The Hundred: Fall of the Wents (15 page)

Hatch turned to them, exhausted and harried. “I have brought you this far,” he said. They waited, expectantly, for their next orders from the Shrike. “Now,” said Hatch, more pleading than demanding, “you must feed me.”

The companions stared at Hatch through the drifting snow, uncertain how to respond.

“My friend,” said Tully. “We don’t have any food to give you.” Tully shrugged and smiled, as if the Shrike might be slightly daft.

Copernicus emerged from Tully’s vest and winced as a snowflake landed on his snout. “He’s not looking for the food we eat,” said Copernicus grimly. “I told you that Shrikes ate terrible things.”

The group huddled close at that warning and Aarvord puffed up his chest in a threatening manner. Nizz shimmied inside Tully’s ear in fright, secure only in the knowledge that he was hardly a meal for anyone.

Hatch sighed and looked down at the ground. The snow was collecting on his fur and feathers already, and he shook it off. “You do not understand,” he said. “The rumors of Shrikes are true. We do not eat the food you do. Yet,” he added grimly, “we do not eat
you
.”

“You’re right. I don’t understand,” said Tully. But he did. He knew why the Shrikes had often come to stare at him in his cell. He has already been a victim of this method of survival.

“It is the way Shrikes are made. The way we are bred,” said Hatch. His voice was filled with regret and apology. “We must survive off the unhappiness of others.”

“I is plenty unhappy!” hissed Copernicus. “I is cold and don’t know what is going to happen next. Eat that!”

“It is misery we eat,” continued the Shrike, ignoring Copernicus. “Pure despair. It is a curse, for we must make others unhappy in order to live.”

It all made sense now to Tully: how he had felt violated by the Shrikes’ decision to use Aarvord as a tool of betrayal, and how they had stared at him with gluttonous eyes while he was a prisoner. It was why the Shrikes kept so many prisoners in their stronghold, even the ones who were not immediately useful to the cause. The unhappy made good nourishment for them, and the unhappier a beast was the more delectable its secrets.

“I’m not ready to despair,” boomed Aarvord. “Not a bit of it. You can take anything you want away from me, but I won’t—I won’t give you what you want!”

“Very well,” said Hatch. “Is there any among you who is willing to open his—or her—heart to pure unhappiness, even for a few moments?”

They were all torn. Yes, unhappiness might be a moment away in this cold, bleak land, but right now they had been saved. There was hope. None wanted to return to its loss. Yet Hatch had helped them.

“It will not do lasting damage,” promised Hatch. “But the suffering may be hard to break away from. It will require a stout heart to withstand it.”

“I will do it,” said Elutia, quickly and clearly. “I am suffering and in pain already, and it is of no difference to me.”

“Good,” said Hatch, relieved. “I thank you. Please,” he said to Aarvord, “put her down and step away.”

Aarvord was suspicious and angry, but Elutia nodded at him. “It is fine,” she said. “They have done this to me before.”

So Aarvord lowered Elutia to the ground, where she knelt down in the snow and the cold. The flakes were falling faster now, and seemed wet. The rest of them who held heat-candles were surprised to see them bloom into life without their bidding. The candles glowed with a pleasing yellow light, and the warmth was astonishing. Copernicus wriggled toward Tully’s hand, which held the taper.

“Positively balmy!” said the snake. “If it weren’t for present company, that is.” And he cast a look of unkindness toward the Shrike. Hatch had been good enough to save them, true, but he was still a wretched creature. Not really fit to live, thought Copernicus.

Elutia handed her heat-candle to Aarvord, who took it and stepped backward into the snowdrifts. She looked up at Hatch and waited, tugging her Kepper-Root robe tightly around herself to ward off the cold.

Nothing seemed to be happening from the perspective of the companions. Hatch stood before her, silently, and Elutia bowed her head. Tully longed for her to share what was happening through her mental powers—but there was no communication from Elutia’s mind at all. She was blank to him. As her head bowed lower, Tully cringed at the thought of what Hatch was doing to her. And he also felt ashamed. This young Went was offering her mind to the Shrike, and Tully was standing by without so much as a word. He was a coward. He made up his mind then that if Hatch grew hungry again, he would be the sacrifice. Not Elutia.

The feeding, as it were, went on for several minutes. After some time, Hatch stepped back and Elutia slumped into the snow, exhausted from the ordeal. Aarvord immediately lunged for her and scooped her back onto
his shoulders, where she lay almost in a faint. Tully reached out for her with his mind but felt nothing—not even the glimmer of the happy scene by the Windermere that they had shared together.

“I am deeply sorry,” said Hatch, and his feathers seemed to have a fresh sheen to them. “It is not my choice. If there were another way, I would take it.” And Hatch turned from them and began to trudge through the whiteness. His shame was almost palpable.

No one said a word. They were all too stunned, too miserable at the thought of what they had seen. Indeed, Hatch could have made a merry feast out of any one of their thoughts.

The heat-candles kept them all warm, at least. Hatch had not taken one for himself, and seemed to revel in the cold. Aarvord curled the phosphorescent appendage on his forehead around his own heat-candle, so that the light from both blended together and cast a strange-hued beam through the drifting snow. This way his arms were free, and the candle also warmed Elutia.

“I’ll take you as far as the river,” said Hatch, stopping to assess their bearings, “and then you will be on your own. You’ll no longer need me.”

“And from the river, then what?” asked Tully.

“Look for the House of Pomplemys,” said Hatch. “It is of such a shape you cannot miss it. A strange domed structure, with a golden peak. He is protected from Shrikes by several of his own-made charms. He will not want me there.”

“And this Pomplemys will help us?” Aarvord demanded.

“He can give you shelter, at least,” shrugged Hatch. “You will find him eccentric, but honest enough. I know little as it has been years since any of our kind have seen Pomplemys out in the world.”

“What is Pomplemys?” asked Tully. “Is he Triling? Or Dualing?”

“He is Eft, such as you,” said Hatch. “An Eft with a lifelong companion, some kind of Grout that he made himself in his own image. A strange little friendship, that—
haw haw haw
. They are old. They were here in this valley when it was still sunny, and had a hint of green.”

“Sunny?” hissed Copernicus, inside Tully’s vest. “Brrr. Never!”

Before long, the group heard the roar and smashing of the river as it tumbled over rocks and through a narrow gorge. Through the whiteness of the falling snow they could see mist and spray below. They stopped short before the cliffs, where the river’s edge dropped away into nothingness.

“The River Hollis,” announced Hatch. He looked more depressed than ever.

“And Pomplemys’ home?” asked Tully. “Up the bank, you say?”

Hatch looked surprised. “Yes, indeed,” he said. “Up the bank. But over there…on the other side.” And he gestured at the wide, foaming expanse of the River Hollis.

“You didn’t ssssay that before!” squeaked Copernicus. “How are we to crossss that horrid river?”

“Cross it or not; it is nothing to me,” said Hatch. “I have done my duty. My debt is paid.”

“Debt to whom!” shouted Tully, horrified at being left here on the edge of the thrashing river. Hatch was already waddling away, back through the snow toward the Shrike stronghold.

“To a prisoner I once knew,” he said mournfully. He nodded his big head at them once in farewell. Then he was lost in the whiteness.

“That’s a fine thing!” shouted Aarvord. “Of all the useless… I should have expected it from a Shrike. Nasty rotten creatures.”

At his tirade Elutia raised her head for the first time, looked around with empty eyes, and laid her head down again. Tully felt fresh anger at what Hatch had done to her. And now he’d abandoned them to the snow!

As their fury abated a bit they realized that their position was not so terrible. They had escaped the Shrikes’ stronghold. And they had heat-candles, which would keep them warm. True, they had no food to eat and no shelter as of yet, but they did have a name: Pomplemys. Though, how they would find this Eft’s home in the encroaching darkness, across a river, was a mystery.

Tully realized that they did have the gift of flight, however, in the form of Nizz. He gently urged the bee out from hiding in his ear.

“Could you fly up the river and see if there is a crossing of some kind?” he asked Nizz, but the bee shivered uncontrollably.

“I would do it,” he said stoutly. “But I would surely die trying. This climate is not for one such as me.”

“Of course,” said Tully. “I should have thought.”

“This river,” said Nizz thoughtfully. “There is something familiar about the way it curves in the land. I think I have seen this river before—only it wasn’t covered with snow then. When I was inside the box….”

Tully reached inside his vest and drew out the puzzle box. It rattled musically.

“Could you go in again?” he asked Nizz.

“I am sure I could,” said the bee. “But I can’t guarantee that any bridge or crossing I find will still be here, in this time and this world. That sunny land and its people are long gone, I am sure.”

“It is worth a try,” said Tully. He noticed Aarvord looking at him curiously, and he quickly explained the mystery of Hindrance’s puzzle box.

“Pomplemysss,” hissed Copernicus, “whoever he is. He won’t be found there.”

“But there may be some clue. It’s the best chance we have,” argued Tully. “And Nizz can travel in the warmth.”

Without further discussion, Nizz tucked his wings in tightly and flew toward the small hole in the box. He peered inside, as if hoping to see a hint of the sun and grass and the children he had met.

“Wait an hour or so,” said Nizz. “And then close the lid of the box. I will come back with any information I can discover. I can assure you I will remember everything perfectly.” And he slipped inside the small hole and disappeared. As before, the box snapped open, and Tully was gazing down into a miniature replica of the landscape that now lay before them. The tiny river sparkled as if filled with jewels, and the hills sloping down to it were an emerald green. At that time, the river had not yet cut so deep a rift in the earth as was there now; then, the banks led right down to it. Now, the river was at the base of a deep canyon in many places, where it had pulsed through the rocks over millennia. Aarvord held a wide paw over the scene to protect it from the snow, and made a throaty sound of wonder at what he saw. Copernicus wriggled out and hung his snout over the edge of the box.

“Ah! It is so beautiful there,” said Copernicus. “So warm.”

“Look!” said Tully excitedly. “I do see a crossing. See the place where the river grows narrow here? That must be to the north, toward where Hatch told us Pom
plemys lives. It is narrow enough to cross there, I think.”

“Your eyes are tricking you,” gruffed Aarvord. “That river is no wider than a vein in your littlest finger. How can you see?” The Grout bent closer to take a look, readjusting his hold on Elutia so that she did not fall.

“I will take my telescope and test it out,” said Tully, reaching inside his vest. As he did so he did not notice Copernicus snaking farther and farther down the length of his sleeve to see inside the box.

“I see what he is saying,” squeaked Copernicus. “It does grow narrower, it doesss! I can see it!” And Copernicus extended even more of his body over the edge of the box, dangling down right into it so that the scene bloomed into a fuller, more magnified view.

“Oh!” said Copernicus. “I can even see flowers by the riverbank!”

“You’re blocking the view!” said Aarvord, and moved his head closer. Tully, reaching for his telescope, was caught off balance and struggled to hold the box steady. In the next instant—and none were quite sure how it happened—Copernicus fell. His tail slipped on the Kepper-Root robe and whipped over the carved wooden edge of the box and Tully tried to grab it, but it was too late. The snake had completely and utterly vanished, and at the same moment the box fell from Tully’s hands and turned through the air, as if in slow motion, as it tumbled inexorably toward the river far below. They stared after it. It bounced once on the way down, with a ringing musical sound, and then was lost in the river.

*

Copernicus had never flown, except in the craft of the Boring Bees, but he was flying now. Or, rather, falling, tumbling, fast and far through warm summer air, straight down toward the river that—still wild with white rapids—gleamed and sparkled in the sunlight like a diamond twisted up to the sun. He could do nothing to check his fall. He looked up wildly to see if he could see his companions left behind in the snow. He thought he saw a small white window, rapidly receding. And he was still falling.

Right before he struck the water, Copernicus turned his body straight like an arrow and entered the foamy surface. He tumbled deep within the water, his body banging against rocks. He could not know which end was up, but he did have the sickening realization that the river was carrying him farther south, not north.