Happenstance Found (Books of Umber #1) (19 page)

CHAPTER
25

On the eleventh day of Umber’s great
despair, the weather turned. Sun changed to gloom, and gentle breezes to stiff winds that made clothes snap. Hap found Balfour staring wide-eyed at a device with glass tubes and dials, mounted on the wall. Balfour had both hands against his cheeks. “Maybe this is why my bones ache more than usual,” he said.

“What is that thing?” Hap asked.

“Umber invented this. Or
introduced
it to us, as he prefers to say. He calls it a weather glass. See the liquid in that tube? It’s dropping like an acorn. So unless this thing is broken, it’s telling us that there will be a storm. But …”

Hap waited. “What, Balfour?”

Balfour rubbed a hand across his forehead. “I’ve never seen it fall this fast. Not even close. We have to tell Umber.”

Hap reached the terrace without Lady Truden spotting him. Umber wasn’t in his usual seat. He’d wandered to the edge, where he leaned heavily on the balcony.

“Lord Umber,” Hap said.

“Mmm,” Umber replied.

“Balfour says a storm is coming. A bad one.” Hap looked at the long hill beyond the city. At the horizon he saw a thin band of blue, the only sky not yet engulfed by the gathering storm. Hundreds of gray-white gulls chased the blue as clouds swept inland.

“Storm. I can see that,” Umber mumbled.

“What should we do?”

Umber’s reply was barely audible. “Nothing. Harbormaster has a weather glass. So does the palace, and all my captains. They’ve spread the word.”

Hap joined him at the balcony. In the harbor below, the smallest boats had been dragged ashore, and men hurried to secure the larger craft. More ships sailed in from the open sea with sails stretched to the breaking point. “Look—your weather glass is saving lives, Lord Umber. That must make you glad,” Hap said. Umber didn’t respond.

The surface of Kurahaven Bay was churned by the wind into a million foaming peaks. For Hap, this was infinitely worse than the sight of calm waters. His fingers hurt, and he realized it was from gripping the rail with all his strength.

The first drops of rain spattered his face. “You should go inside, Lord Umber. Would you like to come down to the kitchen? Balfour will make us something to—”

“Just leave me alone,” Umber said.

“But—”

“Alone,”
Umber repeated, raising his voice. He rubbed one temple with the heel of his hand.

Hap backed away. He wiped the rain from his eyes and trudged toward the staircase landing, where he heard someone else’s feet on the stairs, rising quickly. As Lady Truden rushed onto the terrace, he ducked behind a vine-covered trellis. After she passed, he slipped downstairs unseen and went to his room. There he stood by his window and watched the storm. What made its gathering power worse was that the wind blew straight into the mouth of the harbor. The tall peaks on either side of the bay gave no shelter.

Hap’s door was open, so he heard clearly when Lady Truden came down the steps and slammed her door. Though the wind whistled loud through a seam in Hap’s window, he still heard her wailing cries.

*     *     *

The tempest frightened Hap but also amazed him, and so he left his window open despite the slashing rain. He pulled a chair to the sill and watched as darkness fell. There was genius in the way his windows served as the eyes of the face carved into the Aerie. The rain was channeled past the corners of the eyes, so that the face seemed to weep.

The wind and waves pummeled Petraportus. He hoped the nameless fisherman and his wife would be all right. Nobody was in sight at the docks and in the streets of Kurahaven. He saw a canvas tent in the marketplace take flight, and wondered if the merchants, including the clothier Poncius, had taken good care of their wares.

By midnight the storm doubled in strength. Hap gazed at the water, knowing that, with his nocturnal sight, he was the only one who could see the new peril amid the churning waves: a small boat trying desperately to reach the safety of the harbor.

He pressed his face between the bars of the window to get a better look. Two were aboard: a man and a boy. Father and son, most likely. There was a single mast, but only the shreds of a sail were left, and even those tore away and fluttered inland as Hap watched, blinking away the driving rain. The boat yawed wildly as the man fought with a single long oar to keep the bow pointed at the docks, an unreachable salvation still a half-mile away. The boy clung to the man’s waist and buried his face in the shirt. Not a thing could be done for them, Hap knew. No ship could venture out to rescue them.

A frothing gray wave reared up, loomed over the boat, and collapsed. For a moment the craft vanished, and then it bobbed up with sheets of black water streaming off. The man had lost the oar or let it go, because he held the boy by the wrists as they sprawled across the steep tilt of the deck.

“No!” Hap screamed aloud, as another wave rose up, curled high, and slammed down, pushing the craft deep into the sea. It vanished, as if it was never there. Hap shoved himself away from the bars and put his back to the window. He seized his hair and pulled.
No,
he screamed again, inwardly this time, dumbstruck by horror at the thought of the poor man and boy, lost to the very fate he feared the most.

CHAPTER
26

Hap pressed his hands against his face,
hating the unnatural eyes that had let him see such a thing. And then he heard a sound that somehow cut through the roar of the storm. It was booming, sonorous, and familiar. He whirled to look outside once more, daring to hope. Where the boat had been lost, something enormous rose from the brine.

“Boroon!”
Hap shouted.
“Oh, Boroon!”
He leaped so high, his head thumped against the stone ceiling.

The leviathan broke the surface with the fishing boat cradled inside the railings of the barge. Water poured away, baring the deck. The father and son were there, rising on their hands and knees to gawk, dumbstruck, at the miracle from the deep that had saved them. Nima ran from Boroon’s back onto the deck. She opened the hatch and waved them over, and they crawled into the safety of the cabin.

“Nima!”
screamed Hap, rubbing the bruise atop his head. She couldn’t hear him, of course, but it didn’t matter. He shouted both names again, just for the joy it brought:
“Nima! Boroon!”

Hap’s conscious life was only a few weeks old, but he wondered if he would ever love a pair of beings more than he did the leviathan and the web-fingered captain at that moment.
There’s a memory for the book of your life,
he told himself as the rain mingled with his own happy tears.

Boroon’s mighty tail propelled the rescued folk away, seeking shelter elsewhere. Hap stripped off his rain-dampened clothes and threw a nightshirt over his head. He plucked a book from the basket and sat on his bed, still smiling.

Before he could start to read he felt the symptom he’d known before: the crippling stiffness that froze every joint in his body. He squeezed his eyes shut. In his mind he saw Turiana, and heard her saying those terrible words, and he forced his mind away from that memory.
This will pass,
he thought. And it did pass, faster than the first time, driven away by a sweltering fever that also quickly faded.

He stood with his chest heaving like bellows, still wondering what caused the brief affliction, and annoyed that it interrupted his moment of joy. Umber had told him that, if the chill and fever came again, he should watch for another thread of light. And there it was, hanging in the stormy air just outside his window.
Just like the one that led me to Thimble
. But this thread hung vertically, and didn’t point to him.

He approached it cautiously, as if it were a wary bird he might frighten away.
Pay close attention,
Umber had advised him.
It might be important
.

Whatever it was, it was unaffected by the ferocious wind. The thread just rippled with a sinuous motion. Hap reached the window and stared at it. There was something ominous and frightening about its color—a bruised, infected purple. But like the first thread, it had tiny pulses of light moving through it, originating from some point below. He reached out and touched it, expecting to hear the same faint whispering or music. He yanked his hand back an instant later. There was a sound—but it was cold and unpleasant, and his nerves jangled.

This thread is different,
he thought.
The first was mine. But this belongs to someone else.

He pushed his head between the bars—there was just enough room to squeeze through, though it hurt his ears to try—and looked down. And there, climbing like a spider, reaching up to slide his daggerlike fingertips into a crevice in the walls, was Occo the Creep.

Hap pulled his head back so fast that it felt like his ears had been sheared off by the bars. He stumbled and fell, and pushed away on his palms and heels until his back was against the door.

He’s coming for me!
His mind paralyzed him with too many jarring thoughts to process:
Run! Hide! Fight! Don’t move! Scream! Be quiet! Call for help!

The glimpse had told him that Occo was climbing swiftly. Soon hands would rise up and seize the bars. But then what? The bars made it impossible for Occo to enter. Was he strong enough to wrench them right out of the stone?

He doesn’t know I saw him,
Hap thought. All Hap saw was the top of his uncovered skull as he searched for a grip. His head was hairless and smooth, ghastly white, and slick with rain. And Hap had noticed something else in that momentary glimpse—something coiled around the Creep’s shoulder.
Never mind that—do something!
his instincts screamed.

Next to the door was one of the countless artifacts that cluttered the Aerie. It was a small figure of a gnomelike creature, made of iron. It was there to prop the door open on windy days. But as Hap’s eyes fell upon it, he saw neither a statue nor a doorstop. He saw a weapon. He seized it by the neck.
I’ll throw it as soon as he shows his face,
Hap thought.
He’ll lose his grip and fall.

As he crept toward the window, padding softly with the heels of his feet off the ground, he pictured the craggy rocks at the foot of the Aerie.
That will be the end of him
. He stood close enough to strike but far enough to stay out of reach, held the statue over his shoulder, and waited. His legs shook and his heart knocked against his ribs.

The thread of light had disappeared.

Where is he?
Hap inched closer.
You should have gone for help right away,
a voice inside told him. His muscles twitched, and he sensed the metallic taste of blood—he’d bitten the inside of his cheek without realizing it.

Occo should be at the window by now.
Hap wondered if the howling wind had pried Occo off the wall and sent him plummeting to his doom. He edged closer, and darted his head to the window and back. Nothing reached for him, so he stuck his head out for a better look. Occo was not on the wall above or below or lying dead on the rocks. A terrible possibility leaped into his mind.

The terrace. Umber!

He raced for his door, threw it open, and tore down the hall. “Oates! Oates!” he screamed, even before he slammed Oates’s door open with his shoulder.

The big fellow lurched up in his bed. “Who? Huh! What?”

Oates couldn’t see in the pitch-black of his room. Hap tugged his arm, shouting with his words blurring together: “Get up, get up! The Creep is back! Climbing the wall! Heading for the terrace—Lord Umber, Oates,
Umber
!”

Oates erupted from the bed and reached blindly for a stack of weapons he kept leaning in the corner. His grasp fell on a long-handled battle-ax, and when he seized it up, the rest clattered to the floor. Hap saw a short, light spear that he could wield. He caught it as it fell and carried it with him.

They ran into the wide corridor, which was lit by a lantern with a candle inside. Other doors flew open. Sophie raced out of her room with her bow and a quiver of arrows tucked under one arm. In her good hand she clutched the hooked instrument that had to be strapped in place before she could shoot. For the first time, Hap glimpsed the pale stump at the end of her damaged arm.

Balfour hobbled out of his room, and a shrieking, wild-eyed Lady Truden burst out of hers. “What is it? What’s happening!” She and Balfour collided, and they fell to the floor in a heap of tangled limbs.

Hap didn’t wait to help them up. He seized the lantern by its ring-shaped handle and led the way up the stairs, bounding five steps at a time on his powerful legs. He heard Oates thump after him.

The wind nearly knocked Hap off his feet when he raced onto the terrace. The rain stung his cheek like needles. The first time he tried to shout, the wind choked him. He turned his head and cupped his hand, shouting, “Lord Umber! Look out! Occo is here!”

Oates charged forward. His deep voice took up the cry: “Umber! Umber!”

Sophie arrived beside Hap, dropped her bow and quiver, and fumbled to strap the instrument onto her bad arm. “Hap, do you see him?” she shouted.

Hap’s head whipped right and left. Umber’s favorite bench was unoccupied. Above it, the branches of the tree whipped about like tentacles.

“Where did you see the Creep?” Oates shouted. Hap pointed toward the wall that faced the bay. Oates ran to the spot with the battle-ax poised over one shoulder.

Maybe we got here first,
Hap thought, hoping with all his heart that it was true. A clatter reached his ear, and he looked toward Umber’s tower. The howling wind blew the door open and sucked it closed again. “His door is open!” Hap cried. He saw a crack of light between the closed shutters of the window above.
He can’t hear us,
Hap thought. He put down the lamp—the others needed it, not him, and he wanted both hands on the spear. Leaning into the wind so he wouldn’t fall, he bolted for the opening.

Sophie shouted something after him, but the wind tore her words away. The door blew open again, as if to let Hap in, and when he raced inside it slammed shut once more. Hap whirled and pointed his spear, fearing that Occo had closed the door and not the force of the storm. Nobody was there. “Lord Umber!” he cried again. There was no reply.

Hap looked frantically around. Despite his alarm he was keenly aware that he’d never set foot in here before. His gaze flashed over the scene: Curved walls inside a round tower. A jar of glimmer-worms hanging from a crossbeam. A chair and footstool beside a fireplace with cold ashes. A dining table for one with an undisturbed meal and a crystal glass filled with wine. A small stove.

No Occo. And no Umber.

A staircase hugged the wall. Hap heard something clatter above. His voice cracked as he called again. “Lord Umber?” The spear shook in his hands.

The door flew open and Sophie came in. Her bow and arrow were ready.

“Upstairs!” cried Hap, bounding five steps at once.

“Hap—you can’t go there!” Sophie shouted, but Hap was already at the top. Two rooms were there, with a landing between them. The smaller room, a quick glance showed Hap, was filled mainly by a large bed surrounded by gauzy curtains. “Lord Umber, are you here?” he cried. And then he heard the clatter again, in the other room.

It’s the room I’m not supposed to see,
Hap realized as he leaped inside. He heard the clatter a third time. It was only the wind hammering against the shuttered window. His eyes danced madly across the scene, searching for Umber or the enemy.

There was a desk in the room, with stacks of parchment sorted into piles. And in the middle of the desk was the thing Hap knew he was never, ever supposed to see.