The Finisher

Domitar added, “We would prefer that he be taken alive.

If this is not possible, so be it. But we will need proof. The body, reasonably intact, will do.

” 76 My heart sank and I felt my lips tremble. That was practi- cally a death sentence for poor Quentin. If he had risked everything to escape, I could not imagine him not fighting with all his might to prevent his capture. Much easier to sim- ply put a knife blade in him. I felt tears rush to my eyes, but I shoved them away with my dirty hand.

I once more looked at the males around me. They were now talking in low voices among themselves. I could imagine them all going home, getting whatever weapons were handy and heading out after their meager suppers to hunt down Quentin and get the coins, and with them their life of leisure.

They would probably go in teams, to increase their chances of success.

Domitar said, “That is all. You may leave.

” We all started filing out, but Domitar stopped me.

“A sliver, Vega.

” He waited until the other Stackers were gone. He looked over at Dis Fidus, who still stood trembling in the background.

“Leave us, Fidus,” ordered Domitar, and the little Wug shot out of the room.

Domitar began, “You could use two thousand coins. You and your brother. And your parents at the Care. It’s not inex- pensive. And you would have a life of leisure.

” “But then I wouldn’t have the pleasure of seeing you every light, Domitar.

” His narrowed eyes grew even smaller. They looked like little caves from which something astonishingly slimy and dangerous would explode. “You have brains, but sometimes you spectacularly fail to exercise them.

” 77 “A mixed compliment,” I said.

“And an accurate one. Two thousand coins, Vega. And as I said, that includes information leading to Herms’s apprehen- sion. You needn’t catch him yourself.

” “Or kill him. Like you said, that’s also acceptable to earn the reward.

” His eyes opened fully, revealing pupils darker than I had ever realized. “That’s right. That’s what I said because that is what Council has said.

” He stepped aside, implicitly acknowledging that I could leave.

As I started past him, he gripped my shoulder and jerked me toward him. He whispered in my ear.

“You have much to lose, Vega Jane. Far more than you know. Help us to find Quentin Herms.

” He let go of me and I rushed from the room, more scared than I had been in a long time. Including the attack from the garm. At least with the garm, you knew how it could hurt you. With Domitar I wasn’t sure. I just knew I was afraid.

I only stopped running when I was nearly a mile from Stacks.

It occurred to me while I was running that the reward was meaningless to the other Wugs. Quentin had gone into the Quag, which meant no other Wug could find him. The idea of the reward had been directed at me. They wanted information on Quentin. And they thought I alone could pro- vide it.

My lungs heaving, my mind jumping from one awful conclusion to another, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t changed from my work clothes. Even more catastrophic, I 78 had forgotten my cloak. And in the cloak was the book I had found about the Quag.

I felt like I would vomit.

Would Domitar look in my locker and find it? If he did, would I have to become a fugitive as well? Would the reward for my return dead or alive be two thousand coins? Ten thou- sand coins? I had to get the book back. But if I returned now, Domitar would grow suspicious.

Then, in a flash, I suddenly had a plan, one that turned everything upside down.

79 D E C I M A Pair of Jabbits It was the third section of night and I was on the move again. The sky over Wormwood was not clear. The Noc was gone from sight. Drops of rain plopped on me as I hur- ried along, my head down, my heart full of dread. There was a rumble across the heavens and they lit up and then boomed.

I froze. Every Wug had seen spears of skylight before and then heard the thunder-thrusts. That didn’t make it any less frightening. Yet something was scaring me even more.

I had never been to Stacks at night. Not once. Now I had no choice. I had to get the book back now before it was discovered in my locker. For all I knew it might already have been.

I stopped about twenty yards away from my destination and looked up. Stacks rose up out of the darkness like some imperious demon waiting for prey to draw just close enough for it to have an easy meal.

Well, here I was.

I didn’t know if they had guards at night. If so, I wasn’t sure what I would do. Run like Hel, probably. What I did know was I wasn’t going in through the front doors.

There was a side door hidden behind a pile of old, decay- ing equipment that had been sitting there probably since my grandfather was my age. As I passed the mounds of junk, every nook and cranny seemed to hold a garm, a shuck or even an amaroc. As the skylight speared and thunder-thrusts boomed again, there seemed to be a thousand eyes in that metal pile, and all of them were fixed on me. Just waiting.

The door was solid wood with a large, ancient lock. I slipped my slender tools into the mouth of the lock and did my little magic — the door clicked open.

I closed the door behind me as quietly as I could, licked my lips, drew a long breath, then shook my head clear.

I used my lantern now because if I didn’t, I would knock into something and kill myself. I moved slowly along, hug- ging one wall and peering ahead. I was also listening and sniffing the air. I knew what Stacks smelled like. If I smelled something else, I was going to flee.

A few slivers later, I opened the door to the locker room and slipped inside.

I felt my way along each locker until I reached the sev- enth one down, which was mine. There were no true locks on the lockers, just simple latches, because no one ever brought anything of value here. At least no Wug had until I stupidly left the book that could land me in Valhall. I slowly opened the door, and that’s when it hit me.

I dropped my lantern and nearly shrieked. I stood there hunched over trying to keep the meager dinner I had eaten at the Loons inside of me rather than on the floor. I reached down and picked up the lantern and the book. The book had fallen out and hit me on the arm. I relit my lantern and leafed through the pages. It was all there. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I never dreamed it would be this easy.

81 I stopped thinking that when I heard the noise. My good fortune had just turned into disaster.

I put the book in the pocket of my cloak and turned my lantern down as low as the flame would go and still allow me to see an inch in front of me. I stood still, listening as hard as I could.

Okay, I thought with an involuntary shudder, that was the sound of something large and swift. I knew of several creatures that would make sounds like that. None of them should have been in Stacks. Ever.

After one more sliver frozen, I sprinted down the hall of the locker room, away from the door I came in. This turned out to be a good idea, because a sliver later, that door crashed to the floor. The sound was inside the room with me. It was clearer now. It was not the clops of hooves, or the scratching of claws on wood. That ruled out a frek, garm or amaroc.

That left basically one creature.

I shook my head in disbelief. It couldn’t be. Yet as I thought this, hoping beyond all hope that I was wrong, I heard the hissing. And my heart stopped for two beats before restarting.

We had been told about these vile beasts in Learning. I had never desired to see one for real.


They could move incredibly fast, faster than I could run, actually. They did not come into Wormwood proper, and they almost never went after Wugmorts because there was usually far easier prey to be found. To my knowledge, three Wugs had perished by them when they had ventured too close to the Quag. I did not want to be the fourth.

82 I kicked open the other door and shot through it like I was being propelled from a morta. But the sounds were grow- ing closer still. When I made it to the back hall, I could go one of two ways. The left would take me out of here by the side door from which I had entered.

The only problem was, I saw eyes that way. Big, staring eyes that locked on me. There were about five hundred of them, if I had time to count, which I didn’t. My worst fear had just been confirmed and then doubled.

There was a pair of them after me.

I went to the right. That would take me up the stairs.

Up the stairs was forbidden. Anyone working at Stacks who tried to go up the stairs would have their heads cut off by Ladon-Tosh and thrown in the furnace with the rest of the parts. But Ladon-Tosh wasn’t here at night. And even if he were, I would take my chances with him over what was com- ing at me.

I flew up the steps, my knees chugging faster than they ever had. I hit the top landing and sped off to the right. I glanced back once and saw the innumerable eyes barely thirty feet behind me. I told myself I was never going to look back again.

Who the Hel had loosed these things in here? Something occurred to me as I ran down the upper cor- ridor. These things were the guardians of Stacks, but only at night. That was the only way they could be here. It could be the only reason that no Wug had been attacked during the light. You did not keep these creatures around as pets.

And that meant someone in Wormwood could do the 83 unthinkable. Someone could control them, when we had always been told they were wildly uncontrollable. Not even Duf would ever attempt to train one.

I reached the only door on the hall. It was at the very end and it was locked. Of course it was locked. Why would I think it would be open? I grabbed the tools from my cloak, my fingers shaking so badly that I nearly dropped them. The creatures were coming fiercely now; they sounded like the rush of a waterfall. The screeches from all those mouths were so high-pitched that I felt my brain would burst with the ter- ror of it all. It was said the screech was always the last thing you heard before they struck.

As I inserted the tools in the lock and worked frantically, all I could think of was John. What he would do without me.

They were right on top of me now.

The screech is the last thing you hear before they strike.

The screech is the last thing you hear before they strike.

I didn’t know whether I was brave to keep my back turned in the face of their charge, or else the biggest coward in Wormwood. As my tools turned and the door opened, I assumed it was bravery.

I slammed the door shut behind me and locked it. I ran my fingers over the wood, hoping it was thick enough. I was knocked down when they hit it. One of the fangs actually came through the boards and nearly impaled my shoulder instead of simply tearing my clothing. I slid back along the floor and crashed into the far wall, knocking something over.

Metal clanged down all around me.

I looked over at the door as it took another blow. More fangs split the wood.

84 Less than a sliver later, one of the heads broke through. A pair of eyes stared at me, barely six yards away. The hole was too small for the rest of the bulk to get through, but either the hole would grow or the door would come down.

I groped around in the dark. That was when I noticed the tiny door behind the big metal thing that had fallen. The door was barely three feet tall and the knob was curious. I looked more closely. It was a face, yet not just any face. It was the face of a Wug screaming, cast in brass.

There came another smash against the door. I just had time to look back as the massive portal collapsed inward and the beasts sprang through the opening. Now I could see them both fully. I wish I couldn’t.

Jabbits were massive serpents with one key difference.

There were at least two hundred and fifty heads growing out of the one body along its full length. And all of them had fangs full of enough poison that one bite would drop a fully grown creta. All of them made the screech. And all of them were, right this sliver, charging at me.

They were a thousand nightmares rolled into a massive, thunderous wall of murderous devilry. And their breath smelled like dung on fire. I was not speculating now. The foul odor made me gag when I needed all the air I had to flee.

I grabbed the screaming-face knob, turned it and threw myself through the opening, kicking the door shut behind me. But I didn’t feel the relief of a safe harbor. This door, tiny and thin, had no chance to stop the relentless juggernauts that are jabbits after prey. It was said that nothing could stop them once they were on the blood scent. I stood and backed 85 away. I drew the small knife I had brought with me and waited, my heart thumping, my lungs heaving.

I told myself I would not cry. I promised myself I would strike at least one blow before they killed me. It was said they lingered over their prey. I had also heard rumors that it was possible the poison didn’t kill but merely paralyzed, allowing the victim to stay alive until they were halfway through devouring you. No one knew for sure. No one who had been attacked by a jabbit had survived to tell about it.

I prayed to everything I could think of that this was not the case. Let the poison be what killed me. I did not want to watch myself disappear piece by piece into their gullets.

“Good-bye, John,” I said between tortured breaths.

“Please don’t forget me.

” Every Wugmort had a time to die. This was surely mine.

I stood there, chest heaving, my pitiful knife held high in some ridiculous semblance of defense, and my gaze on the little door, waiting for it to collapse inward with my death to follow.

Yet the little door didn’t come crashing down. There was silence on the other side. I still didn’t move. All I could think was the jabbits were being tricky, perhaps waiting for me to let my guard down before attacking. Reason quickly dispelled this idea. I couldn’t possibly defend myself against them.

They just had to knock down the door and eat me.

Sliver after sliver went by and nothing happened. My breath started to level off and my chest stopped heaving. I very slowly lowered the knife, though I kept staring at the little door. I strained to hear anything. All those awful fanged heads bumping up against that slender piece of wood.

86 Screeches that made your brain feel as if it were on fire. But there was nothing. It was as if sound from out there could not reach in here.

I put my knife away. I had dropped my lantern back there.

On the other side of the door. I was not going out to try and retrieve it. And yet, for some reason, it was not completely dark in here. I could make out things, so I slowly turned in all directions. Because the door was small, I had expected the room to be as well. But it wasn’t. It was a vast cavern with walls of rock, seemingly bigger than Stacks. I could not even see the ceiling, so high was it. And then my gaze fixed on the wall opposite me.

There was a drawing on it. I drew a quick breath when I saw what it was — three hooks attached as one. The same design as on my grandfather’s hand and on his ring found in Quentin Herms’s cottage.

I forgot about the three hooks as I stared around at the other walls. They were suddenly awash in different lights and sounds. I jumped back as I saw what looked to be a flying slep with a rider astride it, soaring across the rock. The rider threw a spear and there was an explosion so loud and real that I covered my ears and dropped to the floor. A million images seemed to flow across the stone as I watched in disbelief, my eyes unable to keep up with them. It was like watching a great battle unfold in front of me. Screams and moans and cries mingled with bursts of light and the sounds and visions of blows landing and bodies falling. And then the images faded and something else took their place. And that something else was even more terrifying.


It was blood. Blood that looked as if it had just 87 been spilled. As I watched, it started pouring down the cavern’s walls.

If I’d had enough breath in my lungs, I would have screamed. But all that came out was a low, pitiable moan.

Then another sound came to push my panicked thoughts in a new direction: a roar that was nearly deafening.

I turned to my right. Where there had been a solid wall was now the opening of a long tunnel. Something massive was heading toward me, but I couldn’t see what it was yet. I could only hear the sound. I stood rooted to the spot, attempting to decide if I should try my luck with the jabbits outside the door or stay here. A moment later, I had no decision left to make.

A wall of blood exploded out of the tunnel and engulfed me.

I managed to flip over so I was facing another tun- nel where the blood was thrusting me. Up ahead, the tunnel ended. I was hurtling toward a sheer wall and my thought was that I would be smashed against it and die instantly. The roar became so loud I could barely think. And I suddenly saw why.

The blood was cascading downward at the end of the tunnel.

It just dropped off. How far down it went I wasn’t sure, but if the roar I was hearing was any indication, the blood was falling a long, long way. And I was about to plummet over this edge.

I tried to swim against the flow. That turned out to be completely and utterly useless. The current was far too strong.

I was maybe fifty yards from the edge, mists of red spray ris- ing up from the abyss, when I saw it — something suspended across the end of the tunnel. I didn’t know what it was. But I 88 did know what it could be. My way out of this nightmare. My only way out, in fact.

If I missed, I was going to die. But if I didn’t try, I was certainly going to die. There was an outcrop of rock to the left, just below the suspended object and just before the drop-off.

I timed my jump as best I could. I would not get a second chance. I leapt, pushing with my feet off the outcrop of rock, my arms and finger stretching as far as they could. Only I swiftly realized it was not going to be enough. I hadn’t pushed hard enough or jumped high enough. I kicked with my feet as if I were swimming and angled my left shoulder lower and my right higher. I stretched until I believed my arm had popped out of its socket. The abyss seemed to scream at me. I heard the blood crashing on what I supposed were masses of rocks at the bottom.

My hand closed around what turned out to be a chain.

The links were small and shiny, and at first I was afraid they would not be strong enough to hold me. Yet they did. For far less than a sliver.

I fell, screaming, down into that awful chasm. When I thought my situation could not get any more terrible, I felt something truly horrible.

The chain was wrapping itself around me, link by link, until I was completely immobile. Now I had no chance of attempting to swim, even if I survived the drop. I closed my eyes and waited for it all to end.

89 U N D E C I M The Chain of Destin I fell a long way. I don’t think I opened my eyes the whole way down. Yet in my mind’s eye I could see things down in the bloody river as I plunged past them. Faces came out of the dark depths to peer at me for a moment.

My grandfather, Virgil Jane. He loomed up and stared at me with sad, empty eyes. His mouth moved. He held up his hand and showed me the mark on the back of it, the twin of the one on the ring. He was saying something, something I strained mightily to hear, and then he disappeared.

More figures slid past me as I continued my descent.

Thansius. Morrigone. Jurik Krone laughing and pointing at me. He shouted something that I took to be Your punishment, Vega Jane. Your doom. Then I saw Roman Picus with his fat, bronzed timekeeper, and Domitar sucking on flame water.

John came next, looking lost, followed by my father, holding his hands out to me. And, finally, my mother looking plead- ingly as her only daughter fell to her death. Then they were all gone. The swirling blood closed further in on me, like giant, gripping hands.

I opened my eyes. I wanted to see what was coming. I wanted to face death with the little courage I had left. I hit bottom gently. It felt comforting somehow, like falling into my mother’s arms. I was not frightened anymore.

I lay there because, well, actually, I couldn’t move. The chain was still wrapped tightly around me. I held my breath as long as I could to keep the blood out. But finally I had to take a breath. I expected the foul liquid to rush inside my mouth and my lungs to fill like a pair of buckets. I closed my eyes because I just had to.

Several deep breaths later, there was no blood in my mouth. I opened my eyes a teeny bit, thinking that if death were really horrible, I would only see a wee slice of the hor- ribleness, at least at first.

I looked straight up. The Noc stared straight down at me.

I blinked and shook my head clear. I looked to the left and spotted a tree. I looked to the right and saw a ragged bush. I sniffed and smelled the grass. But I was inside, not outside, wasn’t I? Then I very nearly screamed.

The chain was uncoiling itself from around me. As I watched, it fell away and then neatly coiled itself up next to me like a serpent. After a sliver of hyperventilating, I slowly sat up and tested my arms and shoulders for injury. I found none, though I was sore. I wasn’t even damp. There was not a trace of blood on me. As I stared ahead, I gasped.

Stacks stared back at me, about twenty yards distant.

How did I go from plummeting into an abyss all trussed up ready to drown to being outside and far away from where I had been? At first I thought I had dreamed the whole thing.

But you dreamed in your cot. I was lying on the ground! 91 I thought maybe I had not been in Stacks at all. Yet I had been. There was the chain as proof.

And I felt inside my cloak pocket and pulled out the book that most definitely had been in my locker at Stacks. I had been in there. The jabbits had been after me. I had discovered a huge cavern where an immense battle had been displayed on the walls, along with the symbol of the three joined hooks. I had been hit by a wall of blood and plum- meted over the edge to my certain death. And on the way down I had seen images of Wugs alive, dead, and nearly dead.

And now I was outside and my clothes were not even damp.

I’m not sure that even my brother’s impressive mind could have wrapped itself around all that. I had to stop thinking about these events for a few slivers as I stood, doubled over and threw up. My knees shaky, I straightened and looked down at the coiled chain. I was afraid to touch it, but I tenta- tively reached out a finger.

I kept reaching until my finger grazed one of the links. It felt warm to the touch, even though the metal should have been cold. I gripped the same link between two of my fingers and lifted it up. The chain uncoiled as I drew it upward. It was long. In the light of the Noc, it seemed to pulsate, glow even, as though it had a heart, which of course it could not. I looked more closely and saw that there were letters imprinted on some of the links. Together they spelled — D-E-S-T-I-N.

Destin? I had no idea what that meant.

I dropped the chain and it instantly curled back up.

92 But the thing was, it never made a sound. I knew that when metal touched metal, it made noise. But not Destin apparently.

I took a long step away from it, and the most incredible thing happened.

The chain moved with me. It uncurled and glided along the ground until it was once more within an inch of my foot.

I did not know what to make of this. It was so unimaginable that my mind simply refused to process it. I decided to focus on my most pressing issue. I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the book. A book was real, solid. A book I could understand. But because a book was real and solid, it also could be discovered. I pondered what to do.


I had to hide it, but where? I started to walk. I thought it might help me think, but I really wanted to put considerable distance between me and Stacks, and the bloody twin jabbits.

I had walked perhaps a mile, with the mysterious chain slithering next to me, when an idea skittered into my knack- ered mind.

The Delphias’.

I broke into a run and didn’t notice until a sliver later that the chain was flying along beside me. Literally flying, straight out, like a long stick. I was so stunned that I pulled up, breathless. It stopped right beside me and momentarily hovered in the air before falling to the ground and coiling up once more.

Still breathing hard, I stared down at it. I took a step for- ward. It reared up as though ready to take off. I took another 93 step forward and then a third. It lifted off the ground. I broke into a run. It rose completely off the ground, configured itself like a stick again, and flew right next to me.

I stopped and it stopped. It was like having a pet bird.

I looked up ahead of me and then back at the chain. It hovered. Even though I had stopped, it seemed to be sens- ing my indecision. Could it have a brain as well as a warming heart? I don’t know what made me do it, but I reached out, grabbed the chain, looped it around my waist, tied a knot with the links to secure it, and started to run. And that’s when it happened. I lifted off the ground maybe six yards and flew straight ahead. I didn’t realize I was screaming until I gagged when a bug flew down my windpipe. My arms and legs were flailing around me as I looked down. That was a mistake — the looking-down part. I pitched forward and zoomed right into the dirt and tumbled painfully along until I came to a stop in a crumpled heap.

I lay there completely still. Not because I was scared, but because I thought I was dead. I felt the chain uncoiling from around me. It re-coiled next to me. I rolled over and tested myself for broken limbs and blood gushing out of fresh wounds in my body. I seemed to be all there, just bruised.

I looked at the chain. It seemed remarkably calm for hav- ing just driven me into the ground. I stood on shaky legs and sure enough, it rose up with me. I walked, and it hovered next to me with every step. I was afraid to put it around my waist again. I was afraid to even touch it. So I just walked, keeping my distance. Well, I couldn’t really do that. Every time I 94 moved away, it moved with me. Finally, I just walked straight ahead and it hovered next to me.

Just over a mile later, I moved around the last bend and saw Delph’s cottage. I looked at the sectioned-off corrals and fenced paddocks. The creta’s huge silhouette loomed back at me from the far corner of his little enclosure. The young slep was sleeping standing up while leaning against the weathered boards of his home.

The adar squatted in one corner, its foot still attached to the chain and the peg in the ground. Its great wings were pointed downward and it seemed to be sleeping in a cocoon of its own body. There was no sign of the whist hound. I hoped it was in the house with the Delphias. Whists could make a racket when disturbed.

I pulled the book from my pocket and peered around. I needed something to put it in. The answer reached me as I looked over at the door in the little hillside. At the entrance was an old lantern, which I lit with a match from a box next to it.

There was a very odd collection of things inside. There were great piles of salted and skinned dead birds and small creatures, which I assumed were food for the beasts. The enormous skin of a garm hung on one wall. I gave that a wide berth.

There were animal skulls lined up on a large trunk, a cre- ta’s and what looked to be an amaroc’s. The upper fangs were as long as my arm. On one shelf was a line of old metal boxes.

I looked through them until I found an empty one. I slipped the book inside and closed the box tight. I grabbed a shovel from against the wall and went back outside.

95 I dug a hole behind a large pine tree and put the box in the hole. I covered it back over and then spread pine needles over the earth.

The creta was starting to stir in the corral and the adar’s wings were now open and it was staring at me. This was a little unsettling. The last thing I wanted was the thing talk- ing to me.

I hurried off down the dirt path and around the bend. I had decided to wrap the chain around my waist once more in case I met someone along the way. I didn’t know how I could explain a chain flying next to me. Now that I had separated myself from the book, I felt both relief and concern. At least no one could take it from me, but I was desperate to read it too. I wanted to know everything that Quentin Herms had collected in the Quag down to the tiniest detail. I told myself that I would come back as soon as I could, dig it up and read it from cover to cover.

When I reached my tree, I climbed up. Settling down on the planks, I set my mind to thinking about things. I hiked my shirt and my sleeves up and my work trousers down and looked at the map again. The marks were still fresh and clear.

From the map I could tell that the journey through the Quag would be long and difficult. It was vast and the terrain was harsh. It was fortunate for me, I thought, that I would never attempt the journey. But with that thought came a sud- den depression that swept over me like a hunter’s net before the kill.

As I slowly pulled my shirt down and my trousers up, I felt a slight tug around my waist. The chain was moving.

96 I jumped up and tried to pull it off. It wouldn’t budge. I kept trying, my fingers digging painfully into my skin. It merely tightened around my waist. Duf had told me of serpents that do that. They squeeze the life right out of you.

Suddenly I stopped panicking. My heart stopped racing.

My breath returned to normal. The chain had stopped squeezing and fallen limp. I couldn’t believe it, but, well, I think it was simply giving me a . . . hug. A reassuring hug! I slipped the chain off and held it up. It was warm and my fingers felt good holding it. I went to the edge of my tree planks and looked down. A long way, about sixty feet in fact.

I glanced at the chain and then looked around to make sure no one was watching. I didn’t think about it one sliver more.

Despite what had happened last time, the confidence was there somehow. It wouldn’t let me down.

I jumped.

I plummeted down, the ground coming at me way too fast. The chain wrapped tightly around my waist halfway down and I landed gently, the heels of my boots barely mak- ing a dent in the dirt. The chain was still warm and the links moved slightly around my waist.

I lifted my shirt and covered the chain with it, then drew a long breath and had an impossible thought. I might never take the chain off again. I looked around. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but then again, how could I not? I was closer to fifteen sessions now than fourteen. I was female. I was independent and stubborn and headstrong and probably many other things that I didn’t yet realize or didn’t know 97 enough words to adequately describe. I also had never had much in my life. But now I had the chain. So I had to do what I was about to do.

I took off running as fast as I could; I was light and nimble on my feet even with heavy work boots on. After twenty yards, I leapt into the air. The chain hugged me tight and up I went, straight up. I bent my head and shoulders forward slightly and leveled out into a horizontal plane. With my head up, my arms back by my sides, and my legs together, I was like a metal projectile fired from a morta.

I soared over trees and open land. My breath came quick, my hair forced back by the wind. I passed a bird and startled the thing so badly it spun downward out of control for a few feet until it righted itself. I had never felt so free in my life. Up to now, my whole world had been Wormwood. I had been rooted here, never able to rise above it.


Until now.

A view of the village spread beneath me. It looked small, inconsequential, when before it had loomed so enormous in my life.

And around Wormwood, like a great outer wall, was the Quag. I banked left and did a slow circle in the air. That way I could see the Quag all in one pass. It dwarfed Wormwood.

But what I couldn’t see, even from this vantage point, was the Quag’s other side.

I flew for a long time and then landed. The sky was brightening and I figured it was nearing the first section of light. I needed to get John to Learning and then I would head to Stacks. I flew toward Wormwood, landed about a quarter 98 mile from my digs and fast-walked the rest of the way. When I got back to Wormwood proper I received a shock.

The cobblestones, which were usually quite empty at this time of light, were full of Wugs talking and walking in large groups.

I stopped one of them, Herman Helvet, who ran a very nice confectionery shop and sold things I would never be able to afford. He was tall and bony with a voice as big as his body.

“Where is everyone going?” I asked in confusion.

“Meeting at Steeples. Special called it ’twas,” he said breathlessly. “Just got the notice fifteen slivers ago. Got Wugs outta their beds, I can tell you that. Nearly scared me to the Hallowed Ground when they thumped on me door.

” “Special meeting called by who?” I asked.

“Council. Thansius. Morrigone. All of ’em, I ’spect.

” “What’s the meeting for?” “Well, we won’t know that till we get there, will we, Vega? Now I got to budge along.

” He hurried on to join what seemed to be all of Wormwood streaming out of the village proper.

A thought hit me.

John! I hurried to the Loons and found my poor brother sitting in front of it, looking scared and lost.

When he saw me, he rushed forward and took my hand, squeezing it hard.

“Where were you?” he said in such a hurt voice that my heart felt shattered.

99 “I . . . I got up early and just went for a walk. So a special meeting, then?” I asked, wanting to quickly change the sub- ject so the shattered look on John’s face would vanish.

“Steeples,” he said, his face now full of anxiety.

“I guess we best get on, then,” I said.

Many reasons for a special meeting crossed my mind as we walked.

None of them would turn out to be right.

100 D U O D E C I M The Impossible Possibility We called the place Steeples because it had one.

John and I rarely went to Steeples anymore. Before my grandfather suffered his Event, and our mother and father went to the Care, our family would go to Steeples every sev- enth light and listen to Ezekiel the Sermonizer, always resplendent in his blindingly white tunic. It was not manda- tory for Wugmorts to attend Steeples, but most went. Maybe it was simply to see the beauty of Steeples and listen to Ezekiel’s voice, which sounded like wind rushing between stands of trees, with the occasional thunder-thrust when he wanted to make a point as fiercely as a mallet introducing itself to a nail.

When we arrived outside Steeples, Thansius’s carriage was there. We hurried past it and inside. I had never seen Steeples so crowded with warm bodies. As we took our seats near the back, I looked around. The ceiling was high and laced with beams of blackened, gnarled wood. The windows were fully thirty feet tall and located on both sides of the structure. I counted at least twenty colors in each of them, more than I had to choose from at Stacks. There were Wug figures embedded in them, looking properly pious. And there were beasts represented here too, I guess to show the evil of what was around us. I shivered as I saw a jabbit that took up nearly the entire length of one window. As I stared at it, I could only think that it was far more horrible for real than it was re-created in glass and color and placed on a wall.

There was a high altar at the front of Steeples with a carved wooden lectern in the center of it. Behind the lectern, against the wall, was a face chiseled into the stone of the wall.

This was Alvis Alcumus, who was said to have founded Wormwood. Yet if he founded the place, that meant he had come from some other place. I mentioned this once at Learn- ing, and I thought the Preceptor was going to have me committed to the Care.

I could see Thansius and Morrigone seated next to the lectern. As I continued to look around, it seemed to me that all of Wormwood was here, even Delph and Duf, near the back on the right. And even those sentenced to Valhall were here, with their hands bound with thick leather cords and with the short-statured Nida standing next to them, fortu- nately without the great shuck.

The Sermonizer stepped out from behind a screen of embroidered fabric that I had actually had a hand in making at Stacks.

Ezekiel was neither tall nor short. He was not broad- shouldered like Thansius. He did not have large arms and chests like the Dactyls, and there was no reason he should. I was sure he was quite muscular of brain and sinewy of spirit.

Ezekiel paused to bow deeply to Thansius and then Morrigone before taking his place at the lectern. His tunic was the whitest white I had ever seen. It was like looking at a cloud. It was whiter even than Morrigone’s robe.

102 He raised his hands to the ceiling and we all settled down.

John snuggled next to me and I put my arm protectively around his shoulders. His body was hot and I could tell there was considerable fear in his small chest. I could hear his heart hammering.

Ezekiel cleared his throat impressively.

“I thank all my fellow Wugmorts for coming this light,” he began. “Now let us incant.

” Which of course meant let him incant while we sat silently and listened to his practiced eloquence. Listening to a sermonizer who above all loves to hear himself sermonize is about as much fun as having your toes sheared off by an ama- roc. All bowed their heads, except me. I didn’t like looking down. That gave someone the opportunity to get the drop on me. And Cletus Loon was sitting perilously close by and had already glanced sideways at me twice, each time with a nasty grin.

Ezekiel stared upward at the ceiling, but I supposed far beyond that, to somewhere perhaps only he could see.

He closed his eyes and incanted long streams of words that sounded erudite and polished. I imagined him standing in front of a looking glass, practicing. I smiled at this thought.

It gave Ezekiel a feeble dimension that I knew he would nei- ther care for nor appreciate. When he was done, everyone lifted their heads and opened their eyes. Was it just me or did Thansius seem a trifle annoyed that Ezekiel had gone on so long? Ezekiel looked down upon us and said, “We gather this light for an important Council announcement.

” I craned my neck a bit and saw the other Council members 103 resplendent in their black tunics, sitting in a row in front of the altar and facing us. Jurik Krone was prominent among them. As I looked at him, he suddenly stared back at me. I quickly glanced away.

Ezekiel continued. “Our fellow Wugmort Quentin Herms has gone missing. It has been the subject of much idle talk and fruitless speculation.

” Thansius cleared his throat loudly enough for me to hear it in the back.

“And now the Chief of Council, Thansius, will address you all,” Ezekiel added hastily.

Thansius walked to the lectern while Ezekiel took his seat near Morrigone. The two did not look at each other, and my instinct told me one didn’t really care for the other.

Thansius’s voice, in comparison to Ezekiel’s, was sooth- ing and less ponderous but commanded attention.