The Finisher

The dark blanket covered her withered body, right up to her neck.

She too had been stolen from the inside. She too could not be sorted out ever again. The Mendens were all in agree- ment over that. That’s why I had never wanted to be a Menden. If you couldn’t heal the really sick, what was the point? I drew closer to her. Perhaps because I was female, I always felt more comfortable around my mother. We talked, kept secrets. She was my friend, telling me things I needed to know to survive here. But I also sensed there was a part of her that was kept from me.

I opened my tuck again and took out a small bottle of water. I sprinkled some on my mother’s face and watched it rest there for less than a sliver until it was absorbed into her skin. I don’t know why I did this, maybe to convince myself that she really was still alive, that there really was someone still in there.

I looked over at John. He loved our mother too, although there seemed to be a special bond between father and son.

But as I looked at him, he glanced up and his gaze drifted to her, lying in the cot. And it seemed to me that John’s heart ached even more seeing her lie there than it did watching our father. This surprised me. This had been a light for surprises in Wormwood, where nothing ever happened and the only 29 thing that was certain was that the next light would look just like the previous one.

Delph drifted over and gazed down at my mother.

“She was v-v-very nice t-to me,” said Delph.

“I know, Delph. It was her way.

” He reached out a hand but didn’t touch her. Instead, it seemed like he was tracing just above where the drops of water had been absorbed through her skin.

Twenty slivers later, we walked back down the dark, cool hall and approached the door where Non stood guard. I braced myself for his inane comments. Why do you bother com- ing? Do your parents look better this light? How could that possibly be? But when I focused on the end of the hall, I did not see Non. My mind seemed to misfire for an instant because Non was always there. Always. Yet, now someone else was.

The figure was tall, looming, substantial. He seemed to fill the broad hall with bulk, with gravitas. His robe was a dull burgundy, denoting his position on Council. He held the top job. There was no one above him.

His name was Thansius. In many respects he was Coun- cil. By comparison, Jurik Krone was but a gnat on a slep’s hindquarters. I had only seen Thansius at a distance. He did not walk the cobblestones. He did not labor at Stacks, or at the Mill, or as a Tiller. If Wormwood had a leader, it was he.

John and I slowed our walk. John had glimpsed Thansius too and I heard him gasp. And I thought poor Delph was going to faint.

It took us twice as long to walk the hall as it did when we came in. It still seemed far too short a time for me. When we reached Thansius, he did not move. He was just there. He 30 was taller even than Delph. His shoulders seemed to touch each side of the hall. It was said that in his youth, no Wug ever bested Thansius in a Duelum. He conquered all on that pitch. Now that he was older and head of Council, he did not compete. But he looked as though he still could. And win. Up close the burgundy robe seemed like a sheet of blood frozen solid.

When he spoke, the low voice, though deep and digni- fied, still seemed insubstantial next to the large body. But I was riveted to every syllable.

He said, “A word, Vega Jane. I require a word.

” 31 Q U A T T U O R Thansius John, delph, and I dumbly followed Thansius out- side the Care. It was there that we saw the beautiful blue carriage pulled by four magnificent sleps. Their gray coats ran all the way down to their six spindly-looking legs. It was said that sleps used to be able to fly. I have never believed this, although along a slep’s withers it’s possible to see a slight indentation where something, perhaps a wing, used to be attached.


At the helm of the carriage was a Wug named Thomas Bogle. He sat straight as my tree in the driver’s box.

Thansius stood next to the carriage and opened the door.

He looked at Delph. “Get along with you, Daniel. This conversation concerns private matters.

” Delph raced away, his long legs carrying him out of sight in half a sliver.

Thansius motioned us inside. We complied. Not because we wanted to but because he was Thansius. He climbed in after us, and the heavy carriage lurched to one side as he did so. The Wug must weigh a great deal to have that sort of effect on a carriage this large. Not that I know a lot about car- riages. I had actually never been in one.

Thansius settled in the seat across from us and smoothed down his robe. He glanced questioningly at John.

I looked at my brother and then back at Thansius.

“This is my brother, John.

” “I know who he is,” replied Thansius. “I am contemplat- ing whether he needs to be here or not.

” I gripped John’s hand because I could sense the over- whelming fear in him. “We were just visiting our parents,” I said.

“Again, a fact of which I am aware.

” Thansius looked older up close than he did from a dis- tance. Even though he sat in the shadows of his seat, I could clearly see his face. It was heavy, lined with worry, the eyes small and the flesh around them puckered. Still, even with his full beard, the face seemed too slight for the body’s great bulk. His hair was long and an odd mix of cream and silver, as was his beard. It looked clean and smelled like meadow flow- ers. Ordinarily, I would welcome that scent. Right now it made me feel queasy.

“I think I prefer him to wait outside,” said Thansius at last.

“I would like my brother to stay,” I replied, and then I held my breath. I had no idea where that came from. Talk- ing to Thansius was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Talking back to Thansius was unthinkable.

Thansius cocked his head at me. He didn’t look angry, simply bemused. I would take bemusement over anger from him.

“And why is that?” “In case whatever you have to ask me concerns him. Then 33 I will not have to repeat it because I am certain I cannot match your eloquence, Thansius.

” I said this in all sincerity. Thansius was a very learned Wug with prodigious speaking skills. We all loved to listen to him, even if we did not always understand what he was saying.

The bemusement turned to a half smile and then his face became a stone.

“Quentin Herms,” he said. “He cannot be located. My deputy, Jurik Krone, has been to see you about this.

” I nodded, my heart whacking firmly against my rib cage.

From his pocket Thansius withdrew an object. I knew what it was before he even showed it to me. My grandfather’s ring. Seeing it close up, the memories came flooding back to me. I had never seen the image on the ring any other place except on the back of my grandfather’s hand.

Thansius held it up so John and I could see it fully. “It is quite an interesting design,” he said.

“Do you know what it means?” I asked.

“No, I do not. I doubt any Wug does, other than your grandfather. Virgil kept himself to himself on matters such as these.

” He pocketed the ring and edged forward, his wide knee nearly scraping my bony one. “But it was found at Herms’s cottage.

” “He was friends with my grandfather, so he probably gave it to him,” I replied.

“Before his own family?” said Thansius skeptically.

“As you said, my grandfather kept such matters to him- self. Who knows what he might have thought or done?” 34 Thansius seemed to mull over this for a few moments.

Then he said, “Quentin Herms was your mentor as a Finisher.

” “Yes, it’s true. He helped me learn my job.

” “Did you like him?” This was a strange question, I thought, but I answered truthfully. “I did.

” Still, my insides wriggled like worms exposed to light.

He stroked his chin with one large hand. I studied that hand. It was strong-looking, but soft. At one time he might have worked hard with those hands, but not for many ses- sions now.

He asked, “No mention of anything from him? No indi- cation that he might go off . . . ?” I chose my words carefully. “Where is there to go off to?” “No message left behind for you?” he asked, ignoring my query.

I could see danger in Thansius’s features, the curl of his hand, so close to a fist, the bunched muscles under the blood robe. I furrowed my brow and willed my brain to do the best job of answering without really saying anything of importance. Transparency is fine, if you happen to be a window.

“I don’t know what he would have to leave for me.

” This also was perfectly true. I didn’t know what he had left for me.

He studied each of my words, it seemed to me, like they were a puzzle that needed solving. He stared at my face so intently it felt like my skin was melting away, allowing him to see into my soul.

35 He sat back and stared at the floor of the carriage for nearly a sliver. “You and your brother may be on your way.

” We should have left right then, but I needed to say some- thing, and although half of me was terrified to do so, the other half of me won out.

“Can I have the ring, Thansius?” He stared at me. “The ring?” “Yes. It belonged to my grandfather. And since he’s gone and our parents are, well . . . we’re the only family left. So can I have it?” I could sense John holding his breath. I held my own, awaiting Thansius’s answer.

“Maybe one light, Vega, but not now.

” He opened the carriage door and waved a hand, beckon- ing us to exit.

We climbed out as hastily as possible, although John could barely move his legs.

Before the carriage door closed, I found Thansius staring at me. It was an enigmatic look, a cross between pity and remorse. I could understand neither end of it. Then the door closed, Bogle flicked the reins and the carriage rumbled off.

I pulled John along in the direction of the Loons.

I had a lot to do, and not much time to do it. My mind whirled with all that lay ahead of me. I was more excited than afraid when a little less excitement and a little more fear would have been far smarter.

By the time we got to the Loons, John had stopped trem- bling from our encounter with Thansius. I’m not sure I had.

At least the inside of me hadn’t. But I very much focused on what I would be doing later.

36 Cacus Loon opened the door for us. He had beetle brows, a low forehead and hair that had not been washed for at least a session or maybe two. His pants and shirt were as greasy as his hair, and he had a habit of forever twirling the ends of his enormous mustache, which seemed to originate inside his flaring nostrils. Though Roman Picus owned the building, Cacus Loon was the lodge keeper.

I nodded at him as he moved from the doorway to let us pass. I could tell he was itching for gossip about Herms. Loon followed us into the main room of the lower floor. It was large and contained a long table where we took our meals. The walls were logs chinked with whatever Loon had found to keep them stuffed with, and the floors were uneven, warped, worm-eaten wooden planks.

A kitchen adjoined it where Loon’s wife, Hestia, spent much of her sessions doing the work that Loon told her to do.

This included making meals, doing the wash and making sure that Loon had what Loon wanted.


“Stacks,” said Loon as he fired up his pipe bowl, and the smoke streamed high from it.

I didn’t look at him. I was aiming for the stairs, where our room was. We shared it with other Wugmorts who snored loudly and failed to bathe regularly.

“Stacks,” he said again. “Quentin Herms.

” I turned to him, resigned that he would simply follow us until his queries were answered.

“They say he has gone off,” Loon continued, puffing on his pipe so hard the smoke billowed out, nearly hiding him from our view. It was as if he had suddenly combusted, but I was just not that lucky.

37 “Where would he go off to?” I asked innocently, taking the same tack I had with Thansius though my heart wasn’t really in it. Loon was not nearly the challenge mentally that Thansius presented. He was simply a git.

“You work at Stacks.

” “Over a hundred Wugs work at Stacks,” I said. “Go ask them.

” I pulled John upstairs with me. Thankfully, Loon did not follow.

we went down for last meal when the darkness was gathering across Wormwood. Twenty-eight Wugmorts had beaten us down to eat and were already seated at table. John and I squeezed into the last two seats as Hestia, short and thin, scurried around with trays filled with plates that actually had little food on them. I eyed the other two Loon females, still youngs, who labored in the kitchen. They were also small and skinny, their faces smoky from the kitchen coal fire, just like their mother’s.

They didn’t go to Learning. This was because they were females and also because Cacus Loon did not believe in edu- cation for the most part. I had heard Loon once say that he had never gone to Learning and look how he had turned out.

If that was not reason enough to read religiously every book you could possibly get your hands on, I don’t know what would be.

Cletus Loon sat next to his father. Cletus looked more like his dad every light, down to the beginnings of a mustache over his lip. He was only two sessions ahead of me, but his puffy face looked older. He was always maneuvering to get 38 the drop on me. I worried that one time he would wise up and go after John instead. The fact that he didn’t told me he feared me too much. Fear was a great thing if it was pointed in the right direction.

After last meal, the light finally gave completely over to dark. John and I went to our room and climbed under our blankets, which had long since given up the notion of provid- ing warmth.

I waited until I heard snores coming from the others, then slipped out of bed and put on my cloak. I also snagged my only sweater and my blanket. A sliver later I was clear of the kitchen and out the rear door.

I would take great pains to make sure I was not followed.

As it turned out, I should have tried much, much harder.

39 Q U I N Q U E The Way Out I liked the night because in darkness I could pretend I was no longer in Wormwood. I don’t know where else I would be, but it was inspiring sometimes just to imagine a place other than here.

It was chilly this night, but not cold enough to see my breath as I walked along. I had rolled up my blanket and tied it and my sweater around my waist. If Wugs saw me and wanted to know where I was headed, I was sleeping at my tree.

The path to my tree had been clear enough under the milky ball in the heavens we call the Noc, but then clouds came and blocked it out and the path fell into darkness. I stopped walking and took a sliver to light a lantern I’d nicked from the Loons, using one of the three matches I had brought with me. I lowered the hood and opened its shield, illuminat- ing the way.

That’s when I heard it. Every sound in Wormwood needed to be considered, especially at night. Once you left the cobblestones, heightened care was needed. And there was someone or something else out this night. I turned my lantern in the direction of the sound.

As I waited, my other hand dipped to my pocket and clutched the cutting knife that I took from Stacks a long time ago. The knife fitted neatly into my hand. I could wield it with great skill. I waited, dreading what might be coming and hoping it might simply be Delph prowling around as he some- times did at night.

Then the smell reached me. That confirmed it wasn’t Delph.

I couldn’t believe it. This far from the Quag? It had never happened but apparently it was happening right now. I clutched my knife tightly, even though I knew it would be of no use, not against what was coming. It brought back memo- ries to me so fierce, so painfully fresh, that my eyes clouded with tears even as I turned to flee.

I put out my lantern because I knew the light was leading it to me, slung the rope tethered to the lantern over my shoul- der and shoved my knife into my pocket, freeing my hands.

Then I ran for it.

The thing was fast, much faster than I, but I had a bit of a head start. I followed the path by memory, though I took a wrong turn once and banged off a tree. That mistake cost me precious moments. The thing nearly caught up to me. I redoubled my efforts. I was not going to die this way. I just wasn’t. My breaths came in huge clumps and my heart was hammering so badly I thought I could see it thumping through my cloak.

I tripped over a tree root and sprawled to the ground. I turned and there the beast was, barely six feet from me. It was huge and foul and its fangs were not nearly its most fearsome element. It opened its jaws and I had but a moment to live because I knew what would be coming out of that hole. I flung myself behind a thick trunk an instant before the jet of 41 flames struck the spot where I had been. The ground was scorched and I felt the blast of heat all around me as I hid behind the tree. But I was still alive, though maybe not for much longer.

I could hear it taking a long breath in preparation for another blast of fire that would surely engulf me. I had bare moments left. And in those few moments, I found a certain calm, from where I did not know. I knew what I had to do.

And I had just a moment left to do it.

I leapt out from behind the tree just as the beast was fin- ishing its replenishing breath. I hurled my knife straight and true and it struck the creature directly in its eye. Unfortu- nately, it had three more of them.

Then, as blood sputtered from the destroyed eye and the creature howled in fury, I turned and ran. The knife throw had purchased precious moments for me. I made the most of them. I ran like I never had before, not even when the attack canine was after me at first light.

I reached my tree, put one hand on the first rung of my wooden ladder and climbed for my life.

The wounded garm, sensing blood and meat, was com- ing so fast now, it was as though it were flying. It was said that the garm hunts the souls of the dead. Others say it guards the gates of Hel, where Wugmorts who are bad dur- ing life are banished to spend eternity.

Right now, I did not care which theory was right. I just didn’t want to become a dead soul this night, headed to Hel or any other place.

I hated garms with all my being, but I could not fight a garm and have any hope of winning. So I climbed with a 42 focused fury driving my arms and legs. Even then, it might not be enough. I knew my tree’s trunk as well as I knew the flaws on my face. However, halfway up, my hand struck an unfamiliar object, but I grabbed the next board and kept climbing.

I could feel the garm nearly on me. It was a large beast, easily thirteen feet long and over a thousand pounds in weight. It was a flame expeller from living in Hel, it was said, where all they had was heat and flames and old, moldy death.


I did not want to feel its flames on me. It was closing fast, but I was climbing faster. Terror can compel extraordinary physical action. I reached the last board step. Below I heard claws on wood. I thought I felt heat rising toward me. Part of me didn’t want to look, but I did.

In the flames down below I saw the hard, armored face of the garm. Its chest was smeared in blood. It had killed noth- ing to get this. Its chest was always dripping with its own blood as though it were constantly wounded. Maybe that’s why it was always in a foul, murderous mood. It looked up at me, its thin, spiky tongue flicking out, its three remaining cold, dead eyes staring up at me, hungry, dangerous, fatal. Its fourth eye was bloody and vacant, my knife still sticking from it.

I screamed at it. I hurled spit from my mouth at it. I wanted to kill it. I wanted another knife to throw, so the point could find its heart and send it back to Hel for all of eternity.

Yet these were hollow thoughts. My only saving grace was that the garm, with all its strength, ferocity and ability, could not climb.

43 Momentum alone allowed it to get a few feet off the ground, but it fell back and hit the dirt with a thud. It roared and flames leapt upward, scorching my tree and blackening the edges of several of the wooden rungs. Even though the flames could not reach up this high, I jumped back. The garm rammed itself against the tree, attempting to knock it over.

My tree shook under the assault and my oilcloth fell down.

And then disaster struck. One of my planks was knocked loose, tilted upward and caught me full in the face. I collapsed backward and plummeted downward before my thrashing hands closed around one of my short climbing boards. My plunging weight nearly sheared it off the trunk. As it was, only one nail remained to hold it to the bark.

As my fingers were slipping over the wood, I looked down below. The garm was up on its hind legs, less than fif- teen feet from me. Its mouth opened to deliver a blast of flames that would turn me to a blackened husk. With one hand gripping the board, I pulled my sweater and blanket from around my waist, balled them up and threw them directly into the gaping opening. The garm choked and coughed and no flames came out. At least not yet.

I regained purchase with my other hand and fled up the boards as the garm roared again and the flames erupted anew; I could feel them hurtling up the trunk of my tree at me. I leapt over the last short board and threw myself up on the planks. I lay there panting, staring at nothing because my eyes were closed tight.

The garm made one more attempt to reach me and then fell back again. Its innate ferocity was paralyzing.

44 One sliver later, it turned and headed off. It would look for easier prey. I hoped it would not find any, unless it was Julius Domitar, Roman Picus, or even the smooth-talking Jurik Krone, whom I had decided I could not trust because of that underlying look of hostility in his eyes and because he had said Quentin Herms had broken laws. I would pay good coin to see them encounter a hungry garm. But they pos- sessed weapons the garm feared, particularly a long metal tube that fired out a projectile that would kill anything it hit.

We called it a morta. Roman Picus had used one to kill a garm. That’s how he got the boots he wore. And it was said that Jurik Krone was the finest morta shot in all of Wormwood. That was, for me, a discomforting thought.

You couldn’t do much with a dead garm. Its meat was poison. Its blood was like acid. It was said that the claws could still kill after death and that the flames inside it never truly died. Thus, you only could use the skin.

I sat on my bum in my tree, breathing hard, letting my terror cycle down to mere paranoia. The garm was nearly gone. I could barely see its flames now as it moved in the direction of the Quag. I wondered what had drawn it here this night. Then the Quag made me think of Quentin Herms.

He’d said he had left me something that would set me free.

And I intended to find it.

I looked in the waterproof tuck I kept hanging from a branch. But inside I found nothing. So where else could he have left anything? There was really no other place.

I looked down my tree. Something was itching at the back of my brain, but I couldn’t think what. I went back over 45 my frantic climb up here with the garm at my heels and it occurred to me.

My hand had hit something unfamiliar.

I opened my lantern and peered over the edge of my planks. There was not much to see. Except one thing. I had nailed twenty boards as rungs against my tree’s trunk and now I counted twenty-one.

That was what my hand hit. An extra board that shouldn’t have been there.

If I was right, then Quentin was brilliant. If I hadn’t ini- tially noticed the extra board, who else would have? Probably not even Thansius, as smart as he was.

Trembling with excitement, I climbed down to the board and examined it under my lantern’s light. Fortunately, the garm’s flames had not touched it. It looked exactly like the other boards. I found this remarkable until I recalled that Quentin was a skilled Finisher.

I scanned the front of the board for a message. There was none. But a message on the front would have been too easily seen. I tugged on it. It appeared firmly nailed into the trunk.

Now I began to wonder whether Quentin was actually that smart after all. How was I supposed to pull the board out without falling and killing myself? But as I looked more closely, I saw that the nail heads in the board were not nail heads at all. They had been colored to look like nail heads. So what was holding the board up? I felt along the top edge of the board. There was a slender length of metal that hung over the board. I felt along the lower edge of the board and felt an identical stretch of metal there. The metal had been darkened to blend in perfectly 46 with the stain of the board. I put one hand on the end of the board and pulled. It slid out from between the two metal edges. The metal had acted as both a track and a support, to slide the board into place and keep it there. Now, with the board gone, I could see how Quentin had attached the metal to the trunk using stout screws.

The board was light. It was probably a good thing I did not step on it while fleeing the garm. I doubted it would have held my weight.

I scampered back up to the top of my tree and sat on my haunches, the board in my lap. I turned it over and there it was: a small, flat metal box. Inside was a roll of scroll. I unfolded it. It was surprisingly long to have fitted inside such a small space.

I shone my lantern light on it and caught my breath. It was a map. It was a map of something I never thought anyone could have mapped.

It was a map of the Quag.

More than that, it was a map of a way through the Quag.

What Quentin Herms had left for me was a way out of Wormwood.

I sat there staring at the parchment like it was both a sack of coins and a bag of serpents. As my eyes ran over the detailed drawings and precise writings, the enormity of what I was holding washed over me. My skin tingled as though I had been hit by a sudden thunder-thrust preceded by spears of skylight.

But when had he placed the board here? I had been here at first light and there had only been twenty boards, of that I was sure. I had seen Quentin flee into the Quag, also at first 47 light. So had he come out of the Quag to place the extra board on my tree after I had gone to Stacks? If so, why? And how could he have survived the Quag in the first place? Yet this was clearly the message from Quentin Herms.

But it was far more elaborate than the cryptic one I had swal- lowed back at Stacks. This map also could be construed as him contacting me and Jurik Krone had been especially clear on that point. If Quentin contacted me and I did not tell Council, I could be sent to Valhall. For how long, he hadn’t said. But even one light and night in that grim place would be far too long. And since it was illegal to enter the Quag, it would most certainly be against our laws to have a map of the place. That would get me in Valhall faster than Delph could say, “Wotcha, Vega Jane.


” But in truth my curiosity overrode my fear. I raised the wick on my lantern and studied the map. The Quag was an unfathomably large place. Quentin had not marked the map with precise distances, but he had included the footprint of Wormwood within the parchment. I studied the two side by side and saw quickly that the Quag was many times the size of my village. Also telling was the fact that the map ended at the edge of the Quag. If there was anything on the other side, Quentin either did not know or else had not put it down on this parchment for some reason.

My gaze ran down the last bit of the map, and then my dilemma became obvious. Every Wug knew that entering the Quag meant death, and I could never see myself going into it.

And even if I survived the Quag, where would I be? We had always been told that nothing lay on the other side of the Quag. In fact, we had always been told that there 48 was no other side. For all I knew, once I left the Quag, I would fall off a cliff into oblivion. But even if I had been tempted to leave, I could not because of my brother and my parents. In his message, Quentin had said I could escape this place if I had the desire. Well, I wasn’t sure if I had the desire, but abandoning my family was not an option. So the easy answer would be to destroy the map since I would never be using it.

In fact, I should destroy it right now.

I opened the glass folds of my lantern and held the map up to the flame. But my hand didn’t move. It wouldn’t dip toward the fire with the parchment.

You can never go through the Quag, Vega, so what does it matter? Just burn it. If you’re found with it, your punishment will be Valhal ! You can’t risk that.

Still, my hand didn’t move. It was as though an invisible tether was keeping it in place. I slowly pulled the parchment away from the flames and pondered what to do. I had to destroy the map. But could I destroy the map and yet also keep it? My gaze moved to my waterproof tuck. I opened it and pulled out my ink stick. I kept it here because I would draw pictures on my boards of things that I would see from this vantage point: birds, clouds, the canopy of massive trees at eye level. But transferring the map from one piece of parch- ment to another was not an answer to my dilemma.

So I had another solution.

It took some time, a bit of contortion, and a fair amount of ink, but when it was done, I held the map up to the spark of my lantern and let its end ignite. I dropped it and watched it descend to the wooden planks as the ends curled 49 up and blackened. In less than a sliver, it had disappeared to ash that floated away in the breeze. And then even the ash was gone.

I slipped down the rungs with the extra board in hand, put it back into its metal slot and continued my descent. My feet hit the dirt and I looked around, suddenly fearful that the garm might return. But I did not smell it. I certainly did not see it. Perhaps it had gone back to Hel. I hoped with all my heart that it stayed there.

I now had a map that I could never use to leave here. But I had something else. A mystery surrounding a ring that had belonged to my grandfather. It wasn’t simply curiosity, although I have more of that than most Wugs. This was about my family. This was about my history. Which, in the end, meant it was ultimately about me.

50 S E X The Delphias Next light, John and I went downstairs and used the pipe behind the Loons to wash off our faces and hands and under our arms. I was careful with the water on myself so as not to wash off the map marks I had carefully inked on my body while sitting atop my tree. I had been faith- ful in reproducing them because I knew Quentin to be a methodical Wug. He would have included only necessary details and I desperately wanted to study them more thor- oughly, even if I was never going to venture into the Quag.

Though I’d always known the Quag was there, seeing details such as were in the map was like learning of a whole new world when I’d thought there was only ours.

Then we ate. Well, John ate. I had already placed my first light meal in my metal tin, which I also kept under my cot. I knew most of the clerks in the shops and bartered with them for what I needed, using nice things that I made out of scraps from Stacks.

A few slivers later, two other Wugmorts joined us at table.

Selene Jones was thirty sessions old but looked younger.

She had long blond hair and an unlined face that was wide and mostly vacant at first light. Yet she carried peace in her eyes and seemed wholly satisfied with her life. She ran a shop on the High Street that sold items related to Noc-gazing and predictions of the future.

The other Wugmort at table was twenty-four-session- old Ted Racksport. An industrious and entrepreneurial Wug from his earliest lights, he owned the only shop in Wormwood that sold mortas, along with other weapons. Racksport was a bit taller than me, with broad shoulders, thick legs, a barrel chest, a flattened face, cracked lips, a few whiskers on his weak chin, long, thinning hair tied back with a cord of leather and four fingers on his right hand. It was said that a baby garm had nipped the other one off when Racksport had been hunting it.

He was a hard worker but not a pleasant Wug, and I was glad he slept in a different cot room. He smelled perpetually of sweat, metal and the black powder that gave morta their killing force. I had seen one fired before. It tore right through thick wood and nearly scared me to the Hallowed Ground, where we lay our dead. The way Racksport looked at you, you began to realize that he knew the power he had and he was quite happy that you didn’t have it.

I was relieved when John was finished and we left. We parted company at the door to the Learning.

“I’ll be back to get you after Stacks,” I said.

I said this every light so that John would have no worries.

And he always replied, “I know you will.

” But this light he didn’t say that. Instead he said, “Are you sure you’ll be back for me?” I gaped. “Why do you ask that?” “Where did you go last night?” 52 “To my tree.

” “Why?” “Just to think. And I left something there I needed.

” “What?” “Just go to Learning, John. I’ll be back for you. I promise.

” As he walked into the building, his gaze was on me. And I felt painful levels of guilt for lying to my brother. There was nothing else for it, though. To keep him safe, I had to keep him in the dark.

I turned and hurried away. I had something important to do this first light.

I needed to go and see Delph.

The Delphias’ cottage was due south of Wormwood and the route ran straight and true until you reached two large trees with permanent red leaves. Here, you turned left down a dirt path that wound in among the forest. As I raced along, I looked down at myself, made sure that every inch of my legs, arms and belly where the map was inked were covered, then I redoubled my speed, running until my breaths became gasps.

As I drew near to the Delphias’, I slowed to a fast walk.

Duf was Delph’s father and his only living relation. Unlike Delph, Duf was small, barely more than four feet high. Con- sidering Delph’s great height, I always assumed that his mother must have been very tall. She died when Delph was born, so neither of us had ever seen her.

Duf’s unusual cottage was not made of wood or stone or anything like that. It was made of things that other Wugs had thrown away. It was the shape of a huge ball, with a square door made of rough metal set on fat brass hinges. Next to the 53 cottage was an opening that Duf and Delph had dug into a small hillside. Duf kept the things he used for his work in there.