The Blade of Shattered Hope

Chapter 56

Sato put his hands out, letting the pads of his fingers and palms scrape along the surface of the stone wall as he fell. He focused his concentration so he would be ready for the first opportunity to grab onto something. Fighting off the terrifying panic, he felt as if each nanosecond seemed to beat out a long rhythm.

Bumps and cracks and knobs of rock tore at his skin, but his attempts to grip them proved worthless. The dark surface of the wall suddenly lightened, and he found himself staring into one of the rectangle cubbyholes at a small boy curled up into a ball on his ragged mattress, shaking from the earthquake or bodily ills, or both.

Sato threw his arms forward, hitting the lower floor of the compartment with a terrible bite of pain. His downward movement slammed to a momentary stop, but then he was slipping again, desperately grasping with his fingers for anything to hold onto. A curl of loose blanket, a moist wrinkle of mattress-gone as soon as he touched them. He was just about to fall completely away when his right foot landed on a jutting outcrop of rock; a jolt shivered through every nerve.

Crying out from the pain and shock of his sudden stop, he was still able to take advantage of the moment and adjust his grip on the lower flat edge of stone with his arms. Breathing heavily, Sato couldn’t help but pause to make sure it was really true-that he’d really stopped himself from plummeting to his death far below. Hanging there, he looked up to see Mothball looking down on him from twenty feet above.

“A might risky that was,” she called out, though a huge smile draped her homely face. Before he could respond, she reared back and took a giant leap to the side, sliding down the stone face as he had done until she caught the next compartment over-with a lot more grace and fewer bruises and scratches, no doubt.

“You think we can do this?” Sato asked, climbing up into the inset hole. The chamber still shook around him, but he’d almost gotten used to it, his body adapting to its movements.

“Like ya said,” Mothball responded. “We’ll ruddy fly if we have to.”

Sato scooted close to the boy sitting there, his arms wrapped around his knees, his eyes filled with a hope that almost broke Sato’s heart. The boy wore a dirty shirt and shorts, his hair messed and greasy.

“You okay?” Sato asked. “We’re here to take you away. Save you.”

The boy didn’t answer, but the slightest hint of a smile graced his face.

“This is gonna surprise you, but in a few seconds you’ll be far away from here.” Sato took one of the nanolocator patches out of his pocket and slapped it on the boy’s bare leg.

An instant later, the kid disappeared.

1:45

1:44

1:43

1:42

Tick couldn’t help but stare at the dwindling time as it ticked toward the annihilation of the entire universe. His mind wanted him to waste his brain power wondering how all of time and eternity could be dependent on him solving a stupid riddle. He pushed the question away again and again. Pushed away thoughts of what Jane and the Haunce were doing and whether his efforts would matter anyway.

1:21

1:20

“Stop it, Tick!” he yelled to the empty forest. “Think!”

The answer floated just outside his sphere of concentration. He was almost there.

Every line counts.

Counts.

Nine sentences that made no sense at all or seemed to be related to each other in any way.

Number’s up.

Number.

0:46

0:45

Sweat soaked his forehead, his armpits, his hands. The cold air did nothing to help.

0:40

0:39

Wary the word second.

Second.

Second word.

0:31

0:30

It all came together so instantly, so unexpectedly, that he felt a lump explode in his throat, racking him with a coughing fit. As he hacked the air through his sore throat, he focused on the words of the riddle. His eyes played tricks, making the answer appear as if the letters themselves had magically changed to help him out. He finally quit coughing and couldn’t believe now that he hadn’t seen it all from the very beginning:

Look at the following most carefully, as every line counts:

Be gone in times of death’s long passing.

Henry Atwood sliced his neck.

Hath reeds knocked against thee?

If our fathers knew, then winds, they blew.

The sixth of candles burned my eyes.

Horrors even among us.

Leigh tries to eat a stone.

The canine or the cat, it spat.

Pay attention to the ghoul that weeps.

Your number’s up, and it is missing. Wary the word second. Shout out your answer.

0:10

0:09

The second word of each sentence contained at least part of the numbers he was supposed to look for. To count. And yes, a number was missing.

0:04

0:03

Tick sucked in a quick breath of air then screamed as loudly as possible.

“Five! The answer is five!”

The forest around him sucked away into blackness as once again he exploded into trillions of pieces.