The Finisher Read online

  Duf snatched a breath and exclaimed, “Quentin Herms ain’t no fool. Why in the name of all of Wormwood would he go in the Quag? Load-a bollocks, ask me.”

  Duf shot an anxious glance at Morrigone and his face sagged. He tugged off his old, stained bowler, revealing a thick spread of dirty, graying hair, and looked thoroughly embarrassed. “Beggin’ pardon at me language, uh … females,” he finished awkwardly.

  Morrigone continued to stare at me, apparently awaiting my response to her comment.

  I said, “Going to the Quag means death.” As I said this, I thought of the look on Quentin’s face as he ran into the Quag.

  She nodded, but did not look convinced by my statement, which puzzled me. “So you have never ventured near the Quag?” she asked.

  I said nothing for a sliver, because while I had no problem with lying, I didn’t like to use the skill unnecessarily. It had nothing to do with morals and everything to do with not getting caught.

  “Never close enough to be attacked by a beast that lurks there.”

  Morrigone said, “But my colleague Jurik Krone informed me that you were down by the edge of the Quag at last first light.”

  “I heard screams and saw the attack canines and Council members. I followed them out of curiosity and also to see if I could help somehow with what they were doing. Before I realized it, we were near the Quag.”

  “And you told Krone you saw nothing, no one?”

  “Because I didn’t,” I lied. “I know now that it was Quentin they were after, but I still don’t understand why.” I wanted Morrigone to keep talking. I might learn something important, so I said, “Why were they chasing him in the first place?”

  “Good question, Vega. Unfortunately, I cannot answer it.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” I said, before I realized I had said it.

  Duf and Delph caught breaths, and I thought I heard Delph hiss a warning at me. Morrigone did not answer me. Instead, she motioned with her hand. I heard the creak of carriage wheels. Bogle guided the sleps and carriage back into view.

  Morrigone didn’t board right away. Her gaze flitted over me.

  “Thank you, Vega Jane,” she said, using my full name, like Delph did routinely.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t much help.”

  “You were more help than you know.”

  A bittersweet smile accompanied this comment, which for some reason caused my stomach to do flips.

  She disappeared inside the carriage. In less than a sliver, it was gone.

  “Har,” gasped Duf.

  I couldn’t have agreed more.

  WHEN I TURNED back to Delph, he was gone. I glanced over at Duf, who still stood there gaping at where the carriage had been.

  “Where did Delph go?” I asked breathlessly.

  Duf looked around and shook his head. “Mill, most likely.”

  “So, what sort of work does Delph do for Morrigone that he gets coin in payment?” I asked.

  Duf looked at the ground, stubbing a rock with his heavy boot. “Lifting stuff, I ’spect. Delph does that real good. Strong as a creta, he is.”

  “Uh-huh,” I replied, trying to think what Delph really did for the coins.

  “What happened to Delph when he was six sessions, Duf?” I asked.

  He immediately looked away. He seemed to be gazing at the young slep, but I knew he really wasn’t.

  “You best get yourself off to Stacks, Vega. If another Wug don’t show up for the hand stamp, no telling what Domitar will do, the great insufferable git.”

  “But, Duf?”

  “G’on, clear off, Vega. Nuff has happened. Just let it be.”

  He didn’t wait for another response. He simply strode off. I stood there for a bit, wondering what to do. I kicked a few clods of dirt back into the hole. Delph might be gone, but I did have some time before Stacks. I made up my mind quickly.

  I would go to Quentin Herms’s cottage.

  I looked at the sky to see the clouds had covered it like a cot blanket. I thought the rains would be coming soon. We got them this time of session. When they came, they stayed for a long time. I imagined Quentin struggling through the dark Quag and then feeling the cold pellets of moisture coming down. But perhaps Quentin was already dead. Perhaps the Quag had lived up to its reputation.

  I picked up my pace, imagining that Domitar would be on the lookout for anyone who did not come in on time. I hurried along, keeping a watchful eye out for signs of Thomas Bogle and that mighty blue carriage. I thought back to what I might have said to Morrigone that would make her believe I had told her something useful. She was so smart that perhaps it was what I didn’t say that gave her what she needed.

  I slowed down. In another few yards, I would be there. I decided to approach the cottage from not the front or rear, but the right side. This had the most cover, with bushes and a couple of trees nearly as large as my poplar. There was a low fence of piled stone that ran around the small patch of weedy grass that constituted Quentin’s property. I jumped this and landed lightly in the side yard. I heard birds in the trees and little creatures roaming the bushes. I did not hear carriage wheels.

  This did not make me any less suspicious. Or less scared. But I swallowed my fear and moved forward, keeping as low as possible. I thought of what would happen to me if I were found here. They would believe I was in cahoots with Quentin. Whatever laws he had broken, they would believe I had helped him do so. They would also arrest me for breaking into his cottage. I would be sent to Valhall. Fellow Wugmorts would hurl spit and curses at me through the bars while Nida and the black shuck looked on.

  I scampered over another low wall and dropped to the ground. Directly up ahead was the cottage. It was made of stone and wood, with dirty windows. The rear door was only a few feet away. I ran to a window on the side of the cottage and peered through it. It was dark inside, but I could still see if I pressed my face firmly to the glass.

  The cottage was all on one floor. From this window I could see most of the inside of the place. I moved to another window, which I judged would let me see into the only other room there. This was Quentin’s bedroom, though there was only a cot with a pillow and blanket on it. I looked around but I saw no clothes. And the old pair of boots that he always wore to Stacks was not there either. Maybe that’s why Council had assumed he had gone off on his own accord. He had packed his clothes. A Wug didn’t do that if he’d been eaten by a garm or suffered an Event. I tried to remember if Quentin had been carrying a tuck with him when he went into the Quag, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d really only seen his face.

  I took another deep breath and headed to the rear door. It was locked. That was not surprising. I defeated the lock with my little tools. I was becoming quite a cracking lawbreaker. I opened the door and moved inside, closing it behind me as quietly as I could manage. Still, it seemed to make a sound like a creta slamming into a wall. I was shaking all over and felt ashamed for being so scared.

  I stood up straight, drew another long breath and willed the shakes away. I was standing in the main room of Quentin’s cottage. This was also his library, for there were some books on a shelf. It was also his kitchen, for there was a fireplace with a blackened pot hanging in it. And it was also where he ate his meals, for there was a small round table with one chair. On it was a wooden spoon, fork and knife on top of a plate made of copper. All neat and orderly, just like my friend had been.

  As my eyes adjusted to the poor light inside, I focused first on the books. There weren’t that many, but even a few books were more than most Wugmorts possessed.

  I lifted one book out. The title was Engineering through the Sessions. I looked inside the pages, but the words and drawings were too much for my feeble mind. I pulled out another book. This one puzzled me. It was a book on ceramics. I knew for a fact that Quentin hated working in ceramics. I did all the finishing on ceramics at Stacks because of that. So why would he have such a book?

  I opened it. The first few pages did indeed de
al with ceramics, and I looked at sketches of plates and cups in various colors and styles. But as I kept turning the pages, I found something else. A book inside a book.

  The title page brought a chill to my skin: The Quag: The True Story.

  This inner book was not printed. It was on neatly cropped parchment and handwritten in ink. I turned through some of the pages. There were words and precisely hand-drawn pictures. And the pictures were truly frightening. Some were of creatures I had never seen before. They all looked to be things that would eat you, given the chance. Some made the garm look downright cuddly.

  I looked to see if the author’s name was anywhere on the book, but it wasn’t. Yet surely Quentin must have written this. The conclusion spawned from this was equally shocking: He must have gone into the Quag before the time I had seen him do it last light. And come out alive.

  I slipped the Quag book out of the other and stuck it in my cloak pocket. What was contained in the pages would fulfill my curiosity but nothing more. Quentin Herms had no one to leave behind. He was free to try his luck in the Quag. I was not, even if I could have mustered the courage. I was Vega Jane from Wormwood. I would always be Vega Jane from Wormwood. At some point, I would be planted in a humble grave in a quite ordinary section of the Hallowed Ground. And life here would go on just like it always had.

  The next moment I heard a key turning in a lock to the front door of the cottage.

  I slipped behind a cabinet and held my breath. Someone came into the room, and I heard the door close. There were footsteps and low murmurs, which made me realize there was more than one Wug about.

  Then a voice grew loud enough for me to recognize and with its rise, my heart sank to the floor.

  It was Jurik Krone.

  I TRIED TO FORCE myself into as small a ball of flesh as possible as their footsteps echoed over the wooden floor.

  Krone said, “We have found nothing useful. Nothing! It is not possible. The Wug was not that capable, was he?”

  I could not hear the other voice clearly, but what I could discern seemed vaguely familiar.

  “The ring is the puzzlement for me,” said Krone. “How came it to be back here? I know they were friends, close friends. But why would the accursed Virgil not leave it to his son?”

  The other voice murmured something else. It was driving me mad that I couldn’t tell what was being said or who was saying it. And why had Krone used the word accursed in defining my grandfather?

  Krone said, “He’s gone into the Quag, that we know. And I believe that Vega Jane knows something about it. They were close. They worked together. She was there that very light.”

  The other voice said something, in an even lower tone. It was as though the other Wug knew someone was listening. Then Krone said something that nearly made my heart stop.

  “We could tell them it was an Event, like the others. Like Virgil.”

  I had to stop myself from jumping out and screaming, What the bloody Hel do you mean by that?

  But I didn’t. I was paralyzed.

  The other voice murmured back in reply but I could not hear the words.

  I knew it was risky but I also knew I had to try. Fighting against my seemingly dead limbs, I eased forward on my knees. There was a bit of looking glass on the far wall. If I could just stretch out enough to see if there was a reflection of Krone and the other Wug in —

  The door opened and closed before I could move another inch.

  Throwing caution to the wind, I leapt up to find the room empty. I raced over to the window next to the front door and looked out. Disappearing around a corner of a hedge was the blue carriage.

  How did I not hear the clops of the sleps as they approached the cottage? Or the turn of the wheels? Was it Morrigone in the carriage? Or Thansius?

  But who said what paled next to what I had just heard. The words were imprinted on my brain. We could tell them it was an Event, like the others. Like Virgil.

  That clearly meant that the idea of an Event was a lie to cover something else. If my grandfather had not vanished from an Event, what the Hel had happened to him? Well, Krone knew. And so, I’m sure, did Morrigone and the rest of Council. This destroyed everything I had ever believed in, everything I had been taught. This made me wonder what Wormwood really was. And why we were all here. I felt so wonky, I thought I might topple over. I relaxed my breathing and slowed my heart. I did not have time for wonky. I had to get out of here.

  I was halfway out the window when the front door opened once more. I didn’t look back, but the heavy boot steps told me it was Krone. He didn’t call out, which meant he hadn’t seen me. Yet.

  I slid out on my belly and hit the ground hard. I involuntarily yelped.

  “Who’s there?” roared Krone.

  I was over the low wall and out of sight of the cottage probably before Krone had even gotten to the window. I have never run that fast in all my sessions. I didn’t slow down until twenty yards from the entrance to Stacks, where I plunked down in the high grass, totally out of breath, my mind reeling from what I had just heard.

  A few slivers later, I rubbed my hand after Dis Fidus stamped it. He looked like he had grown a session older since Quentin vanished. His aged chin quivered, making the grayish stubble there appear to be floating against his sallow skin.

  “You mustn’t be late, Vega. I’ve set out water for you at your station. The heat is already fierce this light from the furnaces.”

  I thanked him and hurried in, still rubbing at the ink on my hand.

  The book weighed heavily in my cloak pocket. It was stupid to bring it here, but I didn’t have time to go anyplace else. Where could I hide it that no one could find it? Yet even though I knew I had to part with it, I was desperate to read the book from beginning to end.

  I stuck my cloak with the book in my locker and made sure the door was securely fastened. I put on my apron, work trousers and heavy boots before going to the main work area. With my goggles dangling around my neck, I slipped on my gloves and stared at the high pile of unfinished things next to my workstation. I knew it would be a long light’s work. I sipped the cold water that Dis Fidus had left me and began my tasks, working my way through them methodically, reading parchment after parchment of instructions and then improvising when the written directives allowed me to. I worked hard and tried to stay focused even with all the thoughts swirling in my head.

  Before I realized it, Dis Fidus was ringing the bell that told us it was time to start packing up.

  I was about to change out of my work clothes when we were urgently summoned to the main floor of Stacks. I hurriedly closed my locker and rushed there.

  Domitar came out and stood in front of us as we lined up. We all waited as he paced back and forth, while a frightened-looking Dis Fidus hovered in the background. Finally, Domitar grew close enough for me to smell the flame water on his breath. I could only imagine that Council had come down with great force on him. And knowing Domitar as I did, he was about to take whatever pain he had suffered out on us. Thus, I was shocked by his first words.

  “Council has ordered that there shall be a reward,” he began.

  Though we were all knackered from our labors, this got everyone’s attention.

  “Five quarts of flame water. A pound of smoke weed.” He paused for effect. “And two thousand coins.”

  A gasp went up among us.

  I had no use for the flame water or smoke weed, though I supposed I could barter them for a good deal of eggs, bread, pickles and tins of tea. But two thousand coins represented a vast fortune, perhaps more than I would earn in all my sessions at Stacks. It could change everything about my life. And John’s.

  Domitar’s next words, however, dashed any hope I had of earning that fortune.

  He said, “This reward will be paid out to whoever provides sufficient information to Council to apprehend the fugitive Quentin Herms. Or it will be paid out to the Wugmort who personally catches Herms and brings him back.”

  Th
e fugitive Quentin Herms?

  As I looked at Domitar, I found his gaze upon me.

  “Two thousand coins,” he repeated for emphasis. “You would no longer need to work here of course. Your life would be one of leisure.”

  I looked around at the males. They all had families to support. Their faces were blackened, their hands gnarled and their backs bent from the toil here. A life of leisure? Unthinkable. As I stared at their hungry, exhausted faces, it did not bode well for Quentin.

  Domitar added, “We would prefer that he be taken alive. If this is not possible, so be it. But we will need proof. The body, reasonably intact, will do.”

  My heart sank and I felt my lips tremble. That was practically a death sentence for poor Quentin. If he had risked everything to escape, I could not imagine him not fighting with all his might to prevent his capture. Much easier to simply put a knife blade in him. I felt tears rush to my eyes, but I shoved them away with my dirty hand.

  I once more looked at the males around me. They were now talking in low voices among themselves. I could imagine them all going home, getting whatever weapons were handy and heading out after their meager suppers to hunt down Quentin and get the coins and, with them, their life of leisure. They would probably go in teams, to increase their chances of success.

  Domitar said, “That is all. You may leave.”

  We all started filing out, but Domitar stopped me.

  “A sliver, Vega.”

  He waited until the other Stackers were gone. He looked over at Dis Fidus, who still stood trembling in the background.

  “Leave us, Fidus,” ordered Domitar, and the little Wug shot out of the room.

  Domitar began, “You could use two thousand coins. You and your brother. And your parents at the Care. It’s not inexpensive. And you would have a life of leisure.”

  “But then I wouldn’t have the pleasure of seeing you every light, Domitar.”

  His narrowed eyes grew even smaller. They looked like little caves from which something astonishingly slimy and dangerous would explode. “You have brains, but sometimes you spectacularly fail to exercise them.”