The End of Time

by P. W. Catanese

  They paused near the end of the marketplace, where the lane led to an open space with the soaring palace just ahead. “I’m afraid for the people,” Sophie said. Hap nodded. He could see a vast crowd gathering outside the walls, grower denser by the minute, converging from the market, the shipyards, and the surrounding streets. They lined the edge of the moat and filled the bridge in front of the mighty oak doors that were clapped shut like an oyster. Guardsmen appeared atop the wall that loomed over the moat, scanning the crowd and whispering to one another. They had bows across one shoulder, but their arrows were still inside their quivers. Voices rose in the crowd, crying, “Free Lord Umber!” and “Let him go!” A scowling officer leaned over the wall and ordered the crowd to disperse at once or suffer the king’s displeasure. But nobody moved, and the noise only grew in response.

  Hap shivered, but it wasn’t from his apprehension over the scene before them. A dull heat warmed his eyes from within. He shut his eyes and knew that when he opened them he would see the filaments again, for the first time in many days. Hold on to them this time, he told himself inwardly. You have to get control. He blinked his eyes open.

  The filaments were there, brighter than ever: thousands of shimmering strands of light. There was one for every person in the crowd, tracing their steps, showing where they’d been and where they were going. Destiny, Hap thought. Every one reveals a person’s fate.

  A cluster of filaments hung near his left hand, in the busy part of the lane. He raised his hands and drifted toward them.

  He was vaguely aware of Sandar calling after him, “Hap—what’s the matter with you? What are you doing?” And Sophie responding, “Captain, let him be—he has to concentrate!”

  Yes, concentrate, Hap told himself. Understand them. He touched the filaments like the strings of a harp, listening to their strange song, which grew loudest when the light passed through his palms. Some of the threads were discolored. Hap’s jaw tensed. He found the darkest of the filaments and searched for its meaning. Words rolled unbidden off his tongue: “Suffering and death ahead.”

  He heard Sophie whisper, only a step behind him. She had quietly followed him into the lane. “What is it, Hap? What will happen?”

  Hap squeezed his lids nearly closed, staring at the filaments. “Not sure. These people . . . in danger. Not just from the castle. There is something else.” He looked closer at the bundle of threads that floated by. Even within the brightest were flecks of darkness. And the filaments would dim altogether from time to time, like a candle flickering in the breeze. He felt the urge to repeat the words of the sorceress. A menace. Something unknown to me.

  “Hap, are we in danger—you and I, and Sandar?” Sophie said. Her voice trembled.

  Hap’s head snapped up. He could barely believe he was trying to understand the destinies of strangers when the filaments of his friends were right behind him. But as he turned to look, a sound from the crowd distracted his attention so completely that his vision of the filaments shattered into tiny glittering stars that faded from sight.

  A man was whistling the tune he’d heard twice before: once here in the market, and once sung by Umber in his elatia-induced mania. The lyrics bubbled up from Hap’s memory: Take me out to the ball game . . .

  He saw a man with puckered lips ambling away from the palace, coming toward them. Hap stared at the whistler. He was a thin man of ordinary height, with a crafty face of pointed features and narrow-set eyes. He wore a tan tunic over a tan shirt and brown leggings—drab and ordinary clothes that wouldn’t draw the eye.

  The whistler glanced their way. He looked at Sandar without alarm, but his lids snapped open and the tune stopped short when he met Hap’s green-eyed stare. He knows me, Hap thought. The whistler turned and bolted, heading for the nearest alley between two merchants’ tents, a maze in which he’d vanished once before.

  “We have to stop that man!” cried Hap, and he sprang forward without waiting for the others, covering a dozen feet with his first stride. Just as his quarry darted down a narrow lane between tents, Hap landed behind him. And when the man’s heel rose up in midstride, Hap wrapped his arms around the calf. The whistler stumbled and fell. He struck his shoulder and rolled onto his back with Hap still gripping his leg, dragging behind him. The man looked at Hap with his teeth bared and spittle flying. He kicked Hap across the side of the head with his other boot, and Hap saw orange sparks as pain flared inside his skull. “Let go!” cried the whistler, and he drew the boot back again. The heel was poised in front of Hap’s eyes, ready to smash his face. But another boot appeared, stomping down on the ankle and pinning it to the ground. The whistler yelped and threw his arms in front of his face as Sandar’s strong hands reached for his neck.

  Sandar grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and wrestled him into a seated position. His hand drew back, bunched into a fist. “I ought to knock your teeth out for kicking this boy!”

  The whistler winced and turned his face away. “He’s the one that attacked me, you know!”

  Sandar’s face twisted with barely contained rage. “Well, Master Hap?”

  Hap stared at the whistler. There was nothing familiar about the man at all. “We just wanted to talk to you, but you ran. And you ran from Lord Umber once before. That song you were whistling: How do you know it?”

  The man glanced at Sandar’s hand, clutching the material under his chin. He looked at Sophie, who eyed him back nervously, and then at Hap.

  “Sandar, you can let him go,” Hap said.

  Sandar released the man’s shirt, and the whistler rubbed his throat and brushed the dirt off his knees. He assumed an unconvincing expression of innocence, with his forehead wrinkled and mouth bowed downward. “Just a song I overheard. That’s all.”

  “Overheard where?” Hap said. Sandar and Sophie looked at him with growing confusion, and he didn’t blame them.

  “Back home,” said the whistler.

  “Home? Where is this home? Do you come from . . .” Hap bit his lip. “The same place as Lord Umber?”

  The whistler gave Hap a curious stare, and a hint of a grin appeared. “Now this is getting interesting.” He chuckled to himself and got gingerly to his feet. “Ah, well. Does it really matter what I tell you now, anyway? Your friend Lord Umber is in a world of trouble, I think, so it probably doesn’t. When I say home, little boy, I mean the place I come from. Across the sea.”

  “The Far Continent?” Hap asked. Sandar stiffened at the mention of that hostile land and looked ready to seize the whistler by the collar again. Sophie took a half-step back.

  “That’s what you call it. We have another name for it. A new name, in fact.” The whistler stared at the towering spires of the palace. “This is quite a city you people built. A mighty kingdom, this has been. But things are about to change. Sooner than you know.”

  Sandar was a head taller than the whistler, and he loomed over the man, glaring down. “I think the boy’s first question deserves a better answer.”

  The whistler tugged his dusty tunic back into place and ran a hand through his hair. “Oh . . . about that song? Why, a man I know likes to whistle that tune. He’s a very powerful man. The most powerful in the world, in fact—or soon to be. It was he who sent me here.”

  “To spy on Lord Umber?” asked Hap.

  The whistler lifted his chin and scratched his neck. “Well. I’m not sure I like that word, spy. I’m an observer, really. And don’t you think Lord Umber is worth observing? It’s curious. How can one man be capable of so many accomplishments? The inventions, the medicines, the ship designs, the music, hmm?”

  Sandar stared at the whistler with his jaw twitching sideways. He looked at Hap and seemed about to ask a question, but a commotion near the palace drew their attention. The crowd was buzzing anew, but with a different tone this time. Voices rose, and panicky shouts pierced through the din. Then Hap heard the thunderous sound of many feet in sudden motion.

  Sophie was closest to the larger path that cu
t through the market. She stepped back for a clear view of the palace, and her mouth dropped open. “The king’s men are shooting at the crowd!” She hurried back into the narrow lane to avoid the first of the people dashing into the market, running from the flying arrows. A group of men turned into the lane, seeking shelter among the tents. The whistler saw his chance and shoved Sandar, catching the bigger man by surprise. He swung his arm and clubbed the side of Hap’s head as he passed, and Hap dropped to his knees with his ear burning and his eyes squeezed shut. When he blinked them open again, he saw Sophie holding a reddened cheek and grimacing. The whistler was gone, lost in the stampeding crowd.

  Sandar hooked his arm under Hap’s and hauled him to his feet. “All right?” he asked, and when Hap nodded, he turned to Sophie. “Did he strike you?” Sophie nodded and dabbed her cheek with her fingers, checking for blood.

  “If I see that spy again, he’ll be observing my fists,” Sandar muttered, with his breath snorting out of his nose. “Come, you two—let’s get you back to the Aerie before the king’s army takes to the streets.”

  They used the narrow passages between the merchant stalls to head for the harbor, avoiding the wider lane that was filled with the rushing crowd. Before long they heard horses thumping nearby, and new cries of fear. From the alleys Hap caught glimpses of mounted soldiers, waving swords and scowling at the people.

  At the bottom of the market district, the narrow lane ended near the great harbor wall. In their race to get away from the palace and the deadly arrows, the crowd had run down the sloping roads and gathered there. But instead of heading for the safety of their homes and other buildings, they stood frozen, staring across the water.

  “What the devil,” Sandar whispered.

  Dozens of familiar ships flew into the harbor under heavy sail, racing for the docks. At the prows of the incoming craft, sailors waved shirts and hats and pointed back at the open sea.

  Sandar shielded his eyes from the sun with one hand and ground his teeth. “There’s the Bounder—and the rest of our ships! Why are they coming back?”

  “Something’s happening out at sea,” Sophie said quietly. “They’re running for safety.”

  Hap stared at the mouth of the harbor. On both sides of the harbor’s entrance, the land rose up steeply. Signal towers stood on both of those hills, and plumes of smoke rose from each.

  “Something is coming,” Hap said, and all the warnings of approaching doom reappeared in his mind. Something strange in the sea, to the west, Nima had told them. Boroon heard it . . . a constant roar of thunder in the water, thumping like a heart. He remembered Burrell, the terrorized sailor. Fire monster, Burrell had called the thing that had destroyed his ship.

  As he stood thinking of all those omens, the thing appeared. At first it was only a dark edge, creeping into view from behind one of the tall shoulders of land.

  “It’s here,” Hap said, and his mouth was suddenly dry.

  CHAPTER

  24

  Even with a mile of water between them, the thing looked immense. It glided through the sea with dark smoke wafting from its innards. Its side faced them, revealing a fierce golden eye at the front of its dark bulk. At first Hap thought it might simply pass by, across the wide mouth of the bay, but then the thing turned slowly, bringing its head to bear on the inner harbor.

  “The fire monster,” Sandar said, using the name that rumor had given it.

  “But it’s not a creature at all,” Hap said, narrowing his eyes to sharpen his sight. “It’s a ship.” Its blackened sides were sleek and straight, and it was blunt in shape, except for where its nose narrowed to slice the sea. The glowering eye had been painted on, to make the craft all the more fearsome. The smoke came from a pair of conical chimneys on its back. Behind the ship Hap could see water frothing, churned from below.

  “Listen,” Hap said, cupping his hand behind his ear. The strange ship was making a sound: a dull mechanical rumble that rose and fell. It suddenly announced its presence with a shrieking, unnatural whistle, accompanied by a plume of steam that shot up from its stern.

  “A ship?” cried Sandar. “But how does it move without sails—there’s no leviathan beneath it, is there?”

  Hap shook his head. “I don’t think so. . . . I think it’s a machine.”

  “But who could make something like that?” Sophie said.

  Hap shook his head. He could imagine only one answer: Someone else from Umber’s world was here, and it was probably the same man who’d sent the whistler to spy on Lord Umber and the city of Kurahaven.

  “I want a closer look,” Sandar said, clamping his teeth. He led them through the open gates of the harbor wall and to the docks. The ship was halfway into the bay, and it was obvious that it would dwarf even the greatest ships of Kurahaven. Hap saw men prowling on its broad upper deck, and others coming up through metal hatches from the vast interior of the craft. Many carried objects made of wood and steel, tall as spears, but wider at the bottom. Other structures on the deck of the ship were obvious now: Long, bulky tubular things that angled up, pointing toward the city. The look of them filled Hap with unease.

  “There will be a fight,” Sandar said, gesturing toward the berths in the center of the harbor, where the royal navy was docked. Sailors and soldiers were on the ships, and two of the vessels cast off their lines and slid out into the harbor. The ships had oars as well as sails, and the oarsmen rowed furiously while archers lined the rails.

  Hap felt a shiver run across his skin as he remembered the fate of the ships that had encountered this intruder. “They shouldn’t go out there,” he said quietly.

  “What choice do they have? A hostile ship is in our harbor,” Sandar said, but he plucked at his lips and shifted from foot to foot, watching anxiously.

  The royal warships glided toward the intruder. Officers stood at the prows, calling out to the strange craft through speaking trumpets. Hap couldn’t hear the words, but Sandar explained. “They’re telling the fire monster to stop where she is and explain herself, or prepare to be attacked and boarded.”

  Hap shook his head. The ships looked so small next to the beastly vessel they were approaching. The intruder was twice as tall, three times as wide, four times as long. On the side of the monster ship, panels slammed open, hinged at the bottom, revealing dark rectangles. Hap squinted into the black interiors. His gifted eyes adjusted to the contrast between sunlight and shadow, and he saw long, dark cylinders within.

  A man on the deck of the monster ship shouted back at the captains, and more words were passed that Hap couldn’t hear. His lungs ached, and he realized that he was holding his breath. From the cylinders within those dark rectangles came an explosion of fire and thunder, so loud it made the bones in Hap’s chest hum. Sophie jolted, and Sandar staggered back, stifling a cry with the back of his hand.

  Hap caught a glimpse of small shapes flying through the air, out of the smoke. Ragged gaps appeared in the hull of the royal ship that had ventured closest, and it was torn to splinters from within by an unimaginable inferno. Smoke obscured the scene, and then the breeze pushed it away, and when the royal ship could be seen once more it was in shreds. Flaming sections bubbled and sizzled into the depths, and blazing sailcloth fluttered into the waves. Not a single living man could be seen amid the wreckage.

  “What . . . how?” moaned Sandar. He sank to his knees and clutched his stomach. “All the men on that ship . . . five hundred or more!” In the harbor, the second ship of the navy had been ready to join the attack, but it turned hard, away from the intruder. The monster ship chugged on, closer to the docks.

  A horn sounded behind them, and Hap turned to see soldiers atop the harbor wall, calling to the people who had lined the harbor to watch the battle. The harbor wall had numerous tall arches that allowed people and wagons to reach the docks, and the doors that could block those passages were swinging shut to form a solid barrier against invasion. “We’ll be trapped,” Sophie said.

  Sandar r
ose unsteadily to his feet and took a deep breath to collect his wits. He mumbled his instructions. “Hap, go with Sophie, before all the doors close. Run back to the Aerie. My ship is here; I have to see what happens.”

  Hap and Sophie exchanged glances, and Hap knew they were of the same mind. “We’d rather stay with you.” If necessary they could reach the Aerie in a tiny boat, making the journey at night when Hap’s nocturnal sight could guide them.

  The intruder was nearly an arrow’s flight from the docks when it swung its vast bulk to the right. It was not made of wood at all, Hap realized—or at least, its hull had been plated with dark metal scales. Now that its side faced them, he could see how the thing was propelled: there was an enormous paddle wheel at its stern, like the one that powered the Aerie’s lift. As the wheel turned, the ship was thrust forward.

  “Vanquisher,” Sophie said quietly. Hap realized that she was reading the word painted in silver letters above the golden eye, arching like an angry brow. The demonic ship had a name.

  The thumping roar inside the ship fell to a low thrum, and the Vanquisher slowed. The wheel stopped churning. Hatches clanged open at the bow and the stern, and a grating, ratcheting sound was heard as anchors dropped and sank under the surface.

  From this distance Hap could clearly see the men on the deck of the Vanquisher, forty feet or more above the waterline. One seemed to be in charge: a lanky, silver-haired man with thick eyebrows and a prominent nose. He stood on a raised platform, as calm as a statue. The others on the deck would come to him, drop to a knee while receiving orders, and dash off without looking him in the eye.

  Hap, Sophie, and Sandar watched as a small boat on the deck of the Vanquisher was swung over the side and lowered into the water with two dozen men lining its seats. The silver-haired man stayed on the Vanquisher, watching like a falcon perched high. Next to him a pair of men appeared with an enormous conical object, which they aimed toward the shore, not far from where Hap and the others were standing. Hap’s heart clenched. He wondered if this was another weapon designed to blast fire and death at them; but then he saw that the cone was hollow, and it served only to project the voice of the man who stood behind it.