by Ted Sanders
Four seconds.
Too stunned for a moment to remember himself, he spoke with a voice that scarcely seemed like his own. “Now,” he said quietly, knowing that Gabriel would hear him, knowing that Gabriel would do as he had promised. The box had shown him as much.
And sure enough, a thin, piercing rumble cut through the air, shaking the earth. The humour vanished. The night returned, but Horace was nearly alone within it. He glanced back, and his eyes slid queasily across the entire clearing and the unseen patch of woods beyond. The battle was still going on, deep within the humour, silent and invisible from outside.
But of course, there was only one thing he wanted to see right now. Across the river, Dr. Jericho stood pale in the darkness, like a dead tree come to life, open astonishment plastered across his face. Horace stepped right up to the water’s edge, open box still in hand, knowing the Mordin was now sensing the Fel’Daera not only in the present, but twice—once from nearly an hour back, and once from a mere four seconds ago. Horace wondered if the Mordin had ever encountered such a thing before.
Dr. Jericho composed himself. “Ah, my dear Tinker, there you are,” he called out, his voice a purr. “And there you were,” he continued, pointing first at Horace directly and then at a spot farther up the bank, where Horace had been standing fifty-nine minutes ago. “And there you were again.” He shook his head as if in admiration. “Such a fast learner. In a little over a month, you’ve mastered the breach. The last Keeper of the Fel’Daera didn’t manage that for years. Impressive.”
Horace resisted the thin man’s taunts about the last Keeper of the Fel’Daera. He kept one eye on the Fel’Daera’s blue glass as he replied, channeling Chloe’s bravado. “Yes, I’m very talented. Get used to it.”
The thin man stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I wonder—what do I do in the next few minutes that is so . . . vital . . . that you feel the need to see it twice? You continue to watch me even now. Care to share why?”
The truth was, Horace hadn’t seen this future clearly at all. It had been choppy, and then he’d blacked out. But again—there was no reason Dr. Jericho needed to know that. “Not interested in sharing, thanks,” Horace said. “You said it yourself: Why would I tell you your own future?”
“Why indeed?” said Dr. Jericho with a menacing smile.
“Tell you what,” Horace said, trying to sound more confident than he actually felt. “How about you try something and see how it works out for you.”
“Do you know, I would rather not?” Dr. Jericho replied, but before the sentence was half out, the box revealed the movement Horace had been waiting for, the moment he’d so desperately tried to see beyond, fifty-nine minutes ago—the Mordin crouching, then leaping across the river straight for him, savage hands outstretched. Horace nearly flinched, but kept watching—Dr. Jericho, landing on all fours right where Horace now stood, his teeth flashing. And then the scene through the Fel’Daera went black, Horace’s view momentarily obscured because the Mordin’s body—four seconds in the future—was occupying the same space the Fel’Daera was in right now.
Four seconds. Horace would need to dodge at just the right moment. He held his ground, not revealing his hand, letting the future come to him. His automatic counting had begun the instant he saw the future Mordin leap—one . . . two . . . three.
On four, Horace threw himself to the side, tucking the box safely against his belly as he rolled. In the same instant, the Mordin—already airborne—thundered to the ground just as Horace had foreseen, missing him by only a foot or two.
Horace scrambled to his feet, box still in hand. The Mordin laughed with savage glee, measuring him up and preparing for another attack.
But Horace was already ahead of him. Four seconds ahead—Dr. Jericho, circling to the left; now swiping low with one mighty arm, trying to sweep Horace’s feet out from under him.
Horace crouched. One. Two. Three. Horace leapt high on four. The Mordin’s arm swept under him, fast as a snake. Horace barely cleared the blow, stumbling when he landed, but he kept his feet, kept the box open.
“Careful, careful,” Dr. Jericho scolded, still circling. “This is a dangerous game you’ve chosen to play tonight, Tinker.”
“I didn’t choose it,” Horace said, “but I know I win it.” That was a bluff, of course, but the thin man didn’t know that.
Horace held the box at arm’s length, circling with the Mordin and keeping his distance, struggling to watch both now and then at once. It was hard not to be distracted—in the present, the humour was merely an unseeable wrinkle where the forest seemed to buckle and bend. Through the box, though, Horace could see the battle that raged within. He wondered what Chloe was doing. The Auditor would be all but invincible now—flying, formless, and invisible in the humour.
But there was no time to worry. Motion flickered inside the box again—Dr. Jericho feinting to Horace’s left, then lunging to his right. Horace played into it casually, sliding to his right. One. Two. Three. Then he dove to the left, into the thin man’s bluff. Now it was the Mordin’s turn to stumble as he tried to reverse himself, groping awkwardly. Horace pinwheeled backward, out of his range.
A stab of nausea corkscrewed through Horace’s gut. However slightly, he’d just changed the future the Fel’Daera had revealed. He would have to be careful. But the action inside the box wouldn’t slow—the Mordin, reaching high overhead and grabbing hold of a tree branch like some ghoulish, spidery ape; lifting himself and swinging forward; now Horace himself, running not away from the attack, but into it, under it.
Horace was already counting, readying himself. One. Two. Dr. Jericho stretched upward for the branch. Horace braced himself. Three. But just as Horace was about to launch, just as the Mordin’s feet left the ground, the Fel’Daera revealed an unthinkable sight. Dr. Jericho, dropping out of his swing, reaching back with one long arm as Horace sprinted beneath him, catching Horace across the shoulders and slamming him to the ground.
No. It couldn’t happen. Yet Dr. Jericho was already swinging. Horace sprinted toward him just as he’d seen, unsure what else to do. As he ran he cried, “I need help!” He ducked beneath the Mordin’s legs, passing him by. He glanced up and saw the Mordin reaching back for him with one great hand, the other still clinging to the thick branch fifteen feet overhead. Dr. Jericho’s face was alight with predatory joy. He was going to catch Horace.
And then suddenly—miraculously—a shadow dropped out of the stars. It struck Dr. Jericho heavily in the neck and chest, riding him downward. The Mordin cried out, losing his grip. Even as he fell, he clawed at Horace, his sharp nails raking down Horace’s back. The Mordin slammed to the ground, his jaw plowing into the soft dirt.
As Dr. Jericho lay there stunned, Horace scampered away and collapsed against a tree. Another bolt of nausea wrenched him, bigger this time, and a pounding in his head. He’d changed the future yet again—but how?
And then a voice from the canopy. “I see what you’re doing, Keeper. Of course you know what’s best, but are you very sure this is it?”
Neptune. She’d been floating overhead, obviously, and had heard his cry for help. She’d dropped down onto the Mordin with all her weight and then gone light again, leaping away. Now she stood high in the tree above the Mordin.
“This is the only idea I have,” Horace told her.
Dr. Jericho stirred, lifting his head.
“I’m out too,” Neptune said. “I’m low on rocks, so I gave him the full Neptune. But that was a twenty-footer I just hit him with, about my limit. And he’s still getting up.”
Twenty feet! Horace reckoned that with a drop from that height, Neptune had hit the thin man with a force of five hundred pounds or so. But the Mordin staggered slowly to one knee now, shaking his head. He seemed merely dazed.
“It’s okay,” Horace said. “I can handle this. Help the others.”
“They’re holding their own. Two Mordin are down, temporarily. Chloe’s been calling for you. I came looking.”
So Chloe was okay. But of course she was. Horace glanced toward the woods—or rather, tried to. Still the humour rejected being seen. Meanwhile, through the blue glass, Dr. Jericho was nearly on his feet.
“Tell Chloe I’m fine. Tell her not to do anything stupid.”
“Considering what you’re doing right now, are you sure you’re qualified to make a demand like that?”
“Watch out!” Horace cried. Through the blue glass, a genuine scare—Dr. Jericho groggily regaining his feet one instant; the next, leaping alertly high into the air, swiping viciously at Neptune. The Mordin snagged Neptune’s cloak and yanked her to the ground. But no—this future couldn’t come true. Horace wouldn’t let it. He cried out, and the box seemed to flicker clumsily. Here in the present, Neptune sprang lightly off the branch, sailing out of sight into the tree. Dr. Jericho got to his feet, glancing up with a scowl, but he didn’t even attempt to go after her.
A miasma of queasy pain racked Horace, doubling him over. It was all he could do to keep the box steady as he fought off the effects of this latest—and greatest—refusal to follow the willed path.
“Talented, you say,” Dr. Jericho said, watching Horace intently and holding his ground for now—both inside and outside the box. “But not enlightened.” The Mordin rolled his neck, as if working out a soreness, and dusted himself off. “Have you not been taught properly?”
“I’ve been told what I need to know.”
“Need,” the thin man laughed. “You Tinkers are all alike. You claim not to need what you clearly desire. Don’t you wonder about this pain you’re feeling now—the pain of disobedience to the box?”
Horace didn’t know how to answer. He would refuse to answer. He stood up straight, trying to quell the cramps still roiling in his belly.
“It’s called thrall-blight,” said Dr. Jericho. “And it’s not just you it affects—oh, no. Thrall-blight spreads through the Medium. Even to the Mothergates themselves.” Dr. Jericho raised his foul eyebrows in innocent surprise. Inside the box, he had begun to advance on Horace slowly. Horace took a careful step back, his mind reeling with the Mordin’s words.
“Has no one ever told you?” Dr. Jericho continued. “Have you never heard the story of Sil’falo Teneves’s greatest mistake?”
Despite himself, hearing Dr. Jericho utter the name of the Fel’Daera’s maker made Horace’s heart skip a beat. “What mistake?”
“The mistake in your hand, of course. The Box of Promises.” He spat out the word promises as if it were something nasty he’d stepped in.
“Shut up,” Horace said. “You don’t know anything about it.” He kept inching backward. The Mordin kept coming, twenty feet away now, spreading his abhorrent hands.
“I merely repeat what Sil’falo herself has said—allegedly. I am not claiming I agree.”
“I know you don’t agree,” Horace replied. “If you really thought the box was a mistake, you wouldn’t want it so badly. You wouldn’t want me to join you.”
“True enough. And in that regard, am I really so different from your current master? Come with me. Join me. I can teach you things he never will.”
His master—Mr. Meister? Horace opened his mouth to object, but just then the future inside the box went wildly blurry, the ground and the trees and everything in between—including the Mordin—smudging and quaking unrecognizably. He’d never seen anything like this before. What was happening? In the present, Dr. Jericho cocked his head curiously, clearly catching Horace’s dismay.
In the next instant, as Horace continued to back away from the advancing Mordin, a sudden tidal wave of sound swept over him—shouts of surprise and roars of anger and a child’s plaintive voice calling out.
The humour was gone. But no sooner was it gone than the sounds released by its disappearance also began to fade. In the now-visible patch of woods, Horace saw a scene of chaos grinding to a halt. Mrs. Hapsteade stood exhausted inside the clear protective sphere of a dumin, looking spent, two Mordin lurking outside. Another Mordin, shockingly, had Mr. Meister pinned against a tree eight feet off the ground. The old man wriggled, trying to reach into his vest. Gabriel knelt next to Joshua, staff in hand, his face vacant. April stood behind with glassy eyes. Hardly anyone was moving.
One by one, every figure began to stare, following a peculiar sound—a soft, thin wail of pain. And now Horace saw. A white figure lying on the ground, writhing in pain, hands clutching her head. Her dark green eyes stared into the sky.
The Auditor.
The Mordin began to shout to one another, harsh cries of warning. What was happening? And now another voice, human and familiar: “Horace, look out!”
Chloe. Horace turned toward the sound, but in the same instant backed into something cold and hard—the tip of the canoe, catching him behind the knee. Immediately he was falling, tumbling clear over the canoe. As he fell he caught sight of a new figure, stalking boldly across the clearing. A human. Small, with fiery red hair. At her breast was a small brown sphere, sparkling from within like a night full of green stars.
Horace hit the ground hard, knocking the wind out of himself. The box slipped from his hand and slid away, just beyond his grasp, the lid still open. He strained to reach for it. But what about Dr. Jericho? Looking down along the length of his body, Horace saw that the Mordin had dropped to all fours, his black beady eyes still locked hungrily on Horace—so fixated that he hadn’t seen Isabel yet, apparently hadn’t noticed or felt what had happened to the Auditor.
But the other Mordin clearly had. They had already begun to scatter, fleeing from Isabel. Mr. Meister’s captor let the old man fall heavily to the ground. Another Mordin reached down and helped a fallen comrade to his feet, the two of them sprinting into the woods.
Isabel continued her calm approach. The wicker sphere pulsed and glowed. Without warning—without a sound—one of the fleeing Mordin clutched at its back as if shot. It toppled violently, plunging face-first into the ground. Horace knew without question it was dead.
Breathless, Horace finally grabbed hold of the box. He brought it to his chest and pointed it at Dr. Jericho. He was sure the thin man would run now too, but the box told a different story, promised a different future, horrible and inescapable.
Dr. Jericho, stalking swiftly across the clearing on all fours, stretching for Horace across an impossible distance; his mighty hand wrapping around Horace’s lower leg, swallowing it from the knee down. In the present, Horace struggled to scramble backward, counting down even as the events shown in the box began to unfold in the present.
One. Horace slid over a tree root, scraping his hand. He wasn’t going to make it. Two. The Mordin reached out, his hand opening like the maw of a shark. “No. No!” Horace cried, kicking. Three. The Mordin took hold, took hold in the present for real, his hand encasing Horace’s leg in a stonelike grip.
In the same moment, another Mordin, galloping away from the scene, crumpled like paper and plowed into a tree with a bone-crunching thump. Dr. Jericho, still clinging to Horace’s leg, turned swiftly. He saw the fallen Mordin, saw Isabel, saw the Auditor still squirming and keening in the dirt. “No,” he said. But he did not relinquish his grip on Horace.
Horace held the box out, staring into it, hoping beyond hope that his fate would be a good one. And then, through the glass, a miraculous sight. An unthinkable sight. Horace’s mouth went dry watching.
Dr. Jericho, seizing up as if struck by lightning, his head thrown back in anguish. Horace gripped the box hard, his breath caught in his throat. Time seemed to slow down as he watched—the Mordin releasing Horace, then throwing his arms out wide, his fingers as rigid as tent stakes; his many faces collapsing into a single ghoulish skull; and now—now—his long body going slack, collapsing like a rag doll, crumpling lifeless into the mud.
Horace gasped.
One.
Dr. Jericho was about to be cleaved. Tingling with shock, Horace slid his eyes from the box, down along his body to Dr. Jericho. The Mor
din looked back at him, furrowing his brow.
Two.
Horace opened his mouth, the words slipping out before he could stop them. “You’re next,” he said.
Three.
Dr. Jericho’s tiny eyes went wide. Twenty feet away, Isabel turned, the wicker harp ablaze. Horace still hadn’t taken a breath.
And then, in one fluid movement, Dr. Jericho released Horace’s leg, grabbed the prow of the nearby canoe and reared back, heaving hard with a murderous grunt. The canoe left the ground as he hurled it sidearm across his body like an enormous silver spear, straight at Isabel. Horace threw his head to the side and the canoe streaked over his face, missing him by an inch, hissing audibly. Isabel cried out and dropped toward the ground. The canoe clipped her shoulder as it passed, then careened through the trees farther on, tumbling, then crashing to a halt broadside against a thick trunk thirty feet away.
Even as Horace turned to look, his heart pounding like a giant’s fist in his chest, the Mordin was airborne, on his feet and leaping back across the river in a single bound. He landed on the far side and scurried up the bank like a nightmare, melting into the shadowy trees. Just like that, he was gone. The woods went quiet again. All the Riven had vanished except for the two dead Mordin and the Auditor, writhing almost silently in the leaves.
Horace fell back, letting the lid of the box slide closed against his belly. He rolled over and vomited, the world spinning around him. So much disobedience, so many willful changes to the futures the box had revealed. And none of them more outrageous than the last one, the worst one. Had he just done what he thought he had?
Had he just saved Dr. Jericho’s life?
Chloe squatted down at his side. She didn’t touch him—not while he was still throwing up everything he’d ever eaten, plus maybe some things he hadn’t yet. But he thought he could feel her concern, warm and feisty. He waited for her to make a joke, but she didn’t.
