Belle and the Prophecy of Grey

Part 2: The Quest; Chapter 7

Gregor stared at the object in his hand, cradling it like it was something infinitely precious. Tears fell into his cupped palm. Boots sat up in her brother's lap, straining to see what he held so close.

Presently, Vikus was answering Gregor's question--how had the keychain come to be here? It was clearly something from the Overland, and Gregor recognized it. But he had never been here before. "I told you others have fallen," said Vikus gently. "Some years ago we rescued one very like you in face and feature. I cannot recall the exact date."

Gregor swept at his tears with his arm. "It belongs to my dad."

"Your father?" asked Luxa. Her eyes had gone round. "Vikus, you do not think he--"

"I do not know, Luxa. But the signs are strong," Vikus replied. "My mind has been on little else since he arrived."

Luxa turned her quizzical gaze on Gregor, but Belle's was focused on Vikus. There was a question between them that was more than simple wondering about Gregor and his father. Something Vikus suspected deeply. What signs were strong?

Vikus went on with his tale. "Your father, like you, was desperate to return home," he said. "With much difficulty we persuaded him to stay for some weeks, but the strain proved too great and one night, also like you, he slipped away. The rats reached him before we did."

Gregor's face, momentarily hopeful, became closed off. "He's dead, then."

"So we assumed. But then came rumor the rats had kept him living," said Vikus. "Our spies confirm this regularly."

"He's alive?" gasped Gregor, color rushing back into his cheeks. "But why? Why didn't they kill him?"

"We know not why with certainty, but I have suspicions. Your father was a man of science, was he not?" asked Vikus.

Gregor nodded absently, stroking the keychain with a finger. "Yeah, he teaches science."

"In our conversations, it was clear that he understood the workings of nature," Vikus continued. "Of trapped lightning, of fire, of powders that explode."

Gregor looked up at him with a frown. "Look, if you think my dad is making guns or bombs for the rats, you've got another think coming. He'd never do that."

Vikus held his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. "It is hard to imagine what any of us would do in the caves of the rats," he said. "To keep sanity must be a struggle, to keep honor a Herculean feat. We do not judge your father, only seek to explain why he survives so long."

"The rats fight well in close range," Luxa added, still watching Gregor with a considering look that Belle could not decipher. She stayed silent, waiting for the time to find out what it meant. "But if we attack from afar, they have no recourse but to run. Of all things, they wish a way to kill us at a distance."

"My wife, Solovet, has a different theory," said Vikus with more cheer. "She believes the rats want your father to make them a thumb!"

"A thumb?" asked Gregor. Boots held up her own to show him. "Yeah, little girl, I know what a thumb is."

"Rats have no thumbs and therefore cannot do many things that we can," said Vikus. "They cannot make tools or weapons. They are masters of destruction, but creation evades them."

"Be glad, Overlander, if they believe your father can be useful," Luxa said sadly. "It is all that can give him time."

This time, Belle did not refrain from reaching out. She stretched her hand across the table to Luxa, who took it and held on.