The End of Time (16 page)

 
CHAPTER
20

The thornies sprang off of Lady Truden
and scooped up the fallen talismans. Balfour stabbed at them, driving them down the steps. One of the creatures slapped at his arm, sinking its thorns into his flesh, and Balfour cried out and dropped the knife. The creatures swarmed toward Balfour, but then Oates was there, swinging his ax, and the thornies fled with whatever they’d picked up, leaving half of the magical things behind.

Umber rushed down the steps and knelt beside Lady Truden, who was sprawled over the bottom steps. “Tru!” he cried, touching her cheek. “Tru!” He looked up at the others, and the fear in his eyes had been joined by pain. “Balfour, stay with Tru! Sophie, get the sisters from Willy’s room and tell them Tru’s fallen and struck her head. Hap and Oates, with me!”

They followed Umber to the grand hall, and into the corridor that led to the archives and beyond to the caverns behind the Aerie. When they reached the door to the archives, Smudge was there in the corridor, staring down its dark length.

“Smudge!” Umber shouted. “Did some nasty creatures come this way?”

Smudge nodded, and then glared at Oates. “And here comes another.”

“Not now, Smudge,” Umber snapped. He darted into the archives and came out again with a glass jar filled with glimmer-worms to light his way. He shouted at Smudge over his shoulder as he ran on. “And come with us if you want to be useful for once!”

Smudge’s reply was to snort and shove the door closed.

“Where are we going?” huffed Oates.

“I think they’re trying to free Turiana!” answered Umber.

“The sorceress? But she’s all locked up,” Oates said.

“They got the
key
, Oates. And some of her talismans!”

Hap remembered the wounds on Umber’s throat.
They tore the chain right off his neck,
he realized, as the full danger dawned on him.
And that key can open anything!

They turned down the side corridor that led to Turiana’s cell. Hap saw from a distance what the others could not, in the gloom. “The door’s already open!”

Umber skidded to a halt. “And Turiana’s cell?”

“Empty,” Hap said, squinting at the dark place. The cell door was open, and the ghastly sorceress nowhere in sight.

“Need to be sure,” Umber said. He jogged to the door and stuck his head through the threshold. “She’s gone,” he panted. “And we didn’t run into them on their way out . . .” His eyes expanded with alarm.

Hap guessed what Umber was thinking. “The gate to the caverns!”

They dashed again, threading their way through the underground passages and past the subterranean pond. Glimmer-worms clung to the cave walls and pointed stones, casting light too dim to form shadows. Umber wheezed and puffed with the effort, while Oates ran with a scowl on his face, ready to strike at anything that confronted them.

“Do you hear that?” Hap cried. From ahead came a tortured, rusty screech, and the deep ring and clatter of thick chains in motion.

“They’re raising the portcullis,” Umber shouted.

The passage made its final turn. Ahead was the portcullis, and beyond that the cavern that plunged deep under the mountains. Hap saw the surviving thornies in the shadowy alcove, struggling to turn the winch and raise the portcullis. The lock that kept it from turning had been opened and cast aside.

The iron bars crept upward, groaning and shivering as the portcullis moved for the first time in years. The sorceress was there, facing the deep cavern. The spiderweb cowl that she wore fluttered back, waving in the cold breeze that flowed from the depths. She sensed their arrival and turned slowly.

The silk that always covered her head was torn down the middle to reveal her face. Umber, Hap, and Oates stopped as one with their feet scraping on the stone. Hap heard Umber gasp aloud. “She’s beautiful,” Oates said.

And beautiful she was, a skeletal horror no more. Turiana was lovelier than any flower, any jewel, any sky filled with stars. When she used a hand to slide the waves of dark hair behind one ear, Hap saw the rings restored to her fingers, and the amulets that hung around her long, graceful neck.
The talismans,
he thought. He felt a twist inside his heart as her crimson lips curved into a smile.

The beauty was an illusion, he knew, and still he was frozen, entranced, even as he watched the portcullis rumble slowly up behind her, already as high as her knees. Umber and Oates were just as stunned and motionless beside him; Oates’s ax had drifted down until its head touched the stone at his feet.

When Hap finally saw the single thornie creeping up behind them with Balfour’s knife, it was reaching up to stab Oates in the back. There was no time to move, no time to shout. But in the next instant the thornie squealed and dropped to the floor, writhing and trying to pluck out the arrow that had sunk deep into the soft flesh of its head.

Sophie was behind them, reaching over her shoulder for another arrow while her eyes scanned right and left for the next target. Oates shot her a thankful look, and then stomped twice on the thrashing thornie at his feet, putting an end to its throes.

“Oates, stop the winch!” cried Umber, shaken from his trance. Oates grunted and charged at the thornies in the alcove with his ax poised to swing.

The portcullis was already waist-high. As Turiana bent low to pass under the bars, the next arrow struck her between the shoulders. The sorceress straightened, whirled about, and stabbed her fingers in Sophie’s direction. Sophie’s face twisted with pain, and she cried out and dropped her bow.

“You think you can hurt me?” the sorceress cooed in her silken voice. She raised her arms, and the arrow fell down behind her, bloodless, extracted by some mysterious means.

“Turiana, you must not leave,” Umber said, stepping toward her. “You told me you were no longer the evil creature you once were. Prove it now by returning to your cell.”

Her eyes narrowed and her glance darted left as the thornies in the alcove cried out under Oates’s blade. The portcullis had still been rising, but it shuddered and stopped. Three thornies—the only still alive—scuttled across the floor and hunched at the sorceress’s feet.

“Oates—drop the gate!” Umber shouted. Oates threw a switch, and the chains rattled again, spinning fast and free. The portcullis fell, but something enormous rushed out from the depths of the cavern. It was the wounded troll that Umber had named Charrly. The troll seized the bars and howled as he staggered under the weight, and spittle flew from his quivering purple tongue. Charrly could hold the massive weight of the portcullis for only a moment. But that was enough for the sorceress to flow with liquid grace under the bars, with the thornies right behind her.

“You heard me well,” Turiana told the beast. Hap realized that when she was chanting in her cell, the sorceress had been calling out to this troll as well as to the thornies.

Charrly bellowed as he released the portcullis. The pointed iron bars slammed into the ground like a clap of thunder that echoed into silence. The sorceress stared back at Umber, and the thornies hopped and twirled and slapped the ground.

“Don’t do this, Turiana,” Umber said, clasping his hands.

“Do not dare to follow,” replied Turiana. She glided into the passage that led to the bowels of the mountains, and the troll and thornies followed. Umber watched them vanish, chewing on his bottom lip.

Hap heard a moan from behind them. Sophie sat on the ground, holding her stomach. He shot to her side in one great leap and fell to his knees, taking her hand between his. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said. “When she pointed—I felt claws inside me. But it wasn’t real, I think—I hardly feel anything now.
 But . . . Lord Umber?”

Umber was standing over them now. “Yes, my dear brave girl?”

“The king’s law,” she whispered, afraid to speak it loudly.

Umber nodded. “The law that says I will be executed if the sorceress ever escapes?”

“Oh no,” Hap whispered.

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” Umber said, rubbing the back of his neck. His gaze went to the crushed thornie at their feet, and his eyes narrowed. He dropped to one knee and tugged something out of the creature’s curled fingers. It was his precious transforming key.

They trudged back through the caverns, moving slowly until Umber stretched his neck and said, “I hope Tru wasn’t hurt too badly.” He broke into an urgent run and led them back to the Aerie.

Tru was still at the bottom of the stairs, lying peacefully on her back with her hands folded at her waist. Balfour sat on the bottom step with one hand across the lower half of his face. Laurel and Lily were treating his other arm, dabbing the wounds with ointment. They looked up as Umber approached, with their mouths drawn tight, and deep lines at the corners of their eyes.

“Shouldn’t somebody be helping Tru? She’s just . . . ,” Umber said, but his words faded. He took a few more steps to her side, each less steady than the one before, and sagged to his knees.

“The blow to her head when she fell . . . ,” Laurel said quietly. Umber laid one hand across Tru’s and clutched the front of his shirt with the other.

“She loved you, Umber,” Balfour said in a half-choked voice.

“I know she did,” Umber replied. He reached out and brushed a strand of silver hair away from Tru’s closed eyes. Then he bent low and pressed his forehead to hers.

Hap felt a hand touch his. He reached without looking and pulled Sophie to him, and buried his face in her hair and felt her tears on his neck.

 
CHAPTER
21

Correspondence arrived at the Aerie the
next morning. Dodd set the letters and packets on the table in front of Umber, who was slumped in his chair with his hair hanging over his eyes. His hands were wrapped around a mug. Inside the vessel was not his usual dose of bitter coffee but the last drops of tea brewed with elatia. He stared at the boiled leaves at the bottom, perhaps trying to divine any meaning.

One of the envelopes captured his attention, and he set the mug aside and tugged it out of the pile. With his bread knife he sliced through the splatter of wax that sealed it. “It’s from Fendofel,” he murmured, pulling out a leaf-shaped note. “I’ve asked some of our captains to stop at the Verdant Isle regularly to see how he’s doing.”

Umber’s lips moved faintly as he perused the letter from the botanical wizard. He lowered it to the table, looked up at the ceiling, and uttered a vulgar phrase that Hap had never heard him speak before.

“What does it say?” Hap asked.

Umber dug his fingers into his eyelids and groaned. “First, some notes about how to care for and propagate the elatia plant. Advice that slipped his mind. And that’s splendid. But then, this.” He raised the note and read aloud: “‘My memory finally stirred concerning that thorny nut you showed me. It might be the seed of a thorn imp tree, one of the most sinister plants of legend. In fact that nut may well belong to the sorceress you have locked away, and any thorn imps that are born from the tree’s fruit would be quite dangerous. Those wicked but short-lived creatures would know her thoughts and do her bidding. I am terribly sorry that it took so long to remember, but hopefully you heeded my advice and did not plant it,’ blah, blah, blah.” Umber let the letter fall to the table, and he rested his forehead on the heels of his hands.

“You couldn’t have known that,” Hap said to the back of Umber’s head.

“He said it worried him. But I still planted it,” Umber muttered. “Now the sorceress is free, and Tru is dead.”

“But you weren’t yourself when you planted it. Lady Truden gave you too much elatia and—”

“Don’t!”
Umber snapped. “
Don’t
blame her. It was my dark mood that started it all. And if I wasn’t so insatiably curious about that sort of thing, I wouldn’t have planted the nut. So don’t blame anyone but me.” He rapped his temples with his knuckles. “Oh, Hap, I didn’t mean to scold you. But the circumstances—so ill-fated. All our ships these last few days have been slowed by bad winds.
Bad winds
, Hap! If the letter came a day sooner, none of this would have happened. How can death be so capricious? Why should someone die because the wind blew north instead of south?”

Hap didn’t have an answer. He curled up in his chair with his arms wrapped around his knees. When a minute passed, he spoke softly. “That’s what you want me to be someday. Like the wind. Steering fate this way or that.”

Umber stared, and shrugged, and nodded. “But always for good, Hap. Always for good. There are a billion lives to save in my world—maybe twice or three times as many. And yes, you will be the capricious fate that rescues them. But you could never be an ill wind. Your heart is too . . . benevolent.” Umber raised his cup of tea and let the last drops fall into his mouth.

“What do you think Turiana will do, now that she’s escaped?” Hap asked.

Umber tapped the table with his cup. “No idea. I’m not even sure which powers she’s regained. The thorn imps only got half of her talismans, and I don’t know exactly what each of them was for. If I’m lucky, she’ll go into hiding or find a new lair far from here. If I’m unlucky, she’ll make her presence known around Kurahaven, and everyone will find out that she’s escaped.”

“That would be bad, wouldn’t it?”

“Only if you’re not in favor of my execution,” Umber said with a sad grin. “In which case, I might ask you to use your Meddler powers to whisk me away.”

“What powers?” Hap mumbled. “I haven’t seen the filaments in so long. How will I ever do the thing you need me to do?”

Umber tugged at his nose, thinking. “I am getting worried, honestly. It feels like we’re running out of time. Both of us.” He tipped back in his chair, balancing it on two legs. “Maybe if Willy wakes up again he’ll have some answers.”

Hap tried to eat but found his appetite lacking. He wanted to talk to Balfour, but his aged friend had wandered outside to stare at the sea, and asked to be alone when Hap came near.

So Hap went upstairs, meaning to return to his room. His chest tightened as he approached Lady Truden’s room, and he was startled when Sophie stepped out in front of him. She gasped and jolted, and her posture went rigid. There was something in her hand, a small rectangle, and she tucked it swiftly out of sight behind her. “Oh—Happenstance,” she said.

“Hello, Sophie.”

“I . . . I wanted to take this before anybody found it,” she said. She brought the thing out of hiding. It was the small but perfectly rendered portrait of Lord Umber. Hap had seen it before, accidentally, when he saw Lady Truden gazing at the painting in her candlelit room. “Remember this? She asked me to paint it for her,” Sophie said softly.

“I remember.” Hap felt the wound in his heart open a little wider.

Sophie tucked the picture into the pocket of her paint-stained apron. “She would have been so embarrassed if Lord Umber found it. So I took it back.”

Hap nodded. “That was nice of you to think of that. Even though . . .”

She shook her head and sniffed. “Yes. Even though she’s gone. She wasn’t always kind, and I know she was mean to you at first. But she always thought she was doing what was best for Lord Umber. Do you know what makes me saddest, Hap? That she felt the way she did about him, and she never got the chance to tell him. Now she never will.” Sophie leaned against the wall and bent her head sideways until it touched the stone.

“That is sad,” Hap said.

Sophie straightened up. “It shouldn’t be like that. People should tell people how they feel, before it’s too late.”

Hap looked at her, and she was leaning toward him, gazing into his eyes without blinking. His feet felt like they were melting into the floor.

“I care about
you
, Happenstance. I care about you greatly. When we found you I thought you were just a little boy. But you’re so much more than that.” Her hand brushed his cheek, and her fingers pushed into his hair, over his ear. “I’m afraid, Hap. People are dying. A wicked man is king. The sorceress has escaped. And Lord Umber might be in trouble. I don’t know what’s going to happen to any of us. But I think you might not be around for much longer. I’ve never spied on you, but I’ve overheard things. There’s something Lord Umber wants you to do, far away from here. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Hap’s mouth opened, but only a silent stutter emerged.

“You don’t have to say it,” Sophie said. “I know it’s true. And that’s why I want to show you how I feel.” She leaned close and put her lips against his. Hap’s eyes flew open wide, and then they closed, until she pulled herself away an eternal moment later, leaving a cool, soft feeling that lingered on Hap’s mouth.

Hap’s brain spun like a top inside his head. His knees buckled underneath him. “I . . . I feel the same way about you.”

Sophie tried to smile, but the curve of her mouth faltered and fell flat. “It doesn’t matter. Because you’re going to leave. But at least we said it.” She touched the corner of her eye with her fingers, and walked into her room, closing the door behind her.

It took Hap a moment to remember how to breathe again. His heart felt like it was swelling and shrinking, healing and breaking all at once, and he suddenly felt weary. Behind him he heard a throat being cleared.

Umber stood awkwardly at the landing, as if he could not decide whether to advance or retreat. Something in his expression made Hap think he’d been there for a while. “Uh. I was on my way to see if Willy was awake,” Umber said, pointing at the door where the stricken Meddler lay.

“Oh,” replied Hap, with his eyes downcast.

Umber stepped to the door and gripped the handle. “Come with me?”

Hap felt dizzy and befuddled, with no will of his own. “All right.”

The sisters had left Willy by himself for the moment. The Meddler looked ghastly, lying with his head sunken into his pillow and his mouth hanging open. But at least the white cloth that covered his eyes no longer had twin stains of blood.

“Willy?” Umber asked softly, putting two fingers on the Meddler’s shoulder. There was no response. Umber sank into the chair by the bed, and Hap took the second seat, still preoccupied by his moment with Sophie. The sensation of her lips on his haunted him like a ghost. He touched his mouth experimentally, then looked sideways to see Umber smiling at him.

“First kiss, obviously,” Umber said.

Hap felt his face redden. He squirmed in his seat.

“You really care about her,” Umber said.

“Well . . . yes.”

“You have a fine heart, Hap. Your feelings run deep.”

“I . . . I guess,” Hap said. At the moment his feelings were running amok.

“No,” came a rasping voice from the bed.

Umber’s head snapped toward Willy, and he popped out of his chair. “Willy, it’s Umber. And Happenstance. We’re both here.”

Willy wriggled his shoulders and lifted his head, and Umber tucked another pillow behind his neck. He raised a glass to Willy’s mouth and tipped in a sip of water.

“Why did you say no, Willy?” Umber asked.

“Now I understand. The boy
feels
. He
cares
. This is why
 he . . . fails,” Willy said faintly.

“Because I
care
? What is that supposed to mean?” Hap cried. His anger had always been quick to rise in the presence of his murderer and creator. Now the emotions that Sophie had sent spinning suddenly oriented themselves, pointing straight to fury.

“Meddlers are not meant to care,” Willy said. The words leaked out with little breath to shape them. “We pass . . .
 blithely . . . through the years . . . indifferent to whatever suffering or . . . joy our machinations bring . . . entertaining ourselves and giving those we torment or reward no more thought than . . . a chess master gives his pawns . . .”

“Why would I want to be like that?” Hap said. His words dripped with venom. “You sicken me.” He felt Umber’s hand on his shoulder and shrugged it off. Umber patted the air with his hand, urging Hap to calm down.

“Willy,” Umber said. “Are you saying that the reason Hap is not seeing the filaments the way he should is because of his feelings? His attachments to the rest of us?”

Willy nodded. “He remains too human. I don’t . . . understand. Signs told me he would be strong . . . more powerful than me, and perhaps any Meddler who ever
 was . . . skilled enough to fix that world. . . . I must have misread the filaments . . . never should have chosen a child, that was the flaw . . . emotions too raw, too unrefined . . .”

“You don’t even make sense,” Hap said. He shoved himself off his chair and paced to the middle of the room. “If you’re so indifferent to the fate of humanity, then why do you care about Umber’s world? You created me to save all those people. Why bother if you don’t even care?”

Umber stared at Hap, looking both impressed and worried. He turned toward Willy, just as curious to hear the answer.

“Ah,” Willy said. “The child is clever, at least. You are right, Happenstance. I found something to care about. And that has been my downfall. See what it has cost me.” He touched a fingertip to the cloth on his eyes. “But . . . I didn’t make you to save all those people. I made you . . . to save
one
.” His trembling hand went to his chest and touched his shirt. A look of horror contorted his mouth. “This . . . not what I was wearing!”

“Calm yourself,” Umber said, patting his arm. “We bathed you and gave you a clean set of clothes, for the good of your health. But the tunic and leggings you wore are here.”

Willy breathed out a deep sigh. “And did you . . . go through my pockets, Umber?”

“Of course not,” Umber said, but he shrugged and nodded toward Hap, looking genuinely embarrassed.

“There is a lining in the tunic,” Willy whispered. “Something hidden within . . . you can reach inside through a slit, here.” His hand quivered as he tapped a spot near his heart.

Umber took the tunic from a peg on the wall, near the door. It was a strange, silvery material, something like silk, marred by dirt and caked with dried blood across the chest. The inner lining was black. Umber’s finger fumbled and probed until he finally slipped his hand into the space between. Hap watched Umber’s face—there was a frown of concentration as he searched within, and then his eyebrows rose and his mouth formed a circle at the moment of discovery. The hand came out clutching a flat rectangle of some otherworldly, transparent material. It looked like liquid glass, and surrounded a torn square of paper.

Umber held it up, regarding it with wonder. “Well. Haven’t seen one of these for years,” he said. He smiled at Hap and held the object up for him to see. “It’s a bag made from what we called
plastic
. Seals tight to protect whatever you keep inside. In this case . . .” Umber turned the clear bag around, showing Hap the other side of the ragged-edged paper. “A photograph.”