World's End

by Jake Halpern

  The road was silent—both ahead of them and behind them.

  "They're gone," panted Alfonso.

  "For now," gasped Bilblox. "But we've lost the skelter sap."

  Hill looked at everyone. They were all sweating profusely. It would be child's play for the zwodszay to track them now.

  CHAPTER 25

  ONE HUNDRED KNIGHTS

  SEVERAL MILES DOWN the Fault Road, ahead of Alfonso and his companions, a convoy of one hundred armed soldiers was marching toward the Hub. They were Dormian knights from Somnos and they looked as if they were setting out on a long journey. They all shouldered packs crammed with weapons, rope, grappling hooks, a range of other spelunking equipment, and food provisions. All of their faces and arms were covered with the same gleaming green sap. Oddly, though, the entire formation had only two torches. The first was held by a soldier walking about ten feet ahead of the procession. His eyes were wide open and he constantly scanned the road, the walls, and the fault that began only feet away. The second torchbearer was also wide awake, and he trailed the entire convoy by about ten feet. Walking backwards, he too scanned every inch of his environment, watching for anything amiss. These soldiers weren't awake so that they could see better. Without question, their senses would be sharper when they were asleep. However, these scouts had to think, anticipate, and predict when an attack might occur, and these types of cerebral activities were always best done while awake.

  The rest of the soldiers marched in perfect formation. They all held their swords in the same manner, gripped in their right hand and resting loosely on their outstretched left arm. A soft, strangely delicate sound came from the soldiers. It was a mix of hypnotically rhythmic breathing and light snoring.

  All of them were fast asleep.

  In the middle of the procession a number of soldiers were grouped closely around a prisoner in shackles. That prisoner, of course, was Kiril. Meanwhile, at the front of the procession, just behind the wide-awake scout, walked two people who appeared to be in charge. The first was Josephus, who carried a bulky leather rucksack and an old wooden walking stick. The other was his niece, Colonel Nathalia Treeknot. They appeared to be awake.

  "You know, Great-uncle," Nathalia Treeknot was saying, "one of my men can carry that rucksack for you. It looks rather heavy."

  "That's quite kind of you, Nathalia," replied Josephus. "But I'm up to the task."

  "What's in that rucksack anyway?" asked Nathalia.

  "An assortment of things," replied Josephus cryptically.

  "Things from Kiril's list?" asked Nathalia.

  Josephus nodded, but offered no further explanation.

  "Do you know what purpose Kiril has in mind for those items?" asked Nathalia.

  "I know enough," said Josephus testily.

  "I see," replied Nathalia. After a few seconds' pause, she continued. "I still can't believe that the Grand Vizier changed her mind about this mission. How did you convince her?"

  "It wasn't anything I said," Josephus quickly replied. "We agreed that Kiril could not be trusted, but the Grand Vizier also understood the historic opportunity that we had. And opportunities always involve risk. However, we've managed the risk. There is no way Kiril can escape."

  "Yes, of course," replied Nathalia. She didn't seem entirely satisfied by her great-uncle's logic or his explanation, and it showed on her face. Of course, Nathalia loved her great-uncle, even though he wasn't exactly a warm man. He had always buried himself too deeply in his books to pay much attention to her when she was a child. She could remember visiting his mansion in the Delirium Quarter, when she was no more than five or six, and feeling as if she were in a museum. "Don't touch anything in your great-uncle's house," her mother had told her. "He is a very strange man and is likely to fly into a rage if you disturb so much as a cobweb." Later on, when she was in school and doing extremely well in her classes, Josephus began to take a more active interest in her. He bought her books, and maps, and even play-swords. He delighted in her obvious military talent. He wasn't affectionate, but he was very fond of her, far more so than of any of the other nieces and nephews in the family. "You have an incandescence," he told her occasionally. "You remind me of myself when I was young."

  At one point, when she was nineteen, Nathalia briefly fell in love with a carpenter who was doing work on her parents' house. He was much older than she was, and far less educated, but he had a quiet strength about him that Nathalia greatly admired. He also wrote poetry, and Nathalia, like Josephus, was a lover of sonnets. Nathalia's parents naturally disapproved of her affections, but this made little difference to her. She proclaimed that she intended to wed the carpenter. It was Josephus who convinced her otherwise.

  "Don't do it," he told her bluntly one afternoon.

  "I am thoroughly tired of trying to make my parents happy," she replied. "I have to do what's best for me."

  "I couldn't agree more," said Josephus. "You are one of the brightest stars in our family's illustrious history. But to achieve, you must take risks—bold risks—and getting married at the age of nineteen is far too conventional and it doesn't suit you. Becoming a general does."

  Nathalia had bristled at her great-uncle's advice but, eventually, she was won over by it. Ultimately, what the two of them shared more than anything else was ambition—a burning desire to do something great, something worthy of being remembered. Of course, this was precisely why Nathalia felt a growing unease about her great-uncle as they proceeded along the Fault Roads. She sensed his hunger to reach Jasber and it unsettled her.

  "Is there something that you aren't telling me?" she asked Josephus.

  Her great-uncle slowly shook his head. "Nathalia," he said in a low voice, so as not to be overheard, "I have told you everything and I don't know why you insist—" Josephus was interrupted by a shout from behind them. Nathalia immediately ordered the convoy into defensive positions and dashed back to see what had transpired. Josephus followed as quickly as he could. The soldier at the back of the formation had dropped the torch and pointed his trembling sword into the darkness.

  "What did you see?" demanded Nathalia.

  Sweat ran freely down the soldier's face. Clearly, he was terrified. "C-Colonel Treeknot, for the last few minutes I thought I've heard something scurrying in the darkness, just beyond the reach of my torch. And then I just saw something. It was a face or an arm or something like that. Whatever it was, it gave me a start. It looked like clay but it was alive. And it's not alone. I think there may be, well, hundreds of these things." He shook his head furiously, as if trying to rid himself of the memory. "It's th-the most awful thing I've ever seen." Tears dripped down his dirty face. "I-I'm sorry, Madame Colonel. Begging your pardon."

  "Don't worry, soldier," Colonel Treeknot softly replied. "You can rejoin the others. You've been awake for a few hours now and I know it's stressful. We'll wake up your replacement."

  "That'll be most appreciated," the soldier gratefully replied. "I could do with a few hours of sleep-marching." He paused. "Do you think it was a zwodszay?"

  "I'm not sure," Nathalia replied. "But don't worry, they won't bother us. We have the sap that Josephus provided and what's more, we're a hundred knights strong. If they wanted to attack us they would have done so already. They're probably just curious. Ignore them and you'll be fine."

  Several of the knights who had also woken up were nodding their heads. They seemed to be reassured. But the calm that Nathalia had restored did not last long because it was interrupted by a hoarse but deep laugh. The soldiers looked around for a moment—incredulous that someone would laugh at the words of their commanding officer—and then realized that it was Kiril. His mouth was contorted in a bitter, twisted smile and his white eyes gleamed brightly.

  "I always find it funny when commanding officers lie to their soldiers with an air of such unflappable confidence," said Kiril. "Always have to keep the soldiers calm, right, Colonel? Fear is an insidious thing—a kind of sickness—and it can't be allowed to
fester among the troops."

  "You will bite your tongue," said Nathalia sternly. "My soldiers aren't scared and what's more, they're far too smart to be rattled by your antics."

  "Come now," replied Kiril. "You know as well as I do that the zwodszay are showing all the signs of being classic pack hunters. They are just biding their time until they outnumber us by a ratio of three-to-one or perhaps even ten-to-one and then they will attack."

  "And what makes you an expert on the zwodszay?" inquired Josephus. "They weren't around when you last entered the Fault Roads."

  "I am an expert on survival," replied Kiril coolly. "And I know a thing or two about the minds of soldiers. I know, for instance, that the Colonel is worried—and not just about the zwodszay either. Tell me, Colonel, do you truly believe that the Grand Vizier approved of this little adventure? How much do you trust your beloved great-uncle?"

  The colonel stepped forward and slapped Kiril across the face with the back of her hand. It was a hard blow and blood trickled from Kiril's mouth. A shiver of rage rippled across Kiril's face. His long, coiled scar pulsed red, but he remained perfectly still.

  "That's enough!" Nathalia roared. "You will keep quiet if you want to make it out of here alive."

  "Now that's funny," said Kiril with a rueful shake of his head. "Colonel, you must have realized by now that I am the only one who will make it out alive."

  "What do you know?" asked Josephus. His voice rose with a barely perceptible tone of panic. "What aren't you telling us?"

  "Now, now, now," replied Kiril soothingly. "My dear Josephus—surely a man of your intelligence understands that weighty secrets, matters of life and death, are never to be given freely."

  ***

  As the convoy continued on its way down the Fault Road, Kiril licked his lips to clear his mouth of the metallic taste of his blood. The wound bled for a long time—far too long for Kiril's liking. It made him sick to his stomach, and it took all of his self-control not to gag.

  Ever since he was a child, Kiril had suffered from a blood ailment known since ancient times as "the royal disease." Those who suffered from it could not stop bleeding when they were cut. Many of the royal families of Spain, Germany, and Russia had it. In modern times, the disease was known as hemophilia. It could be quite dangerous, especially for someone like Kiril who often fought with a sword. Fortunately, for Kiril, when he took the purple ash on a regular basis, the disease went into remission. And so, for almost all of his life, he had suffered from no sickness, not even a common cold.

  But this was changing.

  Within the last year or so, his body had begun to break down, even though outwardly he appeared strong. Arthritis had set into his joints. He was constantly sick with colds. He suffered from migraines. And, most troubling of all, his hemophilia had returned. The reason for all this was quite simple: the supplies of purple ash were gone.

  "The ash is our lifeblood," Nartam had told Kiril and all the other orphans from Noctos, more than six hundred years ago. "That is why my secret supply is so precious."

  Many years passed before Kiril discovered exactly how Nartam had come upon his secret supply of purple ash. Slowly the truth came out—that Nartam had sacked a number of Dormian cities and had, in fact, even burned the Founding Tree in his own home city of Dragoo. By the time that Kiril had learned all of this, however, he was already addicted to the ash. Twice a year, Nartam gave his closest followers, all of them former Dormians, a pinch of the ash to rub into their eyes. Kiril was soon hooked, both to the ash and to the immortality that it bestowed. Kiril didn't resent this. To the contrary, he revered Nartam, because he was the giver of life and because it was Nartam who first allowed him to have the sweet, heady taste of revenge.

  Roughly one month after Nartam had first found him, Kiril was still living in the cave with the other orphans from Noctos. The place already felt like home. Then, one morning, Nartam explained that his other, "grown children" would be arriving. The following day, several dozen soldiers—both men and women—arrived in the cave. The soldiers were quite friendly and they began to teach the orphans the arts of war, swordplay, archery, and hand-to-hand fighting. In the evenings, the orphans were asked to recall everything they knew about Noctos. They were asked to draw maps of streets and diagrams of buildings. It became increasingly obvious that Nartam, and his soldiers, were preparing to launch a fresh attack on Noctos. On the previous attempt, they had infiltrated the city and burned part of the tree, but then they had been driven back.

  "The city of Noctos has two gates," explained Nartam. "The main one is heavily guarded and we can't take it. But there is a second gate—I believe this is the gate through which you children were cast—and if we can push through that gate we can enter the city." Nartam paused and looked about. "Now," he said finally, "is anyone's memory good enough to help us find the way back to that gate?"

  A lone voice spoke up.

  "Yes, Däros," said the young Kiril meekly. "I am certain I can find the way back."

  "Very good, my boy," said Nartam with a smile. "My dearest son of Jasber. You shall lead the way with me."

  "Excuse me, Däros," said a boy of six or seven. He was one of the children from the school that had been drenched in purple ash. "My parents still live in Noctos. Will I be able to see them once we take the city?"

  "Did your parents save you or do anything for you when you were cast out of the city to die?" asked Nartam pointedly. "Did they run to your rescue? Did they look for you? Do you honestly think they would love you with your hideous white eyes? Have you learned nothing from me?" Nartam walked over to the boy, placed his arm around him, and talked to him tenderly. "I know it is hard to accept," said Nartam softly, almost in a purr, "but we are your only family now."

  Two weeks later, the rest of Nartam's army arrived. The vast majority of them were not Dormians. Most of them were slaves whom Nartam had bought as children, taken in, trained, and groomed to be soldiers. They were all fiercely loyal to him. On the day of the invasion, Kiril rode at the front of the procession with Nartam. They shared a horse, riding on a single saddle. Kiril swelled with pride that was magnified when he found the small mountain gate through which he and the other Gahnos had been expelled. In the snow around the gate, there were the bodies of a great many Gahnos who had died, and, amid the frozen carnage, Kiril saw the body of his sister.

  She was frozen in a block of ice. The inhuman sight kindled a fire in Kiril that many centuries of fighting still had not extinguished.

  Kiril stayed by Nartam's side as Nartam led his force into Noctos and burned the city to the ground. Nartam galloped through the burning streets at great speeds shouting orders, and Kiril clung to him fiercely. At one point, quite by chance, they came upon a tall man with a pug nose and a bald head. He was fleeing down a side street. It was the man who had hit Kiril's mother and shoved her out into the snow. Kiril tugged on Nartam's sleeve. "That man pushed us out into the snow," said Kiril as he pointed to the bald man. Nartam said nothing in reply. He simply goaded his horse into a gallop and caught up with the bald man. The man looked up and showed an expression of terror. Then, in one clean sweep of his sword, Nartam took off his head.

  "You have nothing to fear, my son," said Nartam as they galloped away. He tenderly placed his arm around Kiril. "No one will ever hurt you again."

  These words rang in Kiril's ears as he marched along the Fault Roads, surrounded by a hundred Dormian knights. Very soon, he would repay Nartam for all his many gifts, and the world would at last recognize Däros as leader and father, just as Kiril had. Very soon.

  CHAPTER 26

  THE HUB

  AFTER THEIR ENCOUNTER with the zwodszay, Alfonso, Hill, Resuza, and Kõrgu and Bilblox half-walked, half-ran, for hours. In the darkness, their minds played tricks on them. At times, one of them would cry out that they heard something, but in the end, there was never any absolute proof that the zwodszay were following. The heat underground seemed to increase, and as sweat gathered aro
und their necks and under their packs, they felt the loss of the skelter sap.

  They pressed on. Their brains shut down and their entire existence focused on putting one foot in front of the other. For this reason, it took several minutes before they realized that the actual pavement underfoot had changed. The cobblestones were replaced with a rough marble, and the road began to climb and widen. The air grew cooler and began to smell faintly of smoke. It also became darker until suddenly they realized they could no longer see one another, even though they were only several feet apart. Hill lit a torch and they stopped to look around. The Fault Road had turned into a tunnel with smooth marble walls and a low ceiling that glittered from the torchlight. It ended in a room with seven passageways from which to choose.

  "Which way?" asked Resuza.

  Without saying a word, Alfonso yawned, shut his eyes, and began to sleepwalk down the passageway on the far right.

  "I guess that settles that," said Resuza.

  Alfonso awoke several minutes later and found himself standing in a vast, darkened space. Hill, Resuza, and Bilblox stood just behind him.

  Kõrgu began to growl.

  "Everybody light your torches," commanded Hill. "We need more light in here."

  Resuza lit two torches and held one in each hand. Alfonso lit another two torches and handed one of them to Bilblox. The combined light of their torches partially illuminated the cavernous space. They were in a giant eleven-sided hall. A towering stone pillar stood flush against every intersection of the eleven walls and rose up to the ceiling. The ceiling itself was so high that it escaped the light of their torches and lay hidden in blackness. It took a moment for Alfonso to realize that the stone pillars were actually built to resemble the trunks of Founding Trees and—when he strained his eyes to see more carefully—he realized that these stone trees had a great many stone branches that radiated upward and served as support beams for the ceiling. The effect was powerful and more than a little spooky. It felt as if they were standing underneath the intertwined stone canopy of eleven Founding Trees. And if this wasn't strange enough, the walls had countless ledges and perches. Most were occupied by stone gargoyles.