The Finisher

QUADRAGINTA UNUS: Slivers Too Few

SLIVERS LATER, I landed as near the place as I dared. I sprinted the rest of the way, pushed through the doors and raced down the hall. Another sliver passed and then I was back in Duf’s room. Breathing hard, I skirted around the sheet that hung from the ceiling giving the space some privacy.

Then I stopped dead. The cot was empty. The room was empty. Delph and his father were gone. I rushed back down the corridor, thinking only terrible thoughts, the next worse than the previous one. There were no Nurses or Mendens in the passageways, so I started poking my head in each room I came to.

Wugs in various states of ill health or injury peered back at me from their cots. Heads bandaged, faces red and swollen, lungs hacking, legs bound in plaster, arms tethered to bodies — none of them was Duf. I had to believe many of them had been injured on the Wall construction, yet none so badly as Duf.

When I came out of one room I heard the scream. I looked wildly about because I recognized the voice. I hustled toward the sound, rounding one corner and then another. The screams kept coming and then they abruptly died out. I reached a set of double doors, pushed them open and hurtled into the room, panting from being out of breath, my broken nose pouring blood and throbbing. I slowly straightened and looked upon the horror in front of me.

Duf lay on the table, a sheet covering the top of him. As I looked down below, my stomach gave a lurch. There was nothing there. His legs below the knees were gone. Duf was covered in sweat and unconscious, something for which I was dearly grateful.

Delph was just standing there, his big hands tucked into fists, his great chest heaving, the tears spreading over his cheeks as he peered at what was left of his father. I looked at the Menden who stood there with blood smeared across his white gown and a vicious-looking saw in one hand. A Nurse stood next to him, staring anxiously at Delph.

I drew closer to the cot. Where Duf’s legs had been were just stumps. I could barely find the breath to keep my lungs going.

“What happened?” I asked breathlessly.

“Cu-cut ’em off,” said Delph. He was teetering. “Just cu-cu-cu —”

I gripped his hand and looked at the Menden. “When did you do this?”

He was staring at my injured face, but then focused on my question.

“Finished about a sliver ago. Delph didn’t want it done, but it had to be done. Otherwise, we’d have a dead Wug.”

“A sliver?”

The Nurse pulled me away from Delph and said in a low voice, “He tried to stop the Menden.” She pointed to his torn gown and battered face. “It took five Wug orderlies to manage him while the Menden performed the amputation. He said you were coming with something that would help Duf. And we did wait, for a bit, although we knew that was nonsense. You never came back, so we had to get it done. You understand. Medical matter.”

I couldn’t find the breath to speak. My mind was so full of things that it was impossible to form a response.

A sliver. A bloody sliver. Why did I take so long? Why did I lose the bloody Stone in the first place?

Duf’s legs were gone. I didn’t think even the Adder Stone could help. Still, I slipped it from my pocket, thought of Duf with his legs fully healed and then waved the Stone over his stumps, disguising the movement by pretending to straighten the sheet.

I held my breath, waiting for the legs to be regrown. And I kept waiting. And nothing happened. Finally, sick to my stomach, I let go of the Adder Stone and it fell to the bottom of my pocket.

The Menden came over and studied my face. “What happened to your nose?”

“Duelum,” I said absently. I doubted whether he would have known this was a lie or not. And I really didn’t care.

“Do you want me to attend to your injuries? I can reset your nose.”

I shook my head. “It’s nothing,” I said in a hushed tone. And it was nothing. “You just … you just tend to Duf.”

I went back over to Delph. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “So very sorry.”

He sniffled and rubbed his eyes. “You tried, Vega Jane. I know ya did. Just ran out of slivers, didn’t we? Just ran out of …” His voice trailed off.

“But he’ll live,” I said.

“If you can call it that!” said Delph in a sudden rush of anger. He calmed just as quickly and looked tenderly at me. “Glad you made it back safe.” He saw my face and gaped. “Vega, you’re hurt bad. You need to —”

I gripped his arm tighter. “It’s nothing, Delph. It’s really nothing. I’ll be fine.”

My mind heaved like I had been wrenched upside down. I am nothing, Delph. I failed you. I am nothing.

Delph nodded sadly. “The thing is, you tried. For that I’ll always be grateful. Did you run into —” He lowered his voice. “Into, you know? Your face and all?”

“I tripped and hit some stone. Just stupid of me. That’s all.”

He looked vastly relieved by this. “Do you mind if I have a mo’ with me dad?” I nodded quickly and hurriedly left the room.

I waited until I was well down the dark and dank corridor before I sank to the cold floor and sobbed uncontrollably.

WHEN I FINALLY rose, my tears were gone, my sadness replaced with a smoldering anger. I raced from hospital and took to the air. Slivers later my feet hit crushed gravel. My skin still ached where that awful thing had pinned itself to me. My head reeled from the impressions of a lifetime of nightmares bundled into one continuous dark vision.

I knew what the creature was, because it, like the cobble, had been in Quentin Herms’s book. I hadn’t recognized it before it struck because it was impossible to recognize. It could assume any shape it wanted. I knew what it was because of what it had done to me.

It was a maniack, an evil spirit that attached to your body and then your mind and drove you irreversibly insane with every fear you’ve ever had. And yet as I stood there, my mind cleared and my body stopped hurting so much, though my broken nose ached like blazes. I hadn’t even thought to pull the Adder Stone to heal myself. And I didn’t take the time to do it now.

I hurried up the walk, pushed open the gates and sprinted to the massive doorway. I didn’t bother to knock. I just opened the door and stormed inside. William, the pudgy Wug in his sparkling clean uniform of the dutiful servant, came into the hall and looked at me in surprise.

“What are you doing here?” he exclaimed.

I knew I must be a sight. One eye nearly closed. My face bloody and bruised from my fight with Non. I had no idea what discernible residue the maniack had left on me. I knew I was missing a tooth, and my nose was broken. But I didn’t really care.

I said, “William, please get out of my way. I just need to see something.”

He continued to bar my path. “Madame Morrigone is not here.”

“I don’t want to see her,” I barked.

“Neither is Master John.”

“Or Master John,” I snapped.

“She told me of no visitors. And so no visitors will be admitted —”

He stopped because I had hoisted him off the floor and hooked the back of his collar over an unlighted torch holder set on the wall. With Destin around my waist, William was as light as air.

“Just stay there,” I said. “I’ll let you down when I’m done.”

Blocking out his cries of protest, I rushed down the hall to the library. I threw open the doors and entered. No fire was lit. The sunlight streamed in through the windows. The books were all still there. I stepped up to it: the looking glass that hung on the wall above the chimneypiece.

I had seen it when John and I had first supped here, back when I thought Morrigone was a good, decent Wug. Before she had stolen my brother from me and made him into something that he was never meant to be. My gaze drifted to the ornately carved wooden frame. It was the exact same design as the looking glasses back at Stacks. As I peered closer, I could clearly see the carved frame was made up of a series of interlocked serpents that formed one continuous, foul beast.

As I stepped back and took in the whole glass, I knew without doubt that this looking glass and the ones at Stacks were identical. I had no idea what power Morrigone had that allowed her to do this, but I knew that she had somehow taken this mirror and replicated it many times over at Stacks as a way to trap and then kill me.

Well, two could play that game.

I drew my Elemental, willed it to full size, took aim and hurled it dead center of the mirror. It blasted into tiny pieces that sprayed all over the beautiful and, up to that moment, immaculate room. As the debris settled over all her pretty things, I allowed myself a grim smile.

I rushed back down the hall and lifted the still-sputtering William off the torch holder and set him gently down. He looked at me indignantly and smoothed down his ruffled clothes. “Rest assured that I will inform Madame Morrigone of this most inexcusable trespass as soon as she returns.”

I said, “That’s exactly what I want you to do.”

As a parting shot, I ripped from the wall the silver candleholders I had made and took them with me. When I was high up in the air, flying on a seam of wind, I flung them as far away as I could manage. And all I wished was that I could fling myself just as far from this place.