The Black Reckoning

by John Stephens

  He fell silent. Kate could hear insects buzzing and whirring among the trees. She knew she had to get this out. Holding in the story—and the guilt—had been killing her. Still, she resisted.

  “Dr. Pym, I don’t—”

  “Just begin at the beginning. Please.”

  And so that was what she did. She started with the attack on the orphanage in Baltimore, when she had used the Atlas to take the Screecher into the past, how she had ended up stranded in New York in 1899, a day before the Separation, and how she’d fallen among a tribe of magical street urchins led by the one-armed witch, Henrietta Burke, and the boy, Rafe. Focused as she was on telling the story, Kate didn’t hear how her voice tightened when she spoke of Rafe, or see how her cheeks turned red, but the wizard heard, and saw. She told about being captured by Rourke and taken before the ancient, dying Dire Magnus. She told the wizard how Rafe’s mother had been killed by humans, about the anger she’d felt in him, she told about the church where the children lived being burned by the mob, how she and Rafe had gotten the children out, how Henrietta Burke had died in the blaze, but not before first commanding Kate to “love him.” Then she was at the part that made her feel like a traitor to her brother and sister, but she kept going, knowing she had to get it out, and she recounted to the wizard how she had stopped time when the bell had been about to crush Rafe, how she’d been shot by one of the mob, and how Rafe had gone to the old Dire Magnus and traded his own life, agreeing to become the new Dire Magnus, in order to save Kate.

  “Michael keeps thinking that this is all his fault, that Emma would never have been kidnapped if he hadn’t brought the Dire Magnus back to life,” Kate said, “but really, it’s my fault. Rafe became the Dire Magnus to save me!”

  “My dear, if you’ll forgive me”—the wizard knocked his pipe against the stone and ground out the embers with his heel—“it is pointless to think that way.”

  “But don’t you see? Of all the possible times the Atlas could’ve sent me to in the past, it sent me there! It wanted me there for a reason! It wanted me to keep Rafe from becoming the Dire Magnus, and I didn’t do it. If anything, I made it worse!”

  “And I’m saying, you don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do! I—”

  “No, you assume that the Atlas intended you to keep him from becoming the Dire Magnus, but you can’t know that for certain. None of us do. Indeed, you may have fulfilled your role exactly as the Atlas intended.”

  “But I didn’t change anything!”

  The wizard chuckled. “Oh, Katherine, excuse me, you changed quite a bit. Consider: in a world in which you did not go into the past, Rafe became the Dire Magnus—”

  “That’s what I’m saying—”

  “Let me finish. He became the Dire Magnus. But that was a Dire Magnus who did not know you. Who had not loved you or been loved in return.”

  Kate felt the heat in her cheeks. “You don’t know that he…loved me.”

  Dr. Pym’s voice softened. “He gave himself up for you. His actions speak for themselves. And I know you love him because I have eyes and ears, and I have been alive a very, very long time. So you say you changed nothing, but because of you, the Rafe who became the Dire Magnus knows love. And in the end, that may make all the difference.”

  “How?”

  “Honestly?” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Kate was silent for a long moment. Just say it, she told herself.

  “Sometimes…I think I should have let him die.”

  She didn’t dare look at him, but simply waited, staring at the ground.

  He sighed. “I understand why you think that. But mercy is a quality never to be regretted. And who knows but that the Dire Magnus has some role to play in all this. I know it is hard to see, but what is happening now goes beyond even him.

  “Now tell me, my dear, is there something else bothering you?”

  Kate thought again of their father’s message, that they must not allow Dr. Pym to bring the three Books together, and again, part of her wanted to tell him. But she would not break Michael’s trust. She shook her head.

  “No.”

  “Very well. Then I must say this: when we find Emma—and we will—I cannot allow you to come with us to rescue her.”

  “But—”

  “To rescue Emma, wherever she is being held, we shall have to be fast and silent. If the enemy knows we are coming, he will move or threaten her. And the fact is, you and the Dire Magnus are somehow tied together. If you are with us, he will know immediately. I’m sorry. You must remain here.”

  Kate wanted to argue, but she also knew the wizard was right.

  “I just want her back.”

  Dr. Pym squeezed her hand. “Katherine, I have been alive for thousands of years, but little, in all that time, gives me the pride I feel in you. You have become the person I knew you would be. Whatever happens, the world is in good hands.”

  Kate looked at him. She had the strangest feeling that the old wizard was saying goodbye.

  He stood. “Come. Let us find your brother. I suspect he’s hiding from the Princess.”

  Together, the two of them walked out of the Garden. Kate, her mind swimming, forgot to ask about the power she felt in this place. They found Michael in her room, and the three of them ate lunch on the balcony, where they could see the ships of refugees continuing to stream into port.

  Soon afterward, word reached them that Gabriel had returned. He was waiting in the wizard’s quarters, exhausted and ashen-faced. He told them that Emma was being held prisoner in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia, in a fortress surrounded by an army of ten thousand Imps and Screechers and the Dire Magnus himself.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Bonding

  “I apologize we could not come through closer to the valley,” Dr. Pym said. “But there are wards that prevent my opening a portal there.”

  Michael, Wilamena, Dr. Pym, and Wallace, the sturdy-legged, black-bearded dwarf who was a veteran of the children’s adventure in Cambridge Falls, were huddled in the shadow of a crag on the side of a mountain. They were waiting for the return of Gabriel and Captain Anton, the elf warrior, the pair of whom had gone ahead to ensure that the passage into the valley was safe and unguarded. Michael and the others had come through the portal perhaps a mile from their present location and then hiked to where they were over steep, rocky terrain, Michael’s lungs gasping in the thin air.

  “I’m fine,” Michael said, though his chest was still heaving. “Really.”

  It was deep night, and there was no moon, but a thick blanket of stars gave light enough to see, and as they’d hiked and Michael had adjusted to the altitude, he’d been able to take in the soaring, snowcapped peaks, almost glowing in the starlight; he’d run his hands over the jagged-leafed plants that grew along the slope, which he’d assumed were the same as the one Gabriel had discovered and taken to Granny Peet; he’d even appreciated how clean and cold the air was, shockingly thin though it might be. The landscape was harsh and spare and yet, he’d reflected, had much to recommend it.

  Except for the yaks. When they’d first stepped through the portal, Michael had heard something (definitely not human) bellowing close by, and he’d whipped about to see a group of large creatures above them on the slope.

  “Watch out!” he’d cried. “There’re—”

  “Yaks,” Gabriel had said. “Harmless.”

  “Never fear, Rabbit,” Wilamena had said, sweeping up his hand in both of hers. “I won’t let those nasty things eat you.”

  And as the elf princess had pressed herself to him (part of Michael’s brain registering that she smelled of honey and dewdrops and, somehow, the hope of youth), he’d glanced over to see Wallace staring at him, his mouth agape.

  Oh yes, he could’ve done without the yaks.

  Luckily, their band had immediately begun walking, and the path had been narrow enough that they’d had to go single file, which meant that Wilamena had been unable to walk beside
him and hold his “little rabbit paw-paw.” Finally, they’d arrived at what seemed a dead end, an impassable rock wall rising up between two peaks, and Dr. Pym had led Michael, Wilamena, and Wallace to the cover of an outcropping while the elf captain and Gabriel went ahead to secure the passage.

  “Dr. Pym,” he said, “what’s the plan?”

  “My boy, I’m afraid that we must first get there and reconnoiter the situation.”

  “Okay, but once we rescue Emma, we’ll still have to escape somehow, right? Are we just going to fight our way out?”

  “If we must. But the wards around the valley seem to function only in one direction, to stop intrusion from the outside. I suspect that once we find your sister, we will be able to open a portal and escape. Indeed, I’m counting on it.”

  They were taking care to keep their voices low, as every sound echoed across the rocky slope. Michael was also inching to his left as Wilamena, crouched beside him, kept trying to wiggle her hand under his elbow. Of course, every time he moved, so did she. Fortunately, Wallace had stepped a few paces out onto the slope to stand watch.

  As they waited, Michael found himself thinking about his conversation with Kate before they’d left, when they’d all been gathered on the terrace, only a few hours after Gabriel’s return.

  “I’m not coming,” she had said. “Dr. Pym doesn’t think I should, and he’s right. Be safe, okay? Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “You mean, like going right into the enemy’s stronghold?”

  “Yeah, like that.”

  Then she’d taken his hand and looked into his eyes. “Michael, you know I’d never choose anyone over you and Emma. You do know that, don’t you?”

  Michael had nodded, and now, sitting in the shadow of the outcropping, he felt ashamed for having ever suggested otherwise.

  Kate had hugged him, and he’d found himself hugging her just as fiercely, promising, “I’ll bring her back.”

  The moment had then taken a slightly weird turn when Kate and Michael had become aware that someone else was hugging them, the elf princess having wrapped her arms around the both of them, murmuring, “Our sweet family.”

  “Rabbit.” Wilamena had finally wormed her hand through the crook of his arm and was holding it in a python-like grip. “Did you not see me motioning to you during the Council this morning? It felt almost as if you were ignoring me.”

  Michael glanced out at Wallace’s short, blocky shape standing watch on the slope and hoped the dwarf was too far away to hear.

  “Oh? You were? Sorry. I was just really focused on Dr. Pym.”

  “Of course, concern for your poor sister. Anywaaaay—I was thinking, when we return to Loris, we should announce our engagement publicly.”

  “Our what?”

  “Our wedding engagement, silly. Are you feeling ill? You don’t look at all well.”

  Michael was spared from replying by a loud crack of thunder. He stepped out onto the slope. The wizard stood looking up at the still-clear sky.

  “What is it?” Michael asked. “Is there a storm coming?”

  “Shhhh.”

  Dr. Pym had his eyes closed as if he was listening to the wind. And then it seemed to Michael that he felt a tremor in the air, and his hand went down to his bag, feeling for the bulk of the Chronicle. Something was wrong.

  “No,” the wizard whispered, “he can’t be…”

  “What?” Michael demanded. “What’s happening?”

  “The Dire Magnus. He’s attempting a Bonding.”

  —

  Emma heard the thunder boom and she gazed up through the windows of her cell, wondering how long till the storm was above her.

  I’m gonna get drenched, she thought.

  She had scarcely slept in two days. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Miss Crumley facedown in the ruined chocolate cake. She told herself that it wasn’t her fault, but it did no good. She felt like a murderer.

  Rourke had come again the night before, leading her down out of the fortress and to the tent in the middle of the army where the Dire Magnus—she wouldn’t even think of him as Rafe—had waited beside the silver scrying bowl.

  “Right,” he’d said. “We have a lot to do, ten years of orphanage directors to get through.”

  But Emma had refused to so much as look in the bowl.

  “I could make you look.” His voice had been even, almost friendly.

  She had held her ground, and in the end, he had just spoken to her, which had been almost as bad, telling her that if she continued to fight her nature, to deny the anger that lived inside her, she would only destroy herself.

  Except it wasn’t true! That wasn’t who she was; she wasn’t a murderer!

  But wasn’t she? Wouldn’t she kill him if given the chance? And Rourke? Hadn’t she spent long hours in her cell imagining all different ways that she could massacre them both? But they deserved it! Killing someone who deserved it didn’t make you a murderer! You were doing the world a favor.

  Still, she knew it was not good for her to fantasize about killing the Dire Magnus and Rourke. It just happened so naturally; she would be thinking of Kate and Michael and Gabriel, wondering where they were, why they weren’t coming for her; she’d grow more and more nervous and fearful; her fear would turn to anger—which she of course directed toward the Dire Magnus and Rourke—and then her anger would just keep building, making her more and more panicked and desperate, so that when she was least prepared to deal with it, there would be Miss Crumley’s face, purple and gasping, accusing her of being a murderer.

  Emma sat up. There were footsteps on the stairs. Then the door opened, and Rourke stood in her doorway, holding aloft a torch and flanked by a pair of morum cadi.

  “I’m not going down to his stupid tent,” she said. “You’ll have to carry me.”

  Rourke smiled, a gloating, triumphant smile. “Oh, there’ll be no looking in bowls tonight, child.”

  Emma heard a new sound then, or rather became aware of it, a steady thock-thock-thock growing louder on the stairs. Then Rourke stepped aside, and a red-robed figure shuffled into the room. It was the old man she had seen when she’d first gone among the army, two nights before. He stood there, leaning on his staff and staring at her with one dark gray eye and his eerie, blind, all-white one.

  “Remember I told you,” Rourke said, “that some of the necromati were former enemies of the Dire Magnus? This fellow here was one of those who helped Pym kill my master forty years ago. He and Pym were bosom chums. Now he’s my master’s faithful servant. Aren’t you?”

  The old man said nothing, but continued staring at Emma.

  “Of course, he doesn’t remember,” Rourke went on. “He couldn’t even tell you his own name. He only knows that he loves our master and lives to serve him. And tonight that means something very special for you.”

  Then the old man stepped forward, his staff striking the stone floor, one hand raised and reaching toward her, and Emma couldn’t help herself; she screamed.

  —

  “A Bonding,” Dr. Pym said. “I always knew it was a possibility, but I did not believe that he would risk it. The more foolish I, for underestimating him.”

  “So what is it?” Michael wasn’t even trying to keep his voice down. With the thunder and the wind, there seemed no point. Wilamena and Wallace had stepped up beside him. They were still waiting for the return of Gabriel and the elf captain.

  The wizard looked at him.

  “You and Katherine each are bound to your Books as Keepers. Those bonds developed naturally, as they should. But there is a ritual—I should say, in theory, as it has never actually been performed—that would force the bond between Emma and the Reckoning.”

  “And it’s dangerous? This ritual thing?”

  “Yes. It is dangerous.” Dr. Pym placed a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “There is a part of you that is neither mind nor body: call it the spirit, the soul, the anima. It is where the magic in you is to be found.”


  “You mean the Chronicle?”

  “No, I mean the magic you were born with.”

  “But—”

  “Let me finish. The Dire Magnus talks about the divide between the magical and the nonmagical, but he knows this is a fallacy. All living beings have magic in them, even if it lies dormant all their lives. Indeed, it may be that your spirit is in its very nature magic. This is a mystery I have never fully plumbed. What you must understand is that when you became Keeper, the Chronicle bound itself to your spirit. Just as the Atlas did with Katherine. And now the Dire Magnus is attempting to split Emma’s spirit off from her body and send it out to find the Reckoning.”

  “And then she could lead him to where it’s hidden?” Michael asked.

  “Yes, that is one possibility.”

  And what are the other possibilities? Michael wondered.

  The old wizard gripped his shoulder. “We must get there before the ritual is complete. And you must use the Chronicle to draw her spirit back.”

  Michael gave a jerky, nervous nod. He told himself that this would allow him to atone for bringing the Dire Magnus back to life; this was his chance.

  Just then Gabriel returned. “The passage is open. Captain Anton stands guard. Come.”

  They started off and, very quickly, arrived at the base of the rock wall. It rose up before them, massive and unbroken, but Gabriel paused only to glance back and make sure they were all there; then he walked into the mountain and disappeared.

  Michael let out a small gasp.

  “An illusion,” Dr. Pym said. “Let us hurry. Princess?”

  Wilamena kissed Michael on the cheek and stepped through the rock face. Dr. Pym went next, vanishing as well, and then it was just Michael and Wallace.

  Michael glanced awkwardly at the dwarf, the spot on his cheek where Wilamena had kissed him still burning.

  “Elves,” he muttered, not knowing what else to say.