The End of Time

by P. W. Catanese

  “He hasn’t got eyes,” said the younger.

  “Somebody took ’em!” cried the elder.

  Hap’s breath hitched, and his stomach convulsed. Umber reached for the cloth with his nose wrinkled and his lip twisted on one side. Hap turned away before Umber peeled the cloth away from one eye, but he heard Umber suck in air and let out an ugh.

  Umber wiped both sides of his hand on his pants. “Where did you find him?” he asked the boys.

  “Near the great forest,” the older boy said. “That’s where our farm is. We heard him crying out, and he was walking around blind, you know, like this.” The boy closed his eyes and staggered in place with his hands groping the air before him.

  Umber frowned at the boy. “The great forest—it must have taken you two days to get here.” The brothers nodded. “And you didn’t tell your father you were going? Well, of course he’ll be angry. Now, this man in the cart—he told you to bring him to me?”

  “That’s right!” blurted the younger brother. “He said you’d give us a bag of gold if we did, ’cause you’re a wealthy man, he said just that!”

  Hap stared down at Willy Nilly’s face, wreathed by straw. “Lord Umber . . . is he . . . ?”

  Umber bit his bottom lip. He reached into the cart and put two fingers to Willy’s neck, close to his ear. With his eyes staring at nothing, he waited, concentrating.

  “He’s weak, but . . .” Umber would have said more, but Willy stirred just then, turning his head. His jaw slackened, and a shallow breath rattled out. Umber turned back to the boys. “And why is he packed in straw?”

  The younger one aimed a finger at his brother. “It was his idea.”

  The older one tucked his head between his shoulders. “Um. I didn’t want nobody to ask why we had a sick man with no eyes.”

  Umber squeezed the back of his neck and nodded. “That logic has merit.” The boy smiled tentatively, clearly not understanding the words. “Oates,” Umber said, “will you move that beast aside for the moment, and can I trouble you to haul the cart up to the gatehouse? We’d better take Willy up to the Aerie and stuff him with medicine.”

  The boys’ mouths turned into gaping round holes as Oates took the harness off the donkey and hoisted it as easily as most people would lift a cat, setting it gently aside. He stood between the shafts of the cart, grabbed one in each hand, and pulled it up the causeway without a hint of exertion.

  “You two,” Umber called to the boys. He pointed at the carriage, then seemed to think better of his idea and flapped his hand toward the Aerie. “Just walk up there, will you? I’ll deal with you later.”

  The boys skipped up the causeway until they caught up to Oates, and then irritated him immensely by walking just behind him and gawking the rest of the way.

  Dodd chuckled and shook his head. “I am so pleased that I have no offspring.”

  Umber ruffled Hap’s hair. “They’re not all so bad. Now, Dodd, take the carriage to the medical university and bring the sisters back to the Aerie, as quick as you can.”

  Balfour stepped out of the room and closed the door softly behind him. He held a bucket of bloody rags in water. “Cleaned him up the best I could,” he said, looking grim. “He never stirred.”

  “The sisters are here,” Lady Truden announced. She stood at the top of the stairs at the end of the corridor with her chin raised high, and stepped sideways to clear a path. The physicians entered: the women whom Umber had called the sisters.

  The sisters were short and round-faced, with upturned noses and bright blue eyes. They dressed identically in billowing wheat-colored dresses with wide red sashes around the waist. Their blond hair was tucked under plain white headdresses. Each had a large wicker basket hanging from a bent arm. They smiled cheerily up at Lady Truden, who stared impassively down, more than a head taller than either.

  “Lord Umber,” said one, and they both bent a knee.

  “My friends,” Umber replied. “Happenstance, these are the best of the healers from my school of medicine: Laurel and Lily.”

  “Laurel is me,” said the plumper of the two, smiling at Hap. “And this is Lily.” The other sister lifted a hand and waved. Their smiles were open and honest, and their cheeks filled with color.

  “Hello,” Hap said.

  “You look starved but well, Lord Umber,” Laurel said, looking closely at Umber’s face.

  “I’m fine,” Umber told her. “But there is another patient here for you, and you must do everything you can for him.”

  Laurel dipped her head. “And of course we will. Where will we find him?”

  Umber turned the knob and swung the door open. “Right here.”

  The sisters smiled and bustled inside. Umber did the thing Hap was dreading: He motioned with a twirl of his hand for Hap to follow him into the room.

  The sisters set their baskets on the floor and stepped up to a basin that Balfour had readied. They poured warm water from a kettle into the basin, lathered their hands with soap, scrubbed furiously, rinsed, and dried their hands on clean towels. Only then did they approach the bed where Willy Nilly lay covered by a white blanket. There was a fresh cloth over his eyes, with orange-brown stains already seeping through. Laurel peeled the cloth back. Hap looked away, but not before he’d glimpsed the raw cavities where bright green eyes should have nestled.

  “Such cruelty,” Laurel said. Beside her, Lily shook her head and closed her eyes, squeezing out a teardrop that tumbled down her cheek.

  Hap wondered if she’d feel such pity if she knew what Willy Nilly had done. The boy I was drowned because of him, he thought. And he probably murdered another Meddler to resurrect me. Hap had spent many of his solitary nights stoking his anger for this strange man.

  “Is he a friend?” Laurel asked, as her sister gently held her wrist to Willy’s forehead.

  “An acquaintance,” Umber replied.

  Acquaintance, Hap thought bitterly. He’d made that acquaintance only twice. Once deep in the subterranean city where Hap had been left for Umber to discover. And next on the islet when Hap had been lost at sea. On both occasions, Willy was mysterious, mocking, and strangely lighthearted, with a maddening songlike quality to his voice.

  But despite all that, to Hap’s surprise, his heart softened at the sight of Willy’s maimed face.

  Lily looked at Laurel, and with both hands made intricate gestures in the air, finally putting her hand to her own forehead and then yanking it away as if it were painful to touch.

  Laurel nodded. “Yes. And what shall we give him for his fever?”

  Lily can’t speak, Hap realized. He watched her open her basket, revealing dozens of colorful ceramic jars within. She ran her fingers across the cork lids of the jars, and then extracted one and held it up for Laurel to see. Laurel smiled and nodded. “And the willow extract as well, I think. But first let us clean his wounds.”

  “When I first heard of the sisters, Hap,” Umber said, “they were midwives and herbalists, living in the hills above Kurahaven.”

  “Some called us witches,” Laurel said. “Can you imagine!”

  Umber laughed. “Those insults came from the quacks and blood-letters that thought of themselves as physicians. But things are improving, Hap. When I established our university of medicine, I found that, for the most part, the country healers were quicker to embrace modern medical ideas.”

  “Modern, indeed,” Laurel said. She lifted another jar from the basket and held it up for Hap to see. This jar was made of clear glass and filled with brown powder. A serious look transformed her cheerful face. “Young man, you have witnessed many of Lord Umber’s innovations, I’m sure. His ships. His buildings. His printing press. His symphonies. But I would sacrifice them all for the medicine in this jar. With this I can heal folk whose blood is fouled and whose infections would lead to suffering and death. Already I have seen it save hundreds of lives. This is the wonder of all wonders, but there is nothing magical about it. And do you know where this medicine comes fr
om?”

  Hap shook his head, impressed into silence.

  Laurel smiled again. “The mold that spoils your bread and fruit!” She moved abruptly to help her sister, who had turned Willy’s head to the side to pour a clear liquid into the ragged wounds. The liquid turned to a bubbling froth, faintly hissing. Willy moaned softly, and Laurel took his hand between hers. For a moment Hap thought the Meddler might wake, but his body went limp once more, even as Lily dabbed at the grisly sockets with her cloth.

  “Antibiotics,” Umber said to Hap. “That’s what those medicines are called. It’s not a simple matter—impurities are still a concern. But we’re getting better.” He stepped closer to the bed and looked down at Willy. “Will he live?”

  Lily looked at Laurel and gave the slightest shrug of her shoulders. Laurel turned to Umber. “We aren’t sure. He is very ill.”

  “Anything you can do . . . please do,” Umber said. “I am most eager to speak to this man.”

  CHAPTER

  18

  Umber and Hap walked down to the grand hall to find Oates holding the brothers by the fronts of their shirts, one in each hand. Their legs dangled, kicking wildly at air. Balfour watched from his seat at the table with his head wagging from side to side.

  “They were fighting again,” Oates said when he spotted Umber.

  Umber glared at the boys with his fists on his hips. “All right, you twitchy little monsters. What are your names?” They started to answer, but Umber waved his hands to cut them off. “On second thought, I don’t even want to know that much. Listen: I wasn’t the one who promised a reward, but I’ll give you one anyway.”

  “Hooray!” cried the older boy, flapping his arms like a bird.

  “And you’ll get a ride home, too, because your parents must be sick with worry, and because I don’t think you can make it that far without killing each other. Balfour, would you make the arrangements?”

  “The idea fills me with joy,” Balfour said.

  “Excellent. Now, Hap, why don’t we find out what that overgrown weed on the terrace is up to?”

  “I wish Fendofel could see this,” said Umber.

  The thorn tree’s branches had sprouted thousands of narrow, pointed leaves. The reeking flowers had withered, their petals dropped to reveal small, flesh-colored fruits. Umber reached up and gently pinched one. “Wonder if these are edible?”

  “I wouldn’t eat it,” Hap said. Everything about the tree unnerved him, even those egg-shaped fruits.

  Umber stared at the roots that sprawled across the terrace floor like frozen serpents. “At least it stopped trying to kill my other plants.” He took a second glance at one of the fruits, and leaned closer, almost touching it with his nose. “I might be wrong . . . but I think this fruit is growing, even as we speak. We’d better keep an eye on this. Hap, would you take a look tonight, while the rest of us are sleeping?”

  Hap looked out the twin windows of his tiny room, into the night. Below lay what was left of the ancient castle Petraportus. There was a new tomb inside those ruins. Umber had it made for the fisherman and his wife, the reclusive pair that had turned out to be Hap’s brokenhearted parents. It was Willy Nilly’s fault they were dead. Willy had never laid a hand on them, but the events that he set in motion years before had led to their deaths. And wasn’t that how Meddlers worked: indirectly?

  Now Willy was a few doors away, close to death himself. Hap felt the urge to burst in and shake him into consciousness. Why me? he wanted to scream. How dare you make me one of you! And now you and Umber want me to leave this world and save another. But I never asked for these powers. I don’t want this burden!

  The hour was late, and he figured that everyone else was asleep. He eased the door to his room open and stepped quietly into the hall. Every other door was closed, except for one threshold that still cast a rectangle of golden light. When he reached it, he saw Willy Nilly’s still and senseless form. The Meddler’s face was pale, his jaw slack, his breathing raspy and labored.

  Laurel was sleeping on a second bed in the room with her face to the wall. Lily, the silent one, was dozing in a chair beside Willy. Something alerted her to Hap’s presence, and her eyes fluttered open. She smiled and put a hand over her mouth to cover a yawn.

  Hap waved but couldn’t smile. He pointed to Willy. “Has he woken up at all?”

  Lily shook her head.

  Hap gnawed on the knuckle of his thumb for a moment. “Do you think . . . he’s going to live?”

  Lily stared at the Meddler with her lips in a pout. Then she touched her hand to her temple and shrugged.

  Hap could think of nothing else to say. Finally he waved. “Good night.” She smiled back, and he left the room and took the stairs to the terrace.

  In the darkness his gifted eyes saw the thorn tree. The roots and branches hadn’t grown, but the fruits had swollen to the size of skulls, and the branches drooped with their weight. Hap’s finger jabbed at the air as he counted them. Eleven.

  He walked among the other plants of the terrace, and past Umber’s little tower, a cylinder on top of the soaring slab of the Aerie. At the corner of the terrace he leaned over with his forearms flat on the stone railing and stared out at the bay. His eyes widened, and he sprang straight up and laughed with delight.

  The great leviathan Boroon was floating a hundred yards away, gently swirling his enormous fins to hold him in place. The barge was strapped to his back as usual. Hap leaned over, trying to spot Nima, the amphibious captain of the craft. He was even more surprised to see her swimming through the water, into the space between the Aerie and Petraportus. She reached the crude bridge of stone that connected the two and climbed onto the rocks.

  Hap hopped from one foot to the other, grinning madly. He cupped his hands around his mouth, trying to project his voice in a narrow beam that would not wake the others. “Nima!”

  The night was so still that she heard him. She looked up, unable to see in the dark as Hap could, and waved in his direction. “Let me in,” she called up.

  “Of course!” Hap called down. He soared to Umber’s tower in a single, joyful leap, and pounded on the locked door. “Lord Umber! Wake up!”

  A squeal of shutters came from above, and Umber stuck his head out, grinding the back of his hand against the narrow slits of his eyes. “Hap? What—something happen?”

  “Nima is here! She’s coming up to the Aerie!”

  Umber blinked and managed to open one eye entirely. “Coming up to the . . . she’s on land?”

  Hap cocked his head to one side. “Well . . . yes. Hurry, we have to let her in!”

  Umber ducked back inside. Hap heard the thump of his feet on the inner stairs, and then his door flew open and he stumbled out, pulling a pair of trousers up under his nightshirt. “This must be important. Nima hates the land—more than you hate the sea!”

  Nima followed them into the grand hall, looking ill at ease with every step. She took a seat at the table, but perched on the edge, never sitting back in comfort.

  Umber squeezed her wrist. “What is it, Nima?”

  She put her hands on the table with her fingers spread wide, as if she felt unsteady in a world that did not move or roll beneath her feet. Hap couldn’t help but look at the webbing that connected her fingers as high as the knuckles. “There is something strange in the sea,” she said. “To the west.”

  Umber glanced at Hap and nodded. “Near the Far Continent?”

  “No,” she said. “Much closer than that. I . . . wish I could tell you more, but I have not seen it. Boroon heard it as we were returning to Kurahaven with cargo from Ornast. The thing was many miles away, but Boroon still heard a sound like nothing he has ever known, a constant roar of thunder in the water, thumping like a heart. I have never seen Boroon so afraid. He refused to go any closer. And it was beyond the horizon, so I could not see what it was.” She folded her arms tight against her body and fixed her dark-eyed gaze on Umber. “Do you know what it was, Lord Umber? This terri
ble thing roaming the sea?”

  Umber sat with his chin in his hand and a finger sawing his bottom lip. “I don’t, I’m afraid.” He turned to Hap. “The same thing as that sailor’s fire monster, do you suppose?”

  Hap squirmed in his seat. The thought had crossed his mind. “Nima, could you tell which way it was going?”

  She shook her head. “What is this fire monster?”

  “We don’t know much about it,” Umber said, “except that it has destroyed more than one ship, with unbelievable violence. And it seemed to come from the Far Continent—which means that it is crossing the sea. It would be nice to know where it’s heading.”

  “Can’t you send your friend and his flying craft to find it?” Nima asked.

  “Pilot?” Umber smiled crookedly and rolled his eyes. “He only comes to me when he needs money, and I paid him a fortune on our last adventure. We won’t be seeing him or his spidery crew anytime soon.”

  Nima stood abruptly. Hap could see tension in the flare of her nostrils and the muscles of her jaw. “I must get back to Boroon,” she said. What she really meant, Hap knew, was that she needed to return to the supple embrace of the sea.

  Umber popped out of his seat. “What will you do next? Where will you be?”

  “I have a rendezvous with one of your ships offshore, to unload my cargo,” she replied. Her shoulders trembled, and she rubbed one arm with the other hand. “After that I await another assignment from Hoyle.”

  “Be careful,” Hap told her. “I mean, stay away from that thing. Whatever it is.”

  She smiled despite her nerves. “Boroon will keep me many miles from this monster, Happenstance. I promise you.”

  They watched Nima dive off the rocks, into the inky water. She surfaced again minutes later, close to Boroon. “She’s waving,” Hap told Umber, who couldn’t have seen the gesture in the murk of night. He watched her climb onto the back of the leviathan. With a gentle thrust of his wide tail, Boroon began to cruise toward the open sea. Hap wished the filaments would appear just then, so he could see what fate might have in store for Nima.