Impossible Creatures

Mal and Christopher go to Gelifen and discover that he has a fatal wound. Christopher feels despair when he realizes that Gelifen should have grown into a griffin that was large enough to shelter them. Now, Gelifen will never become who he was meant to be. When Nighthand finds them, Mal and Christopher are both holding Gelifen’s body. In the fountain beside them, “the water [i]s red, and in the moonlight it look[s] as though the world itself [is] bleeding for them. The last griffin die[s] as the clocks str[ike] the half hour, and the noise r[ings] out like a death toll through the sleeping city” (206).

Mal wonders aloud to Christopher what would have happened had she chosen to set out immediately to find the potion of remembering. Christopher is too grief-stricken to give her a comforting answer. He tells her that they will never know. Meanwhile, Nighthand feels sick as he realizes that Anja betrayed them.

Mal shuns all the adults and goes with Christopher into a forest, where they bury Gelifen. When she returns, she tells them that she intends to go to Antiok, the island of the centaurs, to obtain a potion of remembering. She will then destroy the man in the heart of the maze. Everyone is energized by her grim determination, and they jump into action.

They sail for Antiok with no plan to circumvent the magic that makes it impossible to approach the island in a normal boat. Anja finds them. Feeling guilty for what she has done, she explains that her great-grandfather gained the family’s vast wealth and power over the city by killing his partner. She knew that it was wrong of her to accept such an inheritance, and she wanted to keep the shameful origin of her wealth and power a secret. She knew that secrecy would be impossible if an Immortal were around to remember what her great-grandfather did.

When Adam Kavil approached her, she agreed to his plan, even knowing that he was lying when he claimed that he would merely imprison Mal. She asserts that so many people’s livelihoods depended on her that there was no way she could have avoided betraying Mal. When Mal scoffs at Anja’s claims, the woman retorts, “These are nuanced questions, far beyond your comprehension! My social position, my financial security” (216).

Anja wants to pay the debt she owes to Mal, so she tells Mal that Petroc, the only centaur who can make the potion of remembering, is now a prisoner on the Island of Murderers. Anja flew to the island, knowing that she couldn’t land there because only a dryad-wood boat can leave the island. She talked Petroc into making the potion of remembering. The only ingredient he lacks is a leaf from the living tree of gold. This tree is located on the island of Areat and is guarded by a dangerous jaculus dragon. Recalling the sphinxes’ explanation that Marik put his dryad-wood boat in his dining room, the group heads to the Island of the Immortal to retrieve the dryad-wood boat, which they hope to use to access and then leave the Island of Murderers. Nighthand warns that there may be predatory creatures on the long-abandoned island.

They make it to the Island of the Immortal, but they are thwarted by a herd of karkadanns—loathsome, horse-like creatures that smell like rotten meat and have rapier-like, poisonous horns. Nighthand manages to fend the creatures off while Christopher and Mal locate the dryad-wood boat, which is called the Ever Onward. One of the karkadanns stabs Nighthand before he kills it with the glamry blade. They return to the ship.

Nighthand’s wounded arm begins to weep pus and smell of rotting flesh, so he stays behind when they arrive at Areat. As Christopher pulls sprigs from the Tree of Gold, a tiny jaculus dragon stops them and threatens to burn them. The dragon doesn’t harm Mal because it knows that she is the Immortal. The tiny dragon also agrees to spare Christopher when he promises to write a chronicle of the dragon’s life. Christopher gives the dragon a name—Jacques—and promises to tell its story.

Once on the Island of Murderers, the group finds Petroc, a handsome, bitter centaur who is confined beside his forge with a chain of what they later learn is living gold. He agrees to make the potion of remembering but tells them that the process will take several hours. They sleep, but the sound of Petroc walking around, free of his chain, soon wakes them. He tells them that he used the leaves of gold to make a key to escape his chain. The potion is now in a vial and needs to be warmed by a dryad-wood fire; it also requires one last ingredient, but he won’t add that ingredient unless they get him off the island. With no other choice, they allow him to board the dryad-wood boat. He adds the last ingredient, hops onto the Shadow Dancer, and throws the vial overboard. He leaves them with no way to continue their journey except the small dryad-wood boat, but Christopher manages to save the potion vial.

Nighthand weakens as the poison makes its way through his body. They are running out of time to save him and complete their task. Irian, who has deep knowledge of the islands and the creatures on them, says that the best way to find a dryad-wood fire is to go to the island of Tār, where there is a dryad colony. However, this route will take them past the Island of the Manticores, monsters that love the flesh of all animals and can fly and attack from above. They sense their prey mostly through smell. As the group follows this route, the manticores attack. The group fends them off, but the biggest manticore manages to get between Christopher and the others.

Christopher insults the manticore by telling him that it is no great thing to inspire fear in others, but the manticore corrects him, saying that fear is “the engine” of “human history” (267). The manticore tells him that 100 years ago, the man in the heart of the maze, Sforza, passed by the manticore’s island. Sforza was from Christopher’s world, and he was driven by the fear that he would only ever be an average, weak man ruled by others. He knew that the power of the Glimourie Tree would help him avoid such a life. The manticore hopes that Sforza succeeds in his goal because if he does, there will be plenty of humans in the Archipelago and the world beyond for the manticores to eat. He also reveals that Sforza knew how to navigate the maze because he had the plans for it. Just as the manticore is about to destroy Christopher, Jacques the jaculus dragon appears and releases a huge fireball from his tiny body, protecting Christopher because he wants the boy to be his biographer. Suddenly, Nighthand collapses.

Nighthand is near death. Desperate to save him, Irian reveals that she is part nereid; she jumps in the ocean and asks the other nereids to call for help. When the help does come, it is Anja, whom they all despise for her greed and treachery. Still, she agrees to take Nighthand to Antiok, where a centauride (a female centaur) may be able to heal him. She has room to take Nighthand and one additional person. She forces Irian to make the difficult choice to leave the children behind, reminding her that “[c]hildren have been underestimated for hundreds of years” (275). Irian leaves Mal and Christopher to fend for themselves on the Ever Onward. Nighthand wakes, and Irian looks down at him with the rapturous look of someone who has finally realized her first, deep love. Nighthand gives Mal the glamry blade.