The Hundred: Fall of the Wents

by Prescott, Jennifer

  But the Bees had clearly conspired with another: The Council of Dualings. And Hen-Hen himself.

  The Shrikes had served the Dualings well in their quest to bring back the Hundred, for they had done the work of gathering all the Wents in one place—where they could be forever destroyed. And with them, the race of the Trilings. For without the Wents the Trilings would not go on.

  Tully believed now that swallowing the thing around his neck would have wrought some greater evil he could not yet fathom—and he had come perilously close to doing it. Of one thing he was sure: Hen-Hen’s cloud of Boring Bees were coming to him now. They would surely sting him and crowd him so that he could not breathe, and mold their bodies around his own and drive him, with the bauble around his neck, into the foaming seas that beat against the broken rock. Or they would fly down his very throat and bore through his body entire.

  He cowered down and ducked his head. The bees were coming in a swarm, larger and more terrible than he could have imagined. Something caught his eye and he glanced up, his attention turned again to the rock and the crowd of Shrikes that had scattered in confusion and terror. The two children still stood, holding hands. Elutia stood behind them, a thin and pale form on the rock. No one had dared to touch them. From beyond them, out of the dark cavern beneath the rock, something new and more terrible than even the bees coiled and whispered.

  The dark cloud rose, and its whispers turned to screams, and it began to stream upward in a steady and unending miasma of doom. Whatever it was, it had come through the newly-opened portal from that other world, the older world. Tully had heard Copernicus describe this thing in the Bathysphere, when the snake could not sleep. He had heard Deressema’s frightened babble, talking of this thing, before Pomplemys had cast her into the fire. Yet nothing had prepared him for the sight of the swirling and agonized souls, locked into a dance of rage and loneliness as they bled skyward. This, Tully knew, was the true Hundred. They had been a pretense. But now they were here.

  In the wake of the Hundred’s fury several Shrikes lay dead on the rock. The others had scattered, shrieking, into the cold waters. The children and Elutia clung together tightly, crouching down as low as they could to evade the shadow. It seemed to ignore them, so eager it was to escape the rocky portal through which it flowed, unceasing, like a black river.

  The bees that had so recently impersonated the dark horde of the Hundred seemed to stop in mid-air, as if they had hit a wall. Thrown into apparent confusion, they began to split apart. A few of them shot past Tully’s ledge, their large and metallic bodies shimmering in the few remaining rays of sunlight. He shuddered as they passed.

  The rest were not so fortunate. The cloud of Hundred whirled and encircled the dark swarm of bees. There was a whining and buzzing noise, as if the bees had been thrown into a machine. Then the bees and the Hundred were one great dark thing. The bees had been swallowed entirely. But, Tully could still see them, swept along in the Hundred’s currents like tumbling silver specks. The cloud was even larger and darker now, blotting out the sun, with the buzzing of the trapped and miserable bees adding to the dreadful noise that filled the air.

  Tully heard Hen-Hen’s voice in his mind: The Frothsome Grout made a great keening noise of surprise and despair. The very thing he had brought into the present time, into their world, had captured his bees. His plans had come to naught. But there was still time for him to make a last plea to Tully:

  “Now! Now you must indeed eat the Hundredstone,” cried Hen-Hen. “The great Hundred do not appear as we had imagined. We had thought they would be of great intelligence and power, and that you could lead them with the Council at your side. But they are not what we wanted them to be. They have come, indeed. You must swallow the Hundredstone, and control them. Or we will all be ruined.”

  “And become one with that terrible thing?” asked Tully scornfully. He spoke it aloud. “You know that it will not listen. It is not a living thing. It has no sense or love or reason.”

  Hen-Hen was silent.

  “What should I do, oh great one?” shouted Tully. “Guide me now, if you will.”

  “We are ruined,” said Hen-Hen quietly.

  “It’s too late for that,” said Tully cruelly. “You have brought it here, and killed almost all of the Wents to have it. I hope it was worth it. I hope the Hundred will give you what you most desire.”

  Hindrance and the surviving Wents had shrunk back from the cliff and were quivering like flowers in a high wind. They all had their faces turned upwards. They were watching the Hundred.

  The black cloud had turned its attention to the three small forms that were still crouched on the rock. Tully could feel its malevolent energy. The Hundred and the bees together were now a hive mind of greater strength and power than either alone could have been.

  Tully remembered a piece of the prophecy, spoken so many weeks ago on the Plain of Bellerol. It came to him crystal clear.

  For they have waited in the dark

  For centuries, and more

  For the song that is the spark

  For the flesh that they once wore.

  In another moment, Tully knew, the Hundred would take the children. Surely they were the flesh that the Hundred lacked. How the Hundred would inhabit their small bodies he couldn’t imagine. Perhaps it would be the death of the children. Or perhaps the children would become fearsome, powerful entities, their own personalities taken over by the mass of souls. Natty and Bax would be no more. They would become something evil just as he, Tully, would have had he listened to Hen-Hen and eaten the sphere of Hundredstone.

  There was one way for Elutia and the children to go. The last of the Hundred had since streamed from the open portal within the rock. It was likely still open. They could go back into that old world, where they would be safe. If they did, he might never see Elutia again. But it might be the only way. The Hundred could not be allowed to take the children. The children must escape.

  Tully wished that he had Nizz, now, so that the bee could fly down to the group and tell them what to do. But Nizz was gone. He had died a true friend.

  Tully had but one hope: that Elutia could reach out and read his thoughts. She seemed disoriented and afraid on the rock far below. He reached out to her mind with all the strength he could muster and found, to his dismay, that Hen-Hen’s thoughts stood in his way like an iron gate.

  “You cannot stop what has begun,” said the voice of Hen-Hen.

  “You are done,” said Tully. “And your mad plans are done! We are all ruined, as you said.”

  Hen-Hen persisted. “You were never meant to be powerful on your own. You were but a little pawn that could be our strength. But this shadow is our new master. They will bring some order and goodness to this world. They will take the life they want, and their miraculous technologies will help us all to become bigger, greater, better than we are now.”

  He sounded desperate, as if he hoped that Tully would agree that some good could come of this terrible arrival.

  “Look at them!” Tully said, frantic to reach Elutia and undeterred by the Frothsome Grout’s thoughts. “They will bring only darkness. Do you not see how they ate your bees in one gulp? They will eat you, too. And all of us.”

  “Not I,” said Hen-Hen, “I can reason with this shadow. They came from an intelligent race. They will listen to the wisdom of the Council. The bees that they have devoured will control them, as you refused to do. The bees are powerful and wise.”

  Then Tully saw that Hen-Hen was not just present within his mind. There was a boat on the troubled seas. It was a flat craft, very simply made, and Tully saw that it was formed of bees—bees that had not yet been swallowed by the Hundred. They were all swimming as one, bearing their master Hen-Hen toward the rock where the three survivors waited. There were other forms on the craft. He took out his telescope and could see everything clearly. There was the whiskered fish from the Plain of Bellerol, puffed up with importance, and a Shrike, and a Scratchling. The whole Duali
ng Council was there. He could see every detail, even Hen-Hen’s bloodshot eyes.

  The craft sent up a signal flare, a great red arc in the sky that shot right through the heart of the Hundred and gave the shadow pause. It turned, its awful sorrow and rage distracted.

  “Fools!” shouted Tully. “You will be destroyed. It does not have sense!”

  The creatures on the craft did not hear him, for now they were hailing the Hundred with many brightly-colored flares that looked like fireworks. Hen-Hen was standing up on the deck of the boat, and his beard of living bees writhed in apparent terror at what had happened to their comrades. They stood fast, however, and Hen-Hen looked like an archangel, proud and dignified on the prow of the vessel.

  Tully took the moment of their distraction to reach out to Elutia yet again, and this time he found her.

  At first he felt only a tumble of darkness and chaos, until he realized that she was taking him through her experience of being trapped in the portal. There was a cold and icy silence that chilled his mind. Then she spoke, and her voice sounded changed and distant.

  “Tully?” she said, over the space that separated them. “Could it be you? I have had a terrible dream. I was in a dark and cold tomb, and could not move or breathe or even think.”

  “It is all right now,” said Tully, his eye on the barge that moved across the seas. “You will be safe.”

  “The last thing I remember is seeing you,” said Elutia. “We were in that room, with the warm fire. I was dying, I think.”

  “Yes, in Pomplemys’ home,” said Tully. “You vanished. But you are safe now.”

  “Where am I?” said Elutia wonderingly. “Where have I been?”

  Tully wanted nothing more than to talk to her forever, to spend happy afternoons trading silly thoughts back and forth and sharing memories. But that was not to be. He glanced up the cliff and could not see any more of the Wents that matched Elutia in appearance. They had all apparently plunged to their doom after doing the service that was required of them. Elutia was the only one who was unique among them. Why, he wondered? Of what was she made? There wasn’t time to ponder it.

  “You have no time,” he said. “You must take the two children and go back into the rock. You will be safe. You will come out in that other, older world while the portal remains open. Or any other world. You cannot stay here, or the shadow above will eat you and it will inhabit the children, in some terrible way that we cannot even know. It lowers now. It is almost upon you.”

  Through his telescope, Tully could see Elutia look up and quail at the shadow.

  “Surely I am dead,” thought Elutia to Tully, “Or that thing would not be.”

  “Surely you are alive!” thought Tully back to her fiercely. “But you will not be so if you stay any longer. Go! Go now! I beg of you.”

  Elutia still looked uncertain, and she glanced back at the rock. Something of what Tully had said made an impact, for she gingerly took the hands of the two children and tried to lead them back to the hole in the rock. They shook their heads, clearly horrified at the thought of going back to that dark place.

  The barge was by now right under the dark shadow, which whirred and buzzed in a tight circle, drawn by the fireworks and shining lights. It had served to draw the shadow very well, so that Tully was thankful for Hen-Hen.

  “Why does it not eat them, and their bees?” wondered Tully. The shadow, however, seemed afraid to draw too close to the water. Perhaps it feared the portal, and feared that it might be drawn through again to its older world. Or did it fear the water itself?

  “Elutia,” said Tully again. “Do not hesitate. Their attention will be turned to you soon enough. I beg of you to go now, before it is too late. There is nowhere else to go.”

  “Where are you?” asked Elutia. Tully stood up from his crouch on the rock, cramped and painful, and waved to her. She finally saw him.

  “I don’t want to go,” said Elutia, and in her tone she sounded like a little, wounded child.

  Tully wanted to shout out to her: Don’t go! But he knew that this was wrong. Instead, he hardened his heart and his mind.

  “There is nothing for you here,” he said. “Our time is dead and gone. You will live in that other world. You can care for the children. Go now, before it is all ruined.”

  Tully found that he was once again crouching on the rock, in despair. In another moment the shadow would turn its attention.

  Elutia paused. “Good bye then, Tully Swift,” she said. “I will think of you.”

  “I will always think of you,” said Tully. “Always.”

  “Maybe one day you will hear my voice in your mind. Know it is me,” said Elutia.

  Tully could not answer. His thoughts were like a fine fierce hum. He knew what it might be like to be Nizz and to feel everything, know everything, but to lack the words.

  Elutia said nothing more. She pulled the two children with her. Both were visibly struggling and distraught. Elutia used all her strength to drag them back toward the dark hollow between the pieces of severed stone. Right before they went in, she turned back to give Tully one last, mournful glance. He saw it through his telescope, and it cut him to the quick. He shut his eyes tightly. When he opened them again, the three of them were gone forever. He dropped the telescope to his side.

  The shadow wheeled and screamed, too late realizing that the thing of immense value that it sought had vanished. Instead it focused on the barge. It was dusk, and gradually growing darker. The fireworks and mad displays being shot up from the barge seemed to anger the shadow, for it grew darker within the night sky and swirled down in a frenzy.

  Tully tried to reach out with his mind to Hen-Hen, but the Frothsome Grout did not respond. Through his telescope, Tully could see tiny blue and red lights that outlined the barge’s contours begin to wink. What were they trying to do, he wondered? Their pitiful attempts to communicate with the shadow could only lead to one thing: death.

  Tully understood, suddenly, why they had had the fireworks prepared. They were meant to be a celebration of the extermination of the Trilings and the ascendance of the Dualings. The Hundred were supposed to have joined in the marvelous celebrations, for they had been Dualings as well in their past lives. This was a party vessel. Now it had been turned into an emissary boat, in a vain attempt to reach the mindless and agonized entity above it.

  From the boat there came a horrified clacking and shrieking, as the Shrikes and Scratchlings and other Dualing beasts of the council realized that they had misjudged the Hundred. The pretty blue and red lights winked out of sight, obscured by the shadow overhead. A whining noise, of water and wind, filled the air. Great rending and shrieking noises assailed Tully’s ears.

  Something flew by Tully’s head in the new darkness, and he instinctively ducked. Then another thing catapulted through the air, and he could see in the remaining light that it was the cruel, whiskered fish, tossed into the sky like detritus. Its mouth was open in a gaping stare of surprise and fear, and it landed on a rocky ledge not far below Tully. It lay there, breathing painfully.

  “What happened?” Tully called down to the fish, but it was either dead or would not answer. He carefully climbed down, watching for other bits of flying flotsam, and reached the fish’s side. It was breathing raggedly, its whiskers tuned to sharp and steely points. One of them had been bent against the rock.

  “Throw me into the water,” said the fish. “I beg of you.”

  “I will,” said Tully. “But first, the prophecy. What of it was true? Or was it all Dualing lies?”

  The fish curled its crabbed toes in an effort to stand up and face Tully, for it was a proud thing.

  “The prophecy was true, all true,” said the fish. “But we used it for our own gain. We did not believe in it. We thought it was a child’s rhyme.” The fish gasped for breath. “We were mistaken. Now you must indeed stop this thing that has come.”

  “Who am I but a weak little Eft?” said Tully spitefully.

 
“Indeed,” said the fish. “But we all felt your power then. We told Hen-Hen that you were too strong. He should have picked another weaker Eft to do our bidding. But you carried the Hundredstone. He was convinced that you could carry out the task we had set—to destroy the Wents and to lead the Hundred.”

  The fish breathed in and out again painfully.

  “So you are strong,” it said. “I now understand that you came to us not by chance but by fate. Perhaps you alone can defeat this terrible shadow. Otherwise we are all doomed. The barge is destroyed, and my people—what is left of them—are drowning in the water below. Maybe some of them will survive. We are enemies no longer, Eft. We must be united.”

  Tully rebelled against her words, so angry was he that they had thought to use him for their own vile ends.

  “You have worked a terrible thing,” he said, his voice shaking. “Most of the Wents dead. Do you think that the world would be a better place without the Trilings? Without our songs and goodness of spirit and stories?”

  “Not a better place for the Trilings,” said the fish. “But the world would be better without war, for the Dualings and Trilings will always be at war. Unless…unless there is something worse that we must fight against together.”

  Tully was done with the fish. He reached down and clasped her in his arms, and the spikes from her mouth cut against his scales. She was slippery and cold. He flung her into the dark ocean.

  The screams and cracking noises from below had subsided, and there was nothing but silence. Even the Hundred had gone silent. Tully still sensed them in the air above, although he could no longer distinguish them from the night sky. He hoped that Elutia and the children had made it through safely, and that the Hundred would not deduce that they had gone back through the portal. Thankfully it seemed unable to reason.