The End of Time

by P. W. Catanese

  Doane looked at Loden’s still form. His mouth twisted up at the corner. “Save him? Whatever for? Deposed kings only cause trouble. Now, Brian, we need to catch up—how long has it been? So many years! Why don’t we have a chat in that tower of yours. I believe you call it the Aerie? And if the reports are correct, you can treat me to coffee!” He turned to the spy. “Spakeman, have that coachman drive you to the gates. Tell those fools that their idiot king has surrendered his crown to the Supremacy. They will lay down their arms and open those gates, or else we will reduce Kurahaven to rubble and burn the flesh from their bones.”

  The spy, Spakeman, bowed his head and put his hand over his heart. “Yes, Supremacy.”

  “And bring the carriage back when you’re done,” Doane said. Spakeman hurried away.

  Doane looked at Umber again, shaking his head and smiling widely, and he threw his arms around Umber once more and thumped his back. “My dear, dear Brian. I still can’t believe it’s really you.”

  “I feel the same,” said Umber, who had found his grip on his emotions once more. He dropped his voice. “Jonathan, how long have you been in this world? How did you get here?” His manner was friendly, but Hap saw how carefully Umber examined his old friend’s face.

  “About ten years, I believe,” Doane said. Hap was the only one standing close enough to hear the conversation, and Doane gave him a suspicious glance.

  “Don’t worry about Hap,” Umber assured him. He tousled Hap’s hair. “He knows everything about me, and where I came from.”

  Doane puckered his mouth. “Ah! A confidante! Good for you, Brian. Well, if you trust him, then I trust him. No secrets between friends like us, eh? Ha! As for your other question—I don’t know how I came to be here. The last thing I remember was that mob bursting into our facility. I was trying to get to you, help you save the Reboot computer. There was smoke, and fire, and I was knocked to the ground and trampled, and it all went black. What about you?”

  “Same story, more or less,” Umber said. He looked over Doane’s shoulder and saw Loden’s and Larcombe’s bodies on the docks. “Can we . . . step away from those two?”

  “Of course, of course!” cried Doane. With an arm around Umber’s shoulder, he walked twenty strides down the dock. Umber gestured for Hap to follow. When Doane saw Hap tagging along, he laughed. “He’s like your little green-eyed puppy, isn’t he?”

  Hap fought to keep a scowl off his face, and Umber ignored the comment. “Jonathan,” he said quietly. “There’s something different about you. You are . . . not quite the man I knew.”

  “Is that so?” Doane said, leaning back. “What do you think is so different, Brian?”

  Umber tapped his fingers together. He spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. “When you started Project Reboot, you told me that you did it out of fear. You were afraid that technology—the destructive side of technology, that is—was giving us the capacity to ruin our own civilization, either through malice or mishap. You remember, don’t you? We created Reboot to preserve the best of human achievements—in case the worst happened, and survivors needed to rebuild.”

  Doane lifted his chin and stared at the sky. His eyes lost focus. “Of course I remember that. And I know what you’re thinking, Brian. But from the moment I arrived here . . . I suppose I saw things differently. Are you trying to tell me

  that . . .” A rumble of wheels approached, and Doane glanced at the returning carriage. “Ah, our ride is back. Let us go to your Aerie, Brian—or should I say Lord Umber? I am eager to get a look inside!”

  Spakeman stepped out of the carriage and held the door for Umber and Hap. Doane took a moment to bark orders at Spakeman and the small army, giving Umber and Hap the chance for a hurried, whispered conversation.

  “Hap, are you making any progress with the filaments?”

  “I saw them once. But they went out again.”

  Umber’s jaw slid from side to side. “Remember when I told you that I felt like a changed man, coming to this world? Less cautious, more exuberant?”

  Hap nodded.

  “I think when we cross worlds, we’re altered somehow,” Umber said. “It’s a crucible that remakes our brains. Jonathan got here the same way as me: A Meddler brought him. And if Willy Nilly brought me, who do you suppose brought Jonathan?”

  “Willy’s nemesis,” Hap said, as the hairs on the back of his neck stood tall.

  “Exactly! Pell Mell! I’m sure of it, Hap. And now Jonathan is a changed man, like me. This cruel disregard for life . . . this thirst for conquest . . . that monstrosity he’s built! Of all people, Jonathan Doane knew better. He had compassion. He understood where technology run amok might lead us. I have to find a way to reason with him, make him see—” Umber’s mouth snapped shut, and he nudged Hap with his elbow. The carriage shifted as Doane boarded and sat on the opposite bench.

  “This will be a leisurely ride,” Doane said, leaning back and folding his hands over his stomach, as if he’d just enjoyed a great feast. “My men will follow on foot.” As the carriage jolted into motion, Doane whistled that familiar song, with horse hooves for percussion. He lifted the crown from his head, and used his sleeve to wipe Loden’s blood away. The other crowns around his waist hung from a chain, and he threaded his new prize among the rest. “Look at my trophies, Brian. We cruised in the Vanquisher from kingdom to kingdom, and every coastal city fell within hours.” Doane shook the chain so that the crowns clanged against one another. “Technology is a beautiful thing, is it not, when the advantage is yours!”

  Umber did not react. Doane’s eyes crinkled merrily at the corners as he turned to Hap. “So, young man, you know Lord Umber’s secrets, do you? Let’s see if you can guess this: Do you know how I learned that someone from my world might be here in Kurahaven?”

  Hap shook his head.

  Doane crossed a leg over the other knee and clasped his hands behind his head. “It was the music, of all things.” He puckered and whistled a different, unfamiliar tune. “Sound familiar?”

  Umber saw the uncertainty in Hap’s expression and offered the answer in a weary voice. “Beethoven. It was one of the first pieces I introduced here. The people loved it.”

  “Exactly!” cried Doane, reaching out to slap Umber’s knee. “They loved it, and shared it. That melody came over the wide Rulian Sea, carried from player to player—a virus spreading, a beacon reaching beyond the blue! Finally a wandering musician arrived in my land, and he knew the most glorious music, which of course I recognized at once. It could only have come from my world. I was not alone! And so I sent my spies to Kurahaven, to learn the source.”

  Doane looked at Hap again, with an unblinking stare that felt as intense as the sun. That manic energy reminded Hap, in a strange way, of Umber’s exuberance. But there was something frightening behind Doane’s fervor. Hap noticed for the first time the tiny twitches in the crags of Doane’s face. One eye’s pupil was twice the size of the other, with veins of blood spilling into the white. “Can you imagine my reaction when the name came back to me?” Doane said, leaning close. “The music was from Umber, my dearest friend! And in Kurahaven of all places—the grandest city in the richest kingdom of all, the jewel of the world that I coveted most.”

  “You must have been surprised, sir,” Hap said quietly.

  “Shocked. Delighted! But, my boy, you must refer to me as Supremacy. Though, Brian, you and only you may use my name.” Doane stuck his head out the window and looked back toward the palace. Hap looked at Umber, who took the moment to breathe deeply and rub his temples with his fingers. He glanced back at Hap and raised his eyebrows and hands, as if asking the same question in Hap’s mind: What now?

  With a contented sigh, Doane withdrew his head from the window and leaned back with his arms spread wide. “Brian, tell me something. Are the days a little shorter here?”

  “By about nineteen of our minutes,” Umber replied.

  “I knew it!” Doane crowed, and he nodded to himself, looking
pleased with the answer. “Took a little getting used to, didn’t it?”

  “Hmm” was all Umber said.

  Doane’s feet tapped on the floor. His fidgeting reminded Hap again of Umber’s constant state of motion. “Do you miss anything from our world, Brian?” Doane asked. “Living in this ancient and backward land?”

  Umber stared at some distant point, eyes unfocused. “I miss certain friends. Modern plumbing. The lights of the cities. College sports. Pop-Tarts.”

  Doane rolled his head back and guffawed. “All good, all good! But, Brian, I have to confess: I don’t miss any of it. What I’ve achieved here . . . what I’ve created . . . if you told me how to get back, I wouldn’t go, not for all the conveniences, all the modern wonders.”

  Umber’s eyes refocused on his old friend. “What have you achieved, Jonathan? How did all this come to be?”

  Doane sat forward and rubbed his knees with his hands. His smile jerked at the corner as he gave Hap another inspection, perhaps still wondering if it was safe to speak in his presence. Hap wriggled in his seat.

  “I awoke in this world,” Doane said, “across the Rulian Sea, in what you call the Far Continent. It had many other names, over there, as many names as it had petty kings and warlords. Brian, you and your neighboring kingdoms rarely venture to those shores. And for good reason. Do you know what people dwell there, young man?”

  “No, Supremacy,” Hap said.

  Umber answered the question. “Outcasts.”

  “Correct,” said Doane. “Men who were banished from these lands. Criminals and pirates populated the coast, while the inlands were full of barbaric clans—and of course the usual roster of goblins and trolls that plague this world. So you see, Umber, I did not appear in such a genteel land as you. I was dropped into a lawless, vicious place, where only the fist and the sword mattered.

  “But like you, Umber, I found patronage soon enough that helped me rise to power. You found it with a king. I found it with a thug named Thurbor. If what my spies told me is true, your ascent began when you cast down a sorceress. Mine began when I gave Thurbor what he desired most in the world: power. I made weapons for him, things nobody in this world had ever seen before!”

  Umber blinked slowly. “It must have been child’s play for you.”

  Doane raised his fists. “Easier than you can imagine. You remember what I studied? My lifelong obsession?”

  Umber looked sideways at Hap. “My friend Jonathan was an expert on the history of military technology.”

  Doane nodded. “With an emphasis on the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.”

  Umber spoke slowly, choosing his words and tone with care. “There was a time when you looked at the progress of military technology and feared that it might end in the destruction of civilization.”

  Doane laughed and waved the remark away like a bothersome fly. “I don’t dwell on the past these days. Or the future. Brian, don’t you see? I was the perfect man to bring order to that chaos in the Far Continent. But it wasn’t just that I knew exactly what to do. All the raw materials I required were there in front of me! Gunpowder, that was no trick—a fool can make gunpowder. But, Brian, we had oil, sitting in puddles on the ground, waiting to be ladled up! We had rich veins of ore in the hills. And that was just the beginning. My heart and brain nearly burst as the possibility become clear: the single greatest leap in military might that the world had ever known. Guns, cannons, explosives—I knew how to make them all. I could lead a force and unite the world under a single flag. Something no man has ever been able to achieve, in any world.” Doane closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the notion.

  “What happened to the thug? Your patron?” Umber asked.

  Doane’s eyes flickered open. He angled his head to one side. “Eventually my people realized who the true leader ought to be. Really, why should power stay behind the throne?” Doane scraped his thumb across his throat. “Thurbor was removed by someone who desired my favor. And he earned it—that man is now my envoy. And what you call the Far Continent is now the Land of Doane.”

  The carriage groaned to a stop, and the face of one of Doane’s armed men appeared at the window. He spoke to Doane with his eyes turned down. “We have arrived at the stone tower, Supremacy.”

  “Here at last,” Doane said. He reached for the handle of the door, pushed it open, and gestured for Hap and Umber to climb out. Hap looked toward the gatehouse of the Aerie and saw Umber’s guardsmen on the other side of the bars of the gate, staring at the company that had arrived. Balfour was with them, squinting toward Umber, trying to read his expression and see what they ought to do.

  A strange thing happened, and it made Hap’s breath stop cold. The light of day dimmed momentarily, and there was a whispery sound like hand passing across silk. Hap had sensed those phenomena before, when Willy Nilly had come and gone. But this could not be Willy. It was someone or something else.

  The armed men lifted their heads to peer around. And then Hap saw many of them whirl to stare in the same direction at something behind them. He turned and saw a figure standing on the causeway, fully eight feet tall. It was a creature like Occo, the vicious, relentless, many-eyed being that had once pursued him and nearly killed him.

  This was the Executioner.

  CHAPTER

  26

  The Executioner stood on the causeway with his back to them, stretching his arms wide and flexing his spidery fingers. He was either unaware of the small army with their deadly rifles, or he did not care.

  Occo, Hap’s first enemy, had obscured his shape beneath a flowing robe. But this creature did not care who saw him or his strange, birdlike legs; his only garment was a glittering armored mesh that covered his torso, leaving his head and limbs bare. In the back of his hairless head was a single glittering green eye. A Meddler’s eye.

  Doane’s men murmured to one another, and in the corner of his vision Hap saw the rifles rise up to point.

  The creature turned, and the invaders gasped. The mouth was filled with sharply pointed yellow teeth. The pale face was studded with eyes, in sockets scattered at random across its cheeks, forehead, and chin. Wrinkled lids of gray skin closed over each eye and snapped up again. There were a dozen sockets at least, filled with a menagerie of eyes plucked from unfortunate humans and animals—because this creature was a thief of eyes who could plant any eye into his face and make it serve his brain.

  Hap’s stomach turned as he saw five more sparkling green eyes in the Executioner’s face. Six altogether, he thought, wondering which two were Willy’s. He looked right and left, trying to choose a way to run if the Executioner sprang upon him.

  “What is that thing, Brian?” asked Doane, staring at the Executioner with his lip flared on one side.

  “I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s dangerous,” Umber replied.

  Doane glanced down at Hap. “He has your young friend’s eyes.”

  “Not yet, he doesn’t,” Umber said, stepping in front of Hap. The Executioner stood still, with only his eyes moving, quivering and peering about as the wrinkled flaps snapped up and down.

  Doane put his hands on his hips and sighed. This appearance seemed more like an annoyance to him than a genuine threat. “Strange and unnatural creatures. I’m told they fascinate you, Brian, in all shapes and forms. For me they are a dangerous nuisance, to be exterminated. And we have the firepower to do so. Shall I?” He raised his hand with a finger extended, and behind him every rifle was leveled toward the Executioner.

  Umber bit his lip and frowned. Hap could see him struggling with the question, appreciating the chance to wipe out this threat but reviling the means. “Wait,” Umber finally said. He took a deep breath and called out to the creature.

  “You there! I will warn you once: You cannot have what you’ve come for. One of your kind has already died trying. Leave us, and do not return.”

  The creature’s response was a vile slurp that seemed endless. One brown human eye was trained on Um
ber, while the rest of the assorted eyes focused on Hap. The sight of Hap’s eyes seemed to fill the Executioner with an insatiable hunger. A sheet of saliva poured out of his wide, curving mouth, and the needle-sharp teeth glistened with moisture. When he spoke, the voice was so much like Occo’s dreadful rasp that Hap covered his mouth to stifle a moan.

  “The boy’s creation was forbidden,” the Executioner said. “And so his eyes must be surrendered. I am the appointed Executioner.” He extended the longest finger of one hand. The fingernail was wide and curved like a scoop, and Hap knew at once what it could be used for. The knowledge made him want to clap his hands across his eyes.

  “Appointed by whom?” shouted Umber.

  “By fate itself,” the Executioner said. He slurped again and began to walk toward them in long strides, on bizarre legs that bent backward at the knee.

  Doane tapped Umber’s shoulder. “I can help you, Brian.”

  Umber shut his eyes and replied through teeth clamped tight. “Do it. Please.”

  Doane thrust his pointed finger toward the Executioner and called to his men: “Kill that thing.” The rifles roared, spewing a cloud of smoke. Stones on the causeway sparked and shattered, but the Executioner was no longer there. He had leaped to one side, and he disappeared over the steep embankment, heading toward the water. But there was no splash or thump of a body on the rocky slope. Instead the world dimmed again for a moment, and a silky whoosh could be heard.

  Doane stepped to the edge of the causeway and peered down. “I don’t see him. Think we got him?”

  “Probably not,” Umber said. He looked pale and shaken.

  “Pity. But that’ll teach him to threaten my friends, won’t it?” said Doane, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. “Come on, Brian. Invite me in, and we’ll talk some more!”

  Hap felt like tiny pins were stabbing his nerves from head to toe. At any moment he expected the Executioner to appear again and snatch him away. The size of the creature had shaken him. The Executioner seemed infinitely more dangerous and confident than Occo. And he’s got something Occo always wanted: the eyes of a Meddler, Hap thought. No, three Meddlers! Does that make him three times more powerful? He can vanish and reappear—even predict his own fate. He folded his arms tight against his stomach. It seemed to him that an hourglass had been turned, to show how little time he had left, and the sand was quickly draining.