The Hundred: Fall of the Wents

by Prescott, Jennifer

  “Where does this lead?” Tully spoke directly to the Shrike this time. Hatch looked impatient.

  “It leads out. That’s all you need to know,” he said. His voice was vaguely shrill, like all Shrikes, but the kindness in it made it more tolerable. “It’s important that you get away from here.”

  “But wait.” Tully stopped in the passageway. “What about Elutia? I can’t leave her here.”

  “Elutia? Who is this?” asked Hatch.

  “A young Went that your people have imprisoned. She spoke to me. She trusts me to help.”

  Hatch looked unimpressed. “I cannot count all the Wents that have come and gone through these doors. What does one more matter?”

  “What do I matter?” whispered Tully. Hatch shrugged, as if he couldn’t be bothered to answer. This was a reluctant savior indeed. Still, Tully had little choice but to accept his help.

  “This Went,” Tully said. “She seems special. Because she is young, they’ve decided that she has the power to do whatever they want.”

  “Ah, one of the young ones.” Hatch looked more interested. “She is one of the experiments. Which one do you mean? There are so many.”

  “I don’t care if she’s an experiment or anything!” Tully whispered fiercely. “I met her and she’s here and I think we should help her. She’s trapped in the big room with the cloth-covered rock.”

  Hatch sighed and squatted to a resting position on the floor of the tunnel.

  “So be it,” he said. “But we must wait until the Shrike-feeding, when they will all be distracted.”

  “What do Shrikes eat?” said Copernicus, disgusted. “Misery? Unhappiness?” He did not seem to recognize that he was being insulting to his new friend, if Hatch could indeed be called friend. Copernicus was grateful for Hatch’s help, but a long-standing fear of the Shrikes colored his every thought. If the rumors were true the Shrikes ate dreams; Copernicus shuddered at the thought.

  Hatch ruffled his feathers and fur and did not answer.

  They waited. Copernicus described what he had seen in the auditorium, and Tully cheered to the story of Aarvord’s escape and bravery. Perhaps they could find him. Perhaps their friendship could be salvaged. Nizz buzzed excitedly in his ear at the end of the tale, but still did not emerge and reveal his presence.

  The light in the tunnel did not change. But they could sense that time was passing—albeit very slowly. Hatch did not seem hungry despite the fact that he must be missing his feed. Eventually, he rose up from his cramped crouch and said: “It is time.”

  They went back through the small tunnel and out into the larger hallway. Hatch led them unerringly to the domed room where Elutia was held captive. He cautioned them to remain in the shadows while he approached two Shrike guards who were not at the feeding. Whatever Hatch said was effective, for the two guards scurried away. The room was now empty, except for a dim form slumped over in the center. As they stepped forward Hatch’s claws made clicking noises on the stone floor and Elutia raised her head.

  Tully heard her thoughts immediately. “You’ve come back,” she thought wonderingly. “But why?”

  “We’re going and we’re taking you with us,” thought Tully, and she seemed to sink deeper into despair. This time she spoke aloud, for the benefit of all.

  “I cannot walk,” she said, holding her hands out helplessly and looking down at the pot of earth in which she had been planted. It was at this moment that Nizz buzzed quickly and quietly out of Tully’s ear and vanished. Tully looked up to see where he had gone but the bee was nowhere to be seen.

  Tully climbed up to where Elutia was and started to dig at the soil with his small hands, much better suited to parting water than earth. Copernicus joined in and loosened the soil with his body, and even Hatch pawed at the soil with his feathered paws. All the while Elutia shook her head and her thoughts to Tully came fast and furious.

  “You will have to carry me.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I will slow you down.”

  “We’re not leaving you.”

  “I have never learned to walk.”

  “How can that be? You walked once. You will walk again.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  The argument was as loud as an oral one, but much more potent because her thoughts were so fierce and fervent inside his mind. They almost felt like his own thoughts. Rather than become swayed or muddled, he kept digging with a single-minded purpose. Finally, they worked her legs and her small white feet free. Her feet, Tully saw, had grown small tendrils and roots that hooked into the dirt. He pulled these loose as gently as he could, and he saw her wince with pain. Her expression was ashamed.

  Finally she was free, but her limbs were weak and the torn roots on her feet were too tender and bare for walking on the hard stone floor. Fortunately, she was small. But so was Tully. He tried and could not lift her. Hatch was much too squat to be of much use. Copernicus thrashed around indignantly, cursing his limbless state. “What good isss I!” he hissed.

  “What can we do?” said Tully hopelessly. And then, to Elutia: “You must try. It will hurt, but you have to walk.”

  Elutia nodded her head and took a slow step toward the edge of the platform. Tully clutched one of her arms, Hatch the other. Slowly, painstakingly, they made it down the steps. In several more minutes, they had made it a few feet through the room. Elutia was weeping silently with the pain of it, and she had stopped sending any thoughts to Tully.

  “We will never make it at this pace,” said Hatch gruffly. “The feeding will be over soon, and they will be back. She does not have the memory of walking in her. She is a crippled thing.”

  Tully did not regret his choice to come back for Elutia. It was the right thing to do. Not only was Elutia a free and gentle Went who had been cruelly treated and wrongfully imprisoned, but she might also be important to the Shrikes’ hateful cause. But now he had probably ruined their chances for escape. When the Shrikes came back, he would be asked to make Elutia sing again. That awful chunk of rock they had brought out, whatever it was, made him quail inside with despair.

  “Take another step!” he urged her inside his mind. Every step would make a difference. It might save them.

  Suddenly there was a slight buzzing in Tully’s ear; Nizz was back. “Hello, friend,” said Tully. “I wish there was something you could do.”

  “But I have!” buzzed Nizz indignantly. Tully looked up to see a familiar form come lurching out of the gloomy corridor. It had been many days since Tully had seen Aarvord. In that time he seemed to have grown taller yet more stooped at the same time. He did not look like the youthful friend Tully remembered. He stepped forward and Tully saw that his eyes were the same as before, except they were hooded with shame—an almost ferocious shame, as if Aarvord would never discuss what had transpired, and would rather die than do so.

  The bee had clearly briefed Aarvord, and Aarvord did what was expected: He hoisted the surprised Elutia over his broad shoulders and turned to the others for direction. Hatch inclined his head gently to commend Aarvord for his victory in the fight.

  “We have to move quickly,” said Hatch. “We have wasted enough time.”

  As they exited the room, with Hatch in the lead, they could hear the buzzing and clacking of fattened Shrikes returning from the feed. It seemed to come from all directions so that Tully wasn’t sure which way was safe.

  “Quickly!” said Hatch. “You must all—each one of you—think very strongly of something good—a memory. Something that no one can touch. Your safety depends on it.”

  They all dithered in a panic. What was he saying?

  “Now!” said Hatch. “Do not hesitate. Think of that good thing now and do not stop thinking of it until they pass. Do not move. Do not even breathe. You must trust me.”

  So they all stood very still where they were, and each one of them thought of something safe and good. For Tully, it was a small moment when he had turned five dream days. He had bee
n crouching by the Windermere, looking down into the water, and Hindrance had touched his ear with a water-flower. It had tickled and Tully had jumped up with a cry of surprise and pleasure.

  Copernicus thought of a warm day in the forest when he had hidden from his parents, brothers, and sisters, and had flicked shapes in the dirt with his tail until the afternoon shadows began to grow.

  Aarvord thought of Justice and a moment in his childhood when she had held him on her lap and told him a little story from her own imaginings. It had been about two magical Ells who lived in a sparkling kingdom, and who played mischievous tricks on each other.

  Nizz struggled for a moment with his memory, and almost fell into a thought of Ozz, and how they had been companions. But no. He could not, would not, think of Ozz right now. Instead, he thought of the little boy, Bax, whom he had met inside his sojourn in the box. He thought of Bax fiercely, and of how the boy had innocently tossed things into the river. He was a sweet little thing. Would Nizz ever see him again? He tried to stay happy, and to think happy thoughts. Dull Bees, being generally solemn, did not do this well.

  Elutia, worried and in pain, could not think of anything. Her memories were short and brutal. So she reached into Tully’s mind and shared his memory with him. She could feel the tickle of the water-flower and hear the splash of water from the lake, lapping at the shore. Tully, adrift in his memory, looked up and was surprised to see her there. She was crouching there next to him, as if she had always been part of this particular memory. How unusual this Went was and what powers she had! She looked up, and they smiled at each other. Tully wondered if he would ever have that memory again without seeing her there, too. Then he grew flustered, knowing that she could hear every one of his thoughts.

  Hatch alone did not try to raise a good memory, for he didn’t need to. The Shrikes would pass around him anyway, for he was just another of their kind. Either way, he had very little good in his life to ponder. He had been raised from an egg in a breeding pod, where Shrikes bred for service were born. He had no parents; the stuff that made him what he was had been put together by a bored orderly, moving by rote down a long row of egg-pods. He knew this because this was the way all Shrikes were made. As a young Shrike he had not played and run—except for the strengthening exercises that he took with his peers in the Shrike-pens. He had been told what to do, where to go, and what to think.

  Were it not for his meeting an Eft prisoner the Shrikes had kept in the stronghold many years ago, Hatch would likely have been as brainwashed and mindless as the rest of them. But Hatch had been the one selected to bring the prisoner his meals. He thought about how pleasant, and yet jarring, these interludes had been, and how the prisoner’s words had helped him retain something that the prisoner had called “individuality.” He had looked forward to meal times when he could have long discussions with this prisoner and learn about the bright and sunny world far from the northern lands. Then the prisoner, named Skakell, had escaped. He had not said goodbye. He had disappeared. Hatch had been glad for this.

  So, they all stood still, thinking their hopeful and good thoughts. Almost as if they were in an invisible, protected bubble, while the hordes of Shrikes clattering back into the domed room passed around them like water around a rock. The Shrikes did not seem to notice them at all. But they did notice that Elutia was missing; a cry of alarm was raised. A team of Shrikes, ten strong, clattered past them again with great shrieking cries of outrage. But, again, no one even glanced at them.

  The companions huddled close for many minutes, waiting for a word from Hatch. Elutia and Tully, still bent over the Windermere in Tully’s memory, dared not look up from the ruffled surface of the water. Then something extraordinary happened. Elutia lifted her head and looked directly at Hindrance. “You!” she said. “Here?” And Hindrance, upon seeing Elutia, burst into joyful tears. “Then you are alive and safe!” said Hindrance, and leaned down to embrace the young Went.

  So shocked was he upon seeing this that Tully lost all concentration. The scene fled from his mind. Elutia was ousted from his memory and Hindrance scattered like the petals of the water-flower. The Windermere vanished and he was once again back in the Shrike stronghold. He looked up, knowing that he was moments away from being spotted by the first Shrike to turn its head in his direction.

  When Tully broke the circle of protection, the others lost their focus as well. Hatch, dismayed, fixed them all with fierce looks, begging silence and concentration once more. They all ducked their heads down. Tully would have struggled to regain his beloved memory, but Elutia spoke within his mind once more.

  “Just a little while longer,” she said, bringing him back to the shores of the Windermere. In the memory—although it seemed like a dream now, for it had never happened with her there—she plucked a water-flower from the edge of the lake and handed it to him. The flower was a pale white blossom, ringed by dark green leaves. It was very like the blossoms that surrounded her own face, but larger.

  “I can’t…I don’t understand,” said Tully in the dream-memory.

  “Sssh,” said Elutia. “You don’t have to understand anything right now. I can explain it all later.” Tully stared at her and at the small flower buds surrounding her face. Her face was very pretty. But he winced again at the realization that she knew his thoughts just as quickly as he did.

  Elutia could sense that Tully was having difficulty remaining safe within the memory. So, with an effort of concentration and will, she caused the circlet of flower buds around her face to open, slowly, so that her face was lined with white blossoms like the water-flowers dotting the shore. She laughed exuberantly and Hindrance clapped her hands and laughed as well.

  “Oh, very good!” said Hindrance. “You are what I expected!”

  Tully wondered how much about Wents he had never known. Who was this Elutia? Were her gifts greater than those of other Wents? Was this why the Shrikes had wanted her?

  Hindrance and Elutia exchanged a look, and Tully wondered if somehow—in a strange confluence of dreams and memory and time—Hindrance could also read his mind, during that time so long ago and yet so present. Or perhaps she had always been able to read his mind and he simply never knew.

  Tully had little time to puzzle over these conundrums, for a sharp tap from Hatch on his shoulder woke him from the reverie. The others were all alert now. The danger had passed. The room was empty of Shrikes and the small clutch of companions was alone.

  “Where did they go?” asked Copernicus, whisking out from the group to look around, his small head alert.

  “The whole pod has been dispatched to look for their charge. Her.” Hatch gestured at Elutia. “She was more important than we realized.” Here he looked at Tully with something akin to respect. “Little did they know she was right here under their snouts.” And Hatch laughed with a grating haw-haw-haw sound that bit at Tully’s nerves. This Shrike might be their friend, but he was a rough-edged one.

  “We must move with great speed now,” Hatch said. “They can be fooled once. But I cannot assure you that it will work a second time. Especially,” he added, with a look at Tully, “when some of us lack the mental control to sustain the trick.”

  Tully began to fume. “So where do we go?” he asked sharply.

  “I know a way out from here,” said Hatch. “But first we must get something against the cold. The temperature has dropped.”

  He opened a small storage compartment in the wall of the domed room and handed each of them a small, tapered object. He also took a Kepper-Root robe from a rack and handed it to Aarvord, who draped it clumsily over Elutia’s shoulders. Hatch himself would not need a robe. His feathers and fur were built for the cold.

  “Not exactly a blazing firebrand, is it?” groused Aarvord. Tully smiled to hear his friend sound like his old self again.

  “They are heat-candles,” snapped Hatch. “Hold them close, even under those robes you wear, and the heat will grow and keep you warm.” He looked down at Copernicus. “I
cannot give you one, because clearly—haw-haw-haw—you cannot hold it! You will have to stay close to one of the others.”

  Copernicus shivered at the thought of going back out there. But he had no choice. He raced up Tully’s leg and inside the vest again, tucking down tightly near Tully’s armpit. The Eft squirmed with the tickle of it. Between this, and the bee in his ear, he was constantly bothered! All he needed was Fangor in his hair to be complete. Of course, he wished that they could find and save the Sand Louse, too. But Fangor would have to make his own way out.

  “Wait,” said Tully, before they began to move. “What of Justice, your sister? We cannot leave her here. We must save her as well.”

  Hatch gave an impatient sigh. But before he could protest about saving this creature and saving that creature, Aarvord cut him off.

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Aarvord shortly. “Justice is gone. She is no more.”

  Tully and Copernicus were shocked, but Aarvord’s expression made it clear that he did not wish to discuss the matter and, indeed, they had no time to dwell on it. Silently, they followed Hatch to the opposite end of the domed room, and down a narrow staircase that twisted and turned abruptly. Aarvord carried Elutia all the way; she bore her fate with grim humor, although Aarvord clumsily knocked her against the wall several times.

  Tully still avoided meeting her eye. She had seen too much into his mind and he was embarrassed. A couple of his thoughts had rested too long on her pretty features. He studiously tried to think of anything but her, and wondered if she would ever creep into his mind unannounced. No, he decided, that would be rude, and Elutia was a dignified Went like all of her kind. There! He had gone and thought of her again. He should have been thinking of poor Justice, his friend’s sister. What had become of her?

  The stairs led to a thick door, which Hatch opened with a key that hung around his neck. Clearly, their savior was conveniently high in the ranking of Shrikes to earn the right to carry the key to their exit. They entered a narrow, dark tunnel, and the cold struck at them instantly. Hatch pattered along ahead of the group, urging them to move faster.