Belle and the Code of Claw

Part One: The Code; Chapter 1

Horrible as the prophecy was, Belle supposed it could have been worse. On the good side, Gregor, his sister Boots, and their mother Grace might actually make it out of the Underland alive. It looked as if Boots, who was known among the giant cockroaches as "the princess," had some important role to play in breaking the Code of Claw. But the prophecy didn't call for anyone else's death.

Wait. Yes, it did.

When the monster's blood is spilled.

After what Belle had witnessed over the past few days, she couldn't imagine anyone being the monster except the Bane. The enormous white rat, whose life Belle had spared as a pup, had grown up to become a vicious leader consumed with hatred and at least somewhat insane. Life had twisted and tormented that fragile baby into a beast, but there was no helping the Bane now. He had given the order to wipe out the mice and there was no telling what he would do next. He had to be stopped. In the Overland, he might be imprisoned for life. But that wasn't an option in the Underland. Down here, he would have to be killed.

I suppose I should get started. Eat, at least. An army of rats would be here soon. Ares and Bastet had flown over them on their way back to Regalia. Belle should be getting ready. She knew that she had to fight.

But she seemed frozen in place, as if she had become a part of the stone, too. Lying there, she remembered something she had seen in a book of fairytales once. There was a picture of a beautiful young woman--Snow White--lying asleep with her hands folded across her stomach. In fact, she had been lying in almost exactly the same position Belle was in now. That is me, thought Belle. That is me. I have eaten the apple and I am as good as dead. How perfect for Sandwich to have written "The Prophecy of Time" smack in the middle of the ceiling so that Belle would have to be lying just like this to read it. How perfect that the bow next to her had once belonged to Sandwich and would now carry out his visions. How perfect and horrible the whole thing was.

The door swung open softly, and footsteps crossed the floor to her.

"Belle? How fare you?" asked Vikus. The old man's voice sounded as weary as Belle felt. He probably hadn't had much sleep, either. As the head of the Regalian council, Vikus was overworked, anyway. His wife, Solovet, who had been in charge of the Regalian army until recently, was about to go on trial for ordering research that had created a plague, and Luxa, his granddaughter, was in terrible danger in the Firelands. No, Vikus couldn't be getting much rest.

"Me? I am all right," said Belle evenly. "Never been better."

"What think you of 'The Prophecy of Time'?" asked Vikus.

"It is catchy," said Belle, and slowly, painfully, she got to her feet. She had hurt her knee on this last trip.

"I came in to remind you how easy it is to misinterpret Sandwich's prophecies," said Vikus.

Belle pulled an arrow from her quiver and tapped the line about her death with the metal head. "This? You think it is easy to misinterpret this?"

Vikus hesitated. "Possibly."

"Well, it seems very clear to me," answered Belle.

"Believe me, Belle, if there was any way I could take your place, fulfill this prophecy myself...I would do it in a moment..." Vikus's eyes filled with tears.

In spite of her own situation, Belle had to feel some sympathy for Vikus. Life hadn't been kind to him, either. She shrugged. "I could have died fifty times down here already. It is a miracle I have lasted this long."

As Belle slid the arrow back into the quiver and slung the bow across her back, Vikus reached for it. Belle instinctively gripped it with both hands. "It is mine. Sandwich gifted it to me," she said brusquely. How quickly she had become protective, even jealous, of the weapon.