In the City of Clocks the day of battle had arrived.
Four colossal catapults had been wheeled, under cover of night, into Letitia Mabanquo Square. There came a breeze, as if in warning. It scurried about, whispering in door locks, rattling windows, twisting leaves, and turning weather vanes. Then it settled, and the vercaka came.
Horns sounded from each of the city’s four gates, and every face, young and old, turned to the sky. No one who stood in the shadow of the swirling flock massing above the beautiful spires, could fail to realize that they were hideously outnumbered. Despite the days of preparation, despite the contributions of every child, woman, and man (except Nigel Finkwatter), there were so many more birds than they were prepared for.
There was no time to admire the sunrise, or lament the lack of sleep, or feel how fast the heart beats at such moments, because the vercaka were coming in the hundreds, screeching and diving. The mayor gave the signal. The first of the catapults launched its load high above the square. There was a great flurry as fish, each with a piece of gold in its belly, shot high into the air. They were like silver fireworks, and the townspeople gasped. The birds dived and swooped and scooped up the fish, gobbling them down, squawking with rage when another vercaka stole their catch. And then the birds who had eaten the poisoned fish began, one by one, to fall from the sky.
The mayor’s heart leapt into her mouth. The plan was working!
The next catapult launched, and more of the fish flew up into the sky, again catching the early sun, dancing on the morning light. For three days, the residents had captured every fish that had flopped out of any tap. For three days, every sink and bath and bucket had been filled with fish. Many, many fish had given their lives to save the city. And then adults and children alike had used their fingers to stuff coins into the mouths of those fish.
At vantage points across the city, guards had been stationed. They shot at the birds, their arrows searching for the softest places behind the birds’ eyes, under their chins, in their bottoms. This infuriated the vercaka, but before they could attack the guards, another catapult was released, and again the birds swarmed. They massed on the flying fish, savaging one another in an attempt to feed. More of the vile birds swallowed the gold in each fish and then, only seconds later, plummeted from the sky. Poisoned vercaka rolled off rooftops and crashed onto cobblestones; they fell into lanes and backyards, splashed into ponds and fountains, their legs turned up, their eyes open and empty.
The toll was not only on their side. On the streets lay injured guards, bleeding from wounds from the terrible beaks of the vercaka. Many people had been snatched up and carried away, while others had been released high over the city and had fallen to terrible, bone-crunching deaths.
* * *
Have you ever thrown a chip to a seagull? One minute there’s one bird; the next, there are one hundred cawing and screeching. The vercaka were exactly the same. It was as if the City of Clocks had sounded a bell for feeding time. Wheeling and circling, the vercaka hunted more fish, and when they couldn’t find fish, they snatched up any person or cat and gulped them down. Children who had snuck out ran terrified back to their homes, pursued by snapping jaws and vicious claws.
Dead vercaka fell from the sky, landing with thumps and thuds all over the city, but their fellow vercaka took no notice of these deaths, nor what might be causing them. They appeared to have forgotten their nasty words. Instead of curses and insults, they only said, “Want more, eat more, more, more, more.”
Foul-smelling poo dropped from their bodies in great gushes, splashing onto spires and rooftops and streets, turning them slippery and green.
“More fish,” they shrieked. “More, more, more.”
Vivienne and Baxterr saw all this from their vantage point on a low balcony above the doors of the council chambers. Vivienne fired arrow after arrow while, beside her, the mayor raised a trumpet-shaped tube to her lips. Her voice echoed out to the people in the square and atop the buildings, as well as to those hiding with their children in their homes.
Let not your courage fail you,
Be valiant, stout, and bold,
And it will soon avail you,
My loyal hearts of gold.
Huzzah, my valiant citizens, again I say huzzah!
’Tis nobly done—the day’s our own—huzzah, huzzah!
“Huzzah! Huzzah!” called back the guards and residents.
Even as the mayor rallied her troops, there remained enough vercaka to darken the sky. Then came the cats.
A tidal wave of tabby, tortoiseshell, white, black, gray, blue, and brown swept through the city streets, and within moments the rooftops were alive. The cats leapt onto the backs of the swarming birds: one, two, three, five, seven on every vercaka. They dug their claws in hard and bit into wings, necks, and legs.
A thousand vercaka screamed and shot upward, trying to dislodge their biting, clawing passengers. But the cats persisted, and the vercaka flew higher, farther, up through the sky and into the world above. Once they had breached that world, the vercaka kept flying, the cats riding them like demons into the distance and far out of sight. Neither those cats nor those vercaka ever returned.
Within minutes, a fresh flock of vercaka was circling the city. Once more, they began tormenting the town with their words.
“You have bad breath.”
“Your hair is falling out.”
“You are a liar, and everyone knows it.”
“Your children hate you.”
“Your mother never wanted you.”
“You will never succeed.”
“Your town is lost.”
“You will be dead and forgotten.”
Tarquin and Harlequin flew their farouche up to the mayor on the balcony.
“The time has come,” said Harlequin.
“We have this last chance,” said Vivienne.
“We must not delay,” said Tarquin.
The mayor nodded. And then a most extraordinary thing was wheeled into the square. It was a single enormous fish, poised upright on a launching platform. At least it resembled a fish, but it was actually, upon close inspection, fashioned from silver paper, and made strong and sturdy for the purpose. Vivienne watched as guards ran in to light the base. To begin with, there was only the fizzling of fuses and a little smoke wafting from the huge fish. Then it took off with a deafening whoosh.
The giant fish flew straight up into the air, and the last of the vercaka lifted their dull eyes and stared, mesmerized. Their hunger still keen, every one of them took flight after it. But the fish was too fast. It was going too high. They couldn’t possibly reach it. Still they climbed after it, and the fish went faster. A hush fell over the city. Faces leaned out of windows. Archers put down their bows to gaze up into the sky. The mayor held her breath, and Vivienne and Baxterr stood with heads back and mouths open. Waiting. Waiting …
The giant fish exploded, and out flew the last of the gold coins of every citizen in the City of Clocks and every donation that had come to them from beyond. The sky was filled with a shower of gold coins falling down, down, down onto the swarm of vercaka below. The vercaka swooped and ate, gobbling down the coins, their only thought being food, food, food. Even the breeze rose to the occasion, tossing the falling coins about, which only tantalized the vercaka even more.
Nigel Finkwatter, who had been watching the battle from the turret of his home, saw the falling gold and scrambled out onto his roof to gather it up. Then he saw it had also fallen onto the roofs of his neighbors. They were all much too busy watching the battle to notice him. So Finkwatter stuffed coins into every pocket. He took off his jacket and used it as a sack into which he could scoop yet more coins. Then he took off his socks and shoes and crammed them with coins. He sang as he went, surprised that he had not anticipated the profit that could be made from a battle.
About him vercaka were dropping like flies.
“I think we’re going to be all right,” Vivienne said to the mayor.
She spoke too soon. For at that very moment, two vercaka, bigger and possibly wiser than the rest, swooped in over the town. They were not distracted by silver fish and golden coins. One of them saw a man on a roof with no shoes or socks and scooped him up, flipped him about, and swallowed him feet first.
Before he disappeared down its gullet, he was heard to call out, “Don’t you know who I am? I am Nigel Finkwatter, I am—” And then he was gone. The bird flew on only for a moment, before it was poisoned by the gold in Finkwatter’s jacket and socks and pockets. The vercaka fell like a boulder into the Mabanquo River and was eaten by fish, which was entirely appropriate.
The very last of the birds soared over the Letitia Mabanquo statue and the piles of dead vercaka that lay all around it. On the balcony above the council chambers, Miranda Templeton was putting to her lips a horn with which she intended to announce the city’s victory. Perhaps it was her pink jacket, or perhaps it was the height of the mayor’s fascinating hat, but whatever it was, something about Miranda Templeton caught the interest of the last vercaka. With deadly intent, it swooped in and plucked her up as if she were a cherry on a tree.
Vivienne leapt onto Baxterr’s shoulders. “Come on, doggo!” she cried.
Baxterr spread his wings and sped through the air like a missile. Vivienne could see the mayor screaming and kicking in an attempt to get free. Vivienne’s first arrow struck the vercaka’s head, her second glanced off one of its grubby wings, but still the bird refused to let go its catch. It banked and then soared toward the other world in the dented sky. It flew faster, wings beating furiously, but Baxterr caught up with it. Growling and snarling, the great dog ripped at the bird’s wing with his teeth, and for a moment, it appeared that the vercaka would let the mayor go. But it did not. It circled about and mounted a counterattack, hurtling toward Baxterr and Vivienne.
Vivienne screamed, “I think it’s changed its mind about what it wants for dinner.”
As the bird flew at Baxterr, its beak opened and Miranda fell. Baxterr changed course, plunging down toward the falling figure of the mayor.
“Food, food, food,” squawked the maddened vercaka.
Baxterr swooped underneath Miranda, who fell onto his wide back, her hat all askew but, amazingly, still firmly pinned to her hair.
“Hold on!” Vivienne cried.
Then the vercaka was upon them. Vivienne and Miranda braced for the impact of the bird’s outstretched talons.
But then the world jolted. Everything moved, though not in any way anyone had ever experienced before. Seventeen faces fell from seventeen clocks. Twelve spires crumbled. The Mabanquo River lurched and slopped and, in one movement, washed away jetties and docks and nests of ducks. There was a most peculiar grinding noise, and then, as people watched—wide-eyed and with mouths agape—the huge world that had crashed into theirs slid away. Shards of ice fell from the sky, and one pierced the very last vercaka, stabbing it right through its head. The creature dropped onto the upward-pointing finger of Letitia Mabanquo in her shimmering fountain.
And at that moment, Baxterr, with Vivienne and the mayor upon his back, pricked up his ears and gave a whimper.
“What is it, doggo?” Vivienne asked. “Are you hurt? No?”
“Did you hear something?” asked Miranda anxiously. “Is it more birds?”
It was not more birds, and Baxterr had not heard anything, precisely. What he had felt was not a sound, nor a smell, but a feeling, as if Tuesday were close by. Baxterr peered down into the city, where the residents were beginning to venture out from their homes and turn their faces upward to gaze at the strange and beautiful sight of the other world disappearing into the sky, but Tuesday was not among them. He sniffed deeply. He could detect nothing of Tuesday’s scent. Yet she had been close. He was certain. But where?
Down in Mabanquo Square, people watched as the blue sphere they had always thought of as their sky sealed itself once more. Into the awed silence that followed, a horn sounded. And then an enormous, magnificent, golden Winged Dog soared to the square. The people of the City of Clocks clapped and cheered and broke into song. It was a truly magnificent sight, and nobody who saw Baxterr come in to land beside the fountain could possibly have guessed how heavy was his heart in that moment. For although he had helped to save the City of Clocks from the vercaka, all Baxterr could think of was that he had failed to rescue the person he loved the most.
* * *
High above the Conservatory, the world of Vivienne Small swayed against the far end of Tuesday’s boathook. It felt like having Jupiter on the end of a string. Already the icy ocean world had drifted away and out of sight in the swirling mass of globes. Tuesday watched in wonder as the glassy edge of Vivienne’s sky righted itself to an almost perfect curve. Still piercing the sky on one side were the jagged peaks of the Mountains of Margolov. She would need to fix this the next time the world came in for maintenance.
Still holding the loop of the world fast with her boathook, Tuesday wondered where Baxterr and Vivienne were and what they had been doing at the moment the worlds came apart. As she tried to pull the world down, a multitude of other worlds got in the way, each one of them moving at its own speed. Some of the smaller ones orbited around like racing cars on a track, while some of the larger ones drifted by in lazy figure eights. It was like a huge three-dimensional puzzle.
On the couch, Garnet stirred a little in his sleep.
“You are the sky,” he muttered. “Everything else is just weather.”
And while this made little sense to Tuesday, it nevertheless soothed her nerves. She pulled on the boathook, causing Vivienne’s world to inch down through the sky. She only narrowly missed a tiny world full of bright red flames, then had to rapidly swerve sideways to avoid a very large, dark world that sparkled with galaxies of stars.
“The obstacle is the path,” Garnet muttered in his sleep.
Tuesday turned back to her task, concentrating as hard as she could.
“The obstacle is the path,” she repeated, trying to keep her breathing even and her gaze focused.
And then something surprising was happening. The other worlds were shifting about, seeming to make a pathway. Tuesday drew the world down, nearer and nearer, and soon it was so close, looming above the Conservatory, that it obscured the view of almost all the other worlds. Hauling on the boathook, Tuesday towed it to the end of the narrow jetty, where she felt it click into place. She let the boathook fall to the floor and took off at a run.
“I’m coming, doggo,” she said.