The Hundred: Fall of the Wents

by Prescott, Jennifer

  He heard his friends’ concerned voices, but they sounded distant.

  He took a deep breath and stared at his own hands. The scales on them shimmered in the light, dull as it was, and he felt his body alive, and he felt the stones rough beneath him. Copernicus slid down and cradled his hands together with his length. The snake noticed that the little Eft was shaking, as if the fever had returned.

  “Coper,” said Tully. “What does it all mean? Help me now. I do not feel well at all, anymore.”

  “Hush,” said Copernicus, unnerved as Tully by the whale’s revelations but still in control of his emotions. “This is not the time to lose our minds to fear. We are still ourselves.”

  Then Hindrance was there before him, her hand warm on his head.

  Tully looked up at her and she was glowing with a beauty that he had never seen before. It was too much to bear. The world was more great and awful than he had known. He ducked his head down and shut his eyes again.

  “And the bells?” asked Hindrance, turning to the whale. “What of the bells?” Tully could hear her voice as if through a dark tunnel. It sounded strong and clear.

  “Yes,” said the whale. “These bells are forged of the self-same metal that forms the portal and the rock that guards it. It is called Hundredstone now. How come you by these bells?” And he turned a dark and inquisitive eye upon the Went.

  “I cannot tell you now,” she said, and gave a quick gesture to the sky in the south.

  The whale turned its eye upwards and, to their horror, they could see the cloud of Hundred flying north toward the ocean bay. No doubt they had been circling southward to see what lay there and had returned to the place of their escape into this world.

  “They come again to this place,” said the whale. “They must be drawn by the power of the metal within the bells, or the portal that birthed them. And so we must act.”

  “What do we do?” said Aarvord gruffly. He was weary, and ready for this adventure to be over. He would go home and mourn his sister and the Shrike-Grout and all the things that had happened.

  “You must up-end the seas,” said the whale. “The rain must rise toward the sky, where it will eat the Hundred and bring them down into the waters. Our hope is that this will end them, but we cannot be sure.”

  “Hope?” squealed Copernicus. “Just a hope? And who are the others who believe such as you?”

  The whale turned in the water so that his liquid eye was once again visible to them on the shore. “Every creature in this landlocked sea is a part of this plan. We are not stupid things, and we know of the mysteries happening in the air above. There are Efts here,” he reminded them, “who know of the terrible awakening of the Hundred.”

  Tully rose from his crouch and he could see the Hundred’s approach, and it seemed that his entire short life had been leading to this one moment. He was but a little animal, his arms and legs and compact small body swallowed in the great bowl of air above them and the sea before them, and every sound of the waves gently lapping the shore sounded harsh and strident. The world overwhelmed him for a moment and he was lost. He felt the hug of Copernicus snaking up his arm and it gave him fresh strength. Yes, these things were good and true and would not change, would never change. Something was coursing inside him—a strange sense of power.

  “You are no whale,” said Tully, and realized he was speaking from a place within himself that had been asleep, and only now had found its voice. His weakness was gone. He felt stronger than he ever had.

  “You are wise, Eft,” said the whale, and he broke apart on the sea into an ocean of dark shapes that shimmered and danced on the surface. Tully heard the gasp of his companions. Still they heard the whale’s voice.

  “I am the Whale Becoming,” repeated the thing that had been the whale. “One day I may be the true thing, with enough time, and I will be a better and wiser whale than ever swam within the ocean. There are no whales any more, Eft. Only things that remember them, such as we do. The humans ruined them. Know now that the humans gave you life but they can ruin you as well.”

  “How, then?” asked Tully. “How do we make it rain from the seas?”

  The prophecy once again repeated in his mind, and it seemed to be true. It was all coming true. The Council had not been so false, after all.

  “You must go under again,” said the shape that had been the whale. “The Hundredstone will bring them down. The two bells together must ring. The Eft is the one who must do this thing. He will take the two bells and send them into a crevasse of the deeps; they will sound there, and will pull their power with them. Then the seas will turn on the Hundred. Do not hesitate. You have hesitated before, for the right reasons. This is not the time for hesitation. If the Hundred above move on from this place, we will have lost our chance. They must be brought down.”

  “I will do it,” said Tully. “What else can I do?” He did not want to give up the bauble that had been around his neck for as long as he could remember—but now that he knew what it was, it repulsed him. He looked at Hindrance, and she willingly unhooked the bell from around her white throat.

  *

  Aarvord worked the controls, and they Bathysphere went lower, and lower still, past cliffs lit up with weird dancing lights, past Sea Eggs and Kettlefish and a lone and hungry-looking Mistral with a long horn protruding from its skull, past fronds of dancing sea kelp and spinning ocean flowers. There were things here that none of them had ever seen.

  “It grows darker!” hissed Copernicus, who had been watching out the window of the Bathysphere.

  The craft plunged lower and lower still, until all beyond the window was darkness except for the phosphorescent creatures that hid and flickered. Aarvord’s appendage on his forehead lit up as if in sympathy, and bathed the inside of their craft with an eerie green light. They could go no farther, for at the bottom of the sea there was a great gash in the ocean floor, and the craft would not fit past.

  Aarvord stopped the craft and Tully went into the little annex that would seal shut and allow him to swim free into the water. He looked at Aarvord and Copernicus, and was glad that they were still there with him. Then the door was sealed and he was alone in the small annex chamber. For a moment he thought the dizziness and the nausea that had made the world seem so strange and vast would overtake him again. He fought down the panic. He was strong now. Fear would not harm him.

  The door opened and the sea flooded in, and he breathed in the water and swam out. He looked back and could see the faces of his friends, the snake and the Grout, inside the Bathysphere. Copernicus had his nose pressed flat against the glass. Aarvord stood back a bit, his expression grim. Tully smiled at them, to reassure them that all was well. He would succeed at this task. It was why he was here.

  The two necklaces with the small metal spheres hung around his neck, drifting gently in the current. Tully could see curious creatures all around him, moving closer to see what he was doing. A pod of phosphorescent eels circled above him, lighting his way.

  Then the Whale Becoming was there, out of the darkness, once more formed into the shape of the great animal that it hoped to be again one day. It stared at Tully with its liquid eye and blinked once, as if to say that the time had come. Tully pulled the bells from their fabric bags. The necklaces felt loose and empty without them, bereft of the small weights that had given them purpose.

  Tully swam deeply and swiftly down. The pressure at this depth did not hurt him, for an Eft was made to withstand all temperatures and depths of water. On and on he swam, wondering if he had breath enough to complete this mission. Then he felt the pull of some strong current, and backpedaled with his limbs; there was the great gulf before him, barely visible in the light of the eels, and he had narrowly avoided being swept in by some unseen force. There were jagged rocks and ridges all around; these must have once formed the basin into which the chosen children had been dashed. The crevasse was quite wide enough to take him into its yawning mouth. He shuddered, thankful that this was n
ot his course. Nor was it his destiny to have that dark metal inside him, part of him, making him something other than what he was.

  He had a moment of regret: He had given up the chance to live forever and to outlast seasons and years and his friends. He would die like everything else did, one day.

  He released the spheres, opening his hand into the black waters, and they were instantly swept away by the sucking, swift current that dragged them down into the gulf. As they vanished through the gap into the hidden deeps below, he finally heard their song—a great peal of low and high notes rung together. The force of the sound sent a shock through him that tingled all the way down into his gut and up through his antennae. The creatures of the ocean paused in their play and work and were frozen by the sound that disturbed their home. All seemed to wait expectantly.

  Then Tully felt great bubbles rushing up around him, streaming upward from the crevasse. He swam in a panicked frenzy, buffeted by the rising and chaotic pockets of air, to reach the door of the craft. The other sea creatures swirled around him, their phosphorescence blinking and scattered, disturbed by the upswarm of bubbles. Tully swam into the hatch. Aarvord sealed it and Tully was safe beyond the domed glass window.

  *

  Hatch, Hindrance, and Fangor were witness to what occurred next, as they crouched on the stony beach by the water’s edge. Above, in the air, the circling cloud of Hundred hovered over the surface of the water. And, then, the waters rose, raining up from the oceans to the sky in a fine deluge of droplets.

  “Look!” said Fangor. “The sea is raining! I have never seen such a thing, no I have not.” The rains rose higher, defying gravity, and the storm of Hundred fell completely silent. The shadow lurched, as if in terror, but it could not escape.

  “It is their end,” said Hindrance.

  The water reached the Hundred and seemed to slow down and hover there for an instant. Then the water enveloped them, every droplet capturing a soul from the horde and pinioning it, tight within a prison of moisture, as it fell back to the ocean’s surface.

  Now that the shadow was broken, other small creatures that had been swept up in its fury and accidentally trapped fell loose and free. Some of them were small birds from that other world, and they flew haphazardly through the air, dumb strangers in a world millions of years from their own. A few were small creatures such as snakes and rodents, who twisted and plummeted down to the sea among the huge drops of water that encased the human souls. Some hit the surface and drowned quickly; others recovered their wits and began to swim to safety. Their arrival in this new world was a strange thing, for they would perhaps breed others of their kind and change the course of history in small ways.

  “The rain has caught them,” said Hatch. “Look how they fall.”

  The Boring Bees that had become part of the shadow were trapped as well, and they fell as swiftly as the human souls. The rain did not free them as it had the other small beasts.

  The human souls now trapped within the water droplets in the air were wan and pale like ghosts, bleached of their density and fury. They fell quickly and were hungrily snatched under the surface of the sea.

  The rain reached its zenith and swallowed all. Now it was falling back and back into the ocean in a torrent—an unending stream of captive souls. They fell much too fast for Hindrance and Hatch and Fangor to see their facial expressions, but there was an ineffable sadness in the air. All of them had experienced gloomy days of rain, but this was the saddest rainfall they had ever felt in their bones. Yet it was also beautiful. The grayness of the constant winter had broken open, for the first time in days. The sky above the falling droplets was crystal clear and blue, and the snowdrifts along the edge of the sea glittered and sparkled.

  “Look,” said Fangor, who was stunned by what he saw. “The light shines through the souls of the Hundred and makes color wheels!” And it was true. The chorus of falling droplets made wide prisms in the air, and scattered slivered rainbows of light that dazzled their eyes and made them blink. The metallic bodies of the Boring Bees also caught the sun and gave off sharp stabs of light.

  “One may hope,” said Hatch, “that these poor souls find some happiness in their last moments.” The Shrike had lived an ugly life without any beauty or joy whatsoever—until he had met the little Sand Louse, who had taught him to fly and given him hope. This sad end to the cloud of spirits was the most heartbreaking and wonderful thing he had ever seen.

  Hindrance was reminded of the falling and death of her own kind, the Wents. She rode a fresh wave of sadness and regret. She felt a burgeoning anger as well, but it was an emotion with which she was not familiar. It did not sit well with her and so she shut it out. She watched.

  Time seemed to slow down for a moment and the three observers watched until the last of the water had fallen back down to the surface of the sea, taking the Hundred with it. Then there was a great silence. None said a word. It was over. The sunlight danced over the ocean. Except for a few swimming beasts that still struggled toward the shore, it was as if the Hundred had never been there at all.

  *

  Down below the surface, Tully, Copernicus, and Aarvord watched the falling of the Hundred down to the Deeps. The glowing creatures that had assembled to watch and guide their passing lighted their way. They fell down like snow or rain, slowly at first but then faster, drifting in the swiftly-pulling currents into the darker places. There was something of sadness in their falling, plaintive faces, and their hands reaching out for hope—and something of goodness and joy, too. The Boring Bees, trapped among the falling, did not show any emotion at all. Although—one turned, for a moment, and in its dark eyes Tully thought he could see a trace of certainty. Of smugness, or knowingness…Tully could not say. Then the bee was gone and the chill Tully had felt in its little gaze was gone.

  The Whale Becoming shut his massive jaws and blinked his eyes. He too felt the sadness of the Hundred’s passage, for they would come no more to the air and the light.

  In the falling they could see children, and old people, and young adults, all wondering why their time had finally and suddenly come to an end. There were no doubt the chosen children among those who had destroyed their chance at life, and their falling was the most painful. They had had their time to be alive, and, now, it was gone and done. There might have been hope for them to find their place on the Earth again. A few of them caught Tully’s attention so keenly that he was pained. Must they all be lost, for what some of them had done? A small boy, his hands purling water before it like ropes, and a girl with her face showing surprise and loss. Her mouth opened in an O of astonishment. It was clear that she could see them watching her falling. Soon she would be gone in the inky blackness of the deeps. And then she was gone.

  “No,” said Tully.

  Copernicus heard him, and tucked his head up under the Eft’s chin, as if to comfort him.

  “You didn’t know it would be so hard,” said Copernicus. “I did, because I knew them. But now I know that the children were not these things.”

  “They may yet come again,” said Aarvord suddenly. But it seemed to Copernicus and Tully both that the big Grout was not referring to the children, but to the race of the humans.

  The souls had vanished into the deeps. Not a trace remained, and the shoals of fish and other creatures began to emerge from the hiding places they had sought during the deluge and to look around. Soon, the Sea Eggs and the Kettlefish and the Efts were swimming to and fro in calm waters. The sun shone down in great beams of light that rippled in the ocean’s movement, and motes and bits of flotsam and sea grass danced in the currents.

  Tully felt deeply sad, thinking of the lost beings so far beneath the water, and cut off from all hope of finding life again in new bodies on the earth. Would they simply burst like bubbles left too long in the air, and be whisked away into a watery nothingness? Or would they be trapped there for centuries in the darkness and heaviness of the ocean, biding their time? After all, the Whale Becoming had
been born there and had risen again in a new form. He shuddered. It had been terribly easy to forget that the Hundred had meant ill things, now that they were gone. He longed for home and the light above.

  *

  Aarvord worked the controls, and the craft rose, up and up to the surface. It broke into the light of a clear day. They came out of the hatch and their friends were waiting for them.

  Tully stepped out on the deck of the craft. He reached inside his vest, as he had always done to touch the metal sphere that had hung around his neck since he was a child. He was a child no more. His familiar necklace was gone, without even the cord that had bound it.

  But in one of the pockets within his vest he found something soft, and pulled it out. For a moment he did not recognize it, as it was creased and darkened with decay. He spread it out flat on the palm of his hand and remembered it for what it was: a blossom that had fallen from Elutia’s face on the dark night when they had fled with the Veldstacks. The white petals were almost black now, and curled, and when he touched them with the tip of his finger they collapsed into his palm, released from the pith at their center, and blew away on the new fierce wind from the sea.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jennifer Prescott earned her M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of New Hampshire, and lives in New York state with her husband and three sons. The Hundred: Fall of the Wents is the first in a planned trilogy.