Everyone was in place. "We will only travel a short while when I will give the command to run. At that point, do not stop until you have reached the field of starshade," Hamnet said. "Let us go."
This path was narrower although similar-looking to the one that had brought them this far. But as they turned a corner, Gregor saw a long corridor that was so lovely it looked unreal. The vines were covered with a million tiny silvery-white blossoms that seemed to sparkle in the lantern light. There was a soft, tinkling sound of bells. It was like entering the pathway to some magical fairyland. And the smell...oh, the smell of the flowers made him dizzy with happiness.
"Run!" he heard Hamnet shout.
Ripred sprang forward with such power that Gregor almost lost his seat and had to fling himself forward across Boots and grab hold of the rat's ears to hang on. Boots gave a squeal of protest, since she was pretty much flattened into Ripred's neck, but Gregor didn't dare let go.
The scent of the flowers was making it hard to hold on, though. He could feel his mind beginning to get cloudy and for no apparent reason, he started grinning.
"Hang on, Overlander!" Ripred snarled.
It was the funniest thing Gregor had ever heard, and now he was laughing. He saw the bewitching vines begin to shoot out at them, and he wanted to reach out his hands to meet them. Just then, Frill caught his attention by rearing up on her hind legs and breaking into a sprint. The sight of the big lizard bicycling along on those big legs made him laugh so hard that tears began to stream down his face.
Then Gregor could see a green field....That must be the starshade....What a dumb name for a plant since there were no stars down here or shade, either, since there was no sun. Which was a star. Since the star was a sun...No, the sun was starshade....No..."Maybe they should call it 'Never-seen-a-star-shade!'" Gregor yelled. The idea was so hilarious that he lost his grip on Ripred's back and fell off onto the path. The plants...the pretty plants...wove around his arms and fingers....He had never seen anything so amazing in his life!
Something yanked him from behind and he was being pulled back and forth because his new friends, the silvery-flowered vines, did not want him to leave so soon. They bit deeply into his arms before they finally snapped. "Bye!" Gregor called as he was dragged away. "Nice knowing you!"
Then he was lying in a cool, green, lemony world, still chuckling about the "Never-seen-a-star-shade" joke when he realized there was nothing funny about it. Alarm shot through him and he sat up quickly. The group was strung out along a large rectangular field covered in starshade. Boots was curled up in the leaves next to him giggling about her thumbs. Nike was hiccuping, which had Luxa and Hazard in stitches. Aurora, who apparently could fly again, was making lazy loops in the air. Most of his other fellow travelers seemed disoriented, too. Ripred and Hamnet were both taking deep breaths of the starshade, so Gregor did the same. His head began to clear almost immediately.
"What happened back there?" he asked.
"Those flowers put out a scent that gives a feeling of great happiness and well-being," said Hamnet. "And then, my guess is, they drag you into the Vineyard and dismember you."
"Whoa! You might have given us a heads-up on that one!" said Gregor.
"We were afraid you would try to fight them," said Hamnet. "That would have guaranteed your destruction."
"We could have fought them," said Luxa, but then Nike hiccuped again and she fell over, laughing.
"Oh, please," said Ripred rolling his eyes. "As it was, Hamnet and I had to drag half of you out of there, or don't you remember that part, Your Highness?"
Gregor could see the confusion on Luxa's face and guessed that part of the ride was as much a blur for her as it was for him.
"It affects the smallest the fastest," said Hamnet. "Luckily, Frill and I had Hazard with us last night. He began to babble almost as soon as we encountered the silver flowers. It warned us what we were up against." He wrapped his arm around Hazard and gave him a squeeze.
"Are we going to pick the leaves now?" asked Hazard. "Can I help?"
"Yes, we can all help," said Hamnet. "The sooner we can harvest these plants the better."
But before they started, Hamnet insisted that everyone eat a handful of the starshade leaves.
"Why do we need it?" asked Gregor. "None of us has the plague."
"But we are all no doubt being exposed to it. 'In the cradle lies the cure,'" said Hamnet. "That means the plague breeds here in the Vineyard. I do not know exactly where or how. All of us have scrapes and wounds. Your feet, Gregor. These cuts from the vines." Hamnet turned Gregor's arm around and revealed a crisscrossing pattern of marks where the vines had ensnared his arms. "If the plague germ floats in the air or grows on the plants or sleeps dormant in this earth where we stand, be sure it will make its way into your blood as well."
"Boots!" said Gregor. "Come on, we have to eat this stuff!" He stuffed a wad of leaves in his mouth and chewed. They weren't bad, actually. Sort of like lemon and mint and tea all in one. Boots resisted eating the leaves, since she was not big on greens, until Hamnet made it into a game of who could eat a leaf the fastest. Hazard and Temp played with her and had the sense to let her win almost every time, so she soon had a fair number of leaves inside her.
The starshade was easy to pull from the thin layer of soil in which it grew, but no one could think of the best way to package it for the trip home. The plants were only about eighteen inches tall, so they were not long enough for tying around bundles of the stuff. Then Gregor remembered the duct tape and took it from his pack. "Here, this will work!" He pulled out a strip of the tape to show them. By cutting the wide tape into thin strips, they could secure a really big haul.
"This is most excellent," said Hamnet. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me, thank Mareth," said Gregor, and then caught himself. Now that they all knew about the Garden of the Hesperides and Mareth saving Hamnet, somehow he felt awkward mentioning the name. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"Why?" asked Hamnet. "Mareth is one of the few people I do not mind being in debt to."
"Yeah," said Gregor. "He's a good guy."
"Come, let us begin the harvest," said Hamnet.
Initially, everyone gathered the starshade from the field, but it soon became apparent that the humans would be most useful taping bundles of the leaves together. None of the other creatures had the hands to do it. Boots and Hazard really weren't much help, either, so they went back to picking plants. That is, Hazard did, while Boots sang "The Alphabet Song", then chanted "'Turn and turn and turn again'" while she did her spinning dance until she fell over with dizziness. Occasionally, she presented them with a few leaves, too. Aurora and Nike, who, with their injuries, were also fairly limited in what they could do, made sure she stayed safely in the field. When she began to get too interested in the jungle again, Gregor dug around in his backpack and pulled out her ball and the top Dulcet had packed for her. He also gave her the hand mirror Nerissa had given him — Boots was very fond of making faces at herself.
Gregor ended up working mainly with Luxa, cutting strips of tape and wrapping up bundles of starshade. Hamnet gathered the bundles and began to build them into a haystack of sorts. When he was out of earshot, Gregor turned to Luxa. "So, that was some story Ripred told us about Hamnet."
"Yes, it explains a great deal about why he left," said Luxa. "He was mad. But it does not explain why he did not come back to Regalia when his senses returned."
"Because they would have made him fight again, Luxa," said Gregor. "And he couldn't stand killing anymore."