The Hundred: Fall of the Wents (38 page)

Finally he reached the water. He could see the rock out beyond, a dark silhouette against the night. His scales were bruised and torn from the climb, and the places where the whiskered fish had cut him burned like fire. He hoped he would not meet her again beneath the surface of the water. It seemed dark and terrifying.

Tully plunged in, and he could immediately see the warm, glowing light of the Bathysphere, not many feet below. It was safe down here, with no shadows screaming and whirling above. He passed by an underwater ledge, and there he saw the body of a Went, lit by the windows of the Bathysphere. She was unknown to him, but she looked just like Elutia, and his heart caught in his throat. He swam closer and looked at her. She was lying there as if asleep, and the sea currents caught the blossoms around her face and stirred them. She had a small smile on her face, as if her death had been a wonderful thing. No doubt it had been, for she was one of the Shrike’s manufacturings, and had been obedient to the last—bringing her sisters to the same death. Still, it was hard to look at her, for she was as pretty and glowing as Elutia had been when he last saw her up close. He touched her face very gently, but she did not move.

Elutia. She was the thing he must save now. He turned to the Bathysphere, and he could see his friends behind the glass recognize him with glad smiles. He plunged for it, but something impeded his path. It was a lithe and wiry form, and he could see in the light from the Bathysphere that it was another Eft. It caught him by the arms and wrenched them backwards, and he turned and looked in its face. It was Pomplemys. One eye was still leering sideways, and the other fixated on Tully with a terrible look of vengeance.

Pomplemys was speaking, but his voice came out as indistinguishable bubbles. Tully, not having endured his Sea Change yet, could not understand underwater speech. He thought he could guess what the old Eft would be saying. He would accuse Tully of murder, of ruining everything, of stealing the craft.

Pomplemys’ rage made him strong, but Tully was young and quick. The Eft was pulling him down, out of the light of the Bathysphere, and into a darker place in the ocean. Tully could not withstand the water forever—only a few minutes at most—and he knew that Pomplemys was trying to drown him. The older Eft had fully-formed gills, while Tully’s were not mature. He began to panic.

Tully released one of his arms and slapped at Pomplemys, kicking out with both his legs. With his free arm, he took one of Pomplemys’ antennae in his grasp and tugged at it fiercely. He continued until the antennae came clear away in his hand, and the older Eft lost his grip on Tully and lurched away in pain.

Tully swam for the light, still holding the disembodied antennae in his grip. He could not look beyond him to see if the Eft was following; he swam faster than he ever had in his life.

There was the dome of the Bathysphere, and the worried faces of his friends within. He reached the entry hatch, and it opened. Tully was inside. The duckets opened and the water flooded out in a great gush. He lay there, gasping for air, the ruined antennae still in his hand. If Pomplemys lived, he was an enemy for life.

Tully felt a tickle on his neck and looked up. Copernicus was there, flicking his tongue over his friend to assess his health. Dear Copernicus!

Tully could not speak of all that he had witnessed above in the air. He began to cry, silently at first but then with gasping sobs that smelt of the sea, and of sorrow and death.

*

The night was not yet over when Aarvord brought the Bathysphere to the edge of the great rock and breached the surface. They emerged from the craft, while Hatch held it steady with the controls. Tully leapt down onto the surface of the rocky ledge, and felt his head spin as he did so. He was very tired. In the gloom he could see Aarvord behind him, clambering down to reach the surface of the rock.

Tully sought a trace of Elutia, but there was nothing to be found—not a petal, not a footprint on the unforgiving surface of stone. His antennae pricked at the scent of Shrikes, and at a hot scent of rank fear and hatred with which the Hundred had seared the passage as they passed through.

Tully looked to the east but daylight was hours away. They must hurry, however, for who knew what the morning would bring? Aarvord had already gone to work on the split and fallen rock, which lay on its side revealing the passage to the other world.

Aarvord tried to push the rocks with his massive strength but they would not budge.

“What happens if this dark hole remains open always?” said Aarvord.

“If it does I will not be able to help myself from going down into it,” said Tully. He was already staring longingly into the dark hole. But he knew from the stories of Copernicus that even to go in did not guarantee he would take the same passage as Elutia had, and he was afraid.

Tully palmed his bauble and wondered what they might do. But then Aarvord said: “Wait, there is movement.”

Tully lifted the bauble around his neck and the massive stone, too, lifted.

“How strange!” he said. But he was able to manipulate the necklace like a magnet and draw first one stone and then the other over the hole in a clumsy, tumbled fashion. As he did it he was grateful that he had this talisman; it could be that it would help him reach Elutia again when the time came.

Aarvord went to seal the rocks together when Tully finished. He heated his appendage and seared the rocks hotly. They gave off a low hissing noise as he worked, and the rocks bled and melted into one another until the gap was closed.

“It is not the best work,” said the Grout, turning to Tully. His body was thick with sweat. “My skills are rough. Something small may still get through. But not that damned horde of evil, I pray.”

So the way to Elutia was closed for now, to him and to the Hundred as well. Tully fell to his knees, and Aarvord clasped him up and carried him back up the side of the Bathysphere.

“Thank you,” murmured Tully. “You have done a good thing.”

Morning had come. The group had slept fitfully in the Bathysphere, unsure of what was happening in the air above them. Tully’s dreams had been fragmented, and filled with images of faces—Elutia, the Wents, Pomplemys, and the dead replica of Elutia under the water. He awoke stiff and cramped, and realized that Fangor had been sleeping in his hair. Normally this would have irritated him, but he found the presence of the Sand Louse comforting. Fangor had been a braver and better friend than he could have imagined. Let him sleep.

None wanted to look out the window of the Bathysphere into the water, now dully lit, lest they see something dead floating by.

“What now?” asked Hatch.

No one knew.

“We should go up and see if we can find the Wents that survived,” said Tully decisively. Somewhere above was Hindrance, if she lived, and he would find her and take her home. How they would get home was another mystery.

Tully had told the group what had happened, in dull and somber tones, before they had all collapsed from exhaustion. They had been shocked at the revelation that Hen-Hen had betrayed them—particularly Aarvord, who had sunk into gloomy reveries and even now refused to speak. Even during the sealing of the rock he had been dark and morose.

And they had all been stunned at the news that the Hundred were now free in the world. It felt as if they had achieved nothing at all. Their entire travail had been without purpose. In fact, it had led to this dreadful outcome. The very thing they had thought they were trying to stop had come to pass: the Hundred were loose now. Many of the Wents had died.

Everything had been a lie. But they still had one another, and they still had a course ahead of them: to find Hindrance.

“We will all go up,” announced Copernicus, looking at Aarvord for affirmation. “We’ve been under here for too long, and the air feels stale.”

The Grout grunted morosely, and pulled at the controls. The Bathysphere began to rise. In a few minutes it broke the surface of the water and bobbed on the waves. Aarvord propelled it toward a small cove. After some maneuvering, he beached the craft gently in the lee of a lip of rock; here there was a narrow, sandy bank studded with gravel and a few icy snowdrifts. Aarvord opened the top hatch and, one by one, they all emerged. Tully was the first out, and he looked upon a scene of utter quiet. There was no sign of the Hundred, or of any of the smashed and defeated Council. He had dreaded seeing the bodies of lifeless Wents adrift on the ocean, but there were none.

But as Tully looked more closely at his surroundings, he finally saw hints of the previous night’s destruction. There, on a rocky ledge high above, were the corpses of two Shrikes. And spinning gently in the water there were the bodies of a number of bees, a few Ells, and a silvery fish. They were all pulled together by the current, and gyrated on the surface of the water in a mute and hopeless dance.

Along with the rest of his companions, Tully climbed down to stand upon the beach. No one said a word. They shivered in the cold and looked for signs of life.

Above them, where the small beach sloped up to meet the rocky bluffs, a small face peered out. It was a dumb rodent dragged along in the storm of Hundred from the older world. It twitched its whiskers at them and scampered away out of sight. Its little face would have been comical in any other circumstance, for it looked as surprised as a creature without sense and speech could.

“May you find others of your kind,” whispered Tully, feeling sorry for the creature. There was little chance it would survive here.

“This is an abandoned place,” said Copernicus. “They have all fled.”

“Hindrance knew I was here,” insisted Tully. “She would not have left without finding me.”

“Perhaps she was forced to leave?” suggested Aarvord. “Perhaps the Shrikes still have the remaining Wents in their power.”

At this, however, Hatch shook his head. “I can feel nothing of the Shrikes’ collective mind,” he said. “Nothing, that is, except for terrified babble. Those that did not die here are scattered into the tundra. They are harmless without their master to guide them.”

Hatch had learned from Tully, during the stories of the night before, that the unseen master guiding the Shrikes had, all along, been the Boring Bees. The thought disgusted him. It made him even more ashamed of the Shrikes’ willingness to do whatever the voices commanded and to believe the lies they had told. The Hundred, as he had once thought the voices to be until he had broken away from them, had promised the Shrikes technological marvels and power beyond reckoning. The Shrikes would be given weapons and marvelous ships and flying craft, and the Hundred would create much unhappiness for them to feed on until their bellies swelled with it. Together, they would crush all other creatures and would enjoy such power as the Shrikes had only dreamed of.

“Pah!” thought Hatch. It had all been a lie. He would never again be guided by an internal voice other than his own. This was the only voice he could truly trust.

“We ought to go up,” said Tully. “That is where I last saw Hindrance—at the top of the cliff, there.” He pointed to the place.

“What if the Hundred come back?” asked Fangor, staring with apprehensi
on at the little drift of dead bees and Ells on the water’s surface. Any of these dead things could easily be a Sand Louse. “No, thank you!” thought Fangor. “I would rather suffer another feeding from the Shrikes than end up that way.”

“The Hundred don’t want us,” said Tully. “They only wanted the children. Everything else that died just got in the way.”

“Why eat them here when it could have eaten them there, in the older world?” asked Copernicus, suddenly wondering about the sense of the whole thing. “What is the difference to these creaturesss?”

Tully thought hard about this, and finally responded. “Perhaps the Hundred were also imprisoned inside that rocky portal for many millennia. That gave them the time for their consciousness to take shape. And for them to form a plan. Instead of devouring the children, they could enter them—and live again. The prophecy did suggest that the Hundred were
trapped
in the rock. The Shrikes were certainly led to believe this.” And here he cast a glance at Hatch, who shrugged in assent.

Tully thought: If the Hundred were inside the rock for all that time, brooding on their dark thoughts, then so were Elutia and the children.

If the Hells existed, then Elutia and the children had surely experienced them. Nothing before had given Tully greater pain than this realization—not even seeing the Wents fling themselves to their deaths. He hoped against hope that the journey through the portal had seemed like a flash of light to them, over in an instant. But he feared that this was not the case. No wonder Elutia had hesitated to go back into the portal! What if they had not made it through, and were trapped yet again?

“If that is true,” said Aarvord thoughtfully, breaking into Tully’s nightmarish reverie, “then there is nothing left for the Hundred here now.”

“Except a worsssse anger,” hissed Copernicus. “If you were denied the thing that you had dreamed of for millionsss of years, wouldn’t you be very, very angry? Yes?”

Oh yes, they all thought, and shuddered. The Hundred had lost their most fervent hope. Of what would a hopeless entity be capable? At least hope gave a creature sense and purpose, thought Hatch. His people were now scattered and wretched. They, too, could be very dangerous, once they gathered their forces together.

“I will not be afraid,” said Fangor suddenly. “We will go and find Hindrance. She was always kind to me. Yes, she was! I will be happy and delighted to see her again!”

Fangor did not feel a fraction of the boldness and bravery that he expressed, but he had sensed that the group was flagging. They needed his happy tone to give them hope. It seemed to work.

“Very well,” said Aarvord. “We will climb the rock.”

So they started out. Tully took the lead, followed by Hatch with Fangor nestled within his feathers. Fangor had been about to jump onto Tully’s head but Hatch had invited him to ride with him. Aarvord took the rear with Copernicus draped over his shoulder.

It was rough going. At several points along the journey they came across the bodies of more Shrikes, which had not been visible from below. Hatch recognized them all.

“Number 453,” he said and, then: “Number 231.” The bodies of the Shrikes were pathetic in their repose and looked even uglier in death than they had in life.

Hatch did not feel any remorse for their passing. They had been soldiers and companions but no love had ever been exchanged.

“Do you want to bury them?” asked Tully, when they came across the first dead.

Hatch seemed surprised. “There is no need,” he said shortly. “They will feed other greedy creatures as we once fed.”

“What would eat them?”
whispered Copernicus. “Nasty food!”

“Bonedogs are fond of Shrike flesh,” murmured Hatch. “When the Shrike in question is no longer living.”

They reached a ledge with adequate space for the three bigger companions to stand and rest. From here, they looked out on the bay. There was a small cleft in the cliff face just large enough for an Eft.

“This is where I hid and watched it all,” said Tully somberly. He looked up to the cliff’s edge where, just yesterday, all the Wents had been gathered. Then he looked down at the rock in the center of the bay. There was no sign that it had once opened and unleashed the terrible fury of the Hundred. To where had they flown? And had any of the Wents survived?

From above they heard a sudden wail of pain. Hatch and Fangor stiffened in apprehension. They knew that sound. It was the Shrike-Grout.

As they came over a small rise in the rock they saw a scene that stunned them all to the quick. For there was not only the wretched Shrike-Grout, but also it lay dying with its head on the lap of Hindrance.

Tully could not help himself. “Hindrance!” he cried in a mad rush of joy and discovery. He raced to her side, heedless of the slippery rock coated with ice and the small stones that tumbled behind in his wake.

Behind him, he could hear small cries of alarm as the rocks he has loosened
fell onto his companions. But Tully did not worry about any of that. Hindrance looked up and saw him. He came to her and ducked his head into her neck. His tears fell down upon the dying creature that lay in Hindrance’s lap, and it blinked its eyes and looked up at him.

“I’ve been looking for you ever since the day you left us,” said Tully.

“I know,” said Hindrance.

“Sarami, and Bly,” said Tully, who had seen them fall. “They are gone.”

“That I know too,” she said. “I can no longer hear their minds. But I do hear that of Kellen. She is still alive somewhere.”

Tully wondered at that for a moment: Hindrance could look into the minds of others? This was one of the many secrets that she had kept from him. He would soon tell her of Elutia, who also had that gift. There would be time for that later. He did not dare to let thoughts of Elutia spoil his happiness in this moment.

Hindrance looked up at the group that had gathered beyond Tully. She did not seem surprised to see the Shrike with them, and nodded at him gently.

“Hello, friends,” said Hindrance. Aarvord and Copernicus came closer and each touched the Went gently. Fangor hopped down and across the stones and came to her as well. He was not so bold as to leap atop her, for she had been occasionally strict with him when he bounced and cavorted in Tully’s home. Fangor said what they were all thinking:

“It is so good to see you, yes. It is so good to know that you are safe.”

“Thank you, little one,” said Hindrance. “It is good to know that you are all safe as well. But many others are not.” She bowed her head to look down at the Shrike-Grout.

“Is it going to be all right?” asked Copernicus. He had slithered against the Shrike-Grout accidentally and its body felt very cold.

“It has told me many things,” said Hindrance quietly. “It has also told me that its life is almost over. So we will stay with it to let it pass.”

“But it cannot talk,” said Fangor. “It doesn’t speak at all.”

“Hush,” said Hindrance. “It has told me all that it knows.”

Aarvord moved suddenly forward with an awkward, protective gesture.

“Let me,” said the Fantastic Grout. “Let me be the one.”

Hindrance nodded and Aarvord crouched down and took her place, cradling the head of the Shrike-Grout in his own lap. He placed a large paw on its ugly, bald forehead and held it there. Hindrance stood up stiffly and stretched her long, white arms. She had been sitting with the creature for hours, it seemed. It had come stumbling up the rock face and had found her there. She had not known what it was or why it had come, only that it was lost and alone as she was.

They heard Aarvord begin to murmur the prayer of passage for the dead, and they all stepped away to give him space. The Shrike-Grout was a thing of his own blood and they could not intrude.

Hindrance and the others all had the same question: What now? They each told their stories in hurried, scattered sentences—Aarvord’s alone was missing as he was tending to the dying Shrike-Grout—and when Tully came to the moment where Elutia and the children had gone back into the rock he found that the words choked in his throat and he could not speak of it.