Joshy proved to be an invaluable travelling companion. He kept his new friends entertained with poems, songs, and stories from his favorite books. At mealtimes, he conjured plates of food for them with his wand. Tammo really appreciated this- as a hare himself, he knew the value of good food. Amethyst enjoyed Joshy's dinners too- being a Gem, she didn't need to eat to survive, but she liked eating anyway.
Several days after their confrontation with the two ferrets, they were walking along a path in the forest. Joshy was repeating another stanza of the same poem he'd been reciting when Tammo first encountered him.
"Says I, 'Then let's be on the float. You certainly have got my goat;
You make me hungry in my throat for seeing things that's new.
Out there somewhere we'll ride the range a-looking for the new and strange;
My feet are tired and need a change. Come on! It's up to you!'"
"You know so much of that stuff," Tammo commented, "that I'd think you'd be able to make some up yourself."
"I've tried," Joshy admitted, "but there always seems to be somethin' lacking in my stuff- it don't get under your belt- the divine afflatus is not there. I may start out all right, but I always end up where I didn't expect to go, an' where nobeast wants to be."
"'Member any of it?" Tammo asked.
"There was one poem I wrote about a black beetle that died," said Joshy, reminiscently, "but I can only recall one stanza."
"Let's have it," urged Tammo. "I bet it has Knibbs hangin' to the ropes."
Joshy cleared his throat and recited:
"Oh, beetle, how I weep to see thee
Lyin' on thy poor back!
It is so very sad to see.
You were so shiny. And black."
Tammo laughed, but Amethyst didn't. Tammo realized she had been uncharacteristically quiet for a while. "Something wrong?" he asked.
"No, it's just…" Amethyst trailed off.
"Just what?" Joshy pressed.
"We're getting near to the kindergarten where I was born, and it's stirring up a lot of painful memories," Amethyst said.
"Kindergarten, you say?" Joshy mused. "A school in the forest?"
Amethyst chuckled darkly. "It's not a school. I promise you, it is not a school."
"Well, what is it then?" Tammo wanted to know.
"Kindergartens are places where Gems are created," Amethyst said.
Tammo grabbed her arm. "I say, I want to see this kindergarten for myself! Will you take me there?"
"I don't want to go back there!" Amethyst said. Tammo had never heard her sound so scared. "Kindergarten is a bad place, where bad Gems came to grow more bad Gems!"
"But you came from there," Tammo said, confused. "You're good, right? Please, if kindergarten has anything to do with Gems I have to know about it! It's part of my jolly old heritage, wot."
Amethyst took several slow, deep breaths. "Okay. We can take a look around. But let's make it quick."
She stepped off the trail and headed down a steep slope. The other two followed.
Amethyst led them through the woods until they emerged into a vast canyon. Numerous holes were carved into the dull purple rock faces. Pieces of disused machinery lay all over the ground.
Joshy shuddered. "Okay, is anyone else gettin' an Enigma of Amigara Fault vibe?" But neither of the others knew what that meant.
"There, ya see?" said Amethyst. "Nothing that exciting. Okay, you've seen it, let's get out of here…"
But Tammo had questions. "What's this?" he asked, picking up a tiny contraption that resembled a bacteriophage virus made out of metal.
"That's an Injector," Amethyst said. "Injectors are the machines that Gems use to create other Gems."
"That's so cool!" Tammo gushed. "And what are all those holes?"
Amethyst explained, "The Injectors drill into the cliff face, injecting a baby Gem into the surface of the rock. The baby Gem gestates inside the cliff, then when it's ready to be born it pops out of the rock, leaving behind an exit hole."
Tammo studied the cliff. "So, you came out of one of those holes when you were born, then? Is that how all Gems are made? Wow, I wish someone had told me this stuff before…"
Suddenly an arrow came flying out of nowhere and passed inches from Tammo's face! It buried itself in the wall behind Tammo.
Tammo and his friends turned to see a fox with a bow standing behind them. "Haharr, I'll show ye the color o' yer insides!" the fox said.
Then Skulka and Gaduss entered the canyon and stood flanking the fox. "Dem's da guys dat beat us up a couple days ago," Skulka said. "I'd know dem in a t'ousand."
Joshy groaned. "I had a feelin' we'd run into those two again!"
"Get behind me," Tammo told his friends and he raised his shield again.
All at once, the air became alive with vermin war cries. A score or more of rats, ferrets, weasels, and stoats came pounding into the canyon, brandishing an ugly array of weapons. They blocked the exit, so Tammo and his friends couldn't escape.
"We've got our work cut out for us," said Amethyst. "Let's give 'em somethin' to remember us by!"
The vermin started shooting at them with slingstones and arrows. From behind Tammo's shield, Joshy shot spells back at them. He sent a wave of fried chicken legs flying at the vermin, which knocked some of them back. A weasel tried to make a rush at the three friends, but Amethyst raised her whip and brought it down on his head.
Out of the corner of his eye, Tammo noticed Gaduss trying to sneak around and get behind them. He whirled around and let the ferret have it with the flashlight, knocking out the other half of his teeth. "That's how a flashlight can be a death ray," he said.
Even though Tammo, Amethyst, and Joshy fought bravely, they were outnumbered. It seemed they were destined to be defeated until something unexpected happened.
A creature crawled out of one of the holes in the cliff. It looked like a giant turnip with four stumpy legs. It had no eyes, but it did have a great big mouth filled with sharp teeth. There was a flower growing on top of its head.
The plant monster gave a mighty roar. The vermin stopped attacking and turned to see what was making the sound. The monster lumbered over to the big fox who had shot at Tammo with an arrow and bit him in half!
This made the other vermin soldiers panic, and they tried to run, but more of the plant monsters emerged from the other holes and started attacking them, tearing them all to pieces. Only one, a ferret named Rinkul, managed to escape.
Soon, Tammo and his friends were the only creatures left alive in the kindergarten, aside from the monsters. Tammo made his shield bigger, and he and his friends crouched down on the ground, but the monsters were approaching!
"I say, what the deuce are those things?" Joshy cried.
"They must be corrupted Gems," Amethyst said.
The monsters were trying to bite them, but their teeth merely glanced off Tammo's shield. However, Tammo was getting exhausted; he'd never had to hold the shield up for this long before. Soon he knew he would weaken, and then they would be done for.
And then he looked up at the top of the cliff, and he saw Garnet and Pearl standing up there! His heart gave a leap! They were saved!
Garnet and Pearl joined hands, and they fused into their combined form, Sardonyx! Sardonyx was the same shape as Pearl, and the same color as Garnet, but she was twice as tall as either of them. She had four arms and she wielded a Warhammer that looked like a combination of Garnet's gauntlets and Pearl's sword.
Sardonyx leaped down off the cliff into the canyon and began bashing at the plant monsters with her hammer. Whenever she hit one, it would disappear, leaving behind a gemstone trapped in a bubble.
Soon they were all gone, and Sardonyx separated back into Garnet and Pearl. Tammo lowered his shield, and he, Amethyst, and Joshy got back to their feet.
Joshy was visibly shaken. "Okay, can somebeast explain what just happened?"
"This is Garnet and Pearl, the other two members of our family," Amethyst said.
"T-t-those two Gems just became one Gem, an' then two Gems again!" Joshy stammered.
"Yeah, that's called 'fusing,'" Tammo said. "They do that sometimes."
Joshy pulled himself together, turned to Garnet and Pearl, and bowed to them. "My thanks to you for savin' us, ladies. My name is Joshy Stag Hare an' I'm a wizard."
"Pleased to meet you, Joshy," said Garnet. "But Tammo, we're very disappointed in you. What were you thinking, running off like that?"
"And Amethyst, you helped him run away!" Pearl added. "You're as bad as he is."
"She was taking me to Salamandastron," Tammo tried to explain.
"I thought if the Long Patrol trained him to be a warrior, he wouldn't get up to so much mischief at home," Amethyst said.
Tammo attempted to change the subject. "If you'll excuse me askin', how'd you find us, wot?"
"We used this magical mirror to track you," Pearl said, holding up a mirror. "But that's not important now. You're in big trouble, young man!"
Joshy raised his paw. "I'm sorry, but will somebeast please explain what those monstrous creatures were?"
"I told you," said Amethyst. "They're corrupted Gems."
"Yes, but what does 'corrupted' mean?" Joshy pressed.
Garnet picked up one of the bubbles that held an imprisoned plant monster. "These used to be normal Gems, like us. In the war against the Diamonds thousands of years ago, they fought alongside us. The Diamonds punished them by turning them into monsters. Now, whenever we run across one of them, we have to trap them in a bubble, like Pearl and I just did to these here. We don't know how to heal them, so it's the only way to deal with them."
"Do all corrupted Gems look like giant turnips?" Joshy asked.
"No, they come in many different forms," Pearl said. "There's the Centipeetle, which looks like a pentagram between a centipede and a beetle. Then there's the Worm Monster, the Heaven Beetle and the Earth Beetle, the Giant Pufferfish. There are as many different kinds of Gem Mutants as there are Gems."
Joshy shuddered. "Yeesh, as if Mossflower wasn't dangerous enough without havin' to worry about those things!"
They all heard a roar from within one of the caves. It was the sound of more plant monsters!
"Everyone, run for it!" Garnet ordered.
The five of them made a dash for the mouth of the canyon before the rest of the monsters could emerge. They ran out of the canyon and back into the woods. They didn't stop running until the roaring sounds in the distance had died.
They all stood and panted for a moment, catching their breath.
"I suppose this means this adventure is being cut short," Tammo said. "Are you gonna make me come home now?"
"No, Tammo," said Garnet. "We're not going home."
Tammo brightened. "You mean you're going to let me continue on to Salamandastron?"
"No," said Garnet. "We have to go to Redwall Abbey."
Tammo gasped. The Gems had told him tales of the wondrous castle that stood in the center of Mossflower, but he'd never been there before. "I say! Going to visit the blinkin' Abbey? Marvelous! I can't wait to taste their scoff! Er, but why are we going there now?"
Garnet said, "Because we must warn the Abbeybeasts that there are Corrupted Gems roaming the land."