Happenstance Found (Books of Umber #1) (17 page)

“You’re dead!”

CHAPTER
21

Hap barely remembered leaving the
room where the sorceress was imprisoned. He fled in a senseless panic, flinging off the fur cloak along the way. His sight was lost to a blinding fog, and all he heard was a dull, surging roar that had to be the racing of his heart.

He recovered his wits on the other side of the door with his face crushed against Umber’s chest. Something hurt, and he realized that he was biting the knuckles of the hand he’d crammed between his teeth.

“Come with me,” Umber said, and with a hand around Hap’s shoulders he steered him through the tunnels, into the Aerie, up the water-driven lift, and into Hap’s own room where he collapsed in his chair.

*     *     *

When Hap was able to speak, he told Umber what had happened.

“Turiana is cruel, Hap,” Umber said. “You wouldn’t do what she asked, and so she decided to frighten you. Look, you are obviously not dead. You breathe. You eat. Your heart beats. You bleed, too, as I recall.”

Hap leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. He remembered the terrible cold feeling that had swept over him just before he saw the strange thread of light.
I told myself it felt like death,
he thought. He tried to banish the notion from his mind. “Maybe she meant that I’m
going
to die,” he said, although that alternative wasn’t pleasant either.

“Well, that goes for all of us, if you think about it,” Umber replied. He tried to smile at his own joke but failed. Something seemed amiss with Umber. His complexion had turned ashen. His features sagged, and dark crescents cradled his eyes. The grin that always came easily was nowhere in sight. Umber pressed his fingers to his temples and ground them in circles.

The sight was enough to shake Hap out of his own misery. “Lord Umber—are you feeling all right?”

Umber ignored the question. “And it’s a good thing you didn’t do what she asked, Hap. Those
trinkets
she wanted are the source of her powers. She’d have freed herself in minutes, and what a disaster that would be.” He stared at the floor with glazed eyes.

“Lord Umber?” said Hap. Umber grunted.

“If … I may … I wanted to ask about something you said to Smudge,” Hap said. “When you told him that I can speak languages, you said something about this world … and
your
world. What did you mean?”

Umber didn’t respond right away. At first Hap thought Umber didn’t hear him. Then Umber’s head rose from his hands and he glared at Hap. Hap edged back, astonished to see such a wild-eyed look directed at him.

“How many times do I have to say it? I can’t tell you everything yet! Can you let an hour pass without one of your blasted questions?” Umber pinched the bridge of his nose. His voice fell to a mumble. “Sorry … just … just leave me alone for a while, will you?” He stepped out of Hap’s room and closed the door behind him.

CHAPTER
22

Hap could spend only so many hours
alone in his room. He peered down at the harbor to see if the Creep’s vessel was anywhere in sight. It was not, but it didn’t make him feel much better, after what the sorceress had said:
He will surely come back for you….

He wished he could visit Umber on the terrace, but Umber clearly wanted solitude. The sudden change that had come over him was strange. His energy, humor, and exuberance had wilted like a flower in the frost. All that remained was a dim shadow of the man he was.

Hap wandered downstairs, looking for a friendly face. He was pleased to see Sophie come out of the kitchen with a bowl of fruit. She lowered her eyes as usual when she saw him, and tucked her damaged arm behind her back. But the corners of her mouth also turned up.

“Hello, Sophie. I haven’t seen you around.”

“I’ve been working on engravings for Umber’s books,” she replied. “It takes a lot of time, and Lord Umber wants me to finish while it’s fresh in my mind. Not that I could ever forget that tyrant worm.” She paused to bite her bottom lip. “Hap, would you like to see the room where I make the art?”

“Of course.” Hap was about to mention Umber’s strange transformation, but an angry shout cut him off.

“You! Happenstance!” It was Lady Truden. She swept into the room with a fiery glare focused on Hap.

Hap didn’t know what to think as she strode toward him. He clutched the front of his shirt and tried to guess what he might have done wrong—something grave, by the look on her face, but he couldn’t imagine what. Just when he thought he might be trampled, she stopped abruptly a foot away.

“What’s the matter with Lord Umber? What the devil did you do?” she said, leaning over him with her teeth bared.

“I-I didn’t do anything,” Hap said.

“Is Lord Umber sick?” Sophie asked in a barely audible voice.

Lady Truden’s eyes darted toward her. “The sadness is back. Bad as ever.”

Sophie stared down at the fruit in the bowl. “But why do you think it’s Hap’s fault? This has happened before and Hap wasn’t even here.”

Air gusted out of Lady Truden’s nose. “I wasn’t speaking to
you
, young lady. Don’t you have work to do?” Sophie seemed to shrink to half her size as she bustled out of the room.

“Well?” Lady Truden growled. “He was fine before he spent the morning with you!”

Hap melted under her glare. “I don’t know what happened. We went to talk to Smudge. And then he took me to see … the guest.”

Lady Truden gasped. “The sorceress? Why?”

“He thought she might know—”

“This
is
your fault!” she said, jabbing her finger an inch from Hap’s nose. “I told him not to talk to her. It always upsets him! He never would have if
you
hadn’t come… .” She clenched her fists so tight that Hap heard the knuckles crackle.

Hap felt his face turn crimson. “But … Lord Umber will get better, won’t he?”

“You’d better hope so,” Lady Truden said. “I’ve never seen him so low! You just keep away from him so you don’t make it worse. Keep away, you hear?” She stared at him with nostrils flaring, waiting for some sort of answer. Hap felt a sour taste in the back of his throat. He didn’t know what to say.

Rescue came in the form of Balfour’s gray-haired head poking out from the kitchen door. “Hap! Give me a hand in here? Right away, please.”

Lady Truden had the same expression that the cat had worn when it lost Thimble as its prey. “Excuse me, my lady,” Hap said. He trotted into the warm sanctuary of the kitchen.

Hap stared into the mug of hot milk and cinnamon that Balfour provided. “How long do you think the sadness will last?” Hap asked.

Balfour shrugged. “Hard to guess. These episodes—that’s what Umber calls them—can be as short as a few days or as long as a month.”

“It is my fault, isn’t it?” Hap asked quietly.

Balfour rapped the table with his knuckles. “Listen, Hap. You’re a fine young man, so I’ll be honest with you. Umber
has
been troubled since we found you. But it’s not about you. I think something in the note that was on you has made Umber think about the place that he came from, years ago.”

Hap remembered the strange words that he’d spied in the note from WN:
I know where you came from, Umber. I know too what happened to that world of yours… .
“I’ve heard Lord Umber talk about his world. What does that mean? Where did he come from?”

“I couldn’t say. Umber doesn’t like to talk about it, I can tell you that.”

Something in Balfour’s tone told Hap there would be no more discussion of Umber’s other world. He swirled his milk inside the mug. “But do you think seeing Turiana made Lord Umber sad, too?”

“Could be. It’s upsetting for Umber, seeing her.”

Hap nodded.
It’s upsetting for anyone,
he thought.

“Of course, it’s not just that she’s hideous and cruel,” Balfour said. “There’s another reason. Do you know how he defeated her, and became the Lord of the Aerie?”

Hap shook his head. “No. Does Umber have a book about it?”

“No—he would never write about that. But I can tell you. I should begin a little farther back, though.” The oven door squealed when Balfour opened it. As he told Hap the story, he raked the simmering coals into a pile and stacked fresh wood on top. “Umber showed up in Kurahaven about ten years ago, confused and bewildered. I was the first person he met—did you know that? I ran a little inn near the harbor back then. I gave him a place to stay, introduced him to the Merinots, and showed him around. He started earning a reputation right away—it was one invention after another—and soon I was working for him. Before long the king caught wind of this fellow. With Tyrian’s blessing, it didn’t seem like there was anything Umber couldn’t improve. Our ships, buildings, medicines, farms, universities … the man was a genius.

“The other remarkable thing was how brave he was, and how curious about anything supernatural or extraordinary. If there was a wizard on a far-off island, he’d go make friends. If there were goblins in the mountains, a serpent in a swamp, a ghost in a village, or an ogre in the forest, he’d rush out, as giddy as a puppy, to take a look. And he’d usually drag me with him.

“It’s funny, Hap. I always had the sense that he was looking for something out there … an answer to some problem that I could not imagine. And I wondered if maybe, when he found you, he’d discovered what he’d been looking for.

“But let me finish my story. Finally, Umber couldn’t resist the biggest challenge of all: Turiana. You’ve met her, but how much do you know about her?”

“She was the sorceress who ruled the Aerie,” Hap said. “At first she was good, but she turned evil.”

“Evil is an understatement. Many of our folk fell victim to her spells, and it took a handsome tribute to keep her from doing worse. Gold, diamonds, pearls … anything she demanded, the king gave her. There was little else he could do, because the Aerie is such a stronghold—it would have been madness to attack. It was Umber who finally put an end to Turiana’s reign. Can you guess what he did?”

Hap shook his head. Balfour laughed as he spoke, as if he could hardly believe the tale himself. “Umber walked right up to the Aerie—with a bouquet of flowers, if you can believe that—and asked to meet her. People thought he’d lost his mind. I stood as close as I dared, and watched as the black door opened and Umber stepped inside.
There goes my employment,
I said to myself.

“Not a word was heard for forty days. Then, wouldn’t you know it, the black door opened and Umber strolled out. ‘The reign of Turiana is over,’ he said. Somehow, he’d broken her. What’s more, all the tribute the king had paid over the years was still inside, waiting to be reclaimed.

“Tyrian was so delighted that he asked Umber to name his reward. Umber wanted two things. The first, the king gave happily, and that was the Aerie itself. And so Umber became Lord Umber of the Aerie. The second, the king was not so willing to grant. Umber asked that Turiana’s life be spared. He promised to keep her safely imprisoned in the Aerie. The king finally relented, with one condition: Umber’s own life would be the price paid if Turiana ever escaped.”

Hap’s neck stretched high. “Wait—if Turiana escapes, Lord Umber will die?”

“That was the bargain.” The fire in the oven was blazing. Balfour shut the door and used a cloth to clean the ash off his hands.

“But you didn’t say
how
he defeated Turiana,” Hap said.

Balfour talked over his shoulder while he selected a pan from a shelf and put it on the stovetop. “What’s the last thing you’d expect to defeat a hateful being such as Turiana?”

Hap dropped his head into his hands. “Please, Balfour, my life is already full of unanswered questions. I can’t take any more.”

“Very well,” Balfour chuckled. “It was love, Hap. Love did her in.”

Hap wasn’t sure he’d heard Balfour right. “He … she …
what
?”

“Hard to believe, if you see Turiana now. But keep in mind: This was before her powers were stripped away. One of her spells made her the most beautiful woman you could imagine. And that is what Umber saw when he was led to her throne.”

“So Lord Umber fell in love with her?”

Balfour untied a sack and dug a scoop into the pale green beans inside. “Just the opposite, Hap. It was Turiana who fell for Umber. Not immediately, though. The first thing she did was lock him in a cage that she set beside her throne, probably intending to let him die there. Now, I don’t know much about what happened next. It’s another thing that Umber doesn’t talk about. But I think she became fascinated with Umber as the days went by. She’d never met anyone like him—who has, really? And considering her ability to peer into the mind, I’m sure she learned more about him than any of us knows.

“As weeks went by, she
did
fall in love, or as close to love as such a wicked thing can come. I think Umber finally convinced her that he loved her as well. She trusted him, and freed him. And when her guard was down, Umber took away all those things—the rings, the amulets, the charms—that gave her those dark powers. He even used those talismans long enough to banish all of her foul creatures into the caves below the Aerie. And that is how the serpent was defanged.”

Hap nodded. “He tricked her.”

“Indeed,” Balfour replied. “And though she richly deserved it, I think he feels bad about it. Nobody likes to betray another person. It’s also possible that he returned her feelings in some small way. Turiana wasn’t always wicked, you know—the dark power that she pursued corrupted her. Umber might have seen the good inside, and hoped to bring that out and save her from herself. If you ask me, that’s why it bothers him to see her.”

Hap looked at the kitchen ceiling. Somewhere a few stories above, Umber sat with his mind befogged by a dark cloud. “I wish I could do something for him.”

Balfour scooped the beans into the pan and covered it again. “There’s a small thing you can do, if you give me a few minutes to roast these coffee beans.”