Someone came to him in the evening and had him sip a bitter tea—it was Hindrance again, with the other Wents hovering behind her in the gloom. Tully felt hands on his forehead. Turning his face into the water of his bed, he instinctively dunked his entire face into it, feeling the heat behind his eyes escape briefly into the cool liquid. He opened his eyes into the water and could see the smooth base of the bed and the bubbles from his breath streaming up from the sides of his mouth. Finally, he came up for air. The water droplets from his hair and antennae made him shiver and sneeze. He was terribly cold, and they warmed the water with heated rocks and dripped more of the hot tea into his mouth.
He slept for a long while, and when he woke the walls had strange shadows and crevices, soft in the fading light through the window. There were the shapes of living things hiding there, staring at him with bold eyes. He tried to blink the figures away but they would not go. They had the delicate limbs of Efts, and fine features, but they were taller. He called out to them, finally.
“Who are you?” shouted Tully. “Why are you staring at me?” He laughed wildly, and then collapsed into spasms of coughing.
“Hush,” said someone in the gloom. It might have been Kellen. “Sleep—it is nothing but shadows.”
Tully slept and dreamed of great, dark things humming and moving beneath him in the water—of something Hindrance had once called whales. But whales were dead and gone and only their bones remained, abandoned like broken white smiles on the ocean floor.
On the fifth day, Tully’s fever crested and broke. All the strange figures were gone, winked away, and the walls of his home were ordinary again. He sat up.
Hindrance shuffled over to his bedside and touched his forehead lightly.
“Something to eat?” she said, in a voice that reminded him of chiming bells. Hindrance loved to sing and she did so often: little tunes about flowers and plants and weather.
“Yes,” said Tully, who realized that, for the first time in days, he actually had an appetite. Hindrance handed him a slab of pasty, gray bread on a wooden board, and he ripped off a hunk and chewed it; it was flavored with some kind of exotic fruit. Hindrance’s cooking was always good. She could manipulate the bread with poundings and tinctures from fresh herbs, vegetables, and fruit—one bite would reveal a rich, savory taste, while the next a completely different flavor. The bread gave Tully energy, and he drank a cup of water, which Hindrance had brought from the cistern, to wash it down.
Hindrance sat on the edge of the bed, taking care to keep her garments from falling into the shallow water. She was dressed in a simple white sheath that hung close to the floor, and her pale feet were bare. “I’ve made a new puzzle for you,” she said, and handed Tully a small, wooden box. Her hands were soft and white, like lilies floating in water. He turned the box over and over in his hands but could see only a small hole in one side surrounded by a pattern of letters and symbols.
“You’ll like this one,” said Hindrance. “It will keep you busy while you stay in bed.”
“In bed!” said Tully, sitting up straighter. “But I’m better now.”
“You’re still tired. No need to rush things.”
Tully frowned and accidentally tipped the little box from his palm onto the floor. His muscles felt weak and useless. It made an unexpected chiming sound as it tumbled.
“I’m bored already,” he said.
“The puzzle won’t bore you,” said Hindrance, her small dark eyes shining. She picked it up and handed it to him again. “It’s a special one—for your dream day. It passed while you had the fever.”
Tully had forgotten all about his dream day, but he was stung by the fresh indignity of it. One’s dream day was special: the day of the year when a creature was first brought into being. It often involved new songs and games, and presents and parties as well. And he had slept right through it.
“Did any of my friends come?” asked Tully, hopefully.
“Only Copernicus and Aarvord, and that dreadful little Louse—”
“Fangor?”
“Yes, that one. I had to send him away three times. He would have woken you.”
Tully was pleased that Aarvord and Copernicus had come, despite the fight. And he enjoyed the thought of Fangor the Sand Louse—an annoying little mite—getting shooed away by Hindrance. Fangor was constantly tagging after Tully and his friends, piping away in an irritating squeak and leaping onto unwilling shoulders.
“They left presents, too,” said Hindrance. The three other Wents who shared the home with them—Kellen, Bly, and Sarami—came bustling over and crowded around for an impromptu party. They leaned over Tully, swaying in that gentle way of theirs that suggested they were still planted in the earth, as their ancestors had been so many years ago. They each presented small gifts, wrapped in coarse brown paper.
“Open mine first,” said Bly. She bent down and thrust her package into Tully’s hands.
“Happy dream day,” said Sarami. “Belated, of course.”
Kellen, characteristically, said nothing at all, but stared at Tully in a searching manner. Her small black eyes darted over his body, assessing and cataloging, bright in her white, moon-shaped face. She did not smile or show him any kindness, though. Tully wished for the hundredth time that it were Hindrance, and not Kellen, who was his true blood relation. He had very little in common with the thin, morose Went who was had brought him into being. He did not have a sweet name for her. She was Kellen and that was all.
Tully opened each gift, trying to reclaim some of the excitement that usually belonged to a dream day party. But, without his close friends there, it did not feel like anything special. And the gifts were rather poor. Copernicus had given him a small length of string. Aarvord had left a shiny rock. Fangor had left nothing but a grain of sand—all that he could carry, no doubt. And each of the Wents had baked various delicacies in the shape of a Nimbus Swan, a Grout, a Roach, and an Ugwallop. He was sure they would taste good, but who wanted to eat something shaped like an Ugwallop? Other than Hindrance’s mysterious little box, the gifts were dreadfully dull. Tully sighed and leaned back upon his pillow. This was his twelfth dream day, and it should have been his best of all.
When he woke hours later the room was silent. Normally, all the Wents would have rushed to see that he was fine—something which occasionally irritated him but which was as reliable as the sunrise. No one came.
Tully pulled himself out of his bed and his body dripped water over the stones. His arms and legs felt odd and unfamiliar. He made his way to the large wooden table and sat down, cradling the puzzle box in his hands. His body felt weak, but his head was clear. He longed to get out and see the sun again.
Tully heard a small sound, like paper slipping over stone, and he turned to see the snake Copernicus Holland slip through a crevice in the rock wall. Copernicus whippled over the stones to Tully and shot up his leg in one swift movement.
“Coper!” said Tully. “I’ve been very ill. Sick with the fever.”
“I was watching you, from time to time,” said Copernicus. “But you were in a bad state. You couldn’t see me at all. You thought I was your old Grand-Ell Bepsiba.”
“I didn’t!” protested Tully. “You look nothing like Grand-Ell. She was always nice and fat, tiny as she was. She had wings, too, and you don’t. And you’re so skinny.”
“I came for your dream day. Did you get my gift?”
“Yes, thanks,” said Tully. “It was a decent piece of string. Maybe I’ll use it to tie a gift for you, one day.”
“I found it,” said Copernicus. “It was down in the Underbelly. A treasure!”
“Special,” said Tully. “What luck.”
There was a silence.
“I’m sorry about that. The thing I said,” said Tully. “I wasn’t feeling well.”
“Don’t mention it. It’s forgotten,” said Copernicus.
“I don’t think Dualings are savages.”
“No more than I think the Trilings
are the greatest miracle ever produced by the richness of our planet,” said the snake.
Tully pursed his lips.
“What did you have, then?” asked the snake. “The sloping sickness? The faints? The bendy-jigmies? The stammers and jags?”
“I don’t know,” said Tully. “The Wents talked about a fever. A fever from the insects, or the air, or maybe the water. No one knows. Trilings and Dualings getting sick and nothing to be done for it except wait….” He shuddered and said: “It was awful. I thought I might die.”
Copernicus ignored this dire statement.
“Where are the Wents?” said the snake, craning his head to peer around the room.
“Not sure,” said Tully. “I fell asleep, and now they’ve all gone.”
Now Tully sat on the edge of his bed and considered the situation more deeply.
“It’s not right, that they’ve all gone. All at once,” he said.
Copernicus slithered down to the floor and sniffed the edges of the room.
“They haven’t been gone long,” he said. “An hour or two, I’d guess.”
“Well,” Tully said. “We should find Aarvord and go out on a little adventure. Before they come back.”
Copernicus knit his brow, which is rather difficult for a snake to do.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I smell something else. I smell Ells, and pollen. And something not…good.”
Tully opened the door and the snake slipped out. Tully, glancing back, suddenly doubted his impetuous mood. Maybe he should rest a bit longer and recover. But how dull that would be. He felt quite well, at the moment. Let the Wents see how he could handle a bit of adventure without one of them coddling him. He was twelve now!
But something gave him pause. He went back and retrieved the new puzzle box and a small wooden bucket that sat by his bed, which he had used to keep his toys since he was a very young Eft. The bucket was empty except for two other gifts that Hindrance had given him on previous dream days: One, a pair of glasses with colorful lenses, which had come in the form of a puzzle that he’d spent hours folding and twisting to find out what secret was inside. The glasses had a special trick. When he looked through them, he was able to see if someone was truly a friend or not—a false smile would appear as a deep frown through the lenses.
The other gift was a thin wooden telescope, through which he could see a great distance through wind and fog, and even in falling darkness. It, too, had come inside a puzzle-gift that Tully had been challenged to decipher on a dream day a few years ago. He had mostly used these toys to play tricks on his friends. Other gifts that Hindrance had shared with him (one for every year that he had been alive) had been broken and lost through play over the years.
The only other gift that still remained was already about his neck, dangling on a thin cord. It was a very small sphere of a shiny, bluish metal, roughly shaped and pocked with scars. It hung in a thin pocket of rough fabric, sewn tight at the top, to which the cord was attached. It had been his dream day gift for his fifth year and he still remembered Hindrance placing it around his neck and saying: “Keep this safe.” It had no magical properties, but it never left his body.
Tully put the new box inside the bucket, and as he walked the bucket banged against his legs—uncomfortable and familiar all at once.
*
Aarvord Benniwick considered himself one of the most handsome of the entire race of Fantastic Grouts. He was stout and tall, with those bulging eyeballs on short stalks atop his head. His paws were wide and flat, like spatulas, and he used them to groom a small tuft of hair along the back of his neck. Aarvord’s face was wide and pleasant; he grimaced at himself in his mirror-pool of water, and sucked his triple chin in for as long as he could hold his breath. Then he puffed it out and it unfolded fatly over his chest. “A fine fellow you are,” he thought. “A fine fat fellow.”
Aarvord lived alone in the dank grotto that he called home, for he was the last remaining member of his family. He was a full fifteen years of age, almost sixteen, and he had been on his own for the last two years since his parents had passed on. He made do very well, for he had an older cousin who checked in on his welfare and made sure he had everything he needed. On more than one occasion the cousin, Hen-Hen, had invited Aarvord to come and live with him. But Aarvord preferred his freedom.
On his own, he could do whatever he liked at any time he liked. No one waited to see if he came home safely. No one told him what to eat or when to go to sleep. He had done much exploring of the city’s vast nooks and crannies on his own and with his closest friends, Copernicus and Tully.
Aarvord padded out to his kitchen to get himself a snack—toasted Dull Bees on salt-water cracker—and ate it with one quick flick of his tongue. The Dull Bees were cousin to the Boring Bees and supposedly lacked even the slightest whisper of intelligence. Boring Bees, on the other hand, were not food. No one with any sense would ever try to eat one, especially on a cracker.
A rustling sound alerted Aarvord. He turned and glanced down to see Copernicus wriggle in under the door crack.
“Don’t you ever knock?” said Aarvord imperiously.
“Can’t knock,” said Copernicus. “No hands.”
“Hrumph!” said Aarvord. A knock came at the door and he flung it open to reveal Tully. Aarvord wrapped him in a moist embrace.
“Tully! Recovered!” shouted Aarvord. “Did you get my gift? You looked so dreadful. Your scales were dull. And you were all pale and thin. Not fat, like Aarvord here.” Aarvord patted his substantial tummy.
“It was a nice rock,” said Tully, trying to put some enthusiasm in his voice. Clearly, Aarvord had forgotten all about the fight.
“Shiny,” said Aarvord. “Looked for hours. Found it in the Wildethorne Stream.”
“Ah,” said Tully. “Really thoughtful.”
“Hungry?” said Aarvord. “Dull Bee cracker for you?”
“No, thanks,” said Tully, who found the stingers of Dull Bees to be rough, tasteless, and difficult to swallow. Aarvord’s room was stiflingly hot; Fantastic Grouts adored the heat, and liked to drip with sweat. Tully found himself weak and faint again, but leaning on either of his friends for support (one fat and moist, the other a snake) was unlikely. Physical affection was rare between the three of them. So he slumped onto one of Aarvord’s low chairs and bent over, head in hands.
“Hoy there!” shouted Aarvord. “Still sick, eh?”
“A bit,” whispered Tully.
“But we have to find out where Tully’s Wents have gone,” said Copernicus. “That’s what I’m wondering, anyway.”
“Wents? Gone? What’s this?” said Aarvord very loudly.
“It’s true,” said Tully.
“Let us see if any messengers are about,” said Aarvord. He padded over to the window. The air was thick with dumb insects, skittering and wheeling against the sun. But then a cluster of Ells flew by and Aarvord reached out and beckoned them with his great paw. Most of the group flew on, but one young and breathless Ell lit on the windowsill.
“We have heard something of missing Wents,” said Aarvord. “Do you know anything about this?”
The Ell, her iridescent blue wings fluttering, looked behind her as if she expected something to jump up and snatch her clean out of the air. Aarvord held out a fat paw and she jumped atop it.
“I am Hoa,” she said. “The Ells received a message. The Wents were in great danger. We were to bring them to the Mayhew Crossing at the center of Circadie so that they could mass against this threat. We all spread the message.” Her voice was a thin tremor.
“The Wents gathered. There were many there—all that the city contains and more, from the surrounding countryside. There was much excitement and confusion. But then a terrible shadow came—and they were eaten up as if they had never been. I saw other Ells crushed in the crowd—crushed, destroyed, do you hear me? Now it is coming for all of us.”
She looked about nervously.
“I must fly,” she s
aid. “Hide yourselves, or the shadow will come for you as well.” Before they could ask her for more details she was out the window, winging northward to catch up with the glistening blue cloud of fellow Ells.
“This is disturbing,” hissed Copernicus. He did not think much of Ells, as they were flighty and anxious and the stupidest member of the Trilings, in his estimation. They were pollen carriers, messengers, nothing more. However, this Ell had told a troublesome story.
“I don’t like it either,” said Tully nervously. “What does she mean?” The thought of the shadow made him feel sick and weak. There were no enemies that he knew of who could take on such a form.
“We ought to go see Hen-Hen and find out what this is all about,” said Aarvord. “He lives at the Mayhew Crossing and he will know what has sent the messengers into such fear.”
Copernicus flicked his tail. “We’d best travel beneath,” he hissed. “If this ssshadow is abroad we don’t want it to snatch us up.”
“Just my thing,” said Aarvord, who was fond of the grit and slime in the city’s vast Underbelly. “And faster, too.”
“But the Bonedogs?” asked Tully in a shaky voice. “Haven’t there been Bonedogs seen down there?” He’d heard nightmarish stories repeated by other young Efts and Ells, with nothing more on their mind than a good scare. Pilau, an Ell his age, was one for telling horrid stories; she liked to get a good reaction.
And Kellen told the worst stories of all.
“Nonsense!” shouted Aarvord. “It’s a fine place, the Underbelly. All damp and dark and warm. I’ve heard a few things in the darkness, moving about, but I never saw anything. Probably not Bonedogs at all! Probably harmless little Spider-Bats.”
Tully wasn’t sure that this made him feel any better at all. In fact, he felt decidedly worse.
Chapter
Two: The Underbelly
Like all Fantastic Grouts, Aarvord came equipped from birth with various clever tools. By clenching his paw, he could produce a respectable serrated edge that functioned as a saw. And by pointing one long, gnarled toe, he could fasten any screw or bolt. Now, as they moved through a pitch-black tunnel of the Underbelly, Aarvord lit the way with a dangling lobe of phosphorescence that protruded from his forehead. The light was green and sickly, and Tully could barely make out the quick form of Copernicus as he whipped his way along the stone passageway. But it was better than the inky darkness. He knew that Aarvord could produce a brighter light, but that took a lot of his strength and energy.
The Hundred: Fall of the Wents Page 2