The Hundred: Fall of the Wents (35 page)

Tully had left the Bathysphere and was alone. It was good to be out in the air again, and it was a rare, clear day. There were wide swatches of blue in the sky amidst great scudding clouds. He hoped that the sun would peek through just for a moment, and kept glancing up as if he would will it to appear.

He had seen no sign of other living creatures yet. To get a better view, he had clambered up the rocky bluff that curved down to meet the small, gravelly beach where he had come ashore. It was quite treacherous in places, but there were just enough handholds and footholds to allow him to ascend steadily. He reached a flat place where there was enough room to crouch for a moment and looked out behind him, at the sea. There was the mighty rock out on the ledge, balanced precariously upon its tapered point. Tully knew that the sheets of ice that had grown over the centuries, and then receded, had dropped such strange anomalies in their wake. However, there was something unnatural about this rock. It hardly seemed possible that it had come there by happenstance. Yet it could have.

Something was troubling the water. A black metallic thing breached the surface, and Tully was at first fearful that the members of the Bathysphere had encountered some trouble and had needed to rise. But no, this thing was of a different shape than the Bathysphere. It broke through the surface entirely. It was long and dark, like a bullet, and studded with strange projections and ugly knobs. A hatch in the thing cracked open and a bevy of Shrikes clambered out atop its flat roof
. They carried strange devices with dials and winking lights.

Tully realized that the Shrikes could easily see him where he now crouched. He quickly climbed higher. He was counting on the fact that they were consumed with some preparations below, but his back tingled with anticipation that one might turn and see his small form against the rock. He wished that he were under cover of darkness. He felt terribly exposed. But no cries of alarm were raised.

Finally he reached another ledge where there was a small hollow in the rock. He ducked into it. From here, the view was even better. He could see clear across to the cliff that curved across the other side of the bay, to where it met in a pinch of stone that marked the entrance to the wider sea beyond. The sounds of the Shrikes were carried to him as clearly as if he had been standing next to them.

Tully took out his telescope and peered through it. He was so consumed with watching the Shrikes at their preparations that he barely heard two distinct noises. One was the splashing of water, apart from the waves that beat against the shore. He trained his telescope toward the noise and he saw it. It was the Shrike-Grout, swimming hard through the bay. It looked to be near the end of its strength and was floundering and paddling and occasionally gasping for air. But still it swam. Tully looked further north and could see where the river entered the bay. Somewhere near where it met the sea was where the Bathysphere had been released into the water from the oceanic caverns through which they had traveled.

The Shrikes had by now spotted the creature, and they set into a great, mocking round of laughter and insults. This did not deter the Shrike-Grout. It swam on, until it had reached the rock. It pulled itself up onto the ledge and lay there as if dead. It had been called and it had come.

Tully could hear the Shrikes’ voices clearly:

“Just in time, Old Ugly!”

“Do you want some food?”

“Would you like to lift some rocks for us, Wretched One?”

“Where has it been, eh? I thought the thing was dead!”

They fed the Shrike-Grout something that Tully could not see, and it seemed to regain its strength for a moment. But then it cowered down on the rock again, and Tully was certain they were going to beat it with the long staves they carried.

“This is a glorious day, Wretched One,” said one of the Shrikes. “You will live to see the mysteries of the broken rock! You will see the masters in their true form.”

“I’m hungry,” said another of the Shrikes, and they all laughed with the awful
haw haw haw
sound that reverberated up the cliff and assailed Tully’s ears. He wished he could not hear them now and he compulsively closed his hand over the metal sphere that lay against his chest. If he could hear them so well over the water, then they could hear him also. Although the sphere made no sound he still protected it, as if it might strike a rock by accident.

The Shrikes gathered around the poor Shrike-G
rout and Tully could not see it. He knew, however, that they were all feeding on the poor thing’s unhappiness. It was grotesque. He turned his head away and shut his eyes.

The other sound, which Tully had not become fully aware of until he closed his eyes, was the sound of many feet moving over the earth. It was a low, gentle thumping, growing in volume until Tully finally opened his eyes and saw them. He saw them all there above him and surrounding him.

Thousands of Wents were now clustered on the edge of the cliff, in a semicircular ring. They extended all the way around the bay, so that some were quite distant from him across the water. Their heads were bowed as if they were sleeping. A few Shrike guards stood around them with staves in hand, but not many. It seemed that the Wents, despite their numbers, had been called here beyond their control.

Tully searched the crowd for Hindrance, but the astonishing number of Wents made it almost impossible to discern one from the other. From a distance, it looked like a sea of nodding white petals.

Among the crowd he picked out face after face that bore a striking resemblance to his own Elutia. Tully’s heart leapt. She must be here, among them! But then he remembered what Hatch had told them. Elutia was but one of many clones. And Elutia had vanished within Pomplemys’ chambers. Who were these replicas? He trained his telescope on each, one to the next, but they all bore hard expressions with no love or mercy in their eyes. These sweet-faced clones blended in with the Wents who had no doubt given birth to them under the power of the Shrikes.

If only Hindrance would look up and catch his eye! Then he would be able to stop her—to reach out to her and help her see that she and her fellow Wents had finally been bullied or brainwashed into doing what the Shrikes had long wanted them to do.

It was too late. A low note sounded off in the depths of the canyon. It came from the Shrike craft, or from the rock—Tully could not tell. It began softly and, then, grew in strength until it pealed up and over the edges of the rock like surf breaking on a shoreline. It filled the air and grew. It seemed that the air itself had been transformed into this one low note.

And then, as one, the Wents began to sing. Their voices rose and dipped and played off the note, each Went singing her unique song. But, all blended together perfectly and harmoniously. It grew and grew in volume. Tully, swayed by the songs on the small ledge, feared that he would fall into the depths of the canyon. Every particle within him was ringing with the toning noise and—he thought this with wonder and admiration—he had never heard another song like it on this earth. It was a song of life and life beyond. It sounded like the end of the world, but also the beginning. The song made him shiver with loneliness and exult with joy. He shut his eyes and hung grimly on to the rock while the singing washed all around him.

A terrible rending and groaning noise rumbled up from beneath the sweet tones of the Wents. The rock that he clung to trembled and swayed. This could be the end. The rocky ledge would tumble under the force of the singing and he, and the ledge, would be no more. The Wents had been able to stop wars, move trees, and open the very earth with the power of their song. He decided to open his eyes.

The Wents were still clustered above him on the cliff, but their faces were upturned and proud. How and why? They had been forced to do this. Yet, it was what they were born to do.
He trained his telescope on the crowd. Now he thought he could see Hindrance at the front of the ranks of Wents, her mouth open in a wide
O
and her eyes very bright. It was her, his dear Hindrance. He opened his mouth to call out to her but his voice was swallowed in the vast wash of singing. He could not even hear it inside his own head.

He saw then, among the group, Sarami and Bly. They were wrapped up in their own song, and they were standing very close to each other. Kellen he could not see. The creaking and tearing noise was fiercer now. Some of the Wents swayed on the edge of the cliff and—Tully saw with absolute horror—fell over the side and, spinning as they went like so many seedlings on the air, vanished into the great gulf that led to the sea below. They fell as lightly as flower petals and with no alarm or hesitation. More of them followed, seeming to choose their death with grace and acceptance, as the singing grew stronger and wilder. As they fell more moved forward to take their place. Tully feared that Hindrance would be pushed over against her will, but she seemed to hold strong. Suddenly, Sarami and Bly went hand-in-hand over the edge of the cliff and tumbled together, their bodies mirroring one another as they fell. Tully heard himself cry out. What he was seeing did not seem real.

The Wents that survived the fall to the water would drown, for they could not swim.

Tully kept his eye fixed on Hindrance. “No!” he begged her silently. “No. See me! See me; I am here!”

Fully half of the Wents had fallen or leapt and, yet, the singing did not seem to abate in strength. Those Wents who were left on the cliff face began to glance back and forth to one another, as if willing their fellow sisters to be brave and finish the job.

If they all plunged, Tully knew, the race of the Trilings was as good as extinct. There could be no Efts without Wents. There could be no Ells. They were ended. And he thought he knew a little of the loneliness of the Hundred then, who even after death were striving to live again. Their time was over and, yet, they would not allow it to be over. They were too clever for that. Would the poor Trilings be as clever? Would they become bitter and vengeful
like the Hundred, and wait millions of years to find a way to breathe again and feel the warmth of the sun?

Tully summoned his strength and called out again, with as piercing a voice as he could muster: “Hindrance!” He kept screaming her name through the singing, which was now patched and broken and dying, as more Wents jumped and plunged to their doom. She had not jumped. She was now swaying a bit, her eyes closed, and her mouth still open in song.

At that moment the great rock perched at the center of the gulf, balanced on its point, split down its center. The two halves fell cleanly to either side and revealed a dark hollow beneath. The Wents who were still left on the cliff stopped singing abruptly. The noise carried on in Tully’s head, echoed up through the gorge, and finally ebbed away. It was impossibly silent.

In that emptiness Tully suddenly heard a voice, and it was his own, still screaming: “Hindrance!” He had called out so long and so fervently that his voice sounded cracked and broken. Across the great wide chasm, her eyes opened, startled. She searched for Tully and found him. Her face grew peaceful and bright.

But, then, she continued to sway, as if she might simply drift away off the edge of the cliff. He could hear her thoughts now. She had sensed him and, like Elutia, she entered his mind as easily as a dream.

“It’s over now, my sweet,” said Hindrance into his mind. “There is no place for us now that they have come back. The Hundred return. This is what the Shrikes wanted.”

“No, this cannot be,” thought Tully fiercely. “You should not give up. Nothing has come. Nothing that is not already here.”

“You do not know them,” thought Hindrance. “The Hundred will come now. They will not allow us to live.”

Tully’s mind raced, different thoughts warring with each other for precedence. What could he say to the Went he had been searching for these many weeks?

“Hindrance, don’t leave me,” he thought plaintively.

Her attention was fixated on the rock, however, and he swiveled his head to see what was happening. A pod of Shrikes had bustled up to the rock, like so many ants, sniffing at the revealed hole and wielding temperature sensors and strange lights and apparati. Whatever was inside must be very fragile. The light in the bay was beginning to fade and many of the Wents—those who had not flung themselves to their death—had nodded into a stupor, their heads drooping. Tully saw that there were not so many left. Would there be enough to continue the Trilings? Hindrance and a few others were alert and focused on the rock.

What was in there had been sealed inside with great magic for many millions of years, and it must be anxious to escape and find freedom in the world again. Would it come as the humans in bodily form, ready to reunite with the dark souls that awaited them? How dangerous would they now become once they had life again?

His head swam. What was he to do? The answer came readily.

“It is time,” said the voice of Hen-Hen in his mind. Tully was aghast to think that the Frothsome Grout had entered his consciousness so readily. Had he always been there, on the periphery, waiting to speak?

“It is time to take the power that was always yours,” said Hen-Hen again, very coldly and decisively. “You need not fear. You have the sphere that hangs around your neck. If you want to save the Wents, and save yourself, you will take it now.”