The Hundred: Fall of the Wents

by Prescott, Jennifer

  “The Eft has passed twelve dream days?” asked the Shrike, once again examining Tully with beady, coal-black eyes.

  “He has,” said Hen-Hen. “He is ready. He is the one with the power we seek.”

  “What power?” wondered Tully to himself. The sun shone brightly on his exposed scales; he could see the Council members blinking. The glittering skin of Efts was a bit disconcerting for those who were not used to it. He loosened the belt of his Kepper-Root robe a bit so that more of his scales shone through, and was pleased to see their eyes squint with annoyance.

  The Scratchling clenched her clawed feet and opened her beak: “Proof,” she cackled.

  Tully suddenly felt lightheaded, as if the weight of ten strong minds were pressing in upon his consciousness. He could hear their thoughts—teeming, clattering voices; dark whispers; sibilant howls. He clutched at his head and stumbled backwards. The din rose until he feared he would go mad. It buzzed and whined, like the bees had done during their journey. His head ached horribly, and his antennae tingled and burned. He had never been near a Shrike, but all the dark stories he had heard about them and how they tortured one’s dreams came into his mind. Only this had to be much worse. If only they would be silent, so he could think! He tried to imagine something, anything that could withstand the maelstrom of sound and hatred.

  Suddenly, there was Hindrance—she stood as a barrier between him and the voices, her eyes locked with his own. “Trust,” said Hindrance. “Our love for each other will keep you safe.” She opened her mouth as if to sing. But instead of sound emerging from her mouth, she seemed to swallow all the dark, hissing noises. She closed her mouth and the noise abruptly stopped. Tully opened his eyes. Without realizing it, he had fallen to the ground, and now looked up at the cloudless sky. The metal sphere around his neck rested against his heart, under his clothes. The Scratchling peered down at him, blotting out the sun.

  “There is something there,” said the Scratchling. “But the Hundred will be much stronger.” She seemed almost pleased to say it.

  Aarvord reached down and helped Tully to his feet. The Eft nearly tripped on the long hem of his robe. “We’re not afraid,” Aarvord said. “If we need to fight them, that’s what we’ll do.” Tully was not so sure. He was afraid, despite the calming vision he had had of Hindrance.

  “The Hundred will eat your thoughts like grain,” said the Scratchling, ignoring Aarvord and addressing Tully alone. “Wouldn’t you rather go home, little child?”

  Tully felt weak, but he was no longer completely intimidated by the Council. Aarvord still clasped his hand. “Not without Hindrance,” he said slowly. “And the others. Without them, there’s nothing for me at home.”

  “Very interesting,” the Shrike shrilled. “He does care for his Wents.” There was a nasty tone in the Shrike’s voice, as if it found this amusing, or even weak, rather than touching.

  “He must be our choice, for we have no other,” shrieked the Scratchling. “Speak the words.”

  “Enough,” said the fish-thing. “The plain of Bellerol will close after the words have been spoken. We must act. There is no time to waste.” As she spoke, the grass around them seemed to ripple and sway, as if heat were rising from it. The circle of Council members drew closer together, trapping Tully and his companions at the center.

  “They’re going to eat us,” whispered Fangor in his ear.

  “Nonsense,” said Tully, but the Council did look hungry.

  “The prophecy is clear,” said the fish-thing. “Now you must listen carefully, for it will not be repeated.”

  Tully glanced down at his shoulder to lock eyes with Copernicus, who had an amazing memory. The snake nodded his head slightly. The fish-thing closed her eyes and began to speak:

  When the rock is split asunder

  The Hundred will awake

  Now they wish to plunder

  And now they wish to take.

  They have waited in the dark

  For centuries, and more

  For the song that is the spark

  For the flesh that they once wore.

  It is love that hinders death

  It is love that hinders fire

  There is one who has the breath

  There is one with the desire.

  Two bells must ring, one low, one high

  Within the ocean’s deeps

  Two bells will make the oceans rain

  And pull the Hundred down to sleep.

  At her final word, the grass beneath their feet began to undulate more fiercely, and the sky above grew wild and red. Tully’s scales glowed with the dark redness and he held tightly to Aarvord’s paw. The words of the prophecy made little sense to him, and he had many questions. But there was no time.

  “The plain of Bellerol is closing,” snapped the Shrike. “You must leave. Now.”

  “But how?” shouted Aarvord, over the din of the rising wind.

  Hen-Hen gestured to the East, where they saw a dark cloud of bees racing to meet them. The ground surged and Tully stumbled. The wind whipped his long hair across his face like knives. He wondered how the bees’ wings could stand the tumult but, as before, the bees assembled into the tubelike craft and hovered in the air before the group.

  Just before they entered the craft, Tully felt a great hand on his arm, hot and dry and forceful. It reached up right under the sleeve of his robe and caught him by the wrist. Hen-Hen had not touched him before, and Tully was surprised to feel the fierce heat emanating from the Frothsome Grout’s flesh.

  “You possess great power,” said the Grout. “The Council has tested you, but you have shown that you are strong. Do not hesitate to use your power when the time comes.” His eyes were bright with a curious, almost cruel yearning. Tully found his stare unsettling. He nodded uncertainly and Hen-Hen released his arm and nodded. They all scrambled into the craft, this time with no hesitation.

  But Hen-Hen did not. He stood silently as the great, green plain of Bellerol began sinking into the ground, as if sucked down by a giant whirlpool. The Council came together in a tight knot, and all touched one another, paw to claw to beak to fin. They bent their heads together to the center, and then vanished completely. It seemed they had disappeared just in time to save themselves. As the field was sucked inward and downward, the land that had once bordered it was pulled in toward the center of the whirlpool. With a great rending and tearing noise, the plain of grass drew closer to the focal point at the center, and then came to a halt. Bellerol had simply been swallowed down into the center of the earth. The wind died. Just as suddenly, the bees closed the gap at the end of the craft and everything went dark within.

  “Where are we going?” whispered Fangor nervously. Tully had no answer.

  “What happened to Hen-Hen? Why did he stay with them?” Tully asked Aarvord, but the Grout shook his big head, troubled.

  “I have heard of vanishings,” said Copernicus, “but I do not believe in them. I think it is a trick of the eye.”

  “What are we supposed to do now?” asked Tully, to no one in particular. The angry hum of the bees was exhausting, and he was afraid now that Hen-Hen had abandoned them. While he had never been sure whether or not to trust the Frothsome Grout, he had at least commanded the bees that now bore them somewhere…unknown. With the words of the prophecy still murmuring in his head, Tully lay down on the shimmering bed of bees and slept. He did not dream.

  When he woke they were all still inside the bee-craft but now the air seemed much colder. Copernicus, who was accustomed to warming himself in the sun, looked miserable and shrunken. He was tucked inside Tully’s vest, with only his head poking out. Tully belted the Kepper-Root robe tightly around his waist to keep the snake warm.

  “I hate this,” said Copernicus. “I wish it would end. It has been hours. How have you been able to sleep?”

  Aarvord looked equally miserable, and Tully could feel Fangor shivering inside his ear. It made him want to slap at his head and drive the louse out, but
he pitied him and his dreadful fear of the bees. So he endured the vibratory sensation as best he could. Meanwhile, he saw that the bees themselves were covered with a thin sheen of ice. Each time their wings flickered, the ice crystals flicked off, but it could not be long before the bees were frozen entirely. They flew on doggedly and Tully marveled at the silent power that Hen-Hen must have had over the creatures to drive them this far.

  “Enough!” shouted Aarvord. “Set us down, wherever this place is!” The bees paid him no attention. Aarvord slumped into silence again. It saddened Tully to see his normally feisty friend brought so low. Grouts, which were creatures of hot and fetid swamps, did not like cold.

  “It will be all right,” Tully said to his friends. He felt that the Council had called upon him to be a leader, and that is what he would be, if necessary. But he did not feel terribly confident.

  After some hours, the craft finally slowed and stopped. It dispersed almost immediately—the bees that had been beneath them buzzed free, and the companions all fell several inches onto a field of soft, white snow. Many of the bees flew skyward and pell-mell toward the south, as if desperate to leave this cold realm. But Tully noticed with horror that a great number of the bees were too weak to leave. They scurried across the snow, ice-encrusted wings beating at the air uselessly. Then they began to die. One by one, their legs curled beneath them and they simply froze or fell over in the snow.

  “No, no,” said Tully, trying to gather a few of them in his hands. The bees had been their friends, he realized. His dream had been misguided. The bees had made the greatest sacrifice. And beyond that, a selfish thought: The bees were possibly their only way home. The ones in his hand seemed to hold out a bit longer, but they eventually died as well. Tully gently placed them down, where the pitiful heat from their bodies melted tiny divots in the snow.

  Tully, Copernicus, and Aarvord looked around. Beyond the bodies of the bees, which peppered the snow in a wide swath that was the vague size and shape of the flying craft that had brought them there, they were the only spots of color and life in an empty, white landscape. They were all very cold now. It had been warmer when the bodies of the bees had protected them. The light was so dull and grey that Tully’s scales gave off no glimmers. Snow had started to gather on his antennae and he shook it off.

  Tully took a moment to give the bees a formal thanks. He started to give the prayer of protection for the dead: “May your ancestors comfort you. May you find a guide through the valley of death, and may you seek those you love along the journey.”

  But Copernicus said: “Boring Bees don’t believe in the journey. They are different from us. You waste your time.”

  Copernicus and other simple Dualings like him had similar beliefs, although their words for these things were different. Most creatures understood that they would undergo a journey upon their death and that their life force would find a new home somewhere in the world. Those who blinded themselves to the journey and ignored the instructions would find themselves lost and homeless…or in the Hells. Tully had always found the Hells impossible to believe in, for nature was large and intricate enough to hold every spirit in its grip and transform it, even those who became confused and lost. Even these bees. Nature was bigger than they were, and it would surely take them.

  Fangor, inside his ear, assented with what Copernicus had said. “They don’t believe in nuffink! They don’t love nuffink!”

  So Tully stopped, afraid of somehow offending the dead souls of the bees, if they had souls at all.

  “We’ve got to move,” said Aarvord. “There’s got to be some kind of shelter. Hen-Hen didn’t send us here just to die.”

  “Tell them that,” said Tully, gesturing toward the corpses of the bees.

  They began to walk—any direction was as good as another. They had not been traveling more than a few minutes when Tully thought he heard a breath of noise in the distance from where they had come. He turned his head, but in the gloom he could see nothing. He strained his eyes to see, and took out his little telescope from the bucket. Indeed, he could see the tail end of some dark shadow, like a stream of smoke, whipping away on the far reaches of the horizon. It was headed east. Without his telescope, he would never have been able to see it at all. Then it was gone, and he wondered if his eyes—and his little sighting tool—were both playing tricks on him.

  “What is it?” asked Aarvord.

  “Nothing,” said Tully. In his heart, he felt a dreadful premonition. It may be that I have seen the Hundred, he thought. But whatever it was, it was moving away from them at a rapid speed. He decided to spare the others the anxiety of something that he may or may not have truly even seen. Much later, he realized that this had been a mistake.

  Chapter Four: The Shrike Stronghold

  As they walked, Copernicus clung to Tully’s chest, inside his vest and well hidden within the robe. Aarvord’s eyes swiveled as they walked, looking for any hint of life or color. And Fangor continued to shiver inside Tully’s ear. Each step became so difficult that Tully thought of abandoning the bucket, but he clung to it stubbornly. It was his only artifact from home—the one thing left that he had of Hindrance.

  Hindrance! It had been only a few days past that she had given him the puzzle box for his dream day. He had not thought of it since he had tucked it away. He stopped in the snow and brought it out now. The polished wood seemed like a warm light in this grey, blank world. He turned it over and over, searching for a key. He had spent many happy hours solving Hindrance’s toys, as he had the telescope, the eyeglasses, and others she had given him. He remembered boxes that had revealed small metal flowers, poems, and more. No doubt this box had such a small treat within it. It would be a comfort, but would do them little good. He did not have the luxury of time to sit down and trick out its secrets.

  Copernicus felt like an icy coil of metal within Tully’s vest, unmoving, and he suddenly feared the snake would not make it much longer. None of it made sense. Yet, the Council had agreed he had a task to do, and he had been sent here to do it. He shook the box again and pressed at each side with his fingers as they walked.

  “I see nothing,” said Aarvord. “This is an abandoned world.”

  “It can’t be,” said Tully. He wondered why Hen-Hen had not given them any food, or even some hint of what they needed to do and what they would encounter. They had been given the warm robes that now prevented them from certain death, so Hen-Hen must have known that they were traveling northward. Maybe Hen-Hen, like the rest of the Council, was evil, and meant for them to disappear where no one could find them.

  “Why do you think the Council was made up of our enemies?” he asked Aarvord. “What does it mean? Did they send us here to dispose of us?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Aarvord. “They might as well have killed us where we stood and saved themselves the trouble. I think we were made to think that they were enemies. It was what we saw, but not necessarily what was real.”

  “That Scratchling looked real enough,” said Copernicus in a husky voice, and Tully was glad to hear that the snake had some life left in him.

  Tully felt a slight tickle across his cheek, and realized that Fangor had finally abandoned his ear. The Louse did a quick dance to stave off the cold and Tully longed to slap his own cheek.

  “Bees all gone?” squeaked Fangor. “Dead, yes?”

  “They died,” said Tully shortly. “Some made it and flew off.”

  “Grand. I’ll tuck in here, then. Your ear is too hot,” said Fangor. “I’ve been fairly roasted since we left. It’s horrible.” Fangor gave a quick jump and landed inside the bucket, where he ducked under the edge of the little wooden telescope and vanished.

  “So sorry,” said Tully, icily. Secretly, he was glad to have Fangor with them as it made their company one larger. Such as it was.

  Suddenly Fangor gave a loud shriek (which sounded as loud as a Louse’s scream can sound, which isn’t much) and emerged from the bucket. He hopped to the edge
and from there to Tully’s shoulder.

  “A bee! A bee!” he wailed. “Coming to eat me!”

  “What bee?” said Aarvord. “The corpse of a bee, more likely!”

  Tully set the bucket down and Aarvord reached in and rolled the telescope over. There it was. It did not look very fearsome. Cowering and shivering, a small Dull Bee was hiding in the very bottom of the bucket. It was barely alive. Its legs moved feebly. How had it gotten here, among its bigger and more intelligent cousins?

  As far as Tully knew, Dull Bees could not talk. They were assumed to be quite stupid. Aarvord ate them for breakfast, even. Still, he bent down to this one and said: “Friend, are you all right?”

  The bee did not reply, but merely waved its antennae weakly. It was clearly near dead with cold, and Tully felt that saving its life was crucial. It alone knew where they were, and where its more clever cousins had flown them. There was even a chance it could communicate with its own hive at this distance. Without thinking much about it, he scooped up the creature and placed it gently inside his ear—the one place that Fangor had complained of the heat. It crawled in gratefully and lay still. It was much more uncomfortable than having Fangor in there, as the bee’s body was furry. A Boring Bee would not have fit at all, but a Dull Bee was just the right size. It almost completely blocked the hearing in that ear, but if it would save the bee’s life then so be it.

  “Gads!” screamed Fangor. “You would help one of ‘em?”

  “They took us here,” said Aarvord, shortly. “It’s the least he can do.”

  “Took us…here? What is here?” said Fangor. “This place is the end. Of life.”

  Fangor now shivered on Tully’s shoulder, aware that he had abandoned his warm space. But he was fearful of the big wooden bucket. He started to creep around the back of Tully’s neck toward the opposite ear, but Tully reached back and cupped him under his palm.

  “Don’t even think about it,” said the Eft. “I have to hear somehow.”