The End of Time (21 page)

Doane crossed a leg over the other knee and clasped his hands behind his head. “It was the
music
, of all things.” He puckered and whistled a different, unfamiliar tune. “Sound familiar?”

Umber saw the uncertainty in Hap’s expression and offered the answer in a weary voice. “Beethoven. It was one of the first pieces I introduced here. The people loved it.”

“Exactly!” cried Doane, reaching out to slap Umber’s knee. “They loved it, and shared it. That melody came over the wide Rulian Sea, carried from player to player—a virus spreading, a beacon reaching beyond the blue! Finally a wandering musician arrived in my land, and he knew the most glorious music, which of course I recognized at once. It could only have come from my world.
I was not alone!
And so I sent my spies to Kurahaven, to learn the source.”

Doane looked at Hap again, with an unblinking stare that felt as intense as the sun. That manic energy reminded Hap, in a strange way, of Umber’s exuberance. But there was something frightening behind Doane’s fervor. Hap noticed for the first time the tiny twitches in the crags of Doane’s face. One eye’s pupil was twice the size of the other, with veins of blood spilling into the white. “Can you imagine my reaction when the name came back to me?” Doane said, leaning close. “The music was from Umber, my dearest friend! And in Kurahaven of all places—the grandest city in the richest kingdom of all, the jewel of the world that I coveted most.”

“You must have been surprised, sir,” Hap said quietly.

“Shocked. Delighted! But, my boy, you must refer to me as Supremacy. Though, Brian, you and only you may use my name.” Doane stuck his head out the window and looked back toward the palace. Hap looked at Umber, who took the moment to breathe deeply and rub his temples with his fingers. He glanced back at Hap and raised his eyebrows and hands, as if asking the same question in Hap’s mind:
What now?

With a contented sigh, Doane withdrew his head from the window and leaned back with his arms spread wide. “Brian, tell me something. Are the days a little shorter here?”

“By about nineteen of our minutes,” Umber replied.

“I knew it!” Doane crowed, and he nodded to himself, looking pleased with the answer. “Took a little getting used to, didn’t it?”

“Hmm” was all Umber said.

Doane’s feet tapped on the floor. His fidgeting reminded Hap again of Umber’s constant state of motion. “Do you miss anything from our world, Brian?” Doane asked. “Living in this ancient and backward land?”

Umber stared at some distant point, eyes unfocused. “I miss certain friends. Modern plumbing. The lights of the cities. College sports. Pop-Tarts.”

Doane rolled his head back and guffawed. “All good, all good! But, Brian, I have to confess: I don’t miss any of it. What I’ve achieved here . . . what I’ve created . . . if you told me how to get back, I wouldn’t go, not for all the conveniences, all the modern wonders.”

Umber’s eyes refocused on his old friend. “What have you achieved, Jonathan? How did all this come to be?”

Doane sat forward and rubbed his knees with his hands. His smile jerked at the corner as he gave Hap another inspection, perhaps still wondering if it was safe to speak in his presence. Hap wriggled in his seat.

“I awoke in this world,” Doane said, “across the Rulian Sea, in what you call the Far Continent. It had many other names, over there, as many names as it had petty kings and warlords. Brian, you and your neighboring kingdoms rarely venture to those shores. And for good reason. Do you know what people dwell there, young man?”

“No, Supremacy,” Hap said.

Umber answered the question. “Outcasts.”

“Correct,” said Doane. “Men who were banished from these lands. Criminals and pirates populated the coast, while the inlands were full of barbaric clans—and of course the usual roster of goblins and trolls that plague this world. So you see, Umber, I did not appear in such a genteel land as you. I was dropped into a lawless, vicious place, where only the fist and the sword mattered.

“But like you, Umber, I found patronage soon enough that helped me rise to power. You found it with a king. I found it with a thug named Thurbor. If what my spies told me is true, your ascent began when you cast down a sorceress. Mine began when I gave Thurbor what he desired most in the world: power. I made weapons for him, things nobody in this world had ever seen before!”

Umber blinked slowly. “It must have been child’s play for you.”

Doane raised his fists. “Easier than you can imagine. You remember what I studied? My lifelong obsession?”

Umber looked sideways at Hap. “My friend Jonathan was an expert on the history of military technology.”

Doane nodded. “With an emphasis on the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.”

Umber spoke slowly, choosing his words and tone with care. “There was a time when you looked at the progress of military technology and feared that it might end in the destruction of civilization.”

Doane laughed and waved the remark away like a bothersome fly. “I don’t dwell on the past these days. Or the future. Brian, don’t you see? I was the perfect man to bring order to that chaos in the Far Continent. But it wasn’t just that I
knew
exactly what to do. All the raw materials I required were there in front of me! Gunpowder, that was no trick—a fool can make gunpowder. But, Brian, we had oil, sitting in puddles on the ground, waiting to be ladled up! We had rich veins of ore in the hills. And that was just the beginning. My heart and brain nearly burst as the possibility become clear: the single greatest leap in military might that the world had ever known. Guns, cannons, explosives—I knew how to make them all. I could lead a force and unite the world under a single flag. Something no man has ever been able to achieve, in
any
world.” Doane closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the notion.

“What happened to the thug? Your patron?” Umber asked.

Doane’s eyes flickered open. He angled his head to one side. “Eventually my people realized who the true leader ought to be. Really, why should power stay
behind
the throne?” Doane scraped his thumb across his throat. “Thurbor was removed by someone who desired my favor. And he earned it—that man is now my envoy. And what you call the Far Continent is now the Land of Doane.”

The carriage groaned to a stop, and the face of one of Doane’s armed men appeared at the window. He spoke to Doane with his eyes turned down. “We have arrived at the stone tower, Supremacy.”

“Here at last,” Doane said. He reached for the handle of the door, pushed it open, and gestured for Hap and Umber to climb out. Hap looked toward the gatehouse of the Aerie and saw Umber’s guardsmen on the other side of the bars of the gate, staring at the company that had arrived. Balfour was with them, squinting toward Umber, trying to read his expression and see what they ought to do.

A strange thing happened, and it made Hap’s breath stop cold. The light of day dimmed momentarily, and there was a whispery sound like hand passing across silk. Hap had sensed those phenomena before, when Willy Nilly had come and gone. But this could not be Willy. It was someone or something else.

The armed men lifted their heads to peer around. And then Hap saw many of them whirl to stare in the same direction at something behind them. He turned and saw a figure standing on the causeway, fully eight feet tall. It was a creature like Occo, the vicious, relentless, many-eyed being that had once pursued him and nearly killed him.

This was the Executioner.

 
CHAPTER
26

The Executioner stood on the causeway
with his back to them, stretching his arms wide and flexing his spidery fingers. He was either unaware of the small army with their deadly rifles, or he did not care.

Occo, Hap’s first enemy, had obscured his shape beneath a flowing robe. But this creature did not care who saw him or his strange, birdlike legs; his only garment was a glittering armored mesh that covered his torso, leaving his head and limbs bare. In the back of his hairless head was a single glittering green eye. A Meddler’s eye.

Doane’s men murmured to one another, and in the corner of his vision Hap saw the rifles rise up to point.

The creature turned, and the invaders gasped. The mouth was filled with sharply pointed yellow teeth. The pale face was studded with eyes, in sockets scattered at random across its cheeks, forehead, and chin. Wrinkled lids of gray skin closed over each eye and snapped up again. There were a dozen sockets at least, filled with a menagerie of eyes plucked from unfortunate humans and animals—because this creature was a thief of eyes who could plant any eye into his face and make it serve his brain.

Hap’s stomach turned as he saw five more sparkling green eyes in the Executioner’s face.
Six altogether,
he thought, wondering which two were Willy’s. He looked right and left, trying to choose a way to run if the Executioner sprang upon him.

“What is that thing, Brian?” asked Doane, staring at the Executioner with his lip flared on one side.

“I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s dangerous,” Umber replied.

Doane glanced down at Hap. “He has your young friend’s eyes.”

“Not yet, he doesn’t,” Umber said, stepping in front of Hap. The Executioner stood still, with only his eyes moving, quivering and peering about as the wrinkled flaps snapped up and down.

Doane put his hands on his hips and sighed. This appearance seemed more like an annoyance to him than a genuine threat. “Strange and unnatural creatures. I’m told they fascinate you, Brian, in all shapes and forms. For me they are a dangerous nuisance, to be exterminated. And we have the firepower to do so. Shall I?” He raised his hand with a finger extended, and behind him every rifle was leveled toward the Executioner.

Umber bit his lip and frowned. Hap could see him struggling with the question, appreciating the chance to wipe out this threat but reviling the means. “Wait,” Umber finally said. He took a deep breath and called out to the creature.

“You there! I will warn you once: You cannot have what you’ve come for. One of your kind has already died trying. Leave us, and do not return.”

The creature’s response was a vile slurp that seemed endless. One brown human eye was trained on Umber, while the rest of the assorted eyes focused on Hap. The sight of Hap’s eyes seemed to fill the Executioner with an insatiable hunger. A sheet of saliva poured out of his wide, curving mouth, and the needle-sharp teeth glistened with moisture. When he spoke, the voice was so much like Occo’s dreadful rasp that Hap covered his mouth to stifle a moan.

“The boy’s creation was forbidden,” the Executioner said. “And so his eyes must be surrendered. I am the appointed Executioner.” He extended the longest finger of one hand. The fingernail was wide and curved like a scoop, and Hap knew at once what it could be used for. The knowledge made him want to clap his hands across his eyes.

“Appointed by whom?” shouted Umber.

“By fate itself,” the Executioner said. He slurped again and began to walk toward them in long strides, on bizarre legs that bent backward at the knee.

Doane tapped Umber’s shoulder. “I can help you, Brian.”

Umber shut his eyes and replied through teeth clamped tight. “Do it. Please.”

Doane thrust his pointed finger toward the Executioner and called to his men: “Kill that thing.” The rifles roared, spewing a cloud of smoke. Stones on the causeway sparked and shattered, but the Executioner was no longer there. He had leaped to one side, and he disappeared over the steep embankment, heading toward the water. But there was no splash or thump of a body on the rocky slope. Instead the world dimmed again for a moment, and a silky whoosh could be heard.

Doane stepped to the edge of the causeway and peered down. “I don’t see him. Think we got him?”

“Probably not,” Umber said. He looked pale and shaken.

“Pity. But that’ll teach him to threaten my friends, won’t it?” said Doane, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. “Come on, Brian. Invite me in, and we’ll talk some more!”

Hap felt like tiny pins were stabbing his nerves from head to toe. At any moment he expected the Executioner to appear again and snatch him away. The size of the creature had shaken him. The Executioner seemed infinitely more dangerous and confident than Occo.
And he’s got something Occo always wanted: the eyes of a Meddler,
Hap thought.
No, three Meddlers! Does that make him three times more powerful? He can vanish and reappear—even predict his own fate.
He folded his arms tight against his stomach. It seemed to him that an hourglass had been turned, to show how little time he had left, and the sand was quickly draining.

Doane ambled around the grand hall with his hands clasped behind his back, inspecting the artifacts with a doubtful eye, but admiring the great carved pillars and the machinery of Umber’s lift. Hap heard the clatter of utensils and pots in the kitchen, as Balfour brewed a pot of coffee. Half of the armed men had stayed downstairs, while the rest were in the grand hall, spread out and watching in every direction, protecting their leader from any threat. When Oates and Sophie came downstairs, rifles swiveled in their direction. Oates glared back, irritated, and his fists bulged. Umber waved them over to the table. Sophie sat down with her eyes wide and mouth pressed tight.

“Oates, listen carefully,” Umber said quietly. “I know you think you could throttle every one of those men, but believe me: Those things they’re holding are deadly weapons that would slay you in an instant. And they can kill you from a great distance. So hold your temper and don’t do anything rash. Understand?”

Oates stuck his jaw out and nodded. “Should I put on my muzzle?”

Umber sucked on his teeth, and then shook his head. “I can’t imagine you saying anything that would make the situation worse. But . . . I’ll tell you what. Take Sophie to the archives and wait until you hear from me.”

Oates wrinkled his nose. “The archives? With Smudge?”

“Yes, with Smudge. You can stand his company for a short while. Sophie, tell Smudge what’s happening. Go on, both of you.”

Doane stepped in front of Sophie’s latest painting, an enormous canvas depicting the massive sea-giants at rest in their watery cavern. He squinted and snorted. “Brian. You’ve developed the strangest obsession.”

Umber forced a smile. “Yes . . . it seems that coming here had a curious effect on my mind.”

Doane gave Umber a sideways glance. Then his expression brightened as Balfour pushed the kitchen door open with his elbow and came out holding a silver tray cluttered with mugs and a steaming pot.

“Is that . . . ?” Doane asked hopefully.

“The world’s finest coffee,” Umber said. “I know I could use some. Join me.” He pulled out the chair at the head of the table, and Doane settled into it. Doane grinned when he saw a bowl with lumps of sugar on the table, and dropped a pair into his mug while Balfour poured. He didn’t raise the mug and drink, Hap noticed, until Umber had taken a sip.

Doane raised his chin and closed his eyes as he savored the coffee. “I’d almost forgotten the taste,” he said with a sigh.

Umber cupped both hands around his mug. “We need to talk, Jonathan.”

“We certainly do,” Doane replied over the lip of his mug.

Umber dropped his voice to a whisper. “You must know that you aren’t the man you used to be.”

Doane smiled back, as if given a compliment. “I won’t contradict you.”

“It’s something that happens to us when we cross between worlds,” Umber said. He pushed his mug aside and leaned closer. “It changed me, too. It seems to induce a kind of mania. Look at us, Jonathan. I run around this world like a madman, hardly aware of the danger I’m plunging into. I was never such a thrill-seeker back home. And my emotions—I was always plagued by mood swings, but nothing like the lows that strike me here. And
you
. . .”

Doane’s contented smile settled into a horizontal line. “And me?”

Umber took a deep breath and stretched his neck. “Jonathan. My friend. Back home you saw where the wrong kind of technology might lead us. That’s why you started Project Reboot. Don’t you remember? We did it to preserve the good things, against the possibility that humanity’s misguided ingenuity might bring it all crashing down. But now look what you’ve done. You’ve leapfrogged five hundred years of military science. And for what?”

Doane sat quietly for a moment. Hap stared at his face, but Doane’s emotions were impossible to decipher. Umber’s old friend spread his fingers over his heart and spoke theatrically.
“‘Is it not worthy of tears that, when the number of worlds is infinite, we have not yet become lords of a single one?’
That’s an extraordinary quote, Brian. Do you know who said it?”

Umber’s fingers drummed on his mug. “I do not.”

“Alexander the Great himself! Can you believe it? More than two thousand years ago they imagined the existence of other worlds. And Alexander wept because even he, the greatest general of them all, could not realize his dream: one world, one conqueror, one ruler.” Doane raised his fist and slammed it down. “But I can! Brian, my friend, it cannot be coincidence that I’ve been given this chance to forge a legacy that will ring through the ages. I had the knowledge, I was given the materials, and this new life has galvanized my brain and granted me the ambition! This is what great men live for: to seize their moment, when it arrives, so that the world still speaks their name with awe two thousand years later!”

Umber stared with his mouth agape. He leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “But you’ve lost your better self, Jonathan. You’ve killed innocent people. Sunk defenseless ships. The Jonathan Doane I knew would never have done that.”

Doane sat back. A sly smile appeared, and then slowly vanished. Doubt and confusion blossomed on his face, as if he’d exhausted himself with his ravings. He sat in silence for a long while as Umber watched, keeping very still. Finally Doane’s fingers came up and tapped against his lips. “The Jonathan you knew. He . . . he wouldn’t have, would he?”

Umber clasped his hands and raised them. “Jonathan, you should try it my way—it is deeply satisfying. I’ve made my impact on this world without hastening its demise. We can do this together—make this the kind of world we both dreamed about. You have so much more to offer than guns and warships!” His chest heaved, and Hap wondered if Umber’s heart was thumping as fast and hard as his.

Doane sagged a little in his seat. With his lower lip jutting, he stared at the crowns that hung from his waist. “It doesn’t hurt to consider the possibility, I suppose. Let’s presume that you are right, Brian. What do you think I should do?”

Umber looked at Doane’s armed men on the other side of the room and spoke more quietly still. “We need to undo what you’ve done, as much as possible. Erase the engineering.”

Doane’s unruly eyebrows rose. “Erase it? How?”

Umber’s knee bounced to a frantic rhythm as his excitement grew. “First, destroy the
Vanquisher
.”

A twitch appeared at the corner of Doane’s eye. “Destroy it?”

“Yes! Send it to the bottom of the sea. It would be easy. The hold must be full of explosives, correct?”

Doane’s forehead wrinkled, and he nodded. “Stuffed like a Christmas turkey. Crate after crate of artillery, rockets, bullets, and bombs. Enough to reduce seven Kurahavens to rubble and dust.”

Umber wiped his palms on his thighs. “Order most of the crew to disembark. You and I will take a skeleton crew and steer the ship into deep water, and set a fire. One of my smaller ships will get us all away before the
Vanquisher
explodes.”