"Too green for me, and too damp," remarked Suzy with distaste as they splashed up the stream. She looked up at the canopy of leaves and vines and shuddered.
"Could be anything hiding in the shrubbery. Give me a nice street any day."
"What about your old place with the dinosaurs?" asked Arthur. "That had trees."
"Only a few, and it was inside the House? Where did Tom go?"
Arthur and Suzy stopped and looked around. Tom had been only a little way ahead. Now they could neither see him nor hear him splashing. There was only the gentle burble of the stream and the soft noises of the wind rustling the upper levels of the jungle canopy.
"Tom?" called out Arthur. "Captain?"
Paranoid thoughts began to creep into his brain.
Maybe Tom had somehow seen the telegram from Grim Tuesday after all? Or maybe he'd always planned to get us here. He's brought us here to trap us. He'll leave us here, on this jungle island in the middle of the sun. We'll never escape -
"Up here!" Tom called out.
"Where?" Arthur shouted back. He could hear Tom, but couldn't see him. There was only the jungle all around, and Suzy next to him, slowly scanning the trees.
"Here!" called out Tom again, and this time Arthur saw a hand thrust down through the thick mass of leaves, waving. "You can climb up on the other side."
Arthur and Suzy left the stream, pushed their way between some vast bushes with pale yellow flowers and odd elongated seedpods, and came to the trunk of a large, spreading tree. The trunk was wrapped in vines that grew in all directions, making a natural ladder up into the jungle canopy. Arthur and Suzy climbed easily, maneuvered through the leafy canopy, and emerged out into the sunshine.
Tom was waiting for them, perched on a thick spreading branch next to something that could only be described as a nest. A circular platform of branches and vines wove together in a haphazard fashion to make a cross between a balcony and a treetop bed.
In the middle of it, apparently asleep, was a small bear. It was a sleek black in color, apart from a lighter muzzle and a bright yellow crescent-shaped blaze across its chest. It also had a tail, which Arthur wasn't sure was normal for bears. If it was a bear. It wasn't that big, about half Arthur's size, though it was plumper around the middle.
"That's it," said Tom. "Part Two of the Will. And, if I recall from one of my journeys to the Spice Islands, in the shape of a sun bear."
Arthur climbed across to look at the sun bear more closely. It didn't stir, but the slow rise and fall of its chest suggested it was merely asleep. Arthur leaned closer still and looked at its fur. Sure enough, when he was only an inch or two away, he could see thousands of tiny letters swirling about, rather than actual fur or flesh.
"What's wrong with it?" he asked, as the sun bear didn't awaken or show any sign of being aware of its visitors. "Is it asleep? Or hibernating?"
"Sun bears -" Tom began to say, but he got no further, as the sharp crack of an explosion sounded from the beach. Arthur, Tom, and Suzy snapped around to look and saw a huge geyser of steam spout into the air - from where the Helios was beached.
"Uh-oh," said Suzy. Her hand fell to her cutlass hilt. "Is that Grim Tuesday arriving?"
"No," Tom replied. "Apart from the Improbable Stair, there is no way to reach this island but the Helios, and Tuesday wouldn't dare the Stair. It is more likely we have woken a guardian or watcher. I will deal with it."
All of a sudden, Tom's harpoon appeared in his left hand, glittering with its strange mix of light and darkness.
"But what about the Will?" Arthur asked. He prodded the bear with his finger, keeping a wary eye on its long, sharp-looking claws. A faint golden glow spread over Arthur's finger, but the bear didn't move. "What do we do with it?"
Tom had begun to climb down, but he stopped and looked back up, his forehead furrowed in thought. He kept glancing back towards the beach, where the steam continued to spout a hundred feet into the air.
"What did you plan to do with it?" the seafarer asked.
"I don't know," replied Arthur in exasperation. "I thought it'd be like the first part of the Will. You know, it would tell me what to do. Not just lie there."
"Bring it, then. We should not linger here," said Tom. Then he was gone.
"You reckon we can lift it?" Suzy asked Arthur. "Pretty solid-looking bear. Even if it is made of words."
"I don't know," Arthur snapped, showing his irritation. "Why can't it just wake up and be useful?"
Making sure he had a good foothold on the branch, he bent down and tried to lift the sun bear under one arm. But he could barely raise its front legs an inch off the nest. It was extremely heavy, heavier than any bear of real flesh and blood.
Suzy tried to lift it too, but could only get its rear legs up, while its round midsection stayed firmly planted on the woven leaves. Even lifting together, they could only bend it into a U-shape. It still didn't wake up.
"It's too heavy!" Arthur conceded.
"The Captain could carry it," said Suzy. "That steam's stopped? oh? smoke."
She pointed. The steam geyser had gone, but in its place there was a dense column of smoke. Then they heard a strange crackling noise, and a soundless vibration passed through Arthur and Suzy, making them shiver. It was followed by an inhuman, very high-pitched scream - and a triumphant shout from Tom.
"Reckon that was the Captain's 'friend,'" whispered Suzy as she felt her teeth with one dirty hand. Arthur's teeth felt odd too, kind of fuzzy. But the sensation passed quickly.
"As long as it gets used on the right side, I don't mind," said Arthur. He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted, "Captain! Captain! We need you to carry the Will!"
"Aye, I hear you!" came a returning shout. "I'm coming back!"
Tom followed his shout several minutes later, emerging through the canopy, once again without his harpoon. "We must speed on. That was a Sunsprite. There are others trying to drag the Helios off. They have some means of getting in through the Immaterial Glass."
"I thought you said there was no way in except the Stair and your sunship," Suzy said as Tom picked up the sun bear and slung it over one shoulder as easily as if it were a pillow.
"So I thought, lass, so I thought," Tom muttered. "I wonder? but this is no time for wonderings. Quickly, to the ship!"
"What's a Sunsprite?" Arthur asked Suzy as they hastily climbed back down into the cool shade of the jungle. Tom easily outdistanced them into the greenery, even with the sun bear on his shoulder.
"Dunno exactly," replied Suzy. "There's a mort of different Sprites, and I never learned 'em. Basically they're Nithlings that got out of the House and into the Secondary Realms."
"Miss Blue is correct, to a degree," Tom called out. He was ten or twenty yards ahead and hidden, so his comment came as a minor shock to Arthur and Suzy.
"All Sprites were once Nithlings, but they take on the nature of the place they inhabit out in the Secondary Realms. Sunsprites are essentially self-willed entities composed of stellar plasma. But even they should not be here, at the hot heart of a star. They usually swarm around the fringes of a sun."
"He's got good hearing," whispered Suzy.
"Swarm?" asked Arthur. He didn't like hearing that word.
"Typically the original escaped Nithling divides into several hundred Sprites. If they come upon us, do not let them embrace you. Even a brightcoat and starhood will not endure long against their kiss."
"Uh, let's just get back on board without meeting any," Arthur suggested. He picked up his pace, splashing Suzy with his strange, stumbling gait.
"Too late for that," said Tom as another geyser of steam erupted out of the sea, just as all three of them burst out of the jungle and onto the sand.