The End of Time

by P. W. Catanese

  A tapering tongue slid over the points of his yellow teeth.

  Hap jumped back, startled, and the railing pressed against his waist. He froze there, looking back at the Executioner, who made no move to open the door. Instead the multieyed creature raised his hand and said, “Wait.”

  CHAPTER

  31

  Hap stood petrified except for the quaking of his knees. The Executioner put his mouth to the narrow gap between the pair of doors. “I have been watching you. I saw what you intended and thought it best to let you finish. That thing did not belong in this world.” The words ended with a horrid wet slurp.

  Hap glanced at the Executioner’s hands, making sure they were not reaching for the handles of the doors. A shiver shook his spine when he saw the sharp, curved nail that the Executioner would use to carve out his eyes.

  “I have your gratitude for that?” the Executioner asked.

  Hap nodded and gulped. Every muscle twitched. His legs were ready to spring and send him flying into the atmosphere. “And now?”

  “Now you will thank me by facing your punishment. You know what must be done. It is the law.”

  “Wh-whose law?” Hap stammered.

  The green eyes blinked at random. “I do not know. The crimes of Meddlers are made known to me. The task is assigned. I must reclaim the essence that made you a Meddler, because the laws were broken: No Meddler may harm another Meddler, and your maker did. No Meddler may create another Meddler, and your maker did. No child shall be made a Meddler, and here you are.”

  “I don’t care about your laws,” Hap said. “I wasn’t the one who broke them.”

  Three of the green eyes rolled upward, two of them narrowed. “You break them by existing. Now stay where you are. There is no sense in running. Your maker tried to run, but I still took his eyes.” The Executioner pointed with that terrible curved nail to one green eye on his right cheek and another on his forehead. “Accept your fate, outlaw.”

  The Executioner plunged his long-fingered hand straight through a pane of glass. Hap arched his body back as the nails raked his cheek. He spun over the railing and fell off the balcony, accompanied by glittering shards. The ground rushed up, but before his body smashed onto the castle wall below, he slipped into the Neither.

  He stared around the blackness. The ravenous cold gnawed at the fresh wound on his cheek, and he felt the trickling blood turn to ice. He looked right, left, up, and down, wondering if the Executioner would appear. Move, he told himself. He soared into an empty black space and looked behind him.

  A filament was approaching. In the distance it slithered right and left, probing the Neither like a tentacle. It’s him, Hap thought. He couldn’t see the physical form, but he knew it was his enemy. Tracking me.

  How can I lose him? His teeth chattered, from fright as well as cold. He didn’t know what would happen if the Executioner’s filament crossed his, here in the strange void, but he was certain it would be the end of him if it did.

  As the thread approached, he wondered where to go, what to do, and how to escape his pursuer. He seized the first notion that came to mind.

  His filament had two parts. The brighter portion showed where he might go, and would bend according to his wishes. The dimmer part revealed where he had been, and was fixed. If he followed the fainter thread, he would not go back in time—that was impossible, even for a Meddler. But he could retrace his journeys across lands and oceans. He raced along that path, hoping to find an advantage on familiar ground. The Executioner’s filament gave chase, like a comet with an endless tail in its wake.

  His filament sang of dueling fates: He catches you. You get away. It warned of danger and torment. But the meaning began to blur. It made him think of what Willy Nilly had said, words that Hap thought were just feverish ramblings. It’s cold in the Neither, and if you stay long enough, move fast enough, it confuses the signs, makes the filaments hard to read. . . . But I grew tired, let my guard down, and he caught up with me . . .

  Hap focused his will and soared faster across the inky expanse. There was no wind to add bluster to the cold, but still he knew he could not stay in the Neither for long. Already his thoughts were growing hazy.

  “Fendofel,” he said through chattering teeth.

  The old wizard looked up from the table where he was sorting through a pile of odd-looking seeds. “What? Who are you? Wait, I know! You’re Umber’s ward, that green-eyed boy . . .”

  “Happenstance,” Hap said, hopping up and down and shaking his arms. He glanced over his shoulder.

  “Now, Dendra,” Fendofel said, wagging a finger. “None of that. This is a friend!” Hap looked up and saw one of the muscular vines of Fendofel’s carnivorous plant poised like a viper about to strike.

  “Happenstance, how did you get here?” The wizard’s gap-toothed mouth curled up in an open smile. “Is Lord Umber back? Has he come to visit me again?”

  Hap shook his head. He spun in a circle, looking anxiously through the open archways in the white dome. “No, sir, it’s just me. I need a favor—from Dendra, actually.”

  Fendofel’s shaggy eyebrows rose. “Eh? From Dendra? What sort of favor?”

  “I’m being pursued by a horrible thing—a tall creature with many eyes—and I thought Dendra might—” Hap gasped and looked behind him again. The world had dimmed, and the familiar sound whispered.

  “How odd! The same thing happened a moment ago,” Fendofel said, squinting up at the rounded ceiling.

  “He’s here,” Hap said, crouching low.

  “Would you like something to eat?” Fendofel said. He picked up his cane and got to his feet.

  “No, thank you,” was Hap’s distracted reply. He spun in place again, looking every way. His hope was that the Executioner would appear, and Dendra would seize him. But his enemy was wary—perhaps the filaments had warned him.

  “Where are you?” Hap muttered. He moved to the center of the room, away from the openings. His own thread darkened, warning him that danger was approaching. “Never mind what I said,” Hap told the wizard.

  “Eh?” said Fendofel.

  “Good to see you,” Hap said. He ducked under the table, out of Fendofel’s sight, and slipped back into the Neither. For a moment he was amused by the thought of the old wizard wondering where he’d gone. Then panic consumed him again, the blinding fear of the mouse as it flees from the cat.

  Move faster, he urged himself. More space between us. The iciness of the void was affecting him sooner than before; he wondered if it had been unwise to return to the Neither so quickly. He looked behind and saw the filament chasing him, closing in fast. Like a blade, he sliced his way into the physical world. He appeared where he once stood on the deck of the Bounder. But of course, with no ship there, he plunged straight toward the sea. No matter; he was getting better at this, and after another brief passage through the Neither, he landed where he wanted to be.

  He flattened himself on the rocky floor of a deep crevice in the sea-cliffs, thankful for a clutter of jagged stone in front of him. His muscles were so stiff from cold that it was hard to draw breath.

  Something heavy slithered on the other side of the rock. He peered through a crack and saw glittering, golden scales. The creature inhaled deeply, and then a fiery glow erupted, illuminating the crevice in waves of orange and red.

  Hap watched as the dragon poured fire from its jaws, bathing a cache of crystal eggs. He wondered if some of those eggs were the ones they’d retrieved from Sarnica. It occurred to him that the flickering light and roaring flame might disguise the signs of the Executioner’s arrival. When he looked behind him he saw his pursuer appear, nearly on top of him. The multitude of eyes swiveled down to stare at Hap, mad with hunger. The long arm shot out and seized him by the shoulder, before Hap’s frozen muscles could muster a reaction.

  A roar came from the other side of the jagged rocks. The Executioner shrieked and threw his arms in front of his face as a fountain of flame obscured him from sight
. The heat forced Hap to turn away, and when he looked up again, the Executioner was gone. A whiff of charred flesh hung in the air. How badly was he hurt? Hap wondered, but he had only a moment to ponder the question, because he saw the dragon’s frightful head appear over the clutter of stone, searching for the intruder.

  Hap flew across the Neither, feeling a thrill of hope. He didn’t see the danger coming—he made a mistake, he thought. His optimism faded a moment later when he spotted the filament slithering behind. Its color had shifted; Hap could sense pain and fury, so powerful that it radiated across the distance.

  He stood on a lost, uncharted islet with the bones of shipwrecks scattered across the shore. There was a barrel on the sand. He’d clung to it once, when he was washed overboard and lost at sea.

  The cold had penetrated his brain, sinking deep. He rubbed his palms against his temples, trying to warm his mind. It was hard to think, and harder still to read his filament. He hoped the Executioner had the same affliction.

  The day was calm and the skies were clear. When the dimness came, and the now familiar sound that was not so different from the gentle waves rolling onto the shore, he was ready. He leaped onto an outcropping that was surrounded by deep pools of briny water. His frozen muscles shrieked in protest.

  The Executioner stood on the sand with his chest heaving, shivering from his cold passage. The skin on his arms was charred, with fluid oozing between the cracks. Some of his eyelids were burned away by the dragon fire, and the green orbs stared, full of malice.

  “Y-y-you’re hurt,” Hap said, with his teeth clacking together.

  “I w-will not underestimate y-you again,” the Executioner said.

  “Willy told me I w-would b-be a powerful M-meddler,” Hap replied. “Maybe he was r-right. Maybe I’m t-too much for you.”

  The Executioner sneered, and his muscles and tendons crackled as he rolled his head on his long neck. “I was only g-going to take y-your eyes,” the Executioner said. He stepped toward Hap on his long, birdlike legs. As he flexed his fingers, he hissed with pain. “B-but now I think you should suffer more.”

  Hap gulped. “If I d-don’t run, will you have mercy?”

  “Perhaps,” the Executioner said. “Stay where you are.” He stepped closer, covering an uncanny distance with one stride. His bare foot came down beside a deep crevice filled with water. A claw rose out and clamped on his foot.

  The rest of the soul crab bubbled to the surface. “Castaways,” it cried in the brittle voice of an old woman. Hap heard claws scrabbling all around, as dozens more of the massive crabs sprang to life. The Executioner screamed and drove his fist into the crusty shell of the claw. The shell cracked, and the fist plunged inside, but the claw only squeezed harder.

  Hap didn’t wait to see more. He slipped into the Neither.

  CHAPTER

  32

  Hap sprawled on the sand of Desolas, the island of the bidmis, and let the volcanic heat that poured from the surrounding fissures warm his body. It was another unpleasant spot with terrible memories, but again it was a place that he knew and his pursuer might not.

  The last trip through the Neither had nearly finished him. His mind had been befogged almost instantly, and he’d barely mustered the will to reemerge into the world. His bones felt like icicles, and there was a pain in his heart, as if it had nearly frozen solid. “Think,” he muttered aloud, and his cold lips barely articulated the word.

  The Executioner was badly burned and had at least one gruesome wound on his foot. Hap wondered if the creature would break off the pursuit, to rest. “Probably not,” he decided. The look in the Executioner’s eyes spoke of an all-consuming hunger. Like Occo before him, this thing was relentless.

  The world dimmed, and the Executioner appeared, up to his waist in the water. He saw Hap and tried to take a step toward him, but he stumbled and fell into the shallows.

  His aim is getting worse, Hap thought. Like mine. He’d learned that it was impossible to appear precisely where you intended. There was guesswork involved, and you might pop up a few strides away from the mind’s target. And with the senses impaired by the icy void, the aim suffered even more.

  The Executioner rose up again, dripping. He spat seawater and stared with his eyes swiveling in all directions at the bizarre sights of Desolas: the mile-high wall of boiling steam that encircled the island; the lofty obsidian palace; a half-finished staircase to nowhere, spiraling high; and the titanic statue in the likeness of Caspar, the last fellow who’d fallen victim to the island’s curse.

  Those strange sights didn’t hold the Executioner’s attention for long. He turned every eye toward Hap again, and limped onto the sand. Hap noticed that one of the long, birdlike toes was missing.

  “G-give up yet?” Hap asked. The Executioner hissed back, baring tooth and gum.

  Hap turned and ran as fast as his frozen legs could take him, into the tunnel that plunged under the island’s surface. He ran until a wall blocked the passage. There was a short, wide door in the middle of the wall. It was made of dark metal and looked as old as the world itself. A brass ring in the center of the door could be used to knock, and words were etched in an ancient language: Knock thrice and master you shall be. Another message was scrawled in chalk, in Umber’s hand: Beware the curse. Do not touch this door.

  Hap heard the Executioner advancing down the tunnel with one foot dragging. “Hope I know what I’m doing,” Hap whispered, as a vivid memory of Caspar’s tormented face arose. He grabbed the ring and slammed it once, twice, three times against the metal door.

  When Hap turned around, the Executioner was almost upon him, crouched inside the low tunnel, with his hands spread wide, sharp nails screeching against the opposing walls. The eyes that still had lids narrowed with pleasure when he saw the wall behind Hap, preventing escape. “You run b-because you are too cold to fly.” He chuckled darkly and slurped his own drool.

  With a dreadful screech of ancient metal, the ancient door swung open. Thousands of small feet pattered toward them. The Executioner’s eyes goggled as he looked past Hap into the dark space behind.

  As the footfalls swelled like an approaching storm, a single pale, naked creature stepped across the threshold, as tall as Hap’s knee. “Who has knocked?” it asked.

  “I am your master now,” Hap said. “But look: Do you see the intruder?”

  The Executioner’s cruel crescent mouth opened in a scream. Somehow he found the energy to bound away in long, awkward strides as thousands of bidmis rushed out of the doorway. They flowed around Hap like water with their white teeth gnashing, filling the tunnel.

  Hap knew he had to depart before the bidmis came back and asked him for tasks to perform—he might never escape their sight otherwise, and manage to slip away. But he couldn’t bring himself to enter the icy void yet. A warm gust of air flowed out from the threshold, and he trotted through, hoping to drive away his chill.

  The passage sloped into an enormous round room with a ceiling so low his head nearly scraped it. A pool of molten rock roiled at the center. The walls were pocked with thousands of niches where the bidmis must have lain dormant when there was no master to drive insane. “You would have enjoyed this, Lord Umber,” Hap whispered. It wasn’t wise to linger, he knew. The warmth had helped him recover enough, and so he slipped back into the Neither.

  As he flew through the frozen nothing, tethered to the dim filament that traced his past, he was startled to see the thread in pursuit once more. So you got away from the bidmis after all, he thought. I wonder how much more you can take. Where shall we go next, then? Someplace not so warm, I think. No comfort for you.

  Hap reappeared with his heels teetering over the ledge of the sea-cave. His arms pinwheeled, and he bent at the waist and lunged forward. When he caught his balance and looked up, he thought for a moment he’d come to the wrong place.

  “No,” he said aloud. “This was it—I was here.”

  It was the den of the sea-giants. Many weeks befo
re, Umber had brought Hap and the others here, and they had seen the terrible giants dozing on the rock, in a century-long hibernation. But now the ledge was barren, with only a trace of enormous footsteps in the sand and dust. Hap scratched the back of his neck, staring at the empty cave. “Where have you gone?” He was sure they weren’t heading back to Kurahaven; he would have sensed the impending doom. The giants, like most creatures, had left no filaments behind for him to read, so he was left to wonder.

  The thought of the threads made him think of the Executioner, just as the warning signs came. The darkness fell over him like a shadow, and the whispery sound was as close as someone blowing in his ear. The Executioner blinked into the world, and he could have reached out and seized Hap, except that he was grappling with a pair of bidmis that had latched their jaws onto his shoulder and leg. He had covered their eyes with his hands, to allow his escape. Water poured off of him, and he coughed and sputtered as he pulled one bidmi off his shoulder and hurled it away. The bidmi took a mouthful of flesh with it, and dark blood oozed from the wound. The little creature struck the cavern wall, fell to the ground, and sprang back to its feet, unharmed.

  The other bidmi leaped off the Executioner before he could pry it away, and both stared at their surroundings. They raced to the brink of the ledge, leaped into the water, and swam out of the sea-cave.

  “Going home, I suppose,” Hap said, backing away. “It’ll b-be a long swim.”

  The Executioner snarled at him and staggered. He stared at his wounds with his chest heaving. His body was racked by wild, convulsive shivers.

  Are you done yet? Hap wondered. Maybe not. One more trip might do it. “You’re soooo close,” he said, drawing out the words to taunt his foe. The myriad eyes swiveled and stared, boiling with pain, hunger, and hate.

  “Come on,” Hap said. “Don’t you see how powerful these eyes make me? They’re grander than yours. You need these eyes.”