The Finisher

by David Baldacci

  During my meal break, I went outside and fetched a bowl of water for Harry Two from a nearby stream and then gave him a bit more food I had managed to scavenge, which he wolfed down. I sat on the ground next to him and stared up at Stacks. It was a colossal building and I had only seen a small part of it in my two sessions here. Yet I wagered I had probably also seen more of it than any other Wug who had ever labored here. I counted off the turrets and towers and floors and it suddenly struck me that it was far taller than simply two stories. This was puzzling because when I had headed up the stairs that night, they ended at the second floor. There were no other stairs. But that wasn’t exactly right. There were no other stairs that I could see.

  As I passed back through the double doors, Domitar barred my way. He did not smell of flame water this light. His cloak was reasonably clean and his eyes were clear, with not a hint of the redness the foul drink inspired.

  “Just feeding Harry Two. Don’t worry. I’ll make my work this light. In some ways, the straps are easier than the pretty things.”

  “Well, there will be many of them,” he said. “Very, very many, in fact.”

  “Perhaps you need to hire another Finisher, then,” I said. “To replace Herms.”

  “There will be no other Finishers,” he snarled.

  “Well, if that’s true, a raise in pay would be nice.”

  “This work is for all of Wormwood. You should be willing to do it for free.”

  “So are you forfeiting your wages, Domitar?”

  “You will learn your place one light, female.”

  “I hope so,” I said. Under my breath I muttered, “So long as it’s not this place.”

  “You were nearly late this light,” he noted harshly.

  “I had a good reason,” I said.

  “I can hardly wonder what would be a good enough reason to be late to your job, particularly in times such as this.”

  I hesitated. Ordinarily, I would not convey personal information to Domitar. “My parents seemed to have taken a turn for the worse at the Care,” I replied.

  He bowed his head, something that surprised me. But his next words stunned me. “I think of them often, Vega. I pray at Steeples for their recovery. They were good Wugs. And may the Fates be kind to them.” When he raised his head, I saw something that was even more shocking than his words. There were tears in his eyes. Tears in Domitar’s eyes? We locked gazes for an instant before he turned and left.

  I felt someone behind me. For an instant I thought it might be Krone come to take me to Valhall despite Morrigone’s assurances, but it was simply Dis Fidus.

  “It’s time to go back to work, Vega,” he said quietly.

  I nodded and returned to my workstation. As I passed Domitar’s office, I could see his silhouette. He was bent over his desk and, unless my ears were deceiving me, the tubby Wug was sobbing.

  The rest of my slivers at Stacks that light went by in a sort of blur. I must have worked hard, because when the end-of-work bell rang, all the straps I had been given to finish lay coiled on the trolley with their edges sanded, their surfaces smooth as a baby whist’s skin and the requisite holes cut precisely as instructed in the parchment. I went to the locker room, changed into my other clothes and headed out.

  Dis Fidus closed the doors behind me and I heard the lock turn. And that’s when I made up my mind. I was going back into Stacks. I remembered the vision of the fierce battle and the torrent of blood that had washed me away. I remembered the screaming Wug on the doorknob. I of course remembered the jabbits.

  But what I most vividly recalled, as I plunged into the red abyss, were the images of my parents. I needed to find out what had happened to them. I would not find out the truth from the Care. Or Council. Wormwood was not what it seemed to be, this I was learning quite forcefully. It held secrets, secrets I was now determined to discover.

  A sliver later, Dis Fidus came out from a side door and walked down a path away from me. A bit later, I saw Domitar emerge from the same door. I crouched down low in the tall grass. Harry Two copied me. Once Domitar was out of sight, I said to Harry Two, “Okay, I’ll be back. You stay here.”

  I got up and started to walk away. Harry Two followed me. I put out a hand. “You stay here, I’ll be back.” I started to walk again. Once more he followed. “Harry Two,” I said. “You stay.”

  He simply smiled and wagged his tail and followed. Finally, I gave it up as a bad job. It looked like we would do this together.

  I accessed Stacks through the same door as before. Harry Two followed me in. I wasted no time and made right for the stairs. I did not want to be in here after dark. I hurried up the stairs with Harry Two right on my heels. I found the door the jabbits had knocked down. It was fully repaired. I opened it and went inside.

  I could now see that what had toppled down on me and revealed the little door was a suit of armor. It was all righted and shiny now. I managed to move it aside, again exposing the little door. Harry Two started growling when he saw the screaming Wug on the doorknob, but I told him to be quiet and he obeyed instantly. I closed the door behind us. At the same time, I braced myself for a wall of blood hurtling at me. I had already planned to use Destin to get to my parents’ images in that abyss. And I did not intend on drowning Harry Two and myself in the process.

  But there was no blood.

  As I stood there, the cavernous walls disappeared and an enormous pit was revealed directly in front of me.

  I felt woozy at this transformation. How could something that was right there no longer be there? How could one thing change into another thing? Stacks had clearly been something else many sessions ago. There was something in this place, some force that was absolutely foreign to me and every other Wug. Well, maybe not to Morrigone.

  I looked at Harry Two. He was no longer smiling and his tail was not wagging. I touched his head and found that he felt cold. I touched my arm. It was as though all the blood had drained from me.

  I squared my shoulders and stepped forward until I came to the edge of the pit. I stared down, unable to process what I was seeing. So stunning was it that I felt myself teeter on the edge. That’s when I felt Harry Two bite down on my cloak and pull me away from the edge before I might topple in.

  I composed myself and once more drew close to the pit and stared down again. What I was looking at filled me with both anger and hopelessness. For what was down there were all the things that Wugs who had long labored at Stacks had made. The ones on the very top, I recognized as objects I had very recently finished: a silver candlestick and a pair of bronze cups. I sat down on the ground, my spinning head between my knees, my stomach suddenly lurching. I felt like I was losing my mind.

  How could all these things have ended up here? I had always assumed they were being made for the Wugs who had ordered them. I could never afford any of these things, but other Wugs could. They were custom-made. They — Here, my idiotic thoughts broke off. They were made so they could be thrown into this pit right here. They had never left Stacks. All my work, my whole existence as a grown Wug, was in that pit.

  Without thinking, I slammed my already-injured hand against the hard ground, then yelped in pain. I grabbed it with my other hand and squeezed, trying to stop the pain. But it only grew worse. What a git I was.

  I bent down and, using my injured hand, I picked up a white stone lying on the floor next to the pit. I wanted to see if I could form a grip. I could, barely.

  I glanced at Harry Two, who stared up at me with a helpless look, as though he could feel every painful thought of mine. He licked my hand and I absently patted his head.

  I had come here looking for answers about my parents’ vanishing. Instead I had found that my whole working life was also a lie. The tilt of emotions was crushing, yet I fought against it. I had labored at Stacks, apparently, just for busy work and for no other reason. If so, why was it so important to keep us busy?

  I stood. I was here. I had found this pit, but I needed to find more. Much
more.

  “Let’s go, Harry Two,” I said in a determined voice.

  We marched around the pit and through a tunnel on the other side. It eventually opened into a vast cave.

  I looked all around. There was no other tunnel out of here. There were just blank, rock-studded walls.

  My frustration boiling up inside, I suddenly screamed, “I need answers. And I need them now!”

  Immediately, a movement came from my left. I wheeled in that direction and called out, “Who’s there?” I blinked as a small orb of light glimmered from the part of the cave farthest from me. As I continued to stare, the orb grew and then transformed to a shadow. And then this shadow evolved into a small being holding a lantern. As it came forward and stopped in front of me, I looked down at it and it looked up at me.

  “Who are you?” I asked in a quavering voice.

  “Eon” came the response.

  It had on a blue cloak and carried a brass-tipped wooden staff in its other hand. As the lantern light illuminated the thing calling itself Eon more clearly, I saw a small, wrinkled face that was distinctly male. His eyes were protuberant and took up a far greater proportion of his face than I was used to. His ears were tiny, and instead of being round, they were peaked at the top, like Harry Two’s. His hands were thick and plump and the fingers short and curved. He was barefoot. I could just see small toes poking from under his cloak.

  “What are you?” I asked, for he was clearly not a Pech like Nida, nor was he like Duf Delphia. He almost seemed transparent, as the light appeared to cut right through him.

  “I am Eon.”

  “What are you doing here, Eon?”

  “This is where I am,” replied Eon.

  I shook my head in bewilderment. “And where is this?”

  “Where I am,” he answered. I felt wonky again. It did not seem that reason applied to this bloke.

  I said quickly, “My name is Vega Jane.”

  I held out my hand for him to shake, but winced with pain.

  Eon looked at my hand, all battered and bloodied.

  He pointed to the white stone I held in my other hand. “Wave that over your injured hand and think good thoughts.”

  “What?” I was growing convinced that Eon was completely mental.

  “Wave the stone over your injured hand and think good thoughts,” he repeated.

  “Why?”

  “It’s the Adder Stone. You can tell by the hole through it.”

  I looked at the rock and sure enough, there was a small hole that ran completely through it. For the first time I also noticed how truly brilliantly white it was.

  “What does it do?” I asked warily.

  “Just think good thoughts.”

  I sighed and then did as Eon had asked me to do. My hand instantly healed. No more pain and not a trace of blood. I stared down in utter amazement. I was so stunned that I nearly dropped the Stone. “How did that happen?” I exclaimed.

  “The Adder Stone has the soul of a powerful sorceress embedded in it.”

  I stared at him blankly. “A sorceress?”

  “A magical being.” Eon fixed his great, bulging eyes on me. “With the power to heal, as you can see for yourself.”

  I looked once more at my hand and had to admit he was right. I felt a chill soar up my spine at holding something in my hand that could heal wounds with a wave and a wish. Yet I didn’t know why I was so astonished. After all, I had a chain that allowed me to fly. I had nearly drowned in a river of blood only to mysteriously vanish from this place and end up outside it. I was coming to learn that Stacks was chock-full of secrets and powers and mysteries. “And yet you just leave it lying around?” I asked.

  “It is here, it is there. It is sometimes everywhere,” chanted Eon. “Sometimes it is simply where you need it to be.”

  “It can do anything?” I asked eagerly. “Grant any wish?”

  He shook his head. “It can grant the good thoughts of the one holding it. You could be sad and it would make you feel better. You might think that you could use a bit of good fortune, and it might happen. It has its limits, though.”

  “Like what?” I asked curiously.

  “You must never wish ill of anyone with the Adder. Not only will it not grant the wish, terrible consequences will befall you in such an attempt.” He stopped, looked me over and said, “Are you injured a lot?”

  “A bit more than I’d like, actually,” I answered curtly. “So what do you do here?”

  “My race is the guardian of time.”

  “Time doesn’t need guarding.”

  “I would expect that response from one who has not seen her past or future from a different perspective. Follow me, Vega Jane.”

  Before I could say anything, he turned and walked slowly into the cave. I glanced at Harry Two, who looked at me with a curious expression. My past and my future?

  I had come to learn that my past was a lie. If I could see it from a different way, would I learn anything useful? I couldn’t answer that for sure. But I knew I had to try.

  We walked for a long way until we reached the back of the cave. Eon stopped and turned to me, pointing at the wall. I looked where he was indicating, expecting to see only rock. Instead I saw a pair of enormous iron gates. I had seen some of the Dactyls at Stacks fashion iron like this by beating it with their hammers while it was still molten. The only thing was, this gate looked as if it were still glowing with heat. It appeared so hot, in fact, that it was flaming red.

  “Is it on fire?” I asked, keeping my distance from it.

  “No. It is actually cool to the touch. You may see for yourself.”

  I touched it gingerly. It was cool.

  Eon held up two keys that he had taken from his cloak pocket and handed them to me. “One will take you to the past; the other, your future.”

  “They’re gold!” I said in wonder.

  Eon nodded. “Any key used to open something enchanted is made of gold.”

  I smiled at this strange remark. “Is that a rule?”

  “It is more than a mere rule, for rules can be changed. It is truth.”

  “I think I understand that,” I said slowly.

  Eon looked at the keys I held and said, “So many fascinating events that might have taken place did not because one lacked the courage to open a certain portal.”

  “Well, sometimes it might be smarter not to open it,” I said stoutly. Then I added, “How do you tell the keys apart? Which is past and which is future?”

  “You can’t tell them apart, really,” Eon replied. “You must take your chances. And you may pick only one, past or future.”

  “And if I pick the past over the future?”

  “Then you will see the past. Your past.”

  “And if I pick the future?”

  “You will see what lies ahead of course.”

  “I’m not sure I want to see what will be coming up for me.”

  Eon said firmly, “But you must choose.”

  I stared down at the two keys. They were identical. But apparently depending on which one I selected, the outcome would be very different indeed.

  “Is there really no way to tell them apart?”

  He cocked his small head. “Do you have a preference?”

  I had made up my mind. “The past,” I said. “Even though I have lived it, I have recently found that it remains as murky as though I had not. I need to understand it fully if I am to have a future. At least I believe that to be true.”

  Eon considered this. “Then, Vega Jane, I would tell you the vast majority of choosers end up going into the future, because they return here and tell me of their experiences.”

  “But if there’s truly no way to tell, I guess my odds are split right down the middle.”

  “All I can advise is for you to look at the keys and see if you can feel which is the right one for you, taking into account all that I have said to you,” replied Eon.

  I took a few steps back and held both keys side by s
ide in the palm of my hand. They were identical, down to the teeth. But then something occurred to me. Something that Eon had said. It had been a clue and I had to think it was intentional.

  There was a marginal difference between the keys. One had more black scratches than the other. I glanced at the heavy iron gates. The lock was irregularly shaped. It would be difficult to insert a key without scratching it against the blackened iron plate. Eon had said that most ended up in the future. So that key would have been used far more. And thus have far more scratches. I had my answer.

  Grinning, I handed the badly scratched key to Eon. He pocketed it and said, “You have a good mind, Vega Jane.” He looked at the gates and then at me. “And now it is time you were off.”

  Drawing a deep breath, I marched over to the gate and prepared to insert the key. I looked back at Eon. “How exactly will it happen?”

  “You will not be seen nor heard and you cannot be harmed. Neither can you intervene in any way in the events you will witness, no matter what happens. That is the law of time and it cannot be circumvented.”

  “One more question. How do I get back?”

  “Through this gate. But do not dawdle, Vega Jane. And do not think yourself mad, though madness you think you may see.”

  With this disturbing thought in mind, I took a deep, replenishing breath and inserted the key. I gave Harry Two a hopeful smile and opened the gate.

  THE GATES SWUNG open wide and Harry Two and I simply walked through. Everything was fuzzy, as if the clouds had deflated and fallen to the ground for a lie-down. If I was to see my past, it seemed it would be through this filter of fog.

  The cry startled me. Eon hadn’t said specifically that I would hear things, though I supposed he assumed that I knew I would. Obviously, in the past, folks still talked and things still made sounds. But there was something about the cry that seemed distantly familiar to me. I hurried along, using my hands to push the mist away, although all I really did was muck it up more. Then I reached a clearing in the mist and stopped. My mouth sagged.