The Finisher Read online

  Fidus gripped my hand with his skeletal one and then stamped my skin. I had no idea why this was done now. It made no sense at all and things that made no sense troubled me to no end. Because, I suspected strongly, it made sense to someone.

  I gazed at Dis Fidus, trying to detect in his features if he had heard of the chase this light. But he was so naturally nervous-looking that it was impossible to tell. I walked into Stacks.

  “I like my charges to be here earlier than three slivers before second light, Vega,” said a voice.

  Julius Domitar was big and puffy like a plump frog. His skin possessed a curious hue of pasty green as well. He was the most self-important Wug that I knew in Wormwood, and the competition for that title was a keen one. When he said he liked his “charges” to be here earlier than three slivers, he really meant me. I was still the only female at Stacks.

  I turned to look at him through the doorway of his office. He stood there at his little tilt-top desk on which rested bottles of ink from Quick and Stevenson, the sole ink purveyors in Wormwood. Domitar held his long ink stick and there were rolls of scrolls lying on his desk. Domitar loved scrolls. Actually, he loved what was on the scrolls: records. Little bits and pieces of our working lives.

  “Three slivers early is still early,” I said and kept walking.

  Domitar said, “There are many worse off than your lot, Vega. Don’t forget that. You have it fine here. But that can change. Oh, yes it can.”

  I hurried on to the main work floor of Stacks. The kilns had long since been fired up. The huge furnaces set in one corner were never turned off. They gave the room a warm, humid feeling on even the coldest lights. The muscle-bound Dactyls pounded away on their metals with hammer and tongs, producing a sound like Steeple bells. Sweat dripped off their brows and sculpted backs, dotting the floor around their feet. They never looked up from their work. The Cutters sliced through wood and hard and soft metals. The Mixers ran their enormous tubs congesting ingredients together.

  The Wugs here were just like me, ordinary in all ways and hardworking — simply just trying to get by. And we would be doing this exact same work for the rest of our sessions.

  I went to my wooden locker in a room off the main floor, where I put on my work trousers, heavy leather apron, gloves and goggles. I walked toward my workstation, which was located near the rear of the main floor. It consisted of one large, heavily stained wooden table, an old, finicky trolley with metal wheels, a set of both large and small tools that fit my hands precisely, some testing instruments that constituted our quality control and bottles of paints, dyes, acids and other materials that I used from time to time.

  Some of my work was dangerous, which was why I put on as much protection as I could. Many who worked here did so with missing fingers, eyes, teeth and even limbs. I would rather not join their lot in having reduced body parts. I liked the ones I had just fine. They were just the right number and matched for the most part.

  I passed by the broad stone stairs with marble balustrades leading to the upper floor of Stacks. It was quite an elegant thing to have in a place like this and made me think, and not for the first time, that Stacks hadn’t always been a factory. I smiled at the Wugmort guard who stood there.

  His name was Ladon-Tosh and I had never heard him speak. Over his shoulder he carried a long-barreled morta. He also had a sword in a sheath and a knife in a small leather casing on a wide black belt. His sole task here was to prevent access by any of us to the second floor of Stacks. With long, coal-black hair, a scarred face, a hooked nose that apparently had been broken several times and eyes that seemed dead, Ladon-Tosh was scary enough even without all those weapons. With them, he was pretty much terrifying in all respects.

  I heard that, one time, long before I came to work at Stacks, some gonk tried to make it past Ladon-Tosh and up the stairs. It was said that Ladon-Tosh stabbed him with the knife, shot him with the morta, cut off his head with the sword and then threw the remains in one of the furnaces that blazed at Stacks all light and night. I’m not sure I believed that, but I wasn’t that sure.

  For that reason, I was always unfailingly polite to Ladon-Tosh. I didn’t care if he never looked at me or spoke to me. I just wanted him to know that he had a friend in me.

  When I first started working here, there was a Wugmort named Quentin Herms who helped me on finishing. That’s what I was here — a Finisher. I walked in on my first light here, and all Domitar had barked was “You’re two slivers late. Never let that happen again.”

  On that first light, I had looked down at my ink-stamped hand and wondered what it was I was to do at this place. I found my workstation only because it had my name on it. A rectangle of blackened metal with silver letters spelling out VEGA JANE on it and bolted onto the top of the wood. It wasn’t a pretty sign.

  And the whole time I was thinking, It’s not just my name bolted to this place.

  It’s me.

  On that very first light as I stood next to my station, Quentin had hurried over and greeted me. He was a family friend and had always been very kind toward me.

  “I thought you were starting next light, Vega,” he said. “Or else I would have been ready for you.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said with a touch of desperation.

  He went back to his station and returned with a little figurine made out of metal. It was of a very young male petting a canine. He said, “This, or things like this, are what you will finish. This is metal. You will also finish things in wood, ceramic, clay and other materials. The Wug and his canine I will paint in pleasing colors.”

  “How do you know which colors to use?” I asked.

  “There are instructions for each item on your workstation. But you have some leeway to use your own creativity. You will sometimes paint, sometimes carve, sometimes mold and sometimes distress objects to make them look older.”

  “But no one has taught me how to do this.”

  “I know you showed artistic ability at Learning,” he said. “Or else they would not have sent you here to be a Finisher.”

  I looked at Quentin. “I just thought there would be some training involved.”

  “There will be. I will train you.”

  “What about your work?” I asked, glancing at the unfinished objects at his station.

  “That will be part of your training, helping me finish them. I’ve been looking forward to this light, Vega. I had always hoped you would be assigned to Stacks.”

  And he taught me. Each light, I had come in with a smile, but only because Quentin was there. I had picked up things quickly until my skill rivaled his.

  I was recalling all of this now, not for nostalgic reasons but for a very different cause.

  For Quentin Herms had been the very Wug I had seen rushing headlong into the Quag with the canines and Council after him. I knew that he would not be at Stacks this light. I wondered when others would realize this too.

  My head filled with more dread than puzzlement, I turned to the one thing I knew how to do: finish pretty things that would be purchased by Wugs who could afford them. I was not among that number.

  I lifted up my first task of the light. A small, unfinished porcelain bowl that required painting and then kiln firing. As I held up the bowl, the top slipped and it nearly fell off. I set the top down on the table and gripped the bowl more firmly.

  That’s when I saw the small piece of parchment tucked in there. I glanced around to see if anyone was watching and then I carefully dipped my hand in the bowl and took out the parchment. I hid it in a work cloth and put the cloth on the workstation and opened it, unfolding the piece of parchment as well. The handwriting was small and precise, the words clear.

  I will not be back at Stacks, Vega. Go to your tree this night. What you will find there may set you free from Wormwood, if you so desire. QH.

  I balled up the parchment and swallowed it. As it went down my throat, I looked up in time to see four males enter Domitar’s office. They wer
e all members of Council, as denoted by their black dress tunics. Jurik Krone was among them, which was not a good thing. He had seen me near the Quag this light. That coupled with the fact that I worked next to Quentin might not bode well for me.

  Thirty slivers passed and I lifted my gaze when I heard Domitar’s door open. To a Wug, all the black tunics were staring at me. I felt my body stiffen like I’d been poked by one of the hot irons the Dactyls used in their work.

  Krone came forward, the other Council members in his wake. He held up an object. When I saw it, my breath caught in my throat. I recognized it immediately, though I had not seen it for many sessions. I wondered how Krone could be holding it now.

  “We meet yet again, Vega,” said Krone as he and his cohorts encircled me at my workstation.

  “Yes, we do,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, but it wobbled badly, like a very young testing out his new legs.

  He held out the object in his hand. It was a ring. “Do you recognize this?”

  I nodded. “It was my grandfather’s.” It had a distinctive design etched in the metal that matched a mark my grandfather had on the back of his hand. Three hooks connected as one. I had never known what it meant and he had never talked about it, at least with me, but I had been only a very young when he had suffered his Event.

  “Can you explain how Virgil Alfadir Jane’s ring came to be found at Quentin Herms’s cottage?” Jurik Krone asked patiently, but there was a definite edge to his voice.

  I shook my head, my stomach doing tiny flips and my lungs expanding faster than I would have liked them to. “I assumed it had vanished along with my grandfather when he had his Event. As you know, there is nothing left of a Wug after an Event.”

  Krone tossed the ring down on my workstation. When I reached out to take it, he slammed his knife blade into the ring’s opening, pinning it to the wood. I jerked my hand back and stared up at him fearfully.

  He slowly pulled his knife blade free and picked up the ring. “You know Herms?” Krone said quietly. “He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”

  “He’s a friend of my family’s. He’s the only other Finisher here besides me.”

  “Why is he not at work this light?”

  “I don’t know,” I said quite truthfully. Still, I was rapturously relieved to have swallowed Quentin’s note. “Maybe he’s hurt or sick.”

  “He’s neither.” He stepped closer. “Let us speak frankly. You were near the Quag at first light. You saw us chasing him.”

  “I told you, I saw nothing. And you didn’t tell me who you were after.” I looked up into Krone’s face. “But why were you chasing Quentin?”

  “There are laws, Vega, laws that Quentin Herms has broken. And for that he will be punished.” Krone gave me a searching look that seemed to leave no crevice of my being untouched. “If he tries to contact you, you will inform Council immediately. The consequences for not doing so will be harsh. This is a serious matter, Vega. Very serious indeed.” He paused. “I am speaking of Valhall for those who disobey.”

  Every Wug there, myself included, drew a sharp breath. No Wug wanted to be locked up in that cage in plain sight and guarded by the brutish Nida and the ferocious black shuck.

  He put his hand on my shoulder and lightly squeezed. “I am counting on your help with this, Vega. All of Wormwood needs to stand together on this matter.”

  Then his hand glided to my face and pulled something free. He held it up. It was a bit of the parchment from Quentin’s note that had caught on my skin. With a thrill of horror, I saw that it had a smudge of ink on it.

  “A remnant of your work, perhaps?” he said. Krone’s gaze once more bored into me. Then he turned on his booted right foot and strode out. His colleagues followed.

  I shot a glance at Domitar. I had never seen him so pale and his skin so clammy.

  “You will cooperate, or it will be Valhall,” he said to me, and then spun on his heel, almost toppling over in the process, and disappeared into his office.

  I turned back to my work and waited for the night to come.

  AFTER THE BELL rang for the end of work at Stacks, I changed back into my threadbare clothes and left to walk back to Wormwood. I was so full of impatience that I wanted to run the whole way. I wished it were night already so I could go to my tree, but I could do nothing to speed up time.

  My route to Wormwood proper did not take long. Wormwood was not sprawling. It was compact, like a small fist waiting to hit something. There were lines of shops set across from each other on the High Street, which consisted of wavy cobblestone. These shops sold things that Wugmorts needed, like clothing, shoes, basic foodstuffs, plates and cups. A chemist’s shop sold healing herbs and salves and bandages. There was even a place that would sell you a sense of happiness, which seemed in short supply here. I was told the shop did a brisk business. We knew we had it good in Wormwood, but we apparently had a hard time actually believing it.

  As I walked, my mind whirled. Krone and Council had been chasing Quentin, who had fled into the Quag. I had caught a glimpse of him before he had fully disappeared. I had seen the expression on his face. It was one of terror but tinged with relief. Relief at going into the Quag? My mind could hardly contemplate such a thing.

  As I trudged along, I passed the Loons. It had been my home for the last two sessions, ever since my mother and father were sent away to the Care. The Loons was a rectangle of warped boards, dirty glass and cracked slate shingles. There were two floors with five small cot rooms on the top floor and six boarders to a room. That added up to thirty Wugmorts with lax hygiene all in close proximity.

  That’s why I preferred my tree.

  I passed by the front door of the Loons, and a Wugmort I well knew stepped out. His name was Roman Picus and he owned the Loons. He was wearing his usual garb: a slouch hat with a dent in the middle; blue, not overly clean dungarees; white shirt; black vest; luminous orange-red garm-skin boots and a long, greasy coat. He had long whiskers running down both sides of his face, curving like fishhooks into his sun-reddened cheeks. A heavy bronze timekeeper suspended by a knotty chain hung across the front of his vest. On the timekeeper’s face were the various sections of light and night broken into their respective compartments.

  “Good light, Vega,” he said grudgingly.

  I nodded at him. “Good light, Roman.”

  “Coming from Stacks?”

  “Yes. I’m picking John up from Learning and then we’re meeting Delph at the Care.”

  He gave a loud snort. “Why you waste your time with that great gormless sack-a nothin’, I’ll never know. But I suppose you don’t think too highly of yourself, and I would have to agree with ya there, female.”

  “If you think Delph is such a waste, why not challenge him in the next Duelum?”

  His face reddened. “I’m too old for the Duelum. But in my prime, female —”

  “And how many Duelums did you win in your prime, male?”

  He grimaced. “You best learn, Vega,” he growled. “Go along to get along.”

  “Speaking of going, where are you off to, Roman?”

  He looked like I had slapped him. “You’re asking me such a question?”

  “We’re having such a nice conversation, I wanted to keep it going.”

  “D’ya want to be written up at Council, Vega?”

  “Absolutely. I hear that with three or more infractions the offending Wug is eligible for some sort of prize.”

  “I have no slivers for idle dithering with the poor likes-a you.” But then he paused and studied me. “Quentin Herms?” he asked.

  “What of him?”

  “Hear he’s done a bunk.”

  “Maybe,” I said cautiously.

  Roman shrugged and looked at his boots. “Maybe a garm got him. Har.”

  “All lodging fees collected for the quartersession?” I asked, intentionally changing the subject. I did not want to discuss Quentin Herms.

  He smiled wickedly and held out a l
arge, grimy hand. “Speaking of, I’ll just take yours now, Vega.”

  I held out a small sheet of parchment with writing and a seal on it. “I paid after I walked John to Learning. Your clerk gave me a bit of coin off for bringing it around myself and saving him a trip.”

  His smile fell away to a frown. “Oh, did he? Well, we’ll see about that.”

  “All mouth and no trousers, Roman.”

  “And what the bloody Hel do ya mean by that?”

  “Your clerk showed me the official scroll you signed authorizing the discount. I like to know things like that before I commit my wages to pay for space in that dung heap you call lodging.”

  Roman could chuck my brother and me out of the Loons if he wanted to. Maybe part of me desired that. But he simply turned and stalked off, and I hurried on.

  Learning was housed in a building located near the other end of the High Street. It could hold a few hundred youngs but now had less than half that. Learning was done in Wormwood, but it was not done with a lot of energy. As I stood on the lumpy cobblestones and waited, it struck me that the top edge of the building’s roof was sad-looking. It curved a bit downward like it was frowning.

  The door opened and the youngs started to trickle out.

  The last Wug out was always my brother.

  John Jane was short and skinny and looked far younger than his age. His hair was dark and long, nearly as long as mine. He would not allow me or anyone else to cut it. He was not strong, but he would fight you if you tried to cut his hair. His gaze was downcast. He was seemingly enthralled by his feet, which were disproportionately long and promised great height later. John Jane did not look like much on the outside, but there was a great deal going on inside his head.

  I had seen him make observations about things I’d never thought of. And he never forgot anything. It was only in private moments when we were together that I gained glimpses of what was really in his upstairs room. It was quite full, that room, far fuller than mine.

  A shy smile crept across his face, and his shuffle picked up. I held up my tin box. On the way here, I had stopped and picked him some berries, and there was also a feather wing I got for him and smoked up earlier in the hearth at Stacks. John liked his meat, though we didn’t have much of that at the Loons. He hurried across the cobblestones, opened the box and saw the wing. He looked at me and smiled again. I did not understand John most of the time, but I loved to see that smile. There was no food provided during Learning, although the time spent there was long. They said food distracted youngs. I believed a lack of food distracted everybody. I said so when I was a young. It was a wonder, I realized now, that they let me stay until I was twelve sessions, which was the age when Learning ended. That was far too early, I thought, but I didn’t make the rules, did I?