The Black Reckoning

by John Stephens

And before she could stop him, the wizard hugged her, and before she could stop herself, she hugged him back.

  “Goodbye,” he said, then stood and turned away into the trees.

  Wiping the tears from her eyes, Emma looked at the bird-creature, and though its beak did not open, she heard the words in her head:

  Come, Emma Wibberly.

  It began walking up the stairs, and Emma had no choice but to follow.

  —

  The creature’s cloak was ragged at the bottom, almost like the feathers of a very old bird, and its bare feet were blackened and callused.

  They climbed, winding back and forth over the face of the cliff, the steps so steep that sometimes Emma had to go on all fours, and as they climbed, the other ravens flew about, as if daring her to step out into the air.

  Finally, she stopped. “I have to rest.”

  She sat on one of the steps and looked down, trying to see if she could spot Dr. Pym, but either she was too high or the smoke was too thick or the birds circling through the air blocked her view. Then she looked farther out. Perhaps a mile or so distant, past a steep, rocky ridge, rose a column of black smoke thicker and wider than any other, and she felt a tension and nervousness in her breast. What was happening there?

  Unconsciously, she inched forward, as if to gain a better view; her foot slipped, and then she was sliding, falling, nothing below her, nothing to stop her—

  A hand grabbed her shoulder, roughly pulling her back. She was shaken, trembling. She looked at the creature on the step above her.

  “Thank…thank you.”

  Again, she heard its voice in her head. “Come.”

  They kept climbing, up into the thickest part of the smoke. Emma’s vision was blurry with tears, and she was hacking almost constantly when they finally stopped on a small ledge. Before them was a cave, tunneling back into the rock wall. Emma stared into the darkness. The pull of the book was like a second heart straining against her chest.

  The creature began to turn away.

  “Wait!”

  Its black eyes stared at her, inhuman and unreadable.

  “It was you, wasn’t it? Or someone like you, that the Countess gave the book to? Michael said she gave it to a spirit or something. It was you.”

  The carriadin said nothing.

  “And you sent Dr. Pym to get me, didn’t you? You made him bring me here. He said you’re a guardian of this world. You think me taking the book away will help fix things.”

  Emma didn’t know how she knew this, but it was all suddenly so clear. She could feel the intelligence thrumming within her, stirred by her proximity to the book.

  Then she heard the voice in her head:

  Goodbye, Emma Wibberly.

  And she gasped as the creature launched itself out into the air and, while still keeping the shape of a man, giant black wings opened from its back, and the carriadin soared down and out of sight.

  “If he could do that,” Emma muttered, “why didn’t he just fly me up here?”

  Then she turned and walked, alone, into the cave.

  —

  The air in the cave was cleaner, more breathable, and Emma’s eyes stopped watering and she coughed less. She had switched on Michael’s flashlight, and she felt a kind of giddiness and was soon hurrying forward, almost recklessly, as the tunnel curved deeper into the rock, and then, abruptly, she was at the end, and there, resting on a ledge carved into the back wall of the tunnel, was the book.

  For a moment, Emma stood there, her chest heaving, as if unable to believe what she was seeing. She had actually done it. She had come into the world of the dead all alone—she didn’t count Dr. Pym, she hadn’t asked him to come, and really, a monkey could’ve rowed the boat—and she had done it. She felt a deep stirring of pride that she, the youngest, the one who everyone thought was only good for punching and kicking people, that she had done something no one else could have. And here was the hard proof that would put her on the same standing as her brother and sister in one leap.

  All she had to do was reach out and pick it up.

  But still, she hesitated.

  For being the Book of Death, Emma thought the Reckoning could’ve been a little more impressive. Granted, its corners were rimmed with dark metal, but the book was both smaller and slimmer than either the Atlas or the Chronicle. It almost looked like a diary. Had it really sat here for two thousand years? Had it been waiting for her all this time?

  Yes, Emma thought, without knowing how she knew, it had been.

  “So pick it up, then,” she whispered, and her voice echoed back, urging her on. Her hand trembled as it came into the beam of light, and she lifted the book off the rock shelf.

  It felt no different from any other book, the metal corners cold and slightly sharp at the tips, and she ran her fingers over the pebbled black leather of the cover. Her heart was beating fast. She set Michael’s flashlight on the ledge so its light shone out into the cave, and, taking a deep breath, she opened the book.

  It was blank, but she had expected that; the Atlas and the Chronicle had also been blank. Despite the coolness of the cave air, Emma could feel herself beginning to sweat. She knew she didn’t have to go any farther. She had the book now; she could just take it and find her way back home; she’d already accomplished what she’d come here to do.

  She laid her hand, palm down, on the open page.

  It felt like the top of her head was ripped open.

  She cried out and staggered backward, the book tumbling to the ground. She stood there, gasping, trying to process what had just happened. The book had fallen closed upon the floor. For a long time, she didn’t move.

  She must’ve done something wrong, or triggered some kind of alarm or trap set to scare people off. She just had to try again.

  She thought she could hear something in the cave, whispers, circling about, growing closer; she ignored them.

  Quickly, before she could change her mind, Emma reached out and placed her palm on the page.

  It was the same as before, but worse because she kept her hand pressed down. A million voices, shouting, crying, desperate to be heard, clamored inside her head; she could feel her own self being trampled on and torn apart.

  She fell backward again, her head ringing, her heart shuddering in her chest.

  Whose voices were they? What did they want? What were they doing in the book?

  A memory came to her, of her dream that first night in the land of the giants. In the dream, shadowy figures had crowded around her, pleading, shouting.

  She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. She just had to get help. She would take the book back to the world of the living and get someone to show her how to shut off the voices so she could use the book to kill the Dire Magnus.

  Then she looked up, and froze. Words were appearing on the open page:

  Release them….

  —

  Emma raced down the rocky stairs, two steps at a time, hardly seeing where she was going. She held the book clutched to her chest. She had to find Dr. Pym! Or that bird-creature. They would know where to find the portal to the world of the living.

  Then she was at the bottom of the cliff.

  “Dr. Pym! Dr. Pym!”

  No answer; her throat burned horribly.

  She shut her eyes. She could still hear the voices, whispering, nipping at the edges of her mind.

  “Hello.” A man with a hairy gut sticking out of his black leather tunic stepped from the trees. “Who’re you, then?”

  Emma turned to run and collided with another man, who shoved her to the ground, took the dwarfish knife from her belt, and quickly and expertly tied a cord around her wrists. She struggled, but he knelt on her, patient, as if he had done this many times before. Then the first one returned with a line of men and women, their wrists bound like Emma’s, and the tall man pulled her to her feet and tied her to the others.

  “What’s this?” said the fat man, picking up the black book from wh
ere Emma had dropped it. “Little bit of light reading? Mine now.”

  He shoved the book into the top of his pants.

  “Don’t,” Emma said. “That’s my—”

  The other man struck her hard across the mouth.

  “Shut it.” Then to his companion, “We’re late. Come on.”

  And Emma, tasting blood, was pulled away.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Thing on the Beach

  Kate woke, rubbed her eyes, and looked about, trying to remember where she was….

  She was in a narrow, canvas tent. Sunlight streamed through a gap in the front flap. She had slept in her clothes, not even bothering to remove her boots, and she could feel how her body was covered with a grimy film of sweat. Michael lay with his back to her, on a cot a few feet away. From outside, she could hear voices, footsteps, hammering, the clinking and scraping of metal; and she could smell breakfast, eggs and bacon and coffee and what she would’ve sworn were pancakes, and suddenly her stomach felt like a great hollow pit inside her. She couldn’t go back to sleep.

  And by then too she had remembered the night before, the meeting with King Robbie, and what he had told them about Emma and the portal.

  “Hello?”

  There was a voice outside the tent. It belonged to a dwarf.

  “Yes?”

  “Ah, you’re awake? The King would like you both to come to a Council. Not a moment to lose. Though I’ve brought you something to nibble on. Nothing fancy. Just a dozen or so scrambled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, four or five rashers of bacon, pancakes, toast, marmalade, currant scones, blueberry scones, this little frittata I whipped up…”

  After Kate had woken Michael, told him about the Council, and the two of them had crammed in as much food as they could as quickly as they could, they followed their escort—an old dwarf with a wispy gray beard and very large, floppy ears—across the camp to King Robbie’s tent.

  In the daylight, Kate perceived that the island was in the shape of a large, stretched-out horseshoe, the whole thing set on an incline. Downhill lay the various tents and encampments, and Kate could see hundreds, perhaps thousands, of men and dwarves moving about, making their breakfasts, checking their weapons, while beyond them lay the beach and blue water of the marina, where she and Michael had arrived the night before, and where the small fleet still sat at anchor.

  Looking directly ahead, past the green tent of the dwarf king, was what looked like a field of enormous wildflowers. In fact, they were brightly colored tents and pavilions, blues and greens and pinks and yellows; and moving among them, Kate could see hundreds of elves. Some of them must’ve been playing music, and the tune seemed to Kate to somehow be a part of the morning sunlight, to echo the distant sound of sea, the movement of the breeze, and it calmed her. She could see a few elves polishing swords and making arrows, but most of them were simply combing their hair or, it appeared, giving advice to others about combing their hair, demonstrating technique and so on.

  “They’re keeping away from each other,” Michael said.

  “What?”

  “The three camps. The dwarves, humans, elves. None of them are having anything to do with each other.”

  He was right; each of the camps had clearly marked its own territory, and none of them—humans, dwarves, or elves—were to be seen among the others.

  This did not, Kate thought, bode well.

  Kate then briefly turned her gaze uphill, toward the camp of the refugees. These were the families who had lived on Loris—she could see them, husbands and wives, old people, children. The Dire Magnus is hunting us, she thought. We’re responsible for what happens to them.

  As they approached the entrance to Robbie McLaur’s tent, Kate and her brother could hear raised voices, all talking, or rather shouting, at once.

  “Our goose is cooked, we might as well admit it—”

  “Perhaps if we hadn’t given up Loris—”

  “We had no choice, you know that—”

  “An assault on the Dire Magnus now would be suicide—”

  “It’s suicide if he gets his hands on the Reckoning—”

  “Perhaps if a few of those elves at home doing their nails were to come help us—”

  “They won’t follow a dwarf. I’ve said that. Perhaps if you cleaned your ears. Or any part of your body—”

  The old dwarf pulled back the flap and said quietly, “Good luck,” and Kate and Michael walked inside.

  —

  “Oh, yes, well, it’s good to see you too, lass.”

  Haraald patted Kate on the back as she continued to hug him tightly.

  Haraald was alive; that had been the first and best surprise to greet the children when they’d entered the tent, and Kate had raced over to throw her arms around him. In truth, her joy at finding the red-bearded dwarf alive surprised even her, as she didn’t really know him all that well. But when it felt like they were losing people left and right, having Haraald come back against impossible odds meant there was hope for all of them, hope for Emma. The dwarf’s face was still streaked with smoke and blood and dirt, and his right hand was wrapped in a clean bandage, but he was here, he was alive.

  “When did you get back?” Kate asked, finally letting him go.

  “Just before dawn.” He coughed. “Captain…um…Captain…well, you see…”

  “Captain Anton went back and rescued him,” King Robbie said. “Found him swimming along, a mile or so from Loris. For which we are indebted to our allies…” And he nodded at the elf king, who waved his hand breezily.

  “That’s the size of it,” Haraald said. “Though I could’ve swum here if I’d had to.”

  “Really?” the elf king said. “Thirty miles of open ocean?”

  “You’ve never seen me swim!” the dwarf all but roared. “I’m a veritable guppy!”

  “Well,” Kate said, “thank you again. You saved our lives.”

  “Nothing to it, lass.” And the dwarf’s weathered face softened to something like an actual smile.

  Kate and Michael were given chairs on the right side of King Robbie, and in many ways the Council was a reprise of the one they’d attended in the Rose Citadel a few days before. Around the table were Magda von Klappen, the stern Austrian witch; Master Chu, the plump Chinese wizard; Hugo Algernon; Captain Stefano, the bald commander of the Guard of Loris; the silver-haired Lady Gwendolyn; King Bernard, Wilamena’s father; and Haraald and King Robbie. The differences were that this time there was no Dr. Pym, several of the Council members displayed wounds (Captain Stefano had a bandage around his head and one arm in a sling), and from the glares being passed around, any pretense of civility was gone. Kate suspected it was all Robbie McLaur could do to keep them from attacking each other.

  When the children were seated, the dwarf king addressed himself to Kate and Michael. “So then, I’ve told the Council what happened to you all, where your sister has gone to get the Reckoning, and where she might appear. We’ve been discussing what we can do about it.”

  “Find a well-stocked bar and wait for the roof to cave in,” grumbled Hugo Algernon.

  “Dr. Algernon,” the dwarf king warned, “I told you, none of that.”

  “Before we go further, I have some distressing news,” King Bernard said. “I’ve spoken with our colony back in Antarctica, and they inform me that the gateway to the world of the dead has inexplicably closed itself off.”

  Kate said nothing, but she could feel panic beginning to stir inside her.

  “Right,” King Robbie said grimly. “Then that leaves the portal on the Hebrides—”

  “I’m afraid,” Magda von Klappen said, “that I just received word that that portal has sealed itself off as well.”

  There was a long, heavy moment of silence. Kate reached out and took Michael’s hand even as he was reaching for hers.

  “I see,” the dwarf king said. “And any idea why?”

  “The Books,” Hugo Algernon growled. “You need another answer? And
what’s it matter? It is what it is. There’s only one portal left and we all knew it would come to that, didn’t we?”

  “But could that one…”—Kate’s voice trembled—“close too?”

  “Doubtful,” said Master Chu, in his calm murmur. “It is the oldest of the gateways, and the strongest. It forms part of the axis between our world and the world of the dead. Were it to close, then the entire universe would most likely come to an end.”

  “Well,” King Robbie said, after no one else had spoken, “I suppose that’s reassuring.”

  But in fact, Kate was reassured, and she felt Michael squeeze her hand.

  “I’ll ask a stupid question,” Haraald said.

  “By all means,” King Bernard said magnanimously, “that is your right as a dwarf.”

  Kate saw Haraald, his face flaming as red as his beard, whirl toward the elf king, but Robbie McLaur put a hand on his arm.

  “Go on, Haraald.”

  “It’s just that, say this child comes through the portal with the Reckoning, why don’t she just kill the Dire Magnus right then and there? End this whole thing. Ain’t that what this is all about, getting this fancy book so we can kill him?”

  “I think that’s an excellent question,” Kate said, and she looked hard at the elf king (but only for a moment, for the elf king looked at her with eyes of such unparalleled blue and with such sweetness of expression that she found herself having the odd thought I bet he’s a wonderful dancer. And the elf king even gave a tiny nod as if to say, I am, I’m a wonderful dancer).

  “Unfortunately, it is not so simple.” Magda von Klappen’s stern, clipped voice spoke from across the table. “The fact is, these Books are fantastically complex magical instruments. They require time and skill to master. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it was some time before either of you could fully use your Books, was it not?”

  “Yes,” Michael said. “That’s true.”

  And Kate found herself nodding as well.

  “So the wee lass might come through with the book, having endured who knows what horrors in the world of the dead”—the dwarf king paused and looked apologetically at Kate and Michael—“though probably nothing too, too bad.”