I fell, screaming, down into that awful chasm. When I thought my situation could not get any more terrible, I felt something truly horrible.
The chain was wrapping itself around me, link by link, until I was completely immobile. Now I had no chance of attempting to swim, even if I survived the drop. I closed my eyes and waited for it all to end.
UNDECIM: The Chain of Destin
I FELL A LONG way. I don’t think I opened my eyes the whole way down. Yet in my mind’s eye I could see things in the bloody river as I plunged down past them. Faces came out of the dark depths to peer at me for a moment.
My grandfather, Virgil Jane. He loomed up and stared at me with sad, empty eyes. His mouth moved. He held up his hand and showed me the mark on the back of it, the twin of the one on the ring. He was saying something, something I strained mightily to hear, and then he disappeared.
More figures slid past me as I continued my descent. Thansius. Morrigone. Jurik Krone laughing and pointing at me. He shouted something that I took to be Your punishment, Vega Jane. Your doom. Then I saw Roman Picus with his fat, bronzed timekeeper, and Domitar sucking on flame water. John came next, looking lost, followed by my father, holding his hands out to me. And, finally, my mother looking pleadingly as her only daughter fell to her death. Then they were all gone. The swirling blood closed farther in on me, like giant, gripping hands.
I opened my eyes. I wanted to see what was coming. I wanted to face death with the little courage I had left. I hit bottom gently. It felt comforting somehow, like falling into my mother’s arms. I was not frightened anymore.
I lay there because, well, actually, I couldn’t move. The chain was still wrapped tightly around me. I held my breath as long as I could to keep the blood out. But finally I had to take a breath. I expected the foul liquid to rush inside my mouth and my lungs to fill like a pair of buckets. I closed my eyes because I just had to.
Several deep breaths later, there was no blood in my mouth. I opened my eyes a teeny bit, thinking that if death were really horrible, I would only see a wee slice of the horribleness, at least at first.
I looked straight up. The Noc stared straight down at me.
I blinked and shook my head clear. I looked to the left and spotted a tree. I looked to the right and saw a ragged bush. I sniffed and smelled the grass. But I was inside, not outside, wasn’t I?
Then I very nearly screamed.
The chain was uncoiling itself from around me. As I watched, it fell away and then neatly coiled itself up next to me like a serpent. After a sliver of hyperventilating, I slowly sat up and tested my arms and shoulders for injury. I found none, though I was sore. I wasn’t even damp. There was not a trace of blood on me. As I stared ahead, I gasped.
Stacks stared back at me, about twenty yards distant.
How did I go from plummeting into an abyss all trussed up ready to drown to being outside and far away from where I had been? At first I thought I had dreamed the whole thing. But you dreamed in your cot. I was lying on the ground!
I thought maybe I had not been in Stacks at all. Yet I had been. There was the chain as proof.
And I felt inside my cloak pocket and pulled out the book that most definitely had been in my locker at Stacks. I had been in there. The jabbits had been after me. I had discovered a huge cavern where an immense battle had been displayed on the walls, along with the symbol of the three joined hooks. I had been hit by a wall of blood and plummeted over the edge to my certain death. And on the way down I had seen images of Wugs alive, dead and nearly dead.
And now I was outside and my clothes were not even damp.
I’m not sure that even my brother’s impressive mind could have wrapped itself around all that. I had to stop thinking about these events for a few slivers as I stood, doubled over and threw up. My knees shaky, I straightened and looked down at the coiled chain. I was afraid to touch it, but I tentatively reached out a finger.
I kept reaching until my finger grazed one of the links. It felt warm to the touch, even though the metal should have been cold. I gripped the same link between two of my fingers and lifted it up. The chain uncoiled as I drew it upward. It was long. In the light of the Noc, it seemed to pulsate, glow even, as though it had a heart, which of course it could not. I looked more closely and saw that there were letters imprinted on some of the links. Together they spelled —
D-E-S-T-I-N.
Destin? I had no idea what that meant.
I dropped the chain and it instantly curled back up. But the thing was, it never made a sound. I knew that when metal touched metal, it made noise. But not Destin apparently.
I took a long step away from it, and the most incredible thing happened.
The chain moved with me. It uncurled and glided along the ground until it was once more within an inch of my foot. I did not know what to make of this. It was so unimaginable that my mind simply refused to process it. I decided to focus on my most pressing issue. I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the book. A book was real, solid. A book I could understand. But because a book was real and solid, it also could be discovered. I pondered what to do.
I had to hide it, but where? I started to walk. I thought it might help me think, but I really wanted to put considerable distance between me and Stacks, and the bloody twin jabbits.
I had walked perhaps a mile, with the mysterious chain slithering next to me, when an idea skittered into my knackered mind.
The Delphias’.
I broke into a run and didn’t notice until a sliver later that the chain was flying along beside me. Literally flying, straight out, like a long stick. I was so stunned that I pulled up, breathless. It stopped right beside me and momentarily hovered in the air before falling to the ground and coiling up once more.
Still breathing hard, I stared down at it. I took a step forward. It reared up as though ready to take off. I took another step forward and then a third. It lifted off the ground. I broke into a run. It rose completely off the ground, configured itself like a stick again and flew right next to me.
I stopped and it stopped. It was like having a pet bird.
I looked up ahead of me and then back at the chain. It hovered. Even though I had stopped, it seemed to be sensing my indecision. Could it have a brain as well as a warming heart?
I don’t know what made me do it, but I reached out, grabbed the chain, looped it around my waist, tied a knot with the links to secure it and started to run. And that’s when it happened. I lifted off the ground maybe six yards and flew straight ahead. I didn’t realize I was screaming until I gagged when a bug flew down my windpipe. My arms and legs were flailing around me as I looked down. That was a mistake — the looking-down part. I pitched forward and zoomed right into the dirt and tumbled painfully along until I came to a stop in a crumpled heap.
I lay there completely still. Not because I was scared, but because I thought I was dead. I felt the chain uncoiling from around me. It re-coiled next to me. I rolled over and tested myself for broken limbs and blood gushing out of fresh wounds in my body. I seemed to be all there, just bruised.
I looked at the chain. It seemed remarkably calm for having just driven me into the ground. I stood on shaky legs and sure enough, it rose up with me. I walked, and it hovered next to me with every step. I was afraid to put it around my waist again. I was afraid to even touch it. So I just walked, keeping my distance. Well, I couldn’t really do that. Every time I moved away, it moved with me. Finally, I just walked straight ahead and it hovered next to me.