They stopped. The two big monsters just stood there in the dark between trees and waited.

"We go now?"

"No."

"Taxxons coming."

"Yep," I said. "l know."

"We go now?"

"Nope. Not until I get some answers," I said defiantly. "This little parade stops right here until I get some -"

By the time I'd said "answers" I was not in the forest anymore. I was not anywhere. Not anywhere I could understand, at least.

I felt myself floating. Hanging in the air, only there wasn't any air. I wasn't flying, just floating.

There was light, a beautiful blue-green sort of light. It didn't come from any one place, though. It just seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

One thing was for sure - I was not in the forest anymore.

HELLO, TOBIAS. WE MEET AGAIN.

The voice was huge, but not harsh. It filled my brain and seemed to resonate throughout my body. My feathers quivered. My fingers tingled.

Fingers?

And only then did I begin to realize that I was changed.

I looked down at my body. And somehow, in a way I can't explain, I seemed to be seeing through my body, too. It was as if I could see

everything, from every angle at once. Like I was seeing myself through a million different eyes.

I was no longer a red-tailed hawk. But I was not human, either. At least not the way I had once been human.

I had arms that were wings. I had legs that ended in talons. I had a beak, but it was a mouth, too.

I know this all sounds crazy. I know it's impossible to really imagine it very well. But somehow I was both a human and a bird and some third thing that was in between the two.

We had seen many incredible things since we'd first found a dying Andalite prince in an abandoned construction site. I've seen Yeerks and all their tools - the Taxxons, the Gedds, the Hork-Bajir. I've seen Andalites and met the Chee, the androids in human form. I've traveled through time and to the Yeerk pool and into orbit in spaceships.

But there was only one species that could do this. Only one species that could own that huge head-filling voice.

"The Ellimist," I said in an actual voice that came from my own mouth.

Then, from the vague turquoise fog around me, I saw it flying toward me.

It was a bird of prey. A raptor. Some undefinable shape, part falcon, part eagle, part hawk. It had a snow-white belly and reddish-brown back and a tail that spread to show a dusky rainbow of colors.

The bird flew to me, then stopped and floated in midair.

YES, TOBIAS. ELLIMIST. OR AT LEAST AN ELLIMIST.

It laughed and the whole turquoise universe laughed along.

"So you're the puppet master," I said. "I should have known. But this isn't how you looked last time we saw you."

The bird shape smiled. Don't ask me how it smiled with a beak. It just did. I chose a shape

YOU WOULD IDENTIFY WITH.

"Baloney. You know better than that. You know I'm human."

ARE YOU? YOU DON'T LOOK LIKE A HUMAN TO ME.

I felt a queasiness in my stomach. I looked at the body I had. A body that was equal parts boy and bird.

"What do you want from me? Why are you making me do things I don't want to do?"

WHAT HAVE I MADE YOU DO, TOBIAS?

"You put me in places I don't want to be. You've dragged me into this stupid mess with these two Hork-Bajir."

The Ellimist dissolved from bird to human. But not entirely human. He was a human with wings. He looked like I did at that moment. And

when he spoke again, it was with a simple, human voice.

"Once I put you and your friends in a position to give your own former species a chance. I looked deep into the future, and found a way to help you - without using my power directly. And now, you are in a position to help the Hork-Bajir. Do they not deserve the same chance as humans?"

"You're trying to save the Hork-Bajir race from the Yeerks?"

The Ellimist smiled again and shook his head. "We do not interfere. We do not use our power for one species against another."

"Bull," I said.

The Ellimist let that go with just a faint smile. "I will not force you, Tobias. And I will not guarantee you will even succeed. There is every chance you will die and the two Hork-Bajir will die, and all will have been a waste."

"Thanks. That really cheers me up," I said. "Why me? Why stick me with this job? What am I, some kind of hero?"

The Ellimist didn't laugh. "Tobias, you are a beginning. You are a point on which an entire time line may turn."

I guess that should have made me feel important. But it didn't. I wasn't interested in being flattered.

"You want my help?" I asked the Ellimist. "Fine. Then I want yours.

You're just about all-powerful, according to Ax. You can make entire galaxies disappear if you want. I don't know why you don't just make things happen the way you want them to. But, hey, whatever." I looked him right in the eyes. Right into eyes that were a disturbing mirror image of my own.

"You want me to lead these Hork-Bajir to this place you've put in my head? Fine. But I want to get paid for my services."

"And what do you want, Tobias?"

"You know what I want," I said, almost choking on the words. "You know."

"Yes. But do you know what you want, Tobias?" the Ellimist asked. "And if you get it, will you still know?"

And suddenly, without any sensation of movement, I was back in the dark of the forest.

It was a long night. I can tell you that for sure. A very long night.

Even the Hork-Bajir were worn out by the time the first faint gray of predawn started to appear.

The whole time I was waiting to see a bunch of Taxxons suddenly show up, followed by heavily armed Hork-Bajir. Or else Visser Three in one of his awful morphs. Every shadow looked like it could be an enemy.