The End of Time Read online

  The captain’s cabin on the Bounder, as on any sailing vessel, was the ship’s largest and finest room. The wide, curving wall opposite the door was the stern, and it was lined with panes of glass, overlooking the sea. Sandar stood there watching the Bounder’s frothy wake, with his arm propped on the wall and his forehead resting on his elbow. They had sailed clear of the mists of Chastor, and the waves were molten gold in the late afternoon sun.

  “Captain,” Umber said, “I’d like to change our heading. Nothing drastic, just a place I need to visit on the way home.”

  Sandar kept his back to them. “Are you sure you trust me to find it, whatever it is?”

  Umber’s head inclined. “Of course I do. Why would you even ask?”

  Sandar turned stiffly. “Because I owe you an apology. I brought the Bounder too close to the coast. Hameron died because of me. And we could have lost the whole ship, and every man on it.”

  Umber pursed his lips and scratched his temple. “Listen, Sandar, this was a risky endeavor. Foolhardy, even! But we accomplished what we set out to do, and righted a terrible wrong. Was Hameron’s life worth more than those dragons’? It’s not for us to say. So don’t flog yourself over one mistake, Captain.”

  Sandar took a deep breath and nodded. “Thank you, Lord Umber. Please understand . . . it is my pride and pleasure to serve as your captain. And I worry that your trust in me has been shaken.”

  “Not at all. Which is fortunate, because I have an important favor to ask regarding our voyage home.”

  Sandar stood straight and thrust out his jaw. “Name it, Lord Umber.”

  “I need to be in Kurahaven soon. But there must be a detour first. Take us to the Verdant Isle. And I’ll say it again: Speed is paramount. How quickly can you get us there, my captain?”

  The heel of Sandar’s boot struck the wooden planks, and a fiery look came to his eyes. “We’ll put up every scrap of sail we’ve got. And I’ll string up my laundry, too, if that’ll push us faster. The Bounder will have you there before sunset tomorrow, or you can toss me overboard.”

  Sandar burst past them and raced out of his cabin. They heard him bellow as he charged onto the top deck: “Look lively, set sails! Have we fixed the bowsprit yet? Scamper up those ratlines, boys, and let’s see what she can do!”

  Umber grinned and poked Hap with his elbow. “We’re not really in such a hurry, but our good captain feels the need to redeem himself.”

  Hap barely heard the comment. He’d experienced enough of Umber’s destinations to have developed a healthy fear of them, and his mind raced uneasily forward. The crack in his voice betrayed his concern. “What is the Verdant Isle, Lord Umber?”

  Umber’s smile widened, and he ruffled Hap’s hair. “Nothing to worry about! I have a friend there who might identify our thorny nut. And it’s been far too long since I’ve seen him. You haven’t met an actual wizard yet, have you, Hap? Soon you will—and a peculiar breed of wizard at that!”

  CHAPTER

  6

  Hap and Umber went belowdecks, where Balfour sat by himself in a corner. Sophie was busy at the large dining table, sketching with charcoal on broad sheets of paper. Already she had produced three large drawings of the dragons and the Dragon Lord. “How do you remember so much, so well?” Hap asked, admiring the detail that she’d included, down to the collar of feathers that ringed the dragons’ necks. Sophie just smiled and shrugged.

  “Wonderful,” Umber told her. His eyes sparkled as he spotted the familiar silver pot on its tray, with steam drifting from its spout. “And do you know what else is wonderful?” He turned, looking for Balfour, but his expression fell when he saw just the heels of Balfour’s boots as he climbed the stairs, departing without a word. Umber watched the vacant steps with his bottom lip jutting out, and then shrugged and turned to Hap. “Let me enjoy a mug or two, Hap, and then we’ll dive into those documents again.”

  “What have you got now, Hap?”

  Hap held the scroll up for Umber to see. “It’s in the Dwergh language. This is some old history about someone they called Emerald Eyes, who must have been a Meddler. There was a war for power going on between two Dwergh kings. On each side they’d be terrified any time they saw a green-eyed man, because something would go wrong soon after.”

  “That story has many variations, all over the world,” Umber said. He poked at a page in Caspar’s notebook. “Here’s another strange fact. As we suspected, Meddlers can vanish at will and reappear in another place. But apparently they can’t disappear if they are being watched—only when no eyes are upon them!”

  “So if we see Willy Nilly again . . .”

  “Right. We don’t let him out of our sight. Now, Hap, allow me to sum up the rest of what Caspar learned. You know those filaments you’ve seen? Humans have them. And Meddlers, too. But most other creatures do not.”

  “Occo had them,” Hap said, thinking of the horrible eye-stealing creature that had once pursued him.

  “Yes. Occo, the Creep. I wonder why? Maybe because his kind is partly human. Or because they steal human eyes. Well, at least we don’t have to worry about him anymore. Now, where was I? Many of the Meddlers—most of them, probably—are just pranksters. Small-time stuff. Others have brought down whole kingdoms with their schemes and machinations. It’s impossible to say how many Meddlers there are at a given moment, because they move through time at will. A Meddler who is with us today might decide to leap forward ten years, or a century. And once they go forward, they cannot go back.

  “Meddlers seem to come in pairs—but not friendly pairs. They are rivals, nemeses, and they each manipulate events with a different goal in mind. For example, while one Meddler tries to bring two lovers together, the nemesis keeps them apart. Or they take opposing sides in a conflict of nations.” Umber closed the book and balanced it on his knee. “And that’s just about all we know. Unless you’ve learned something more.”

  Hap shook his head. “Nothing important. But I wonder who Willy Nilly’s nemesis was. Do you think . . . ?” His hands rose, subconsciously, and touched the corners of his eyes.

  Umber winced. “I had the same thought. Perhaps they were both in my world, working their mischief. And then, for some reason, Willy decided to make a new Meddler. And he might have used the eyes of his nemesis to do it.”

  “Do you think one of them caused all that trouble in your world?” Hap asked.

  Umber dwelled on that question, tapping the space between his nose and mouth with one finger. “Maybe. It would have been easy enough for a Meddler to wreak havoc there. But now Willy wants to set things right. Remember the note he’d left when I first found you? You’re supposed to undo the damage. Head off the global catastrophe. Who knows, maybe the nemesis caused it. Or Willy himself, and he came to regret it. We won’t know unless Willy shows up and tells us, will we?”

  Hap followed Umber to the main deck and nearly walked into his back when Umber abruptly stopped and looked up. He had the sort of mouth that could flash every tooth when he smiled wide, and suddenly they were all on display. “Hap, look!”

  White sails were spread wide everywhere on the Bounder, giving her a top-heavy appearance. There were vast, bulging sprawls of canvas on the foremast and mainmast, smaller spreads on the topmasts, three triangular sails stretched toward the repaired bowsprit, and more sails improvised in places Hap had never seen them before.

  Sandar shouted endless instructions to sailors who’d clambered high among the ship’s roping. He noticed Umber and Hap on deck and flung his arms wide. “Lord Umber, have you ever seen so much sail? And look how she flies—two knots faster than ever. We’ll reach the Verdant Isle in no time!”

  Every sailor on the deck and up in the rigging watched Umber, struggling to suppress their grins. Hap puzzled over it briefly, and then saw the reason: A pair of ropes had been strung across the ship’s deck, and laundry pinned there from top to bottom. Shirts, pants, and undergarments billowed in the breeze like the sails above. Umber’s
eyebrows rose when he finally noticed them, and he bent and guffawed. That was the moment the crew was waiting for, and they howled along with him. Some of the sailors above laughed so strenuously that Hap was afraid they might lose their grip and tumble to the deck. “Told you I’d string up my laundry to push us along!” Sandar shouted to Umber above the din.

  Hap’s own laughter faded when he saw Balfour trudging back downstairs. He waited for Umber to wipe a happy tear from his eye, and then spoke to him quietly. “Something’s wrong with Balfour.”

  “I know,” Umber said, growing serious. Oates wandered past at that moment, and Umber pinched his sleeve. “Oates, do you have any idea what’s eating Balfour?”

  “Yes,” answered Oates.

  Umber made a whirling motion with his fingers until his patience expired. “For pity’s sake, Oates, would you mind telling me what it is?”

  “I don’t mind at all. You mean you don’t know?”

  “I do not.”

  Oates angled his head. “So I know something that you don’t?”

  “Right you are, but we can do something about that, can’t we?”

  Oates folded his burly arms. “You’re bothering him, Umber.”

  “Me?” Umber cried. “But . . .”

  “You’re keeping secrets from him.”

  “I always keep secrets,” Umber protested.

  “You always kept secrets from everyone, but not anymore,” Oates replied. “Balfour is your oldest friend. The first man you met in Kurahaven, isn’t he? After you came from wherever you were before. He’s been loyal all these years. But now you’ve made Hap your favorite. You share things with the boy that you keep from Balfour. Balfour figures he’s earned your trust. And he has, you know. This has been eating at him, and he can’t pretend to take it any longer. Listen, it doesn’t bother me when you don’t tell me things. That would be daft—I can’t keep my mouth shut! But Balfour can hold a secret. And look at all he’s done for you. You’d be in the Aerie moping around right now if it wasn’t for him. It was his idea to take the dragon eggs back!”

  Umber’s mouth shrank to a pinhole, and his forehead wrinkled. “Curse me for a fool. You’re absolutely right.” He walked to the rail and stared at the foam in the Bounder’s wake. Then he thumped his fist and hurried down the stairs.

  Oates snorted. “For a smart man he can be quite stupid at times.”

  Hap saw Umber and Balfour later, in the central cabin, sitting on chairs pulled close. He went back on deck, not wanting to interfere. Hours later, when he ventured downstairs again, the two were still talking, and it was obvious from the look on Balfour’s face—a shining, moist-eyed, grateful, and mildly astounded expression—that his humor had been restored.

  Again Hap kept his distance, ducking into Umber’s cabin to take another look at Caspar’s notebook. Umber came in a while later.

  “Oates was right,” he said, yawning. “Balfour is too loyal a friend not to trust. He knows everything now.”

  “Everything?” asked Hap. He was thinking about the strange machine that Umber kept hidden in his tower in the Aerie, the source of all of the miraculous innovations that Umber had brought to this world. Hap had accidentally discovered the “computer”—a slender, metallic, folding thing with the word REBOOT engraved on its silvery face—and had always figured that Umber would otherwise have never told him about it.

  “The whole crazy tale,” Umber said.

  Hap remembered how dizzy he’d felt when Umber told him his story. “What did Balfour say?”

  “He said he’d believe any fool thing, where you and I were concerned. But he posed a question that has me thinking. He asked if I was the same lunatic back where I’d come from. Referring, of course, to my mood swings and my wanton disregard for personal safety.” Umber chuckled at his own expense and dropped heavily into a chair. He picked at the stubble on his chin. “And you know, I think he’s onto something. Sure, my emotions always ran deep, and I was plagued by the occasional melancholy. I even took some medicines for it.

  But . . . coming to this world transformed me in some fundamental way. I mean, I was always curious and lively. But not the way I am now. I do get reckless at times, don’t I?”

  Hap coughed and nodded, thinking about all the moments he’d spent on the brink of death, owing to Umber’s mania.

  “Something to ponder, at any rate,” Umber said, ending the sentence with a powerful yawn. “Time for bed, I think. Does it bother you, Hap, that you never sleep?”

  Hap shrugged. “I don’t see the advantage of it, I suppose. It’s like dying for a little while.”

  Umber’s head rocked back. “There’s a lovely thought to comfort my dreams. You want advantages? Well, if you have a rotten day, it’s a chance to turn the page. You fall asleep and tell yourself the next one will be better. And it helps you mark time. Does it all blur together for you?”

  Hap considered that and nodded. “It’s all been a blur. From the start.” He said good night and left the room, bringing Caspar’s journal to read during the lonely night.

  “I see it now,” Umber said.

  The Verdant Isle was on the horizon. Hours of sunlight still remained; Sandar had gotten the Bounder there even faster than promised. The island was modest in size and hilly, with vegetation thicker and wilder than any Hap had seen before.

  “Looks like a jungle, doesn’t it?” Umber said.

  “I suppose,” Hap said. He’d never seen a jungle. “Lord Umber, who is this man we’re going to see?”

  “A friend of mine with a particular expertise: botanical wizardry. His name is Fendofel. You’ve seen those remarkable plants on my terrace, like the tree of many fruits? Most of them came from Fendofel. If anyone can identify that thorny nut, it’s him.”

  “How long have you known him?” Hap asked.

  “A while—we met soon after I got here. He’s a dear old man, and I owed him a visit long before this. Things have been hectic since we met you, though.” He turned and called to Sandar with one hand cupped beside his mouth. “Not too close, Sandar, or that living weed will foul her rudder!”

  “I remember,” Sandar said, frowning at a memory. The Bounder reduced sail until it nudged forward with the island looming ahead. “That’ll do—drop anchor, boys!”

  Hap stared at the island. It had no beach—the thick and tangled vegetation reached to the sea and formed a formidable barrier along the island’s perimeter. But on the shore just ahead he saw a stone ramp that emerged from the growth and sloped into the water. I guess that’s where we land, he thought.

  The Bounder’s jolly boat was lowered, with Umber, Hap, Oates, Balfour, and Sophie on board. Oates rowed them closer to the island. Hap’s fear of water was not as intense as it used to be, but he still wasn’t fond of the sea, especially in a small vessel that bobbed so vigorously in the waves. He looked over the side, hoping to see the bottom close below. Instead a forest of seaweed swayed and rippled a few feet below. He gasped as the weeds sprang to life and broke the surface, surrounding the boat. The passengers lurched as their progress was abruptly stopped.

  “This again?” groused Oates. The weeds were wrapped around both his oars. When he tried to raise them from the water, the weeds tugged them back down. The boat shook from side to side, a sudden motion that felt like a warning.

  “Be calm, Oates,” Umber said. “This isn’t your first time here, for heaven’s sake. You know how it goes.” He leaned forward and gazed at the edge of the jungle.

  “I wish someone would tell me how it goes,” Hap said quietly to Sophie.

  “I thought you knew,” she said. “Don’t worry. Dendra will be here soon.”

  “Dendra? Who is Dendra?”

  Sophie smiled. “I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

  Hap pouted back at her. “You’ve been hanging around Umber too long.”

  The edge of the heavy undergrowth shifted, and an enormous vine that was spiraled tightly at the end pierced through. It hovered for a m
oment, and then, as Hap watched with his jaw sagging, it uncoiled and reach toward them, extending across the waves. “That is Dendra,” Sophie whispered.

  Umber leaned over the prow with a shining grin, waiting. The vine had diamond-shaped leaves the size of hands sprouting from it, and along its length more curling tendrils sprouted, all light green with jagged red stripes. When the vine finished uncurling, barely a foot from Umber’s face, Hap saw a long, red flower shaped like a trumpet, and he was amazed to hear a voice coming from the flower—the thin, quavering voice of an old man. “What is it? Who’s out there?”

  Umber smiled over his shoulder. “It’s like a speaking tube, Hap. The wizard talks into a blossom at the other end, and the vine conducts the sound.” He put his mouth near the flower. “It’s me, Fendofel! Your friend Umber.”

  “Umber?” said the voice from the vine. “Umber . . .

  Umber . . . Umber . . .” it repeated, puzzling over the word. Umber looked back at his friends again with a raised brow.

  “Of course, Umber!” cried the voice, rising with happy recognition. “My dear boy. You’re back! Come ashore, come ashore.”

  “I have friends with me—some you’ve met, and one you haven’t,” Umber told the flower.

  “Friends! How nice! Come, all of you! Welcome to my home!”

  The seaweed sank into the depths again, and the strands released the oars. The boat bobbed freely, and Oates, shaking his head with his mouth stretched wide, rowed them to the stone ramp. As they drew closer, the vine withdrew ahead of them. The ramp was covered with smaller vines that looked much like Dendra. Oates picked up a line, meaning to tie the boat off, but the smaller vines sprang to life and twirled around the cleats, holding the boat fast. “This is the oddest place,” Oates muttered, dropping the line and lifting the pack with the strange nut inside.

  They disembarked and walked up the ramp to where the riotous growth barred further progress. Hap felt Sophie’s elbow nudge his side. “Watch this,” she said.