The Hundred: Fall of the Wents (34 page)

Aarvord did not hesitate another moment. He flung a lever forward and the Bathysphere was plunged forward through the portal to the water. It immediately began to sink and slew sideways of its own weight, while Aarvord frantically engaged the controls to right it and bring it up.

They looked behind them. The sea had rushed into the cave, and without the doors closed there was nothing to stop its progress. Water cascaded over Pomplemys, tumbling him end over end, and raced into the tunnel beyond. The Bathysphere was nearly sucked back into the cave by the force of it, but Aarvord urged it forward with all the power it contained. Bubbles streamed out behind it, and curious creatures darted up to investigate this strange new thing that had entered their space.

The Bonedogs had peeled away as the Bathysphere fled through the water and their bodies floated mutely in the wake of the craft. They could live in water for a time, although they went into a state of hibernation. From there they would gradually float to the surface.

Tully knew that Pomplemys would not be harmed; he was a creature of water. He was terrified that at any moment the Eft would swim beside them, peering in with his mad eyes. And then—there was that other thing. The thing with the giant, dark eye that had peered out from the sea through the glass of the craft. What if it swallowed them all whole? This plan had been foolhardy, but there was no turning back now.

The Bathysphere hummed through the water, gaining speed. It was an admirable craft. Tully wondered who had built it.

The companions did not have a set course, so they followed the water’s currents, hoping that this would le
ad them to the place where the jaws of land enclosed the water.

Through the clear glass they could see wonderful colors and shapes on all sides of the craft. A shaft of sun shone through the clear water and shimmered off the metal of the Bathysphere, casting strange lights and shadows that attracted small, bug-eyed Kettlefish whose whiskers were humorously long. Kettlefish lived for hundreds of years and were too cagey to come very close. They had not managed to evade extinction for millions of years for nothing.

They could also see Sea Eggs, globular creatures with scores of eyes all over their spherical bodies. The Sea Eggs spun playfully, bouncing off the edges of the Bathysphere and gazing at the companions within. Each eye held a different expression—some filled with humor, others questioning, and still others suspicious. There were other creatures that they had hardly known even existed: long, tubular things, with many dangling and seemingly useless legs, who did not seem to have any semblance of eyes; tiny swimmers that looked just like miniature Veldstack, but with gills along their flanks; and amorphous blobs of vividly-colored jelly-like material who changed shape as they pulsed through the water. These last sometimes broke into three or four separate blobs that came together again as one, making it difficult to know if they were one entity or many smaller entities that rode together through the water for safety and comfort.

It was strange, down here, in the gloom. Tully knew that he was destined to spend more time in the water when he was a few years older; when he had to endure his Sea Change into a full-grown Eft. It was not a thought he enjoyed for he didn’t anticipate his time in the deeps to be one of pleasure. He would have to leave his friends. He would be with other Efts, true, but he had never known very many of them. Pomplemys, for one, had not been an Eft he would like to emulate. He did not see the point. A Sea Change was required in order to reproduce more of one’s kind, but Tully had no interest in that sort of thing either.

He saw a Trim of ten
or so Efts passing below now, twenty feet deeper than the domed traveling craft. They were wan little shapes, lit by a mentor glowfish that traveled with them. Tully could see that their hair was long and tangled, and that their scales were thicker and darker than his own. The scales of older Efts no longer glittered as prettily as those of a young Eft, and it seemed a shame to Tully. He did not wish to grow old.

The Efts swimming below still seemed like children to him. Did they miss the air? They were not lonely; not that he could see, for they were together in a Trim. The sea seemed like home to them and they gamboled and rolled in its depths playfully. They glanced up with curiosity at the Bathysphere, but did not come any closer. No doubt it had rarely, if ever, been brought out from its secret cavern and was an unusual sight.

He wished that he could be as free as they were now and that he did not have this mission. His hand reached for Hindrance’s necklace within his vest, no longer bearing any of the heat that it had thrown off within Snell’s cave. His scales where it had rested still felt burned and raw. He did not want any of this. A little while ago, he had been a child, happy with his Wents. But then they had stolen the Wents. His heart hardened. He must find Hindrance; that was his only true mission. And Elutia. But she was surely gone.

Eventually they could see that they had entered a wide inland sea, with a wide rocky ledge extending from the left side. The ledge rose toward the center of the bay and breached the surface of the water. They traveled to the far edges and saw that the channel to the larger sea beyond was too narrow for the craft to pass.

“This is the place,” said Copernicus. “This is The Jawsss. That is where the rock liesss. That is where the portal isss.” His voice was hushed, and he hissed the end of each word moreso than usual. Coming to this place from another angle had a profound effect on him. His prior visit in another time seemed like a dream.

“What now?” asked Fangor. “Do we all go up and see what’s happening?”

“No,” said Tully slowly. “We don’t want to announce our presence here. I can swim out from the Bathysphere and investigate quietly. The cold water will not harm me.”

They agreed that this plan was the safest, although Copernicus, in particular, was dismayed at the thought of Tully being on his own. The Eft did not seem afraid, however. His mind was set; he would go alone.

Hindrance was marching with the other Wents, in a long slow column. The cold was bracing and the sun, although obscured by clouds, was a welcome presence again after so many weeks underground.

She could not remember much of the last days, and that was a merciful thing. Her feet did not work properly after being buried in soil for so long. It had kept her alive, but barely. If she had dropped a growing Triling from her blossoms during her capture, she did not remember it. Whatever she had borne had been taken from her. She doubted she would ever see it much less love it.

Her fellow Wents marched with her. Who knew what had happened to them during the long, dark days when she had been in the breeding chamber. She hoped that they had remembered her shouted message of hope and solidarity before she had been taken past those doors, but that was doubtful. They all bore the same sad, worried expressions, and no one would even speak to her. She had hardly the energy to try to reach them.

She still had her blinding-bomb, but it would do little good here. It was meant for quick escapes. The Shrikes were too thick around them to even make such a thing possible.

Hindrance noticed a curious thing: There were many young Wents marching with them who all looked exactly alike. They were scattered throughout the crowd, so that the effect was not immediately noticeable. But she began to spot them and made a quest of searching them out. Each one of them had the same cold, hard expression that she had noticed on the face of the young Went she had seen pulled from its mother, before she had been drugged.

It was not long before Hindrance had come to the simple conclusion that these Wents were the product of the breeding chambers. These were their very own children. There were many of them, perhaps
one hundred or more. One of them, she was convinced, was hers. Yet they all looked alike. Not one of them reached to her or caught her eye, but her potion should have made her own alike to her in many aspects and the young thing would have cleaved to her.

They had been making Wents, and Wents alone, in that chamber. It was clearly the Shrikes’ only interest. That is why she had dreamt of the earth—of being trapped in the earth, solid and drugged. A Went who dreamed of earth would always give birth to another Went, rather than an Eft or an Ell. Dreams of air made an Ell, and dreams of water made an Eft. It had always been this way. She had had the proper dream to make her Went, but it hadn’t been her choice.

Eventually Hindrance saw Bly, Sarami, and Kellen, who were all marching together in the group behind her. She slowed her pace gradually until they had reached her, and all four had a tearful reunion.

“What became of you?” said Sarami. “We were so worried that you had been destroyed after your brave speech.”

“Not destroyed, but perhaps worse,” said Hindrance grimly. She told them the story of the pods from what she could remember. Kellen also added her impressions, although they were not markedly different from what Hindrance had to say. She, too, had searched the crowd of young Wents to see if she could see her own. She had caught the eye of one, for a few moments, and thought she had seen a glimmer of emotion there. But the young Went had turned its eyes away before she could be sure.

“And what of you?’ asked Hindrance to Bly and Sarami. “Did you suffer things as we did?”

No, the two Wents explained. They had not been placed in pods to breed. They had been treated very well, in fact. For a day or two, they had even been allowed to see the sunlight when it shone through the grey cloud cover. They had spent their days in idleness, waiting to see what would happen. No one came to give them any message or instructions.

“The Shrikes were kind to us,” said Bly. “They were not so bad at all.”

“Pah,” said Kellen. “You must be mad to think so.”

“No, truly!” argued Bly. “They were good. We should do as they say and keep marching.”

Kellen and Hindrance were disgusted. They had seen the horrors in the breeding chamber and knew it all to be trickery and falsehoods. But their friends had seen the true sun, and had been warmed by it. Perhaps a little bit of good in their captivity had been enough to lull them into this stupid complacence. Hindrance loved her own people, but she also saw their weakness. They had almost a hive mind—not so much as creatures like the Boring Bees did but, all the same, they were susceptible to the thoughts and feelings of every Went around them. Bly and Sarami had always been sweet, but weaker-minded than she and Kellen. Was that why they had been set aside and saved from the breeding chambers?

She touched the petals surrounding her face now. They felt cold and bruised. The newborn Went that would have fallen from them would have been tiny at first falling. But it would have grown remarkably quickly, attaining its stature within a few days with the right light and atmosphere. Hindrance felt a sharp longing coupled with anger and she searched the crowd to seek out the young Wents with a new urgency. Her own could be here! And if the potion held true, this young Went would know Hindrance’s thoughts and memories and share Hindrance’s dreams. The young Went would be, to all purposes, a living memory of Hindrance’s own life and experiences. Yet she would be her own person, as well, capable of a unique personality and dreams. The two would be linked and could find one another by sight and touch.

Yet Hindrance felt nothing. Perhaps she had not been able to bear young, after all, or hers had died because she had meddled with its genetic make-up. The fact that she did not know the answer, either way, pained her.

“What is it?” asked Sarami, who had sensed her distress.

“It is nothing,” said Hindrance. “The Shrikes did terrible things, that is all.”

“You say so,” said Sarami. But she sounded suspicious.

Hindrance fell silent as she marched along with them. She decided to think of Tully instead. He had not been her own child, but Kellen had been such a distant mother to him that Hindrance had filled the void. She had nurtured him, protected him, and played with him when he was young, such that he had looked to her as an all-powerful force for good.

Where was he now? There had been a few moments, while she was still trapped in the pods, that she had felt a burning around her neck and could see the young Eft clearly before her. In her delirium she had cried out to him. He was her special one, her charge, and she had placed great trust and power in his hands. He could not answer but there were moments when she felt his attention fixed on her.

There was great love there. She knew that no creature could break that love; it would always be there. If she died today—and she surely might, for none knew what was in store for the marching columns of Wents—she would die thanking the great force of life that she had the chance to give Tully the gifts she had, and that he had given her the gift of knowing him. He would live and go on and do great things. She was certain of that.

The snows burned her feet and the happy, idle talk of Sarami and Bly irritated her. They were so pleased to be out in the fresh air that they did not care what fate awaited them. She caught the eye of Kellen.

“Have you seen her yet…your own?” asked Hindrance.

Kellen shrugged. “Perhaps I was not fruitful,” she said. “I wanted to defeat them, so I dreamed of rivers and air. They wanted me to dream of earth. I hate them, these Shrikes.”

Kellen was wise but she had always been an unhappy sort. Hindrance would find no sustenance here.

The march of the Wents was slowing, and Hindrance saw that they had arrived at a great high place overlooking the sea. The water was bound into a wide bay by two sweeping juts of land. Wind tricked the water up into scudding peaks and the clouds above the sea hurried and broke apart, revealing bright patches of welcome blue. It was a lovely and cold place. There was a great rock poised near the center of the bay, as if it were about to fall. And there was a dark craft moored there. Upon it and about it clustered many shapes: Shrikes. Several of them glanced up to acknowledge the Wents’ arrival.

This must be the place where she would die, thought Hindrance. She would not have minded so much, but she wished she could see Tully again once more. At least this would be a lovely place to come to an end.

She noticed the young, cloned Wents moving among the crowd to take places at the front of the cliffs. They edged and shoved their older counterparts aside as they moved forward, not with malice but with an insistent, urgent manner. As one passed her Hindrance caught at its arm.

“Elutia?” she said, but the Went stared at her without comprehension. Hindrance caught at another. “Elutia?” she said again. This Went, also, did not meet her eyes with any recognition. Each of them pulled away, gently but forcefully, and took their places at the head of the crowd.

Hindrance thought that they were among the most beautiful creatures she had ever seen of her kind, but also the most bereft of hope, or spirit, or compassion. She turned to look out over the sea, and the thousands of other Wents turned with her to look as well, as if something there had beckoned them.