The Hundred: Fall of the Wents (26 page)

“We’d best get moving,” said Deressema, and was pleased to see that they obeyed her immediately. She fluttered off the snake’s back and led the way, toward the sea and the portal.

Thankfully, the rain had relented and the sun shone through the clouds at times, although it was still rather wan. The children had become quite jovial upon the return of the good weather, and Copernicus was like a lively necklace around the young girl’s neck. The snake kept staring at Deressema as she flew, and she very prettily turned her wings so that Copernicus could see the blue flashings in the scales that caught the afternoon sunlight. They seemed a merry party.

A deep and insistent buzzing turned Deressema’s head, and she almost fell out of the air as a furry insect brushed past her and circled around again. It had come straight over the water like a shot. It was a bee, and a bee from her own world—but not one of the Boring Bees, a superior and intelligent race of insects that were not to be dealt with lightly. This was a Dull Bee. They often traveled in hives, and Dee looked around for the swarm that was sure to follow. How had this bee come here? It could not be an accident. She was hardly concerned, however; Dull Bees were foolish and mute.

“Oh! It’s your bee!” said Natty, clutching Copernicus hard around the neck such that he almost choked. “I see your bee!”

“As he should know,” said Nizz gruffly, alighting on Natty’s shoulder. “I am no one’s bee but my own.”

“Y
our voice,” said Natty seriously. “I remember it well. You saved us from the shadow before. Thank you.”

“It was the least I could do,” said Nizz. “Hello, Copernicus. I did not expect to see you here! How did you come here? Did they not trust me to find the passage over the river?”

Copernicus was delighted to finally meet this friend from his own world. Deressema was shocked beyond words. A Dull Bee, speaking? What magic was this?

“I
fell
in, so to speak,” said Copernicus, a bit ashamed of his foolishness. “It was not a plan, Nizz. And I fear…” here he paused, unsure of how to relate the news to the bee. “I fear that we are here for good. They have not brought me back. I believe something has happened to the box.”

“I see,” said Nizz, and almost seemed to shrug in acceptance. After the loss of his life partner Ozz, he felt he did not need to go back to that world. Surely, he would find a cause here and pursue it. There were many things to catalogue and remember. If he could not share them with his hive, then perhaps he could find a way to share them with these other creatures.

Deressema was watching the bee and brimming with disguised fury. He could ruin all her plans! Suppose he could not be tamed as the snake was? Although small, his stinger could be death to someone of her size. And why did he speak? What could it mean? She decided to use her most honeyed tones on “Nizz.” Fancy a Dull Bee even having a name!

Deressema flew over and hovered in the air next to the bee, flashing her wings as brightly as possible so as to distract him. The two of them hung there, sizing each other up, like tiny flying craft.

“It is so good and pleasant to meet you, Nizz!” sang Dee. “You must have had a hard journey. I longed to see others from my world, and now I have found one!”

Nizz was not used to this sort of talk. He gazed suspiciously at Deressema.

“And you are?” he asked.

“Oh!” she said. “I am so sorry. My name is Deressema and, as I have explained to the others here, I was sent into this world to help them survive. Call me Dee.” She lowered her voice: “The shadow is abroad. Perhaps you have seen it in the north?”

“I have seen the shadow before,” said the bee.

“And it wants these children!” shrilled Deressema, slightly feverish with anxiety that the bee would disrupt all her plans.

“I see,” said Nizz.

“Then,” said Deressema. “You will join us and help us bring the children to a safe place, where the shadow cannot get them? In a secret place out on the waters of the sea. They can hide there until it is safe.”

“Of course, we will keep them safe,” said the bee, puzzled at her insistent tone. Did she not understand that he was a friend of the group, and had proven himself once already?

Deressema relaxed visibly. “Good then,” she said. “Let’s not waste another moment. We should carry on.”

They set off again with Deressema flying in the lead. Nizz hovered low by Copernicus, who had taken to the ground.

“Can the children make it to the sea?” said Nizz in a voice so low that only the snake could hear him.

“They are stronger than they appear. And it is growing warmer,” said Copernicus. He hoped it was the case. The dread of seeing the shadow come swiftly down the river to eat them up kept his tail feverishly whipping along the ground in their quest to the south. Nizz’s appearance had brightened his spirits, but even more than that was the presence of Deressema. She had brought him the message from the future that he sorely needed: His friends had not forgotten him. Well, he would not forget them either. He would do his best.

*

The Shrike-Grout was tired and unhappy. After an hour’s chase through the snow, seeking to elude the Shrike it had seen through the drifting snowflakes, it had grown cold and weary and had lain down in a protected pocket under an overhanging fir tree. Its whole body seemed to ache and its mind wasn’t working very well. It was slow-witted, but not so dumb that it wasn’t aware of its own mental shortcomings. It knew that it was rather stupid, and it hurt to try and think and understand.

Its very first memory had not been of its mother, Justice, who had borne it in the way of all mammals. The Shrike-Grout had never known her name. It had never even met her, as it had been snatched from her almost immediately. It had grown quickly, at almost double the speed of an ordinary Grout or a young Shrike, and this seemed to please the birdlike creatures that came to gaze upon it daily and toss it scraps of food. Unlike its captors it was not destined to eat unhappiness for its meals.

No, its first memory had been the recognition that it was trapped. It had tried to take its first shuffling steps and had banged into the clear glass dome that surrounded and imprisoned it. It fell down, confused, and had heard a shrieking “
haw haw haw”
from the surrounding Shrikes who had watched its attempts with amusement.

As it grew, it began to understand their speech and make attempts to imitate it, but its efforts were never rewarded and it never received a loving or a kind word, nor an embrace or a touch. Perhaps it would have had the ability to love and think, and perhaps it would have been wiser and better than the average Shrike. But it was treated in such a way that it could do little other than rock back and forth in its glass prison, muttering snatches of language in a strange sing-song that seemed to come from somewhere inside.

When they took it out for exercise they marched it around and made it lift heavy things, to see how strong it was. It may have been slow, but its endurance was great and it was remarkably obedient. When it did as they asked, it received more food. The food was tasteless and unremarkable, but it allowed the Shrike-Grout to live. It also contained an oily additive that made the Shrike-Grout crave it relentlessly, despite its tastelessness, so that it often brooded upon when its next meal might be and how it would feel to have the food finally arrive. It would get into cold sweats and shivers and then they would bring the food and it would feel all right, for a time. Then the maddening situation would begin again and it would have to wait until the next scheduled mealtime.

It learned quickly to lift heavier rocks and to shuffle along faster. They had trained it to fight, lashing it with sharp sticks to build its anger and frustration. It understood many of their words and could tell that they were pleased with it, but the realization did not bring it much pride or peace. The next day they would take it out again and it would perform the same tasks and get the same food. They would lash it, and the lashings made its body hurt worse.

Had it been able to wonder, it might have questioned: “Why was I made? And for what purpose?” But it had not that ability. It was little better than an animal that had lived millions of years earlier—able to feel pain, loneliness, sorrow, and hunger, but unable to reason with the intelligence that most living beasts now shared. Most creatures that could not think and reason had long ago become extinct. Survival of the fittest had meant that things like the Shrike-Grout had no place in the world.

Yet, here it was. It lived, and it had just enough natural intelligence to know that it was a most unhappy creature. It also had a burning desire to stop the pains that continually assailed it, as if its bones and skin didn’t fit properly together. Its back and neck ached. Its legs were slightly uneven, which made its gait lopsided and jerky. The very teeth in its mouth seemed to hurt and it suffered from headaches and digestive pains.

Now, it was out in the cold and the snow, both of which it had never before experienced in its short life. It was unpleasant and there was no food handed over daily. Yet, there were no lashings. And there was something else—a vague, tiny sweetness of freedom. The air was fresh and good. It did not mind the pains in its body as fiercely. It decided, in its dumb way, that it would not go back. It would savor this little sensation of freedom and then die quietly, as it was meant to. The Shrike-Grout had a strong feeling that its life was not meant to be. It could not have explained this in words, but it knew.

Then the Shrike had appeared through the snow, and all the fear and anger from the lashings and the imprisonment had made the Shrike-Grout run. It could smell the sour scent of the Shrike, and that scent spoke of all the long days and long nights with no air, no light, and no comfort. They had never even given it a bed to lie on, and so the soft snow felt better than anything it had experienced.

But then the Shrike-Grout remembered the food it had been given. Not only was it hungry and in pain, but it wanted that food. What if…what if the Shrike that chased it had some of this special food? What if it could taste that food again and feel some peace from the hunger and the longing? It paused and thought it might wait. And then the fear began, again, and it ran.

But finally it was so hungry it could run no more. It waited in the snow and began to seek the small form that followed it. Its longing for the food was now so fierce that its mouth watered and it bit down on its own tongue, drawing blood. The Shrike was surely coming to bring it food. It would be led back to its cage, true, but it would no longer suffer like this.

Then the Shrike appeared over the crest of a small rise. It stood there and looked at it. It could see its dark and beady eyes through the drifting snowflakes. The Shrike-Grout stumbled toward it, its arms outstretched and its paws clasping at the air. As it went, it moaned softly with the small bits of language that it knew.

“Help, hungry,” cried the creature. “Hungry. Cold.”

Fangor and Hatch saw it turn and come back toward them. Its language was so slurred and broken that it sounded like nothing more than moans and growls.

“Horrors!” said Fangor. “It’s coming to eat us, sure!”

But Hatch stood his ground. He recognized the poor beast. He remembered how he and his fellows had made it work, and how they had lashed it. Perhaps he deserved whatever retribution the creature would bring now.

Hatch had another thought that was not so charitable. He was hungry again. He could feed off this poor wretched thing, which was so unhappy already it would hardly know the difference. He felt he could not stand to subject Fangor to that again. Here was fresh food, so to speak. It would be easy enough to use it.

The journey had been many days, but the children were in brighter spirits than they had been. For one, their progress south had been marked by sunnier days and blissful weather. They all basked in the warmth and didn’t seem to mind that food was scarce. They found berries and plants to eat along the riverbank, and little Bax had managed to trap two fish by building a clever cage of rocks and sticks in the river.

“My parents taught me how to do it,” he said proudly, as they ate the fish over a little fire. No one sampled it but the children, as the Bee, the Ell, and the snake all shunned such fare. The children gained strength from the food and were livelier than ever.

They had not seen a sign of the shadow. Copernicus started to wonder if it was even real. For all the talk of its dire capabilities, he had never actually witnessed a shadow himself. At times he felt a prickling fear and intangible anxiety, but there was never anything there.

There was, however, the lovely Deressema, who glowed in the light from the sun and played games with the children in which she urged them to chase her down the riverbank. They never caught her—she was far too quick—but she loved to tease them. And there was Nizz, practical and reliable, who sought out fresh greens that were safe for them to eat and kept a watchful eye on the horizon for bad weather.

The bee seemed lonely and morose, and Copernicus tried to trick him into friendly conversation. Nizz spoke vaguely of the hive and once mentioned another bee, named Ozz, but then lapsed into silence and flew high where Copernicus could no longer converse with him.

On one quiet morning while the rest were still sleeping Nizz shared with Copernicus a small part of his story. He told the snake that Dull Bees were silent recorders of all that they had seen in the world’s memory. They were private and ill-named and not respected, but they had a sense of pride in what they did although they did not choose to announce it.

“Do you remember anything of the Hundred, then? Were Dull Bees alive in those days?” asked Copernicus.

“Yes. But my long-ago ancestors did not have the gifts of speech and words,” said Nizz. Sometimes spoken words still sounded odd in his mouth, and he fumbled over them. “We remember something. But I don’t know how to speak it.”

“Try,” said the snake.

“There was…a stone,” said the bee. “A stone that fell to Earth. I can hear the story in my mind but to speak it sounds strange. The stone blotted out much of life. The Hundred were meant to be the saved. But it did not work out that way.” The bee fell silent, troubled. He was not used to sourcing out these ancient memories.

“Many died,” continued the bee. “Many children among them. There was greed. No one wanted to be left out. They died in a dark place. And the rest of the planet died as well and only small animals, such as the bees and the lizards under the soil, lived on.”

Copernicus wanted to ask more of the bee but Nizz seemed tired. He had shared more than he was accustomed to share. Nizz, in turn, wondered at the strangeness of it. What good were the stories if the
Dull Bees could not transmit them to others? Was there to be an end time when all would be revealed—when their stories would finally come into the light? If so, Nizz hoped that this end time was not at hand.

After the sixth day they smelled the scent of salt and, after the seventh, they could see a great body of water. This was the Whael-Rode, explained Deressema. It stretched on for miles, as far as the eye could see. As they approached they could hear a great booming noise as the sea struck the rocks at the edge and was sucked out again. The river they had been following widened to a wide gulf and emptied into this unfathomable ocean. They picked their way along the shoreline until they could go no farther; they stared out at the vast expanse. They were high above the ocean on a jutting cliff.

The ocean was blue and green and wild, and almost blue-black in its depths. There was neither end nor edge to it. Copernicus had never known that such things were real. His city had been near enough to the ocean, but Copernicus had neither need nor desire to go and see it. For a little snake it would have required a full day of travel.

The wind was fiercer here, too, and it buffeted the small Ell and the bee so that they had to land on the ground and creep along by their tiny feet.

The children were stunned to see the ocean, for they had never come this far from their home. They babbled excitedly to each other and asked a number of questions that no one knew how to answer.

“Does it have an end?” asked Bax.

“How deep can it be?” asked Natty.

“Why is it called the Whael-Rode?” asked Bax.

“Are there good things to eat in it?” asked Natty, who was hungry again.

Copernicus had a question of his own.

“Where to from here?” said Copernicus. “There is nowhere to hide here.” Indeed, not even a shrub survived at the edge of the cliff to shield them from unseen eyes.

Deressema looked nervous and impatient.

“We must continue south,” she announced. “There will be a safer harbor.”

For that, however, they had to cross the wide gulf of the river.

“We should have crossed earlier,” said Natty, who was becoming quite strong in her opinions. “We can walk north again, until it gets narrow.”

“No!” said Deressema, feeling foolish and unprepared. “That is dangerous. It will take too long.”

“As dangerous as crossing the river here?” asked Nizz, wisely.

“We can swim!” said Natty hotly. “Of course, we know how.”

Deressema was eventually convinced and they backtracked their steps for two days until they reached a place in the river that they had noticed before. It was narrow and flat, and there were a number of large rocks across the passage that could be used as handholds or resting places.

Nizz flew across in an instant, and waited on the other shore, while Deressema coaxed the children along. Bax had Copernicus slung around his neck. The two children swam from rock to rock, rested, and then swam again. With each plunge into the river Copernicus cursed his luck, for the water shot up his snout and splashed his head. He did not care for it, and it reminded him of his first plunge into the river from the box. But eventually they were on the other side without injury.

Now Deressema seemed rejuvenated and was fluttering with anticipation. The delay had made her nervous. Pomplemys had said she had to move with haste, lest the Hundred find and eat up the children before they reached the portal. Yet Dee had seen no sign of the Hundred here. Her experience with them, in fact, had always been in her mind. They had a buzzing and insistent tone when they spoke inside her head, almost a whine. Of course, they had said wonderful things to her about how smart she was, how clever, and how of service. The effect had been of many voices speaking at once in perfect unison.

She realized to her surprise that since coming through the portal box the voices had stopped entirely. And, much more to her surprise, she was relieved. Their constant drone had become an imposition on her own thoughts, even to the point where—she recalled with shame—she had, for a time, forgotten her own name.

There were times in this bright and happy world that she considered abandoning the plan that Pomplemys had set for her. She had no friends in that old world that would even remember her. If they did, they would shun her for the traitor she was. This little group trusted and liked her. She had even grown strangely fond of the little snake, although his smooth scales vaguely repulsed her whenever she landed on him to preen and chat. He soaked up her every word with obvious admiration. If it were possible for a Dualing and Triling to have a romantic attachment, she would have said the snake had fallen in love with her. What foolishness! Surely he could see that they were different beings altogether. But still, she liked the attention.

She could stop her quest, have a quiet and happy life here, and forget about going back and fulfilling the mission. But then, of course, there were the Hundred. They would come to destroy whatever peace and happiness she found, and she would be much worse off than she had been before. She feared the Hundred. There had been vague threats from the voices that, if she did not perform as expected, she would be eliminated. She knew that her masters could be cruel and terrible.

The fear drove Deressema on and, with it, she spurred on the group. When they relaxed, she would remind them that the Hundred were on the move. Her fear infected them as well, and no one could truly relax for long.

Eventually, they reached the place where the river met the sea but, now, they were on the far side and could continue down the coast. The days were long, as it was near the height of summer. They picked a careful path along the ocean’s edge. It was rocky and wild, with torturous cliffs and small inlets where the waves smashed up against the rocks with great gusts of spray and made the children gasp with surprise and delight.

They had paused to take in the view one afternoon when Nizz began buzzing around anxiously in tight circles.

“Weather,” he muttered. “Storm clouds.”

They all looked to the north and saw that the sky there was darkening, but not in one great sheet of grey as if a storm was approaching. Rather, the sky was filled with patchy, ragged clouds, like horsetails high aloft preceding a weather change—except that these clouds were not white or grey. They were black. They were moving with great speed directly toward the group, who were exposed on the sea cliffs with nowhere to run or hide. They tore through a very bright blue sky, and there was a high-pitched screaming sound high in the air that accompanied them.

Copernicus felt very cold. These were not natural clouds. Deressema was tremulous with fear. Surely these were her masters in their nascent form. She could do nothing except stare, for she had never seen the Hundred with her eyes. The children were also mesmerized and could not take their eyes off the terrible racing clouds, which now bore down the coast with fearsome speed.

It was Nizz who saved them. The bee had been darting this way and that in quick bursts, looking for anywhere to hide.

“This way!” he urged them, banging his small furry body into the children, and nearly sending Deressema flying into the grass. “A place to hide!”

Nizz goaded them toward a crevice of rock near the cliff face. A few scrubby trees clung near the edge, and the children used them as handholds to lower themselves into the rectangular crevice, much like a chimney. It was a poor place to hide, for the rocks were smooth and slick and they could easily lose their grip and tumble down to the rocks and ocean below. Like a chimney with three sides only, the crevice was just wide enough to contain their bodies, so they could hold tight by pressing their arms and legs fast against the sides. There was a little ledge just wide enough for a child’s toes to cling. One side was open to the ocean and, although the gap was thin, it would be more than enough for a thing made of air to penetrate. Still, it was all they had, so they climbed down. Natty went first, for she was bigger, and Bax followed and crouched atop her shoulders while she bore most of his weight. Copernicus slipped in after them and curled himself around Natty’s neck. Her face was already red with exertion and her eyes were wide with fear.

“Do not be afraid,” said Copernicus, although he himself was terribly frightened. “They can’t possibly see you in here. Lean your back against the edge like that. You cannot fall.”

Nizz had also tucked himself carefully in Bax’s collar, his lithe antennae prickling with anticipation.

Deressema had stayed for a moment, still perched on the cliff, feeling an awful and cold wind roaring down on her from the north. “Her masters,” she thought, “her masters!” Surely they would know she was a friend to them, and would embrace her. Surely they had the cold and precise reason that she had come to know. Soon she would hear their voices in her mind again; the comforting and familiar directive that would tell her exactly what to do and where to go.

But there were no voices. There was only a high-pitched keening, as of many souls in misery and agony. The shadows drew closer and she could see with dread that they
were
souls—bodies blending and twisting into one another in a ragged dance. The ground beneath their passage was scorched and blackened, grasses bending and burning in their wake. They were coming straight for her in their moaning, dreadful swirl of horror. She could see now that the souls were chasing one another in great spirals, one spiral leading into another, so that the whole was like a galaxy on the move. Now she could see faces, their mouths agape and eyes filled with an angry terror. But, where one face began and another ended, she could hardly tell. They would merge and then separate, perpetually morphing.

Deressema had never been so terrified in her life. Something told her she was not supposed to see this. It would be the end of her, unless she acted now. She would be blown out to the ocean and drown in this unknown world. Buffeted by a strong wind, she inched her way to the crevice and crawled in, tucking into Bax’s collar next to Nizz. Her whole body was trembling with fear and, if he were not so frightened himself, Bax would have shouted out that she was tickling him.

For those in the crevice, the noise above was the most frightful and demonic sound they had ever heard. Amidst the groans and screams, they could hear snatches of song and language. At times Natty and Bax cried out, although Copernicus wrapped his tail around Natty’s mouth to silence her, and Nizz actually landed on Bax’s tongue.