The Hundred: Fall of the Wents

by Prescott, Jennifer

  Before Tully could react, Pomplemys had stumbled into him, perhaps intentionally, and the glasses tumbled from his face to the ground. Aarvord stood up sharply, all the flower-madness gone from his face.

  “Oh, I am an old fellow!” moaned the Eft. “I fear I have damaged your spectacles. Here, let me see them. I can repair almost anything.” Pomplemys snatched the glasses up from the ground and made as if to put them on his own face, but they were indeed damaged: The lenses had popped out of the frames and were missing in the grass.

  Tully bent down to hunt for them, and glanced up briefly. The Wents were sitting there again, placidly gazing at him. He could now see stupidity in their faces. Why couldn’t Elutia recognize it?

  Tully found one of the lenses in the long grass and tucked it into his vest before Pomplemys could notice. The old Eft was still scrabbling in the grass, clearly enraged and frustrated. The glasses had no doubt been a great prize to him, for he sensed that they were filled with magic. But could he know what Tully had seen?

  “No matter,” said Tully, “although now I will not be able to read. I was hoping to get a better glimpse of that flower, there.” He gestured toward a tiny violet growing at the feet of one of the so-called Wents. His heart beat wildly. The Eft must guess that he was lying. Why wouldn’t Elutia try to enter his mind? He could tell her everything! How could she believe that these dumb flowers were her cousins?

  “No matter indeed,” said Pomplemys sourly, giving up the hunt—although his gaze strafed the grass constantly. Tully was certain that he would be out after dark to hunt for the other lens. But that gave him a hopeful thought. While Pomplemys was out in the night, he and Aarvord could fix the box. He and Aarvord could rescue Copernicus. At the same time, he did not want Pomplemys to find that lens. He could do damage with it. He was not to be trusted. Until Tully had discerned the old Eft’s true purpose, he must be very wary of this creature who happened to be one of his own kind.

  Aarvord broke the awkward moment.

  “I’ll make you a new pair, my friend,” he boomed heartily. “All I need is a sheet of glass and my right paw here.” He held aloft the limb. “I’ll temper it and shape it and—aha! A new pair of reading glasses, within an instant.”

  “Clever,” said Pomplemys. “Perhaps you could make me a pair as well?”

  “No trouble, no trouble at all,” said Aarvord.

  The Wents all swayed and murmured, and Elutia said: “They want to go in now. They say it’s getting dark soon.”

  “Of course, dark!” thought Tully. Those false Wents would close up like a box when darkness came, and their true nature would be revealed. True Wents had evolved so that they could suffer both dark and light and never change. He looked again at their round, pale faces and wondered how he had ever believed them to be real.

  “We can look for the lenses in the morning’s light,” said Pomplemys. “It seems a shame to waste them, yes? For now we will go back inside and enjoy more fine conversation.”

  The Wents rose as one, despite the fact that Tully now knew them to be planted in pots (just as Elutia had been when he met her, he remembered with a shudder), and toddled toward the open diamond-shaped doorway. Pomplemys followed, clearly guiding and coaxing his creations along. Elutia came to Tully’s side quickly and caught him by the arm.

  “Oh, that was the most lovely hour of my life!” she said loudly. At the exact same time, she sent a hurried message into his mind: “I do not know if he can sense my thoughts. I must be careful. But they were kind, so very kind. I believed in them and I hoped—.” Her voice broke off.

  “I understand,” Tully thought back to her, and was relieved to know that she had not abandoned him. For now, a true discussion would have to wait.

  *

  After they had gone inside the three Wents mysteriously disappeared down a long hallway, Pomplemys chiding them along with kind words and solicitations for their health. After they were tucked away, he returned quickly to the trio waiting for him. They continued down the main corridor that led to the room with the warm fire.

  “Are they very tired?” asked Tully. “They must be quite old.” He realized that by taunting Pomplemys, he was playing with fire. But he could not help himself. All the subterfuge was beginning to annoy him. They were on a mission, and coming here now seemed both promising and maddening. Tully had thought upon his vision of Hindrance and knew that she was in danger and despair, but there was nothing here that brought him closer to her. Clearly, Pomplemys knew a great many things and could be an asset to their cause. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell where his allegiance lay or what his intentions were.

  “Ah yes, terribly old, terribly old!” chuckled Pomplemys, unperturbed by Tully’s tone. “It is well that Wents live to such an age or Pomplemys would be a lonely Eft indeed.”

  Tully was about to ask another careless question, but Aarvord, to his surprise, beat him to it.

  “So, my friend,” said Aarvord. “Where have all the rest of the Wents gone?”

  Pomplemys stopped in his tracks. He turned around and faced them.

  “This question,” he said, “must be asked in its proper time. To know where the Wents have gone, and what they are intended to do, requires knowing the history of the enemy. You do know that, yes?”

  “Which enemy?” said Tully carefully. “The Shrikes?”

  “Pfah, Shrikes!” said Pomplemys, clearly disgusted. “Their history is a weak and worthless one. They are evolutionary oddities, useful for their blind obedience. Are you hungry again?”

  Tully and Aarvord were, but neither one was in a hurry to sample Pomplemys’ food again; it had made them too stuporous and sleepy. They shook their heads. Elutia had received all her nourishment from the sun, so she was uninterested as well.

  “Perhaps you would care to sample some of my homemade tea?” Pomplemys offered, as he led them back into the large living room where the fire burned. A stooped UnderGrout, a dullard like those who had served Hen-Hen, had just finished tending the fire and sloped out of the room without a word. Tully wondered if the creature was a willing servant or a slave. The latter would not surprise him given Pomplemys’ superior attitude and belief in his own wonderful nature. Hatch had spoken of a companion, however, made in Pomplemys’ own image. Wherever that creature was, he was not showing himself.

  Without waiting for their replies, the Eft went to a large jug that had been placed on a table and poured each of the companions a cup of tea. He handed them around, spilling a bit as he went in his eagerness. Tully took a surreptitious sniff and peeked into the brown and viscous depths of the liquid. Tea, indeed! This was the same intoxicating liquor that Pomplemys had been gurgling down since their arrival and he could smell its sweet and stupefying odor. He noticed a potted plant and thought that he might find a moment to pour the tea into its pot, then wondered if this was another dumb cousin of Pomplemys’ false Wents. It would hardly do to turn the poor thing into a drunkard!

  Elutia gamely sipped a bit of her tea, and Aarvord tossed his back with one hearty gulp despite Tully’s blinks and winces to ward his friend off the stuff. No matter; Fantastic Grouts digested things that Tully would have choked on.

  “Sit! Sit!” coaxed Pomplemys. The three took seats again on the various chairs covered with hide. “The tea is spectacular, eh? My own brew. My Wents help pound the herbs that go into it, but I am the cook. I fancy a bit of cookery now and again.”

  They nodded assent.

  Aarvord asked for another glass and Pomplemys obliged him. This one, too, he took in one quick swallow. Tully was worried. What was Aarvord up to? Surely he could sense that the liquor was a type of poison.

  After Aarvord’s third glass, and a bit more talk about Pomplemys’ vast collection, Tully noticed that his friend was swaying a bit in his chair. Aarvord’s voice became louder and more jovial, and occasionally unnecessary appendages and tools shot out briefly from his forehead or palm, as if he longed to make use of them. At one point, his nos
e became a small but very sharp saw. At another, his hand doubled in size to make a mighty anvil, which he pounded fiercely with the opposite hand, itself having taken the shape of a hammer. Pomplemys, too, was growing louder and more effusive. He and Aarvord seemed to be good old friends. They laughed over the skins and bones that the companions had earlier found ghoulish and repulsive. Tully and Elutia, who had not drunk their tea, cast quick thoughts at one another:

  Elutia thought: He is making a play for the old Eft’s affections. Watch and wait.

  Tully thought: He is a fool and a drunk. Look at him!

  Elutia thought: But look at Pomplemys. He is worse. He can no longer hold his head up.

  Tully thought: He will surely collapse soon. Maybe this is Aarvord’s game.

  So the two of them watched and waited, and laughed appropriately at certain jests, although their discomfort and sense of urgency was growing by the moment.

  Around what must have been the midnight hour, Pomplemys gave a low sigh, bent his head into his chest, and fell into a dead sleep. Aarvord turned instantly to the others, clearly sober.

  “Exhausting!” said the Grout. “I thought he would never give in. The old devil can drink more hellish brew than anyone I have met. Is he really asleep?”

  Elutia focused her attention and tried to enter the old Eft’s thoughts. She sat in silence for a minute or two, and then lifted her head and smiled.

  “He is dreaming of his Sea Change,” she laughed. “I could see him swimming with his trim of Efts as a young one, and he looked a good deal more alert then! He has gone to another place and will not bother us. But take care,” she added. “I could sense another’s thoughts very close by. Not one of the false Wents, for they are sleeping in their stupid flower-state and not able to wake until he commands them in the new light. There is someone else. That someone may be dangerous.”

  “What of the UnderGrout who was tending the fire?” asked Tully.

  “Not likely,” mused Elutia. “That creature looked stupid. There is another mind at work in this place. A very wise one, who knows many of Pomplemys’ own thoughts.” She glanced around her nervously, her humor at peeking into Pomplemys’ dream now gone.

  “We must get to work,” said Aarvord grimly. He went straight to Pomplemys and gently, with the aid of a delicate hook he extended from his right paw, pulled a ring of keys loose and away from the Eft’s neck. They looked them over: there were at least ten keys of varying shapes and sizes.

  “We can’t get them off his neck without waking him,” warned Elutia. “His sleep may be deep but he guards these with his life.”

  “No need,” said Aarvord, speaking as quietly as he could. (In all the years that Tully had known Aarvord, he had never heard him speak in such low and careful tones.) Aarvord bared his left arm and, taking each of the keys in turn, pressed an imprint of it into his flesh. Like moist clay, his arm took the impression with ease, and held it. It took about a minute to copy each key, during which Tully and Elutia nervously watched the entrances to the room, waiting to see if an intruder would appear. It could be anything or anyone, given the strange nature of this place. Both of them realized how pitifully small and weak they really were if facing a staunch enemy—and they shared this thought silently with one another.

  The copying complete, Aarvord strode to the cabinet where Hindrance’s magic box was contained. He was single-minded on the task, almost furious in his intent. Clearly, the loss of Copernicus had pained him more than he admitted. Key by key, he pressed his index finger into the impressions left on his arm, the finger quickly forming a hard and fast shape. He repeatedly inserted the finger into the lock without success until he reached the sixth key.

  Pomplemys stirred in his sleep as Aarvord opened the cabinet and carefully extracted the box, which gave a low chiming sound. “Yes, Snell, come and find me!” said Pomplemys, no doubt calling to his fellow Efts within the dream. He snorted and slipped lower in his chair, a sleepy smile on his face.

  “To fix the box,” said Aarvord urgently, “I think we should leave this room. There is too much danger that he will wake up.”

  “There is more danger if we leave the room,” said Elutia, more nervous than ever. She felt that someone was watching them, from some unknown location within the house. But she could not say who or where.

  “Where can we go?” said Tully. “We don’t know the rooms. We don’t know what is out there.”

  “Down the hallway, there,” suggested Aarvord, gesturing to the hall that they had traversed to enter the garden, earlier that day.

  “You’ll need light,” said Tully. The hallway was pitch-black.

  “I have light!” said Aarvord savagely, and the wand on his forehead blazed brilliantly, casting a spotlight over the sleeping Pomplemys. Aarvord twisted his head just in time before the light illuminated the face of the old Eft.

  “Follow me,” he said. “I will need your help to hold the box still while I work on it.”

  They hurried after him in anxious anticipation. Could it be that soon they would be seeing their dear friends Copernicus and Nizz again?

  Chapter Nineteen: Fangor Takes Flight

  “Forgotten and be bothered is I,” groused the Sand Louse for the fiftieth time, as he buzzed angrily within the bottle in which the Shrikes had captured him. For as many days as he could count, he had been thrust inside a dark closet with no light, inside a bottle that had three rough breathing holes punctured in the top of the jar. For the first five days he had waited amiably, singing happy little songs to keep himself company. But, after that, he had fallen into silence for two whole days. Even his eternal optimism could not hold for terribly long. But, eventually, Fangor rallied and sang again. He sang every song he had been taught in his youth, and then began to compose his own fresh tunes.

  Fortunately, his captors had left him one large leaf with a puddle of water in its center as sustenance. For a creature as small as Fangor, that was a 40-day feast. He had eaten around the leaf in circles. But he grew worried as he drew nearer to the puddle of water at the center. Soon the leaf would be gone, and with it his drinking water.

  Many other creatures would have fallen prey to complete despair by now, but Fangor was made of sterner stuff. As a baby Sand Louse, he had been raised with his 125 brothers and sisters to sing, morning and night, the patriotic songs of the Louse Kingdom. Singing was encouraged at mealtime, during play, and at all other times of the day. Fangor had taken it to heart. Where there was song there could not be true sadness and where there was music there could not be despair. So Fangor sang, even as his throat grew parched. He had started to ration his water.

  If only it were not so dark! The absence of light was bleak and painful. He would simply have to keep singing until someone came to find him.

  He wondered if anyone remembered him at all. What use was he, after all? He was a tagalong and a stowaway, and certainly not a member of the original trio that had been commanded by the Council at Bellerol to defeat the Hundred. He knew quite a bit, as his ears were always perked, but they wouldn’t get this information out of him, no sir. He would keep singing until he drove them mad! He wouldn’t give away his friends or their mission. Whatever that mission was, he wasn’t sure. Fangor nibbled a bit of leaf and, then, sang a snatch of his favorite tune again:

  I’m a louse, oh a louse, oh a louse is me

  I’m the lousiest louse, I’m as lousy as can be.

  One day, to his great surprise, a loud creaking noise preceded a brilliant flood of light into the dark cupboard. It was so bright and shocking that he couldn’t see at all. He cowered under the curling corner of the leaf, despairing that, now that the light had come, he couldn’t even enjoy its glow. How had he ever tolerated such brilliance?

  As he cowered and closed his eyes, he heard a gruff voice and the rattling of items above and below him.

  “Provisions, heat-candles. Where are the heat-candles?” said the voice, talking to itself, which clearly belonged to a deplorabl
e Shrike. Fangor had been forgotten, but now he would be found, if he could make enough noise. Would the Shrike eat him, then? Did Shrikes bother with mites as tiny as Sand Lice? He started to sing again in a most piteous tone:

  I’m a louse, oh a louse, oh a louse is me.

  I’m much too tiny, so don’t eat me!

  The rummaging about stopped, and the voice spoke again:

  “Haw! What’s this? What are you, and what are you doing here?”

  Fangor managed to open one eye and gaze directly into the face of the Shrike who now held the jar. It was squat and ugly and furred, like all of them, with its flagrant feathers all askew on the top of its head. This Shrike had a funny hatch mark above one eye—a black splash that made him look vaguely derring-do and adventurous, and gave him a questioning look.

  “I’m Fangor, sir,” squeaked the Sand Louse. “Don’t know how I got here but I’d be much obliged if you would let me out. It’s very dark in here, sir. Well, not now, but it was very dark, and I don’t like the dark anymore, and I wish to be let out and to find my way home nice and quiet-like and I won’t trouble any of you and…”

  “Do be silent!” said the Shrike. “Fangor, you say? Did you know Tully, and the rest of them? I heard them speak of you.”

  “Them! Yes!” said Fangor. “They are my friends. Oh, not terrible good friends, mind you. I hitched a ride. I’m not on their side or nuffink; I don’t know what they’re up to, mind you. What did they say about me? Did they miss old Fangor? Did they say their lives are sad and short without me? Did they say I sang the best songs? Did they?”