell. It looked like they were trying to battle the cloud cluster.

  Then it dawned on Ozzie.

  They were attacking the storm—because it was attacking them. The sky was alive; Ozzie couldn’t see eyes or a face or any kind of body, but there was no doubt that the tempest was a living, thinking entity. He watched, stupefied, as a claw of lightning materialized in the sky and reached down with electrified fingers to pluck an unsuspecting pirate—it was Skelly—from his feet. The crackling hand sent him sprawling across the deck and crashing into the base of one of the masts, where he crumpled into a motionless heap. His body was covered in scorch marks. Black wisps of smoke curled from his hair.

  Another rope of lightning struck; this one swiped across the deck, sending an entire row of pirates tumbling over the side.

  Where do they go? Ozzie thought, heart pounding in his ears. There’s no water overboard! Do they just fall forever?

  “DO SOMETHING!” Captain Traxx roared, prompting Ozzie to jump into action. An abandoned sword was lying on the deck, so he snatched it up and charged toward the railing. Drawing upon all his best imaginary ninja skills, he hurled the sword toward the storm.

  And missed.

  Which basically meant he had missed hitting the entire sky. But he didn’t miss everything. The blade did manage to slice through a rope that was stretched taut between the railing and the lifeboats on the deck.

  Ozzie watched in despair as the rope uncoiled. Next came the boats, breaking free and being sucked into the sky, one by one. They ricocheted off each other, clanking as they swirled in the gale around the Empyrean Thunder.

  “Great job!” Fidget hissed, dashing to his side. “There goes our escape.”

  “Come on!” Aunt Temperance hollered, her hair blowing wildly in her face. “We can fly up there and snatch one!”

  Determined to make amends for his clumsiness, Ozzie quickly scrambled onto Tug’s back. He hoped that the skyger would have enough strength to carry them all to one of the lifeboats. Fidget and Aunt Temperance climbed on behind him and Tug began bounding across the chaotic, badly listing deck in an attempt to take flight. His runway came to an end all too quickly; Tug reached the edge of the ship and was forced to leap over the railing and into the cosmos. Down they dropped, plunging like a stone.

  “Come on, Tug!” Ozzie encouraged. “You can do it!”

  The skyger managed to get his wings working. He veered toward the lifeboats, but it was like the storm knew they were trying to escape. Whips of lightning began snapping at them from every direction. Tug juked and dove to avoid the savage attacks, which only managed to take them farther and farther away from the lifeboats.

  As they flapped alongside the Empyrean Thunder, Ozzie could see the beating the ship was taking. Its carapace was dented and one of the masts had crashed across the deck. Two or three of the tentacles at the back end had been severed, leaving amputated stumps that glowed with raw heat. The ship still looked like a squid, but it was a squid in distress.

  Suddenly, Tug jerked backward. One of the storm’s claws had managed to snag him by the tail. Ozzie clutched at Tug’s fur and he felt Fidget’s arms wrap tighter around his torso. But the monster must have let go, because the next thing Ozzie knew, they were spinning wildly through the forest of masts and rigging jutting from the deck of the Empyrean Thunder. Tug struck one of the horizontal spars belly first and, for a brief moment, they were stapled there. The skyger clawed desperately at the air until he was able to find purchase on the pole and heave his body up onto an unsteady perch. He slumped against the mast, breathing heavily. The tips of his normally sky-blue wings were seared black. Ozzie didn’t even want to know what his tail looked like.

  “OZZIE!”

  He swiveled to see Fidget staring at him with wide, terrified eyes.

  “What is it?” he cried into the wind, only to realize that there was no one sitting behind her. “Where’s Aunt T?”

  Fidget slowly shook her head and pointed to one of the spars below them. There was Aunt Temperance’s canvas bag, dangling precariously by one strap. But there was no sign of Aunt Temperance herself. Not on the mast, not on the deck—not anywhere.

  The storm had taken her.

  8

  An Umbrella, Some Nerve, and a Bottle of Bubble Bath

  The sky was booming and pulsing, but to Ozzie everything seemed suddenly distant and muted. It was as if someone had pulled the plug on all his senses, leaving him feeling numb. He had wanted so badly to share Zoone with Aunt Temperance, to show her the wonders of the nexus, to introduce her to all his friends there, to—

  He suddenly realized that Fidget was shaking him. “Ozzie! Look!”

  She pointed past his shoulder and he noticed that the storm was morphing. The cosmic clouds were drifting apart, a dark void forming between them. Then those same clouds began to swirl, faster and faster, like a whirlpool—or something even more ominous. Because even though the cosmic storm didn’t have eyes, a face, or even a body, it had a mouth—and this astral maelstrom was it.

  Where there’s a mouth, there’s a stomach, Ozzie thought as a thunderous rumble reverberated across the sky.

  Two massive tentacles of lightning reached out from the storm, grasped the ship by its drill nose, and began reeling it toward its maw. The ship lurched, causing Tug to tighten his grip on their spar, even wrapping his tail around the mast. The engines of the Empyrean Thunder screamed, fighting to pull away, but the cosmic creature held fast. The entire ship was about to become its dinner.

  A scattering of pirates led by Captain Traxx charged onto the drill nose and began firing their weapons into the cavernous mouth. Fingers of lightning crackled around them; more pirates were snatched up and tossed as appetizers into the storm’s stomach. Soon, only Captain Traxx remained, brandishing something that looked like a harpoon.

  Ozzie couldn’t help imagining what it would be like to be digested in the beast’s belly. It made him queasy—and worried. “We have to find Aunt T and get out of here!” he yelled at his friends.

  “I don’t think we can escape this thing,” Fidget shouted in response. “We’re going to have to beat it! Tug, I need Aunt T’s bag.”

  “Oh, sure,” the skyger said.

  He fluttered toward the spar where the bag was snagged. Just before he reached it, a bolt of lightning struck the mast. There was a devastating crack; then the whole structure split and tipped toward the deck. Aunt Temperance’s bag slid off the spar and began to tumble away. Fidget stretched out and managed to grab it, though Ozzie wondered how it didn’t rip her arm right out of its socket. That bag was heavy—like, deluxe-kitchen-blender heavy.

  “What now?” Ozzie asked as she hauled the bag onto Tug’s back.

  “Just circle, Tug!” Fidget directed. “And try not to get swallowed by that vortex. Here, help me, Oz.”

  As the skyger swooped around, dodging the storm’s claws, Ozzie lifted his legs and carefully swiveled to face the princess. Fidget thrust Aunt Temperance’s bag into Ozzie’s arms, then began rifling through it.

  “Need to find something to knock the slippers off that thing, something to—aha!” She yanked Aunt Temperance’s bottle of bubble bath from the depths of the pack and held it up like a trophy.

  “Seriously?” Ozzie said. “What’s that going to do?”

  “Oh! Need this, too,” Fidget added, plucking Aunt Temperance’s umbrella back out of the side pocket. She quickly unscrewed the cap on the bubble bath, then, with a flash of her periwinkle eyes, warned, “Don’t follow me. Got it?”

  “Follow you where?”

  Fidget’s only answer was to fling herself off Tug’s back, into nothingness. Well, not quite nothingness, Ozzie realized as he lugged the canvas bag onto his shoulder and turned the right way around on Tug’s back. The deck of the Empyrean Thunder was belo
w them, and Fidget was hurtling toward it at an alarming speed. Before she struck it, she clicked open the umbrella and jerked to a halt, floating gently downward like some sort of purple-haired Mary Poppins—that was, until the breath of the storm grabbed hold of her and began sucking her toward its churning cavity.

  “She’s brave,” Tug remarked.

  Ozzie rolled his eyes. “Or crazy.”

  The storm still had its fingers wrapped around the Empyrean Thunder, hauling it ever closer to its stomach, but it soon seemed to comprehend that Fidget was up to something. It turned a claw on her.

  “We have to distract it,” Ozzie told Tug, directing the skyger toward the storm mouth.

  They were too late. Fidget’s makeshift parachute took a direct hit from a bolt of lightning. The umbrella disintegrated into ash, leaving the princess holding only the handle—and her bottle of bubble bath—as she plunged toward the whirlpool’s greedy gullet. She pitched the bottle into the swirling black hole, but whatever she had expected to happen . . . didn’t. Instead, she was sucked into the vortex, completely disappearing from sight.

  “Go after her!” Ozzie screamed.

  Tug banked toward the astral whirlpool, following in the wake of the Empyrean Thunder. The ship had finally succumbed to the gale and was spinning around the void, its front end pointed toward Ozzie and Tug. There was Captain Traxx, still clinging desperately to the drill nose of the ship, but only by the fingers of one hand. Ozzie could see her white teeth as she grimaced in determination—and then she went pinwheeling free.

  Ozzie didn’t even think about what he did next. As the pirate spun past him, he instinctively leaned out and snatched her by the belt, which was when he realized that he probably should have thought about it. Captain Traxx was heavier than he was, and he nearly ended up getting pulled right off Tug’s back. Thankfully, he managed to clumsily hoist her atop the skyger, facing him. She immediately began yelling at him, but they were in the jaws of the storm now and he couldn’t hear her over its booming wail. She certainly didn’t look very grateful; her freckles were flashing like sirens.