Greg ran as fast as he could, which was faster than he and especially his P.E. teacher Mr. Goldbloom had thought possible before his meeting with Monsieur Renard. He ploughed through the snow, up hill and down dale, breathing like a scared little animal that he was at the moment, for once desperately wishing his useless older half-brother was there, if only to keep him company in this expeditious retreat. Or maybe even his parents, even though those two would probably keep talking about therapy even as the horrendous nightmare of a fox ate their son bit by bit. Greg reminded himself that Monsieur Renard needed him alive, but that only made his tired short legs move even faster.
He had no idea where he was going, for his brain was locked in the "flight, definitely flight" mode and the only direction he knew and needed was best defined as "away from the Fox". He couldn't even properly worry about the Owl's well-being, although he did spare the brave bird a few grateful thoughts every now and then before returning to the more vital matter of his own survival.
After some time, which to his muddled brain might have been anything between ten minutes and an hour, Greg finally ran out of breath in a quiet shaded dell and leaned against an aspen, listening hard but too afraid to turn around and see if he was actually being followed. Something moved inside his breast pocket, and he twitched, having completely forgotten about poor old Jason Funderburker.
"At least I have you," he mused, gingerly picking the frog up and giving it a few strokes on the head with shaking mittened hands. "Tell you what, Jason Funderburker, I sorta miss the Beast now that I've met that new fellow."
The frog croaked warily.
"Oh, of course you're right, I'm only saying this because the Beast is not around anymore… Let's move on, then, or we might share his fate!"
Greg tried to break into a run again but had to stop and put a hand into his side pocket, so that he could cup his aching spleen. He had a brief desire to just stand and cry for a while, but eventually decided he couldn't afford losing Jason Funderburker's respect and, more importantly, be conscripted by an evil fox – he didn't doubt, however, that Wirt would have totally given up at this stage. The strange need to prove a dubious point to the absent brother inspired Greg to adopt some form of race walking – in his books, a kind of sport for people who tried their best not to look like they cared very much but at the end of the day still wanted to lay their hands on an Olympic medal.
As he moved further and further into the seemingly neverending forest where the spring was but a distant rumour, his fear of Monsieur Renard was slowly assuaged, making way for such mundane but intrusive concerns as weariness and hunger. He tried to talk to the few birds and squirrels he saw and once even contemplated hitting one of them with a snowball, hoping for a curse which would have probably come handy in the circumstances. However, when Greg saw a small white rabbit rushing towards him through the snow, he had no chance to address it because the animal spoke first, and its tone was rather urgent:
"Finally! You! Phew! Thought I'd never find you!"
The voice was male, thin and just about as rabbity as Greg imagined these animals would speak.
"Um-m-m…" The boy took a cautious step back, weighing the stone-hard snowball in his hand. "Don't come any closer, I'm armed to the teeth! And they're not milk anymore!"
The rabbit rose on its hind legs and tilted his head to one side, staring at Greg with his red albino eyes.
"Come on, Gregory, I'm on your side!" he pleaded. "I know everything that happened with you and Blodie and Renard! I'm here to take you to a safe place!"
"Oh, you would say that, wouldn't you?" snorted Greg, pretty angry at his inability to trust anyone anymore. "What if you're the Fox's agent?"
"Agent? Me? A rabbit?" uttered the animal. "I'm a Guardian! Blodie sent me! The owl! She's wounded! Look at me! I'm just a harmless bunny!"
He seemed pretty harmless indeed, and he knew the Owl by name – which, Greg admitted, wasn't much of a proof not least because they were never formally introduced – but in his current state the boy was prone to paranoia.
"Unless it's a bluff!" he exclaimed. "And I know a lot about bluff, Jason Funderburker is awfully good at it. You can't read him, it's like he doesn't even know which cards he's got when we're playing poker."
"Why, why on Earth would I bluff?" moaned the rabbit and twitched its long ears. "Blodie chased Renard away but was wounded so badly! There's no telling when he comes back – and he always comes back! And you laid out such a clear trail for him that he will have no trouble at all finding you once he recovers!"
The rabbit accusingly pointed behind Greg's back with a paw and, even though it was the oldest trick in the book, the boy turned his head. His heart fell as he saw a glaringly obvious line of deep footsteps in the snow, which must have stretched all the way back to the thicket where the battle took place. It seemed that his whole school class travelled through there, not just Greg alone. He turned back, belatedly fearing for his safety, but was immediately relieved, for the rabbit patiently stood in place. Greg squinted his eyes, giving the animal his best Clint Eastwood glare.
"Okay, let's go," he slowly said at last, deducing that if he stayed, the Fox would find him anyway. And besides, what's left to do if you can't even trust talking bunnies anymore?
"Follow me!" waved the rabbit, jumping on the spot excitedly and then turning back to the direction he came from. "First we cover our tracks, then – straight to Llewellyn's Gift!"
This time Greg didn't have to be nudged, for he had no desire to build snowmen, play snowballs or waste time any other way which might have or might have not involved snow. He set out after the rabbit in a grim, determined pace, listening to his rumbling stomach and his grumbling frog singing in unison. Somehow, his last adventure in the Unknown seemed a lot less taxing right now. Was it because Wirt and Beatrice had been with him? Or did it just feel different because that had been his first ever time in the Unknown, and nothing could match that feeling of discovery anymore?
The rabbit, true to his word, did his best to make sure the Fox would have trouble following them. Once they reached a small frozen stream, he made Greg move onto the ice and slide along the bank for several minutes, which was when they got to a huge fallen tree, its thick dead roots trapped underneath the ice as if an unfortunate river octopus had decided to grab the log to pull it under and had missed the onset of winter. Then Greg had to climb upon the uprooted tree without touching the ground and crawl down its entire length, minding the broken branches. Seemingly satisfied with this diversion, the rabbit nevertheless made the boy strew his steps with snow for some more time after they left the tree behind.
"Are there more Guardians in that… Gift of yours?" asked Greg as they were coming down a gentle slope peppered with grey rocks – purulent pimples on the snow-white face.
"Most of us are quite busy taking care of the others like Renard," said the rabbit. "There are lots of them around these days, lots! We're stretched thin, trying to distract and deflect and divert, but they are strong, and we are too few…"
Greg regretted asking that question: he had felt a lot more comfortable imagining the Guardians as some mighty, unyielding host of honourable protectors in shining armour rather than a few miserable animals outweighed by the mysterious dark forces. It was a lot like physics, he thought. You ask how stuff works, expecting something wonderful, and all you get is maths upon maths with a sprinkle of chemistry if you're particularly unlucky.
At last they reached the final point of their destination, even though at first it seemed to Greg just like any other dell they had passed on their way through the woods. The only landmark was the huge misshapen rock about twelve feet high, half-covered in snow, and the rabbit ran straight towards it, dug something up from the ground with his front paws and pulled, making an inconspicuous slab of stone move aside to reveal a small dark opening. Greg, who just a day ago would have pushed the rabbit out of the way to fly inside and explore as soon as possible, once again felt unfamiliar reluctance and suspicion.
"Oh, come on!" urged the animal. "Have you followed me all the way just to stop trusting me here?"
He looked a bit offended, even though Greg had no previous experience determining the finer points of rabbit mimicry, so the boy sighed and realised he hardly had any other options but to climb in.
The first thing he saw after crawling down the twisting passageway was the Owl, which finally made him inwardly sigh with relief. His heartbeat sped up once again, however, once he saw the condition the bird was in: battered, barely breathing, with her feathers ruffled and partially broken or lost, unconscious on the makeshift bed by the wooden wall of the warm cozy room. It was tended by a white-haired bearded man in a dark green robe, who was somehow even shorter than Greg. The dwarf looked up, studying the boy with his blue eyes shining with intelligence.
"You must be Gregory," he mumbled, losing much of the interest the moment he voiced that conclusion. "Were you followed?" he asked the rabbit before returning his full attention back to the Owl.
"No, no, we were careful. How is she?"
"Holding on…" the dwarf drawled, which to Greg sounded like he didn't believe it would stay that way for long. A sharp tooth of guilt pierced his heart and seemed to settle there.
He approached the bed and looked at the bird with concern: she, who looked so proud and majestic just a few hours ago, was now reduced to this immobile heap of feathers and bloody bandages.
"I hate that fox," he grumbled, feeling unwanted tears build up in the corners of his eyes.
The rabbit hopped on the bedsheet at the foot of the bed for a better vantage point.
"Another Guardian brought her here to Snorri before flying off to search for your brother again," he explained. "Don't blame yourself! Neither of you could have known this would happen!"
"Well, I definitely warned her," interjected the dwarf, for whom the natural manner of speaking was almost incomprehensible mumbling at his beard, which reminded Greg of his late grandfather. Snorri moved across to the table in the corner of the room and brought back some balm which he then started to apply to the Owl's barely moving chest.
"Oh, give it a rest, Snorri!"
"No word about Wirt, then?" asked Greg quickly. He liked the current state of affairs less and less. It was ridiculously difficult to keep in mind so many reasons for worrying and juggle them like an adult probably does on a daily basis. Who was to say Wirt hadn't been captured already or maybe even killed after he inevitably had done the bidding of some sorcerous maniac like Monsieur Renard? He sniffled and then inwardly screamed at himself to stop being so girly, which was harder to do with each passing moment.
"I'm afraid not," Snorri replied. "We can't really organise a proper search party, and our scouts haven't found anything at the other side of the Riddler's Vein so far. And now that Blodie is down, I'll have to recall one of them, at least…"
"Stop talking about her as if she's not right here, as if she's not dying before your very eyes!" cried the rabbit, perfectly expressing the sentiment that Greg felt but couldn't bring himself to say in front of this unfamiliar grumpy dwarf.
"Yes, can't we do something?" the boy said. "To help her?"
"I'm doing everything in my power, and since I'm the Loremaster of the Guardians, my power is not of a modest kind," retorted Snorri testily. "And yet, I'm afraid, even that might not be enough in the end…"
Greg stomped his foot, angry at himself, the Fox and the useless dwarf. The rabbit gave him a sympathetic look which only made things worse. What was the point of returning to the Unknown if he only brought death and danger and felt even more lonely and helpless?
"But there's so much magic in your world!" he cried. "Surely at least something should do the trick?"
Before answering, the dwarf scratched his long white beard, staining it with yellowish drops of the balm off the tips of his fingers.
"Maybe Adelaide could help her. She is an old wise witch – of dubious moral standards, granted, but she's been around for a while and knows a lot of ways to trick death."
"Ugh, she doesn't, really," mumbled Greg, feeling his heavy heart sink even deeper. "She's pretty terrible at tricking death, if you ask me. Personal experience," he explained when he saw the questioning looks.
"Then, I'm afraid… well… I can't think of any way at all to help her. All we have to do now is… hope for a miracle," concluded the dwarf, lowering his voice, which sounded like a sentence of the jury.
"There's always the Cauldron," blurted the rabbit and then turned away twitching his ears nervously, as if he swore in front of a little kid or something to that effect.
"No. Absolutely not," Snorri replied sternly.
"What? Which Cauldron? Tell me!" demanded Greg, towering over the dwarf. It felt good to tower over someone for a change, even if only by a few inches.
Snorri sighed and shuffled back towards the table to put the balm away in the old-fashioned wooden cabinet on the wall.
"It should be of no concern to you, boy."
"Well, the Owl – Blodie – risked her life to save me and might well lose it now!" he cried. "Of course it concerns me!"
"The thing is…" the rabbit shyly interjected, "it sort of has to do with the very thing we're trying to prevent."
"Meaning what exactly?" Greg put his arms akimbo.
The dwarf gave the boy a long hard look before explaining.
"Among the treasures of the Beasts there is rumoured to be the legendary Cauldron of Rebirth, which restores life to the body, providing the flame of the soul remains within it."
"Then what are we waiting for, exactly?!" Greg nearly jumped up in frustration. "Come on! I'm corrupted by the Beast, apparently! I can get it out and then we can save her!"
The dwarf, judging by the intense frown that twisted his already wrinkled face, was having none of it.
"That," he pointed his finger upwards in the oh-so-familiar manner of Greg's Grandpa, "is everything the Guardians stand against! We cannot possibly risk the demise of this whole land for a single life of any of us, and believe me, boy, Blodie would have said exactly the same if she could talk now."
"You can't know that, she's terribly boring but not suicidal," Greg waved him off. "And what's the risk exactly? All those sorcerer guys are hunting me and Wirt, they can hardly expect us to show up at the very place you forbid us to go to!"
"Yeah," the rabbit stuck his oar in. "Snorri, weren't you going to propose to get to the Beast's treasures anyway at some point, so that we could destroy them once and for all and chase all the seekers away?"
"That was before I knew Renard was involved in all this! You just can't trust that cunning creature, you can expect anything from him…"
"Well, the boys can't hide forever, and besides, there are others who were touched by the Beast – remember that Woodsman's daughter?" the rabbit asked. "Can you be sure the old man would hide her well?"
"Come on, Mr. Snorri!" pleaded Greg. "You know we're right! You know we have a chance!"
The dwarf gave a deep sigh of exasperation and turned away from the boy, but in doing so he had to face the Owl, helpless and dying despite all the Guardians' efforts, dying for their very cause. He harrumphed and crossed his arms, avoiding everyone's eyes.
"Well, I suppose we three can probably, just probably get to the Valley of Empty Song unnoticed from here…" he reluctantly said at last. "But there has to be a very careful planning done, and I'll have to contact a few other Guardians to meet us there and help us, and this is a terribly, terribly reckless thing to do and I am not accepting any responsibility because…"
On and on Snorri went, making all sorts of excuses and probably still trying to justify this decision to himself, but Greg didn't mind and just wanted to hug the dwarf fiercely, for there turned out to be a heart of gold under all that grumpy façade after all, just like in his late grandfather's case, and that made the boy think about Charlie's words once again, and also made him feel like there might be some good in the world after all.