World's End

by Jake Halpern

  He was about to do something very dangerous, but there was no time for further practice. It would take all the remaining strength that he had. Leif inhaled a deep breath of cold air, pushed it down to the very bottom of his abdomen, and then exhaled slowly through his nostrils. A moment later, he was in hypnogogia. Quickly, he brought all of his attention to bear on a single molecule of oxygen and then he expanded his field of vision to see the billions of other molecules of oxygen shimmering around him. He extended out his arms and touched his index finger to a single molecule. Very gently, he brought his thumb next to the index finger so that both fingers were now touching the molecule. A split second later, he began spreading his two fingers apart. This action caused the molecule to widen. A hole appeared in the middle, as if the molecule had become a doughnut. It started to vibrate and glow with electricity. This spastic motion spread to the other oxygen molecules surrounding Leif, until the air around him crackled with energy.

  Leif looked up and without a moment's hesitation walked directly into the razor hedges. Instead of being torn apart, as any normal person would have been, the thorns and branches expanded like the molecule, and Leif walked directly through the empty space in the middle. He emerged on the other side of the razor hedges and walked forward until he was several feet into open snow. Then he left hypnogogia and fell to his knees, overcome with exhaustion.

  He had done it!

  After taking a minute to collect himself, Leif looked up to see a welcome sight: a large clearing with a cottage in the middle of it. He smiled and rose to his feet. The sweepers had told him that the snakes would never dare attack the cottage. He'd be safe there. However, as he staggered toward the cottage, he saw there was just one problem. Standing in front of the porch was a man dressed in a fur coat. The man held a long sicklelike sword in one hand and a wide-brimmed hat in the other. Blood dripped steadily from a wound in his hand. His eyes were entirely white.

  It was Kiril.

  "I was just about to give up on you, dear friend," said Kiril calmly, as he put his hat onto his head. "I'm in a bit of a predicament myself, and I don't have a great deal of time. I was just about to leave, but my luck has changed, and here you are!"

  "We need to get inside," gasped Leif. "There's a snake..."

  Kiril nodded sympathetically.

  "That was a very impressive little trick you just did," said Kiril in a lighthearted manner. "I've never seen anyone walk through a wall of razor hedges. I've heard that some Great Sleepers develop the powers to transvaporate, but I've never seen it." He looked coldly at Leif. "Though I'm the one bleeding to death, I must say, you look more exhausted than I do."

  Leif nodded and gasped for air. He didn't have the strength to talk and instead kept moving toward the cabin. They were only feet away, and Leif eyed Kiril wearily.

  Kiril tightened his grip on the hilt of his khopesh. Leif sensed what was about to happen and he dove to his right just as Kiril slashed at him with his blade. Leif landed heavily on the ground and moaned. He had narrowly missed the full force of Kiril's swipe, but the blade had grazed him and torn part of his shirt. Kiril quickly regained his composure and raised his sword to finish the job. At that moment, he sensed something large slithering behind him.

  Instinctively, Kiril spun around. He didn't want to, with Leif finally at his mercy, but he knew he could not ignore whatever was behind him. He saw not one, but two monstrous snow snakes moving fast toward them. They were massive serpents, each about eighty feet long, with bodies as thick as tree trunks. They had sickly yellow eyes, gleaming white scales, and sharp fangs.

  Kiril turned and ran, counting on the snakes to focus on Leif, who was obviously wounded and in no shape to defend himself. He was right. The two snakes circled around Leif and, finally, one of them sank its fangs into his neck. Leif screamed out in pain, jerked several times, and then went limp. The snakes then turned their attention to Kiril, who was about two hundred feet away.

  Kiril glanced over his shoulder and realized he would not be able to outrun the snakes. He brandished his khopesh and began to twirl it with such speed that, from afar, the blade resembled a plane propellor. The snakes recoiled and appeared to be mesmerized by this display. They hissed and snapped, but they drew no closer. Eventually, they retreated back toward the cottage to collect Leif.

  As the snakes turned toward his enemy, Kiril lowered the khopesh and leaned heavily against it. It was time to move. He turned and staggered back into the maze.

  ***

  Several hours later, Alfonso entered the clearing that surrounded the cottage, followed by Bilblox and Kõrgu. In his arms, Bilblox was carrying Marta, who now appeared to be seventy or perhaps eighty years old. Kõrgu saw the snow snakes first. She began to growl in a way that Bilbox had never heard before. The violence of her growl sent a shiver up his spine.

  "What is it?" asked Bilblox.

  "Two snow snakes," whispered Marta.

  Alfonso looked at the snakes and knew the entire journey depended on his actions in the following minutes. Only through the powers of hypnogogia could anyone overcome these vicious beasts. What's more, everything about the current situation reminded him of his dream many weeks ago aboard the SomnolenŢă, which meant that somewhere beyond the snakes lay his father, with puncture wounds in his neck.

  He looked at Marta. "He's here, right? My dad is here."

  She nodded.

  "Stay put," Alfonso whispered. "I'll deal with the snakes."

  The serpents had been circling the cottage probably for hours; their circular tracks were everywhere. They were in a foul mood and hissed at each other and glared at the dark cottage, where their prey was hiding.

  Alfonso felt oddly calm as he approached the snakes. He spied a fluttering snowflake out of the corner of his eye, watched it shimmy and dance for a moment, and then eased his way into hypnogogia. It had begun to snow again.

  Alfonso walked toward the cottage. Both snakes looked up, bared their fangs, and slithered toward him. Alfonso breathed deeply and felt the various currents of energy pulsing through the air around him. He suddenly felt light in his shoes, almost weightless. Alfonso leapt off the ground and jumped from snow particle to snow particle. Before a second passed, he was fifteen feet off the ground. Both serpents lunged up at him, but Alfonso danced through the air, nimbly avoiding their snapping jaws.

  A slight wind blew. The snowflakes swirled and Alfonso swirled with them, spinning around in the air above the snakes, goading the serpents to attack again. Despite the situation, Alfonso couldn't help feeling elated as he rapidly gained confidence in the art of what he had come to think of as particle climbing. He had practiced this several times since opening the cloud door in Imad's antechamber. Alfonso discovered that he could climb the microscopic particles in the air, whether water, dust, or ice.

  "What's goin' on?" demanded Bilblox, who was standing next to the entrance to the razor hedges. "Is the kid okay?"

  "He's dancing in the sky," Marta whispered.

  Alfonso continued to taunt the snakes for another few minutes until they were in a seething rage, snapping, hissing, and frothing venom. Alfonso then drifted over to the far end of the clearing, to a spot where the wind had formed an eddy of swirling snow. The serpents followed. At one point, one of them struck so close to Alfonso that its scales scraped Alfonso's feet. Alfonso landed on the ground. His back pressed against the razor hedges and he could feel the thorns puncture the outer layer of his winter parka. Both snakes sensed their moment of opportunity. They had their prey trapped. Alfonso roared at them. The snakes lunged. Just in the nick of time, Alfonso leapt into the swirling eddy of snow. He particle-climbed so rapidly that he appeared to be soaring upward. Meanwhile, both snakes lunged at the spot where Alfonso had been only a half-second before. They became tangled with each other, and gored themselves on the thousands of long, sharp thorns of the razor hedges. Their death screams were terrible to hear.

  "What's happened?" demanded Bilblox. "I can't see a bl
asted thing. What in the name of Ivan Magrewski has happened?"

  "The snakes are dead," replied Marta. "Now Alfonso is running to the cottage."

  ***

  The instant Alfonso's feet touched the ground, he sprinted for the door of the cottage. He opened it but saw nothing but darkness. After lighting a candle, Alfonso scanned the interior: it contained a small kitchen table, several bookcases along the wall, a scattering of stools and chairs, pots filled with potatoes, and a small bed wedged against the wall. It was piled high with musty blankets. Someone was lying on top of them, face-down. Alfonso approached, not daring to breathe.

  "Dad?" he whispered.

  Alfonso rolled the person over. It was a man, perhaps in his early fifties. A thick, knotted beard covered his face. Sweat ran freely down the exposed skin of his high cheekbones and forehead. He wore a heavy blue robe that looked as if it had not been washed in ages. Alfonso's legs gave out and he staggered and knelt against the bed. After all this time, there was no doubt in Alfonso's mind. It was his father.

  "DAD!" Alfonso shouted. "DAD, WAKE UP!"

  Leif Perplexon did not stir.

  Alfonso ripped open Leif's blue robe and noticed his shirt and pants were drenched with sweat. Alfonso felt his father's neck and found a faint, unsteady pulse. Leif's forehead was boiling hot to the touch. His father's lips were swollen red and cracked. His legs and arms felt clammy. Turning back to Leif's neck, Alfonso found what he suspected to be the cause of his father's condition: two puncture wounds, about an inch apart, located midway down his father's neck. The skin around the punctures was tinged a gray-blue, exactly as his dream foretold.

  Alfonso tore off his backpack and took out the box with the syringes that he had been dragging with him since Marseilles. His hands shook as if he were having a seizure. Dimly, he heard Bilblox's worried shouts.

  Alfonso forced his exhausted, freezing hands to open the box, remove the protective wrapping from a syringe, and draw out the liquid from one of the bottles. He took his father's left arm and extended it toward him. He slapped the flat area between the forearm and the bicep. The yellow-white skin bloomed pink and a tiny vein popped up. Alfonso felt the vein with his index finger. Sweat ran freely down Alfonso's back. He focused his entire world on the tiny vein, took a deep breath, and plunged the needle into his father's arm. After the syringe emptied, he extracted the needle and did the same with the second one. When it was done, the empty needles clattered to the floor. Alfonso didn't notice. He stared at his father, waiting for a reaction.

  There was nothing. Leif lay motionless on the bed, his yellow-white skin gleaming in the candlelight.

  CHAPTER 53

  THE FORESEEING PEN

  IN THE HOLD OF THE SLAVE SHIP Resuza cradled the Foreseeing Pen in the palm of her hands. She hugged the wall and pretended to look out a rusty porthole. Hill peered over her shoulder to get a better look. The pen was made of two equal-size segments that fit seamlessly together. Resuza pulled the two segments apart and looked inside. It was empty: no cartridge, spring, or mechanism of any kind. Instead of a metal nib, like those used in fountain pens, the small tip of this pen was made of hollow glass and filled with a tiny amount of a milky orange liquid. On the other end, the top of the pen was crowned with an incredibly brilliant emerald. The following diagram was carved across the barrel of the pen, just below the emerald:

  "Any idea what those symbols mean?" whispered Resuza.

  Hill stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Oddly enough, I believe so," he replied. "They're astrological symbols."

  "Really?"

  "Yes," said Hill with a nod. "I used to spend a lot of time browsing in an occult shop in Chicago. The symbols represent the five classical elements. The top triangle represents fire and the bottom one is water. The triangle on the left is earth and the one on the right is air."

  "What's the symbol in the center?" asked Resuza.

  "That's the fifth symbol—ether," explained Hill. "Sometimes it's also known as quintessence and it is supposedly a magical property—the fabric of the cosmos and whatnot. In Dormia, they believe that the sap of the Founding Trees consists of ether. But the idea of ether exists in many cultures. The Hindus call it akasha. They believe that the knowledge of all human experience is recorded within something called the akashic records—and all of these records are encoded in every single drop of akasha."

  "Do you suppose the pen has any other powers?" asked Resuza.

  Hill motioned for Resuza to give him the pen. He took it from her and gently examined both segments. He then peered closely at the glass tip filled with the milky orange liquid.

  "Ether," he whispered. "By Jove, I believe that's ether from a Founding Tree."

  "That orange liquid?" Resuza asked.

  Hill nodded. "I believe so," he replied. "Ether is rumored to be orange, and the symbol on the barrel clearly refers to it."

  Resuza smiled cautiously. "We just need some sort of ink and we'll be able to put this pen to the test."

  Hill furrowed his brow. He looked around, and his eyes settled on the stove and the tired clump of coals inside. He then returned his gaze to the pen. His fingers ran over the symbols of the five classical elements.

  "I don't think the pen uses ink," replied Hill excitedly. "We use one of the classical elements, and right now, fire is available."

  He approached the stove, opened the pen, and pointed the bottom segment of the pen at the burning coals. At first nothing happened, but when he drew nearer and the distance between the pen and the coals was no more than a few inches, a darting blue flame shot out of the stove and into the pen, lighting it as if it were a burner on a gas stove. Hill quickly fit the two pen segments together, capturing the flame inside. The pen looked and felt completely normal. No one would suspect that fire was nestled inside.

  "Amazing!' said Resuza.

  "Indeed," replied Hill as he handed the Foreseeing Pen back to Resuza, who immediately placed it deep within an inner pocket of her coat. "My dear girl, we took a chance by destroying that sphere, but I suspect our gamble has paid off. If this pen can manipulate the five basic elements of nature, we've got quite a weapon on our hands. Now we'll—"

  Just then their conversation was interrupted by harsh shouts. The red-haired man who had captured Hill and Resuza was standing on the stairway and addressing the prisoners.

  "What's he saying?" asked Hill.

  "He said we'll be getting off the boat in an hour and we'd better look strong and healthy."

  "Why's that?"

  "Because," explained Resuza, "we're about to be sold."

  CHAPTER 54

  FATHER AND SON

  MANY HOURS PASSED before Leif regained consciousness. During that time, Alfonso never left his father's bedside. Although he was fairly certain that Leif could not understand him, he spent the time telling him about Judy and Pappy, World's End, and all the adventures that he had been through in the years since Leif had disappeared. At other times, he sat and stared intently at his dad, alternating between wild optimism and deep pessimism.

  It was late morning the next day when Leif suddenly opened his eyes, sat up unsteadily in bed, and raised a thin, trembling hand to ward off the harsh sunlight. Alfonso didn't notice his dad wake up. He was asleep in a chair, after spending most of the night awake.

  Leif stared at the young teenager sitting next to his bed. He tried to say something, but his throat was too dry. Slowly he raised one of his large hands to his face and rubbed it over his thick beard and then further up, over his high, pronounced cheekbones. Tears welled in his eyes and he felt faint.

  "A-A—" Leif tried hoarsely to say Alfonso's name.

  Alfonso stirred awake and for a second looked confused. Then he saw his father sitting in bed, only feet away, and he too began to cry. Leif motioned for Alfonso to sit next to him. Father and son sat on the bed, arms tightly clasped around each other. Alfonso buried his face in his dad's shoulder and started to shake with deep sobs. It was too much. After all
these years, to see his dad alive was beyond overwhelming. Of course, Alfonso hoped that he'd find his dad, but to actually do it and see him living and breathing ... Alfonso immediately thought of his mother. If only she were here to be part of this reunion.

  "I thought you were gone," Alfonso sobbed. "Dad, I thought you were gone, y-you were dead."

  "I know, son," whispered Leif. His voice was barely audible. He smiled for the first time in what felt like years. "Alfonso, my dear, dear boy. The light of my life—" His voice cracked again. "I can't believe how you've grown!"

  They spent a few more minutes together and then Alfonso helped his father get out of bed. Soon, Leif met the other occupants of the cabin: a young girl, an enormous, hulking man with white eyes, and a large wolf that stood attentively at the man's side.

  Alfonso introduced Leif to Marta, Bilblox, and Kõrgu. Leif took one look at Bilblox and said, "Magrewski longshoreman?"

  Bilblox nodded proudly.

  "I figured that," Leif replied with a smile. "You all look the same!"

  Over food and hot tea, Alfonso and the others explained everything that had happened to them in the past few weeks. Leif listened intently.

  "We're going home, Dad," concluded Alfonso, as he hugged his father again. "And I can't wait for you to see Hill and meet my friend Resuza. They're waiting for us at a lighthouse not far from here."

  Leif smiled. "That no-account brother of mine!" he declared. "I can't believe he's become foreign minister of Somnos! Our father would have laughed at the very idea! I'm sure he's foreign minister mostly when asleep—that's when he tends to be a showoff! Well, we'll meet him soon enough, and we'll have a grand old time." He looked at Marta, who had been sitting there staring quietly at Leif the whole time. "But I understand we have to settle things here first, and pretty quickly too."

  "Very quickly," insisted Marta. "We have to help my parents."

  "You feel up to movin'?" asked Bilblox.