World's End (28 page)

Zinedine reached into his satchel, scooped out a handful of berries, and handed them to Leif.

"Go on and try them," urged Zinedine. "I am curious where you will be sent."

"Are you addicted to these berries?" asked Leif skeptically.

"Perhaps," replied Zinedine. "But what choice do we have here, my friend? If we do not eat them, we die."

Leif picked up a berry, studied it closely, and contemplated whether to eat it. His stomach was aching for food. Perhaps he could have just one of these little red fruits. After all, what harm could there be in eating one berry?

A
LFONSO AND HIS COMPANIONS
all took off at the same time, like a startled flock of birds. Hill arrived at the archway first. There, he encountered an extremely tall zwodszay who appeared out of the shadowy gloom, almost as if he had been waiting for them there all along. Like Kyn, he had no hair and his skin was pale and translucent. It stretched tightly over the many ridges and bumps of his malformed bones. Hill could see his heart beat slowly beneath his chest.

Apparently, this zwodszay was not scared in the least.

Hill also noticed that half of the creature's mouth was fixed in an intelligent smile. Hill felt slightly reassured by this, until he realized that the smile was frozen due to the fact that the zwodszay's lips had been badly mangled. His frozen lips alternated between pale white and blue, as his blood flowed through them. He carried what appeared to be a three-foot-long stone club sharpened to a razor point. Although thin, the zwodszay was incredibly strong. He carried the club as lightly as if it were made of paper.

Hill unholstered his Colt .45 and took aim. Before he could shoot, however, the tall zwodszay jumped up, soared through the air, landed on top of Hill, and forced him to the ground. The creature salivated at the sight of Hill's bare neck. It opened its mouth, revealing a row of jagged teeth. Hill squeezed off a shot and missed, but the sound startled the zwodszay and it jumped away.

"HILL!" Alfonso screamed. He had just arrived along with the others. "Hill, are you okay?"

They gathered around Hill underneath the archway. Alfonso helped his uncle struggle to his feet.

"Oh no," whispered Hill.

Alfonso followed Hill's gaze, and the blood drained from his face. They were now surrounded by thousands of zwodszay. The great hall flickered with the ghostly pulsing of their blood as it coursed through their translucent skin and glittered evilly within their tiny red eyes. Moments later, the zwodszay began to move in for the kill.

"Listen to me," yelled Bilblox authoritatively. "This ain't the first time I've been outnumbered in a gang fight. We gotta stick close together and keep our backs to one another. Understand?"

"He's right!" affirmed Misty.

"Come on now, ya blasted, infernal zwodszay!" yelled Bilblox ferociously. "Old Papa Bilblox has got some strong medicine for ya!"

At that very moment, two zwodszay—as if answering Bilblox's taunt—rushed the blind longshoreman. Bilblox heard them coming and shuffled to his left and then swung his club in a wide arc. At full extension, the club slammed into the chest of both advancing zwodszay and sent them flying backwards.

Seconds later, Alfonso heard a soft, swishing noise. A zwodszay landed nearby and then swept Alfonso's legs out from underneath him. Kõrgu leapt through the air, knocked the zwodszay off Alfonso's back, and then sank her fangs into the creature's neck. Alfonso staggered to his feet and looked around. The zwodszay were moving in.

At that moment, Alfonso thought of his dad. A great, sorrowful choke of regret welled up in his throat. He roared in anger at the injustice of it all. His right hand gripped the sphere and he began to hurl it into the zwodszay masses. The sphere, which glowed blue in the darkness, flew through the air in a blur of light and returned each time to Alfonso's outstretched hand. Hill and Resuza fired off a flurry of rounds with their rifles. In the midst of this onslaught of strange weapons, the zwodszay hordes wavered. A few of the creatures retreated and, as they did, they created an opening toward the archway that—hopefully—led to the Jasber Gate.

"Quickly now!" yelled Misty. "Follow me."

The old miner sprinted into the darkness of the tunnel and the others followed. It was a vaulted passageway with a slick stone floor and a low ceiling. The walls were coated with bat droppings, which resembled a mudlike paste. Eventually, the passageway began to narrow and, as it did, the bat droppings disappeared. At this point, Misty paused and hurled her lantern back into the tunnel behind them.

"Get ready fer some fireworks!" yelled Misty. "Them bat droppins burn like gunpowder."

Seconds later, there was a massive explosion and a wave of fire raced back down the tunnel, toward the hordes of zwodszay.

"That oughta buy us a few minutes!" yelled Misty exuberantly. After a minute of running, they came upon a small cast-iron door that was locked from the inside. The door was ancient-looking, but very solid. It would be impossible to break it down without a giant battering ram or great deal of force. Misty grunted a sigh of disgust. They had reached a dead end.

"Now what?" asked Bilblox.

Without saying a word, Alfonso approached the cast-iron door and studied it very carefully. He remembered the brick wall in Imad's antechamber and the note about omism. Then something happened that everyone present would remember for the rest of their lives. Alfonso took a deep breath, entered hypnogogia, and slowly thrust his arm
into
the iron door just above the doorknob. Seconds later, they all heard the sound of a rusty deadbolt sliding along its runner. Alfonso withdrew his hand and shook it for a second as if even he didn't believe what just happened. He turned the doorknob and the door immediately swung open.

"I reckon I spent one too many dark and dreary days in them mines," remarked Misty. "Fer a moment there, I'd a-sworn on m' own grave that Alfonso just passed his hand through that door like a ghost."

"That's exactly what he did," said Hill in disbelief. "But how?"

"It's just an old Great Sleeper's trick," said Alfonso nonchalantly. He was breathing heavily. "Come on, I think we've found the Jasber Gate."

Everyone walked through the small doorway and Clink, the last person through, closed and locked the cast-iron door behind him. They had now entered a perfectly square chamber with twenty-foot-high stone walls. In the center of the room stood a hefty, waist-high, bronze candelabra with three prongs, each of which contained a large, half-used candle. Hill lit each candle with his torch. These were no ordinary candles: when lit, they threw off an intense light that bathed the room in something close to daylight. For the group, who had been traveling in near darkness for almost a week, the light was both welcome and uncomfortable. They hoped it would also deter the zwodszay from entering, at least for a while.

For the most part, the room was quite plain. The floor was dirt and three of the four walls were bare. Yet the fourth wall, the one they were all facing, was adorned with a complex mosaic comprising thousands of square tiles. Most of the tiles were colored a drab gray, although a number of black tiles were scattered throughout the mosaic, usually grouped in curlicues of five or six tiles.

"I reckon this 'ere wall with the tiles is yer gate," said Misty with a cough. Like everyone else, she was winded from running. "D'ya think Kiril 'n' Josephus an' maybe Treeknot got this far?"

"I don't see any sign of them," said Alfonso. "Those tiles look like they form some kind of pattern." He looked at Resuza. "Is it some kind of language?"

Resuza stared at the black lines of tile that soared and danced across the gray. "Nothing I've ever seen," she replied.

Hill walked over to the wall and pushed one of the black lines. It wouldn't move. He spent a few minutes feeling and pressing every part of the tiled wall that they could reach. The wall was intact, with no trace of hidden doors.

Meanwhile, Clink was examining the wall as if it were a piece of fine art. He tried to loosen individual tiles, but nothing budged. Eventually, he walked back to the entrance, spun around, and stared at the tile wall from a distance. After a minute, his mouth began to move, but no sound came out.

"Da-ta-da-dah-daaaa-ta." Then Clink began to hum.

The others looked puzzled.

"Thank goodness you have me around!" exclaimed Clink. "Did you know that I am not only an accomplished safe-cracker, but I'm also one of Somnos's finest musicians?"

"This is no time for boastin', ya foolhardy braggart," muttered Misty.

"Clink! You're a genius!" Alfonso exclaimed. "Those black lines are musical notes, aren't they?"

Clink nodded proudly.

"Never made it past the second grade," said Clink proudly. "But I do what I can."

"Quick," said Alfonso. "Take out the kaval—the shepherd's flute—and play it. "

"Fer the love of Magrewski, ya better hurry up," said Bilblox nervously. "I think I hear them zwodszay comin'."

Seconds later, they could all hear the sound of stone clubs smashing against the cast-iron door.

The zwodszay had arrived.

Resuza took out her Enfield rifle and walked over to the doorway where Bilblox was also standing. She pointed her rifle at the doorway, poised to shoot.

Wham! Wham! Wham!

The stone archway around the door began to crumble and give way.

Clink wet his lips and began to play the kaval.

The notes echoed in the room and seemed to get louder and crisper instead of diminishing. The room was built for music, and each crystal clear note hung in the air, perfectly balanced with the other notes. Clink repeated the same simple arrangement several times until they all heard a grinding sound.

"The wall is opening!" yelled Alfonso.

They all watched as the tile wall descended slowly into the floor. It took a minute before the wall had dropped enough for them to see what was behind it. Hill groaned. It revealed
another
wall. It was the same size as the tile wall and set back several feet. Alfonso ran over and examined this new wall. It was made up of a row of extremely narrow doors. Each door, made of smooth yellow marble, was approximately six inches wide. All together, there were about a hundred doors, each of them identical. Alfonso tried opening a few, but they all appeared to be locked.

Wham! Wham! Wham!

The cast-iron door toppled over. Screeches and yowls came from the passageway. They looked back and saw thousands of tiny red eyes staring at them.

"They won't come in because of the light," yelled Hill.

A grinding sound came from the tile wall. The top emerged from the floor and began to rise quickly toward the ceiling.

"This is our chance!" shouted Hill. "Quick, everyone, we'll get on the other side of the tile wall before it closes."

"But we'll be trapped between the two walls!" protested Clink. "If we can't open those doors, we'll be stuck."

"We'll worry abou' that later," yelled Misty. "Come on, ya numbskull!"

They all ran to the tile wall and jumped over—first Misty, then Clink, Alfonso, Resuza, Bilblox, and Kõrgu. Hill came last. By the time he reached the wall, it had risen to almost six feet. Just as Hill was about to climb over, the room was plunged into darkness. The zwodszay had reached the candelabra. A hideous burning smell filled the room, followed by a heart-rending moan. Apparently, one of the zwodszay had sacrificed himself to ensure that the candles were extinguished.

Hill grabbed the top of the wall and began to pull himself over. It was now over eight feet tall and rising quickly. Hill let out a cry of pain. His hands slipped and he began to fall backwards.

"Th-They've got me," Hill shouted. "I-I can't make it..."

Bilblox sprang into action, leapt toward Hill's voice, and grabbed hold of Hill's hands, which gripped the top of the rising wall. The burly longshoreman pushed off the wall with his feet and yanked Hill toward them. It was hard at first, but then the zwodszay holding Hill on the other side lost its grip, and Bilblox and Hill fell heavily onto the ground.

The zwodszay all began to screech and snarl as if, perhaps, they had turned on one another. It was such a terrifying sound that tears dripped down Alfonso's face and he hugged the ground. Then the first wall closed completely. The sounds of the zwodszay abruptly disappeared, leaving Alfonso and the others in the silent, completely darkened space between the two walls.

A
LFONSO REACHED
into his backpack and pulled out his blue sphere. He spun the object in his hand and it soon began to glow with the flickering image of the one-eyed monk placing a scroll of parchment into a locked box. This was strange. Alfonso hadn't seen this particular image before, but he was concerned with more pressing matters. He held the blue sphere out so that it might cast some light into the surrounding darkness, but its meager light could only trace the basic outline of the enclosure. Resuza lit a candle, which generated a bit more light.

Hill sighed. "Now what?" he asked. "Josephus's list doesn't have any keys." He looked at Clink. "What do you make of all these doors?"

Clink stood up, took the candle from Resuza, examined one of the locked doors, and nodded thoughtfully. He extracted a wire spool from his pocket and inserted it into one of the keyholes. Over the next few minutes, he moved the wire back and forth in the keyhole. Finally, he looked up. His face was streaked with sweat.

"There's no obvious triggering mechanism, which means even Alfonso couldn't do that nifty trick of his." Clink looked annoyed. "This is ridiculous! Who knew that Jasberians were such good locksmiths? Somnos is filled with weak, flabby locks!"

"Even if we could unlock one of these doors, we still got problems," said Bilblox as he felt the dimensions of one of the doors. "The doors are too narrow. Probl'y only Alfonso and Resuza can fit through."

"You're right about that," chuckled Misty, who had been listening to the conversation. "Me 'n' you got meat on our ol' bones, and we can't be fittin' through doors like them!"