The Black Reckoning

by John Stephens

  And that was just the beginning.

  Emma had watched a child reaching for a woman and the woman lifting him in her arms.

  She’d watched two old men, hugging each other and sobbing.

  She’d watched groups of people all talking at once, all trying to make sense of what had happened, all telling their stories.

  Everywhere, she’d seen men and women, young and old, comforting each other with touches, with words.

  It had seemed, from what she could overhear, that they were like people waking from a long sleep. Again and again, Emma heard, “It was like I was dreaming….” To her surprise, no one railed against the fact of being dead, and it was not long before she heard people saying that they were going off to find their loved ones. They seemed to believe this was possible, that they and those they’d loved in life could somehow find each other in the vastness of the world of the dead. And perhaps they could, perhaps they would be drawn together by some strange magnetism. Emma was aware that, just days before, she would have scoffed at the idea, but now she thought, Why not?

  Slowly, the crowd had drifted out through the passages and avenues that had been created in the torn-down prison and vanished into the night.

  And the thing that Emma kept reminding herself of was that this was happening all over, that millions were waking up, an entire world.

  No, she corrected herself, not an entire world.

  A few figures stood idly about the arena, gazing at the ground, all of them wearing the familiar, vacant expressions of the dead. Of these, some had served the Dire Magnus, like the black-haired, rat-faced necromatus who stood at the edge of the pit, staring dully at the fire; he seemed to be almost daring Emma to go and push him in, but she wouldn’t; she was better than that, though he deserved it, he really did. And there were guards as well—though, obviously, not Harold Barnes, who’d already gone off to find his Nanny Marge, saying, “She’ll be worried sick about me.”

  The others, the former prisoners whose memories had not been restored, Emma could not help but feel pity for. But it was what it was. She had made the judgment the book had required, and the judgment stood. And now the Reckoning belonged to her.

  She held the book, tucked between her elbow and chest, as her hand throbbed with each beat of her heart.

  Dr. Pym had assured her that those who’d been sent into the fire, the ones the Dire Magnus had devoured, would already be returning to the world of the dead.

  “Once their memories were restored,” the wizard had said, “the Dire Magnus will not have been able to hold them. They will return here, and thanks to you, most will remember who they are. I suspect he has released even those who did not have their memories returned. In the moment, he will not have been able to pick and choose. You have dealt him a grave blow.”

  As evidence, he’d pointed to the red-robed sorcerers and former guards wandering about.

  “Their master has deserted them. Now they have nothing. No memory of themselves. No connection to his power. They are lost.”

  Emma had merely nodded and said nothing. Even then, her mind had already been moving on, thinking, planning, discarding everything that was not related to one goal: how she was going to save Gabriel.

  In those first minutes after his arrival, when the prisoners were escaping from their cages and she had found herself in Gabriel’s arms and realized what his presence in this world must mean, she had been sobbing so furiously that she’d been unable to hear or see much of anything. He had held her and made reassuring noises as one might to a small child, finally saying:

  “I must bandage your wound.”

  By then she’d gotten blood all over his neck and chest and arms, but he paid that no mind and knelt beside her, ripping a long strip from his cloak and wrapping it about her hand. Calmly, as if this were just another meeting between them, he’d begun to tell her about finding her parents, how he and Richard and Clare had gone searching for the prophecy as a means of saving her and her brother and sister. It had been loud in the arena, with the shouts of the freed prisoners and the crashing of the cages being destroyed, but Emma had heard every word he’d said, his voice anchoring her, as his love had anchored her during the Bonding, and her sobbing had subsided.

  She had even asked questions, some about their parents—how they’d looked, what they’d said, had they mentioned her—and some about Michael and Kate, which he couldn’t answer, as he had not seen them since he’d sent them back to Loris. The one thing she didn’t ask, and he didn’t offer, was how he’d died.

  And all the time, her mind was racing forward.

  Dr. Pym had moved off to one side, speaking to the old white-eyed sorcerer and one of the carriadin. It might have been the one that had led Emma up the cliff earlier; she couldn’t tell them apart. The other carriadin, perhaps a dozen in all, were systematically destroying the prison, tearing it down level by level.

  Emma had asked the wizard what had led him and Gabriel to show up at the prison when they had, and Dr. Pym had replied that just as he’d felt compelled to guide Emma to the book, so he’d felt compelled to bring Gabriel here. He couldn’t explain it further, besides to nod toward several of the carriadin, saying, “I suspect they had something to do with it. This is their world, after all.”

  Now Dr. Pym approached to say that it was time to go.

  “We must return you to the world above, and the portal is some distance away.”

  “Uh-huh,” Emma said, clutching Gabriel’s hand more tightly than ever. “I’ve been thinking. As soon as I kill the Dire Magnus, I’ll get Michael to use the Chronicle to bring Gabriel back. You too,” she said to Dr. Pym, “though I’m not totally sure you still have a body. We’ll have to, you know, work on that.”

  She nodded several times after she said this, as if to emphasize that Gabriel’s returning to life was to be an accepted fact, and she failed utterly to notice the look that passed between Gabriel and the wizard.

  Then the old gray-haired, white-eyed sorcerer stepped forward, leaning heavily on his staff. He seemed more exhausted, somehow even older, than before.

  “I am sorry about your hand.”

  “Don’t be. You had to do it.”

  “Still.” And he touched, lightly, her wounded hand. “Forgive me. And thank you.”

  Emma hugged him once, fiercely, then let him go.

  The last thing that happened before they left that place was that one of the carriadin landed near them, having half flown, half jumped from a cage above, and it was holding the Countess in its arms. The witch’s face turned toward Emma and the others, and in an instant, Emma saw that the woman’s memories were gone.

  “What happened to her?”

  “When you bonded with the book,” Dr. Pym said, “the last remnants of the magic were taken from her. The same thing happened to me when Michael became Keeper of the Chronicle. The Book of Life kept me alive for thousands of years, but after he became Keeper, even had I not been killed, I would have lived out whatever days were allowed me and then died.”

  The Countess’s violet eyes were dull and dimmed, and Emma watched as the bird creature carried her from the arena. Emma felt a knife edge of hatred for the Countess that would never go away—the witch had done too much to try and hurt her and her brother and sister—but in the end, the woman had helped her, and Emma would remember that too.

  “Now,” Dr. Pym said, “it’s time.”

  Emma sensed movement behind her and felt rough hands under her arms; she was lifted off her feet, and her hand ripped from Gabriel’s. In moments, she was high in the night sky, looking down at the prison and the bonfire below. She let out an involuntary “Whaa—hey!” and looked up at the carriadin holding her.

  “Stop! What’re you—”

  She heard the voice in her mind:

  Be calm, Emma Wibberly. You are safe.

  And she felt herself, in fact, becoming calm, and she peered down, the wind whipping past, and saw two more dark shapes, the great wings sil
houetted against the bonfire, and she knew, without being able to make them out, that Gabriel and Dr. Pym were being carried upward as well.

  The carriadin flew away from the prison and the shantytown and out across the dark, empty plain toward the mountains in the distance. The air was cold, but clean, and after the smoke and reek of the prison, it came as a relief. Emma was reminded of flying on Wilamena’s back, when the elf princess had been in the form of a dragon; there was the same rise and fall with each beat of the creature’s wings, the difference being that this time Emma’s legs and feet dangled over nothingness, and she was filled with equal parts excitement and terror.

  Soon, the mountains were surging up out of the plain, and Emma was looking down at the thickly nestled peaks and saw, winding through them, the long, silvery band of a river. Then the carriadin banked sharply, going into a steep, spiraling dive, and Emma clutched the Reckoning against her chest as the wind roared past and the jagged peaks rushed toward them, and they were coming in too fast, there was no way they could slow down in time, but at the last moment, the carriadin turned upward, suspending its momentum to hang in the air, then beat its wings twice to land and set Emma gently on the ground.

  Her heart was pounding wildly, and she stood there as if not quite trusting the earth beneath her feet. They were on a rocky outcropping beside the river, just before it plunged over a cliff. The roar of the waterfall filled the air, but Emma heard the thick, muscular rustle of feathers and turned to see the carriadin launching itself back into the sky. She thought of shouting a thank-you, but already the creature was gone, into the night.

  Emma crept out as far as she could, to where the river plunged over the cliff, and stood there, letting herself be soaked by the spray blowing back off the water, peering down to where the river disappeared into mist and darkness. The only other waterfall she knew was the one in Cambridge Falls, which she had thought enormous. She guessed that this one was at least twice that size, and doubted she could have seen to the bottom even in the daytime. But why were they here? Where was the portal?

  She heard the rustle of wings, and she turned to see Gabriel landing, sure-footed, on the ledge, his carriadin not even stopping, but continuing past, over her head and away. And even though Emma had only left Gabriel minutes before, she ran to him and hugged him, and he, again, folded her in his arms.

  “It’ll be okay,” she said. “I’ll make it okay.”

  Then she stepped away, wiping her eyes, as the wizard landed, the carriadin who’d brought him also hardly stopping before climbing into the sky.

  “Well,” Dr. Pym said, smiling like his old self, “here we are.”

  “Here we are where?” Emma demanded. “Where’s the portal?”

  The last portal she had gone through had been a tunnel under a spider’s nest. Obviously, there was nothing like that around here.

  Still, what the wizard said next surprised her.

  “Over the waterfall. About halfway down.”

  “What?! How’m I supposed to get there? You gotta call back those bird things!”

  “That will not be necessary; I have a plan. But first, now that we three are alone, I must know how exactly you returned the memories of the dead.”

  Emma didn’t respond right away. She knew that what she’d done, she’d had to do, and she knew too that she had made the right decision, but it was still hard to talk about.

  “There’re two different meanings to the word reckoning.” She did not try to speak over the roar of the falls, sensing that Gabriel and the wizard could hear. “One’s like something you owe. Like we all owe a death. That’s how the book kills people. But the other meaning is judgment. And when people died, their memories were stored in the book. Waiting for someone to judge them. Waiting for me. You probably knew that, didn’t you?”

  The wizard nodded.

  “You could’ve told me.”

  “I foolishly thought there would be time. And then there wasn’t. I am sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  She couldn’t be mad at him now, not after everything. And she had figured it out, hadn’t she? With almost no help from anyone. The more she reflected on it, the more Emma felt a kind of pride in what she’d done, and it was not the same pride that she’d felt in the cave, when she’d first come upon the book. In that case, she’d done something difficult and dangerous and been brave and strong. But to do what the Reckoning had asked of her, she’d had to accept the responsibility that came with deciding whose memories would be restored to them and whose would not.

  Even now, Emma could feel the weight of the decision on her shoulders, and a part of her wondered if this was what Kate had felt for the past ten years, knowing that she was responsible for her and Michael.

  “Only, like, how do you judge everyone who’s ever been alive? There’re so many people and they’re all so different. And who was I to judge? I mean, really. But then I saw Gabriel, and it made me feel so good and strong, and it was so clear that that was the best part of me, that I loved him, and that I loved Michael and Kate, and even you, though you kinda lied to us. And so that was the question I made the book ask:

  “ ‘When you were alive, did you ever love someone?’ ”

  She had been afraid that when she said it out loud, it would sound silly, this one question that she, a twelve-year-old, had come up with to decide the fates of everyone who’d ever lived. But it didn’t; it sounded right.

  When you were alive, did you ever love someone?

  It didn’t matter if you’d been loved in return, or if the love had foundered and died. Had you ever given love? If the answer was yes, your memory flowed back to you. But if you hadn’t, or if you’d only loved yourself, or money, or power, or objects, or nothing, then you remained as empty as you’d been in life.

  And the book itself had given her clues. Like when she’d touched it the same time as Harold Barnes and seen his Nanny Marge. Or when she’d seen the old sorcerer’s father and wife and son. The book had been telling her, this is what matters, this is what you must look for, and finally, she had listened.

  Release them, the book had said. And she had.

  “It’s like, when I first got here, I thought this place was a hell. You’re the one who told me it could be a paradise. It turns out we were both right. It could be either. It depends on who you are. Because the world of the dead shouldn’t just be a place where you wait around like some kind of houseplant; it should matter what you did when you were alive. And if you spent your life living only for yourself, then yeah, maybe this should be a hell. But if you ever forgot yourself enough to love another person, then you should be able to remember that.”

  “And there is no heaven or hell but of our own making.” The wizard’s eyes glistened, though whether from the mist or his own tears, Emma couldn’t say. “Emma Wibberly, all the hopes I had for you, all the faith I placed in your wisdom and bravery, you have exceeded and repaid. In one stroke, you created a new foundation for both life and death. And that foundation is love. I have never been more proud.”

  He placed his hand, trembling with emotion, on her shoulder, and there was nothing Emma could do to stop the tears from tumbling down her cheeks.

  “Now it is time you returned to the world above. I do not know what is transpiring there, but the Dire Magnus certainly knows you have the book. Every moment counts.”

  Emma gripped the Reckoning even more tightly, sniffled twice, and found her voice. “Yeah, like I said, as soon as the Dire Magnus is dead, I’ll get Michael to bring you back—”

  “You will not bring me back,” the wizard said.

  “But maybe there’s a way! Don’t give up just because you don’t have a body. I’ll bet Michael can build something. Maybe a robot or something, I don’t know—”

  “I was alive for thousands of years. I stayed alive for one purpose. To have my great mistake in helping to create the Books rectified. To see them finally destroyed—”

  “What?! What’re you
talking about?!”

  The wizard looked down at her. “The Books must be destroyed. That is the only way this all ends.”

  “But—but we need the Books to kill the Dire Magnus!”

  “Yes. And once the enemy is no more, the Books must be destroyed! Their very existence upsets the balance we depend upon. The bonds that hold the universe together are being ripped apart. To fail to destroy them would spell the end of everything.”

  Emma felt herself relax. For a moment, she’d thought the wizard had actually gone crazy. But as long as she got to kill the Dire Magnus—and Michael was able to bring Gabriel back—she didn’t really care what happened to the Books afterward. And though she still wanted to argue with the wizard that he was being stupid, that he should let Michael bring him back as well, she could understand what he was feeling. He’d done what he had to.

  “We are close to the end,” the wizard said. “Soon, I will rest. And because of your actions, I will do so with the memory of you and your brother and sister.”

  Then Dr. Pym bent down, and Emma, knowing it was the last time, hugged him with all her might.

  The wizard released her and stepped back, and Gabriel knelt before her.

  “You must find your parents,” he said. “They will know the end of the prophecy, the secret to how you and your brother and sister will survive. They were not able to tell me, but our plan was always to go to Loris. They should be there by now.”

  Emma nodded. “And I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  Gabriel took her good hand in his and opened his mouth to speak, but she could sense what he was going to say.

  “No! Don’t tell me you’re staying too! I’ll find out what my parents know and I’ll kill the Dire Magnus and Michael will bring you back! He can do it! He brought back Kate! He brought back the stupid Countess! He can do it!”

  Gabriel waited for her to be silent. Then he said, “There is an order to life and death. We have altered it to meet our own needs and desires, and the universe has paid the price. The damage must end here.”