The End of Time (4 page)

Hameron gasped. He darted away from Oates and raced for the hatch. The Dragon Lord sang out, and the golden dragon on the mast dropped onto the deck. Hap and Sophie leaped aside to avoid the lash of its tail. Umber never moved, and found himself within arm’s reach of the dragon’s rear haunch. He put a hand up and touched its scales, and his gaping mouth curved into an infant smile.

Hameron darted into the hatch, but the dragon’s head and the entire length of its neck followed. When the head came back out, Hameron’s short cape was clamped between its teeth. The dragon reared up on two legs, and Hameron dangled under its chin, shrieking and pinwheeling his arms.

Hap was dizzy with terror. He leaped toward the Dragon Lord, a gesture so rash that the copper dragon arched its neck and snarled, showing a row of pearly daggers. Hap dropped to his knees with his hands clasped before him. “Show mercy! He helped us bring the eggs back!”

“Where was mercy for my lost children? Can your thief return the fallen ones, as well?” the Dragon Lord snapped, slamming the lid on the chest of eggs. He called out again in that strange song. The golden dragon tossed its head, flipping Hameron into the air. It caught him neatly, almost gently, with its jaws around his waist. “Umber!” Hameron cried, spotting his rival on the deck. “Umber, do something!” The words seemed to register dimly, as Umber looked stupidly about him, trying to find the source of the voice.

The golden dragon’s wings snapped open, blotting out the misty sky. They flapped once, so hard that Hap and Sophie were driven to their knees. A second flap bore the dragon aloft, with every head turning to watch its ascent.

“Ummmmberrrrrr!” came Hameron’s faint, desperate cry. The dragon’s chest expanded, its neck straightened, and its breath came out as a river of flame. Beside him Hap heard a choking sob from Sophie. He put his hand over his throat. The dragon opened its jaws, and a tiny, charred form dropped into the sea.

Hap stared, numb with horror. Balfour had covered his face with his hands, and Oates kneeled with his forehead on the planks and his fist pounding the deck.

“The same fate could be yours,” the Dragon Lord said. “But I spare you because you have returned these eggs.” He lifted the chest and tucked it under one arm. “Now leave this shore. Come back again if you wish to die.” The copper dragon offered its foreleg as a step, and the Dragon Lord climbed into the saddle. Jewel clung fast to his shoulder, but she turned her head toward Sophie and squeaked once. Soon the dragon was airborne, but before they flew from sight the serpents wheeled and soared past the sides of the
Bounder
, slashing the waves with their tails and scorching the port and starboard rails with their fire.

Time passed. Hap couldn’t have said if it was a minute or an hour. Oates sat up and sniffed. “Curse this curse,” he said. “I didn’t like Hameron, but I never wished that on him.”

“We know,” Balfour said thickly.

Umber had a hand on each cheek. He was watching the place where the dragons had melted into the fog. He patted his face and blew air out of puffed cheeks, and then looked around him, blinking at Balfour, Hap, and Sophie. His eyebrows flickered as a thought seemed to occur.

“Er . . . I don’t suppose we have any coffee?”

 
CHAPTER
5

As the Bounder sailed from Chastor,
there was mug after mug of coffee, and then Umber gorged himself on fruit, bread, fish, and cheese and washed it down with a mug of ale. Color dawned in the face that had long been a dreadful ashen shade. Hap sighed with relief as signs of Umber’s good nature reappeared: a twinkle in his eye, a waggle of his eyebrow, the fidgeting of hands and feet. Umber said little, but he finally looked up and offered a weak smile. The tightness in Hap’s chest, which had plagued him since Umber plunged into his dark mood, began to loosen.

Umber picked up a napkin and dabbed the corners of his mouth. “Well,” he said, with his voice weak from disuse, “that was a terrible fate for Hameron.” Hap and the others nodded. “He was a louse, there’s no denying it,” Umber continued, gaining strength. “But nobody deserves that. Here’s to his memory.” He raised his goblet, and Balfour raised his, while Hap and Sophie sipped the cider that Balfour had brought them.

Umber leaned back, quietly burped, and patted his swollen stomach. “Where’s Oates?”

“Moping in the cabin,” Balfour told him. “He feels bad about . . . you know.”

“Hum,” said Umber. “It wasn’t his fault Hameron stole the eggs. And imagine if the Dragon Lord hadn’t learned the truth; those dragons might have burned the whole ship if they hadn’t taken their revenge on Hameron alone. Come to think of it, Hameron probably saved every one of us.” Umber slapped the table. “But, Sophie, did you see those gorgeous creatures? Did you get a good look, so you can sketch ’em? Those
wings
, those
tails
—incredible! Though I think it best that we investigate no further, wouldn’t you agree? Fancy me, saying that! Ha!” He drummed the table with his palms. Hap shook his head, amazed at how quickly Umber had emerged from his near-fatal melancholy.

Umber froze abruptly with his hands hovering over the table. His head swiveled toward Balfour. “Er . . . Balfour. My latest episode . . . it was a bad one, wasn’t it?”

“You could say that.”

“Weeks, I believe?”

“That’s right.”

Umber pinched the end of his nose. “I don’t remember much, as usual . . . but I have an odd feeling. . . . Did I see Fay? Balfour, did Fay come to the Aerie . . . while I was . . . you know?”

Balfour puckered his mouth and scratched at a knot in the tabletop. “Who? Fay? Oh. Well. She did, in fact.”

Umber put his palm to his forehead. “And she saw me? Face-to-face, I mean? You let her up to
see
me?”

Balfour’s head shrank between his shoulders. “I . . . I thought it would help. You know. Jolt you out of your state.”

Umber tilted his chair back and chuckled ruefully at the ceiling. “Well, now. I don’t imagine I made a wonderful second impression.”

Balfour and Hap glanced at each other, widening their eyes, and Umber noticed. “What?” he said. “Something else? What happened? Fay is still in Kurahaven, isn’t she?”

Balfour seemed to be shrinking. “She is.”

“Well, where’d you put her? Someplace nice? Your old inn, right, Balfour?”

Balfour stared down at the table without answering.

“Sophie? Hap?” Umber said, turning from one to the other. “Care to tell me?”

Oates chose that moment to lumber into the cabin, dour and puffy-eyed. Umber shot a frustrated glare at Balfour and called to the big man. “Oates, there you are!”

“Yes, I am,” Oates rumbled. “And you’re better, I see. About time.”

“I cherish your kind words,” Umber snapped. “But what I need right now is an honest answer: What happened after Fay came to the Aerie to see me?”

Oates frowned at the others, unhappy that it fell on him to deliver the news. “Loden showed up, right when Fay and that little girl were leaving. He became very charming and convinced Fay to go back to the palace. She’s still there, as far as we know.”

Umber’s mouth hung slack. Oates shrugged, dropped his bulk into a chair, and piled food on a plate.

Hap watched with alarm as the color started to drain from Umber’s face. He leaned across the table and clutched Umber’s forearm. “The archives that Caspar took, Lord Umber. With your stolen documents about the Meddlers. Caspar kept them in a strongbox, and it’s on the ship right now!”

Umber’s head sprang back up. “Here? In a strongbox? What was in it?”

Hap grinned. “It hasn’t been opened yet. I was waiting until you felt better.”

Umber pushed himself to his feet and rubbed his hands together. “Then your wait is over. Let’s crack it open now!”

Hap stood, and Balfour got up to go with them. Umber put a hand on Balfour’s shoulder. “My dear friend,” Umber said. “I think Hap and I ought to do this alone. Do you mind terribly?”

Balfour’s shoulders sagged. “Not at all, Umber. Go right ahead. The strongbox was in your cabin all this while.”

Umber and Hap sat cross-legged on the floor with Caspar’s strongbox between them.

Umber rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, still coming back to life. He narrowed his eyes, peering at the top of Hap’s head. “Hap—you’ve got more of those hairs now. Twice as many as before.”

“I know,” Hap said, almost moaning the words. He’d plucked one of those strands once to examine it. It looked white at first glance, but on closer examination it gleamed with color, like diamonds spun into string. In fact, it looked a bit like the filaments that he would sometimes envision. The change in his hair, he supposed, was part of the process of turning into a Meddler. It made him squirm to think about it, so he turned Umber’s attention back to the strongbox by tapping it. “There’s something else in there. You can hear it rolling around.”

Umber raised an eyebrow. He gave the box a shove, and there was a muffled thump from inside. “Now I’m extra curious.” He pulled the loop of a chain over his neck, with his remarkable key dangling. Even as it swung back and forth like a pendulum, its shape changed to match the nearest lock. Umber opened the padlocks first, and the chains slithered to the floor. Then he slipped the key into the embedded lock and turned it. The lid rose with the faintest squeak from its well-oiled hinges.

Hap dug his fingertips into his knees. Inside the strongbox were the stolen secrets of the Meddlers: the answers he’d been seeking since he’d woken, devoid of memory, in an entombed city months before.

Umber peered into the interior. His eyebrows rose and his mouth formed a tiny, puckered smile. With both hands, he reached down and lifted out a large object wrapped in heavy canvas. He turned it from side to side, showing Hap its fat oval shape. “Hmm. Any guesses, Hap?”

Hap’s nose wrinkled. The guess that someone had already made seemed all too likely. “A skull?”

“Good answer! Let’s find out,” Umber said. He turned the object in his hand to unwind its wrapping. Hap braced himself, fully expecting to see gaping sockets and a frozen grin.

“Ouch!” Umber sucked on the pad of his thumb. Then he put the thing on the floor and carefully removed the last flaps of canvas, revealing a large tan object that tapered to a blunt point at one end. It was covered with inch-long thorns.

Hap put his nose near the thing. “What is it?”

“A nut!” Umber pronounced. He squinted at it. “I think, anyway. Here we have a big, prickly nut.”

Hap frowned. “That doesn’t have anything to do with Meddlers, does it?”

“Probably not. I suppose Caspar found it in some lost corner of the Aerie and decided to steal it, too.” Umber interlaced his fingers and cracked them. “But let’s put that aside for the moment. The answers we’ve been waiting for are right before us!” He reached into the chest and picked up a leather-bound notebook.

“That looks like one of
your
notebooks,” Hap said.

“Caspar used the same kind,” Umber said. His expression softened as he skimmed the first pages. “And that’s Caspar’s writing. Oh, this’ll be mighty helpful.” He noticed Hap leaning in, and turned the page so he could see. “In this notebook he’s summarized everything he’s learned from the documents.”

Umber put the notebook on his lap and scooped a pile of old parchments out of the chest. “So here we have the source materials, and, in the notebook, Caspar’s conclusions. This is excellent! I’ll tell you what—you have a go at the old stuff, since you can understand all those languages, and I’ll peruse the notebook.”

Hap was halfway through an old document in a forgotten language from a faraway land, which told of a seldom seen, mischievous green-eyed people, when Umber lowered the notebook from his face to reveal a solemn gaze. “Happenstance,” he said.

Hap was always mildly alarmed when Umber used his entire name. “What is it?”

“Do you want to know how Meddlers are made?”

All the moisture left Hap’s mouth in an instant, and his pulse seemed to triple. “H-how?”

“There is an essence—a liquid. It is poured into the eyes of someone who is recently . . . you know.” Umber took a deep breath. “Departed.”

Hap’s limbs started to shake. This was hardly a shock; they were almost certain that Julian Penny, his former self, had drowned, and that the death had been connived by the Meddler they’d come to know as Willy Nilly. But still, the confirmation struck him like a spear in the belly.

“An . . .
essence
made me?” Hap asked, touching the corners of his eyes.

Umber nodded. “It gave you your abilities—your grasp of all languages, your nocturnal vision, your springy legs, and, of course, the power to see the filaments. It also wiped away your old memories.” He glanced at the notebook. “And there is only one source for the essence.”

Hap waited.

“You won’t like this,” Umber said. He closed the notebook, with his finger marking the page he’d been reading.

Hap gulped. “I haven’t liked any of it, ever.”

Umber’s bottom teeth sawed his upper lip. “The essence is taken from the eyes of another Meddler. That’s the only way to get it.”

“So that means . . .” Hap’s mind swirled, desperately evading the obvious conclusion.

“It means that another Meddler died so you could be made,” Umber said. “Or was blinded.”

Hap pressed his palms over his eyes. He rocked back and forth and groaned. The list of horrors was still compiling. He thought about poor Julian Penny—the boy who was him and yet also a stranger. He thought about Julian’s parents, and the fateful chain of circumstances that had delivered them into the hands of a monster. And now someone else had lost his eyes and likely met his doom so that Hap might become a Meddler. “Do you think Willy Nilly did it? Killed another Meddler?”

“It’s possible,” Umber said. He touched Hap’s shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t ask for any of this. It just happened to you. And you have to remember—you may have been born from tragedy, but you have to think of what’s ahead. We’re going to save a world, you and I. A billion lives, or more.”

Hap nodded and smeared a tear across his cheek. “What else did Caspar know?”

Umber opened the notebook again. “Do you want to hear it as I learn it, or all at once when I’m done?”

“As you learn it.”

Hap finished reading the parchment and turned to another. It listed all the names that had been used for Meddlers across the world: Hoppers, Tinkers, Fate Lords, Leapers,
Interferi
, Wanderers, Greeneyes . . .

He looked up to see Umber staring blank-faced, holding the notebook limply in his hands. Umber stood and put his forehead against the wall. “How could I not have realized it?” he muttered. The notebook slid from his hands and thumped on the floor.

Hap got to his feet, feeling twinges in his stomach. “Lord Umber?”

Umber slapped his palm on the wall. “Happenstance. I told you . . . I promised you...” He rolled his eyes upward and closed them. “I said when your powers develop, and you can leap back to the world that I came from . . . I promised I’d go with you.”

Hap nodded, even as a spidery panic twitched through his arms and legs. “And you will, won’t you? You’ll help me?”

Umber stared at the notebook at his feet. “We know that a Meddler can transport another person. Willy Nilly carried you—he took you hundreds of miles, and seven years into the future, to where I would find you. And I’m sure a Meddler must have carried me, the same way, from my world to this world. Maybe that was Willy too, because he brought us together. That makes sense, right?”

“Yes,” Hap said.

“So that is not the problem; carrying someone with you.”

Hap clutched his hands together to still them. “But there
is
a problem?”

“
Time
is the problem.” Umber grimaced and pinched an eyebrow. “If what Caspar learned is correct . . . nobody can pass through the same time twice. No human and no Meddler.”

“But . . .” Hap tried to speak, but couldn’t form a question, and finally his jaw went slack.

“Hap, to fix my world, you have to go into its past. And
you
can, because you’ve never been there—it’s not your past. But it’s
my
past. I can’t return, except after the moment I left. And then it would be too late, of course. All the catastrophes would have already happened.”