The Dire King

by William Ritter

  “Walking what, dear?” Hatun asked. She had pulled out her little project and was untangling a knot of wool on the table.

  “Ah,” Jackaby said. “Nice of you to join us, Hatun. No cause for alarm. Charlie and Abigail yesterday encountered a small abomination: an undead fellow who had risen from the grave to feast on the living. Nothing fancy. Only took one victim. You will all be happy to hear that Ned Short is still dead, by the way. I checked. Twice. By happy, I mean sad, of course—but the good news is that his steadfast necrosis seems to confirm that this strain of postmortal reanimation is neither a viral nor a transferrable phenomenon. That is to say—we can’t catch it. Which is, you know, quite good on the whole.”

  “That’s something,” Jenny agreed.

  “Well, what about the rest of you?” Jackaby glanced around the circle. “Reinforcements?”

  “We’ve put the word out,” said Charlie.

  “I ’spect we’ll see a lotta folks tomorrow night,” Hudson added.

  “Good.” Jackaby looked at me. “Any luck with your interrogation?”

  “Some,” I answered. “Not much, I’m afraid. The council is definitely still looking for the shield, though.”

  “That brings us to you, then, Nudd.” Jackaby addressed the chief. “Have your goblins learned anything about Hafgan’s shield?”

  “Aye. We learned tha’ lookin’ fer it is righ’ bootless. Yer definitely nae th’ only one tryin’.”

  “Did you learn who else has been making inquiries?”

  “Aye, but tha’ hardly narrows it doon. Everyone. Huntin’ Hafgan’s shield is such a time-honored tradition among th’ Unseelie, it’s apparently a sayin’.”

  “Like an idiom?” I said. “You mean they say hunting Hafgan’s shield the way we say a fool’s errand or a wild goose chase?”

  “Thassit. Idiom. But why wouldja chase a goose?” Nudd wrinkled up his nose. “Geese is terrifyin’.”

  “Yes, yes. We can all agree that geese are the worst of birds,” said Jackaby. “So, everybody wants to find the shield and nobody knows where to look. We have learned nothing. This leaves us with slightly more haystack and still no needle.”

  “I did find oot a little summat aboot yon spear, though,” Nudd added. “When Hafgan was the Dire King, ’e ’ad a spear made for ’im as black as pitch, with a crown as dark as nigh’, right? Well, after he lost th’ legendary battle wit’ Arawn, they say th’ spear was shattered to pieces. Hafgan’s toadies collected up the pieces after an’ had ’em reforged.”

  “Father Grafton did say it had been broken and remade,” Jackaby recalled.

  “But ’ere’s the interestin’ bit,” Nudd pressed on. “So, th’ spear is still aroond—only ’tisn’t a spear at all any longer. When it was recast, it was recast as a sword. They calls it th’ black blade.”

  I choked. “Did you say the black blade?”

  I glanced at Hatun, who was blithely tying off the end of her yarn, apparently satisfied with her—whatever it was. Her finished project appeared to be a somewhat less disorganized pile of colorful wool. She tucked the ice pick and the needle back into her floppy bag.

  “Thassit. Issa thing o’ legend among the smithies in’ th’ underlands.”

  Jackaby and I locked eyes.

  “That slippery nixie!” Jackaby slapped the table. “Morwen had the black blade all the time! It’s in my office right now! With all our infuriating fruitless searches and dead ends, we’ve had one of the instruments of Hafgan all along! No wonder we’ve gotten under the Dire King’s skin! We didn’t just take his daughter—we put ourselves one step ahead of him without even knowing where our feet were!”

  With much bumping of elbows and treading on toes, we spilled out of the corridor of bookshelves. Jackaby took the lead, pulling open the door to the library and nearly bowling over a woman who stood outside. She was dressed in blue robes, and she had honey blond hair and an ivory scar that cut across one cheek.

  “Serif?” Jackaby said when he had recovered his footing. “What on earth are you doing . . . on earth?”

  “My Lord Arawn has requested a report of your progress,” she answered stiffly. “I am here to collect it. Your duck let me in.”

  “Excellent timing!” Jackaby’s unfiltered enthusiasm made the corner of Serif’s lip twitch where it met the scar on her cheek. “Because while your Lord Arawn has been misplacing instruments of Hafgan, we have been placing them. We’ve secured Hafgan’s spear!”

  Serif followed him as he swept past her and into his office, the rest of us hurrying after. There, on the bookshelf, right where Jackaby had left it, Morwen Finstern’s black blade . . . wasn’t. The shelf was empty. The sword was gone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The sword . . . the spear—” Jackaby stammered.

  “The spear grips the hand,” said a very small voice. All eyes spun until we locked on to an unassuming little lump of hair sitting in the corner of the bookshelf. The twain rolled itself up to sitting. He was as physically intimidating as a boiled potato, but something about the diminutive fellow gave me the shivers.

  “You are in alliance with a twain?” Serif put a hand to the hilt of her sword, her body suddenly tense and battle-ready. “Whose side are you on?” she demanded.

  Jackaby held out a calming hand. “This is not an alliance. This is”—he turned back to the little figure on his desk—“I’m not certain what this is. The spear grips the hand. You said that before.”

  “It’s from an old poem,” the twain said.

  “I know it,” growled Serif. “I’ve heard it said that Hafgan wrote it himself.”

  “He didn’t,” the twain said. “The Dire King never bothered with poetry, but he liked it. It was probably his minstrel, Pughe. That one was always good with words.”

  “I’m sure he was. Where is my blade?” Jackaby asked.

  The twain sighed. “It’s yours now?” he tutted. “Shame.”

  “Ach, did’nae I tell ye?” Nudd burst out. “Ne’er trust a twain! Where’s yer wee partner, then, twain? Off givin’ th’ blade to th’ Dire King hisself?”

  “She is dead,” said the twain, flatly.

  “His partner?” I asked.

  “A twain always has a partner,” Serif confirmed. “They are born together. Bonded.”

  “Thass where th’ name comes from,” added Nudd. “They’s always twain, ne’er a single. I don’ trust him a brownie’s breath. Twain don’ jus’ die. Not alone. They’s near enough ta immortal, them.”

  “It is true,” the twain said.

  “How’d she kick it, then?”

  The twain offered Nudd a hollow gaze. Not empty-acorn-shell hollow; it was the sort of hollow gaze into which one might drop a pebble to gauge the distance to the bottom and then never hear it land. “She gave up her life,” the twain said at last, “in the service of our most venerable ruler. She believed in him. I believed in him. She had given him much already. He needed more power, and so she gave him power. She crafted tokens to focus his will and channel his might.”

  “Tokens?” Jackaby asked.

  “A crown, black as midnight. A spear, black as pitch.” The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “They were not enough. In the end she gave herself. ”

  “You,” I said, taking a step backward, “you serve the Dire King?”

  “Know’d it!” Nudd pounced. He slammed into the bookshelf headfirst, his hands slapping together on empty air. The shelf gave way and Nudd collapsed to the one below it, which gave way in like fashion, until Nudd was deposited gracelessly onto the floor in a slough of loose papers and curios. His top hat slid across the floor.

  “No. We followed Hafgan,” said an unperturbed voice behind us. We all spun around. The twain was sitting cross-legged on top of Jackaby’s heavy safe. “We made the Dire King.”

  “Explain,” demand
ed Jackaby. “How did you make the Dire King?”

  The twain seemed to regard the command with detached interest.

  “It is the most sacred act of their kind,” Serif filled in. “They can live practically forever, or they can give their life to another.”

  “When we cease to be,” the twain said, nodding, “it is so that a worthy life may burn all the more brightly, or so that one that has been snuffed out before its time may be rekindled.”

  “You can raise the dead?” Jackaby’s eyebrow shot up.

  “We can.” The twain nodded. “And not in the shallow pantomime of life that you have seen in your world of late. We bestow real vitality to the body, mind, and soul. It is our ultimate sacrifice. Our greatest gift.”

  There was a flash, and Serif’s sword was suddenly slicing through the air toward the twain. I blinked.

  And the cold night air bit my cheeks and my shoes sank down into the sod. I gasped. Serif’s sword lopped the azalea bush in two and she toppled into the grass. There were exclamations from the rest of our party as we took stock of our surroundings.

  The twain had deposited us all, unharmed, in the garden just outside the office window. The little furry figure hopped onto the sill and regarded us from behind the glass.

  “It is going to be different.” The twain’s voice was a soft hush, but I could hear him as easily as if he had whispered directly into my ears. “War changes things.” And then the window was empty and we were standing in the cold.

  “Unfathomable cosmic potential,” Jackaby muttered, “and he used it to shunt us twenty feet away.”

  “At least now we know what side he’s on,” I said. “They can sacrifice themselves to bring the dead back to life, and he said his other half gave herself to Hafgan. The same Hafgan whom Arawn killed. The twain must be the reason the Dire King has risen! They’re the reason this is all happening again!”

  “Hate ta interrupt,” Hudson said. “But I don’t suppose one of you folks left yer cellar open like that?”

  We looked across the garden.

  Jackaby muttered to himself as we hastened toward the cellar steps. “We couldn’t have five minutes pass without things getting worse?”

  We reached the doors and Jackaby inspected the lock. “It isn’t broken,” he said. “It’s unlocked. From the outside. Wait here.” He stalked down the steps and returned a minute later holding the sky iron chain. It had been sliced into pieces. “The bad news is, she’s gone,” he said. “And worse, she has the black blade.”

  “Is there good news?” Miss Lee asked.

  “Well,” Jackaby answered gamely, “karmically, I would say we’re due for an upswing on the pendulum of fortune. That’s almost good news.”

  “That’s not good news,” Serif said, crossly. “That’s just a very wordy way of saying it’s all bad news.”

  “It’s worse,” Jenny said. “She promised to take someone with her.”

  “That’s true,” I confirmed. “She told us she would be free by morning, and she threatened to take . . .” My eyes shot to Charlie. “Where is Alina?”

  We raced through the house, Charlie in the lead. A cloud of pixies scattered and the dwarves groused as Charlie bounded right over their heads. Hudson and Nudd took the first floor and Lydia and Jenny took the second. Jackaby and I caught up to Charlie on the third.

  “She was here,” he panted. “I left her right here. She was watching the merpeople swimming in the lake.” His eyes were wet and frantic.

  “Who was?” came a voice just behind us. We spun around, and Charlie leapt to lock his sister in an embrace. “What is going on?” Alina demanded.

  “You are safe,” said Charlie, letting her go.

  “Was there doubt?”

  “Morwen,” I said. “We were worried she might have made good on her threats.”

  “She may have taken someone else,” said Jackaby. “We’ll need to take stock of all of our visitors.”

  “Hostage or not, she has the blade again,” I said. “Mr. Jackaby, there’s something else I need to tell you. Hatun had another vision. It was one of her—I don’t know—her prophesies. She mentioned the black blade. She called it the spear, but not the spear. Sir, she said the Seer would fall. Hatun said you would be lost.”

  Jackaby stiffened. “Did she refer to me by name?”

  I blinked. “What? No. She just said the Seer would fall under the blade. Why?”

  “She might have been talking about the one seeing the prophetic vision in the first place. Where is Hatun now?”

  “She’s been with us the whole—” I paused. “Does anybody remember seeing Hatun with us after we left the library?”

  The eerie chill felt stronger than ever as we rounded the last bend to the Dangerous Documents section. Jackaby entered first, I followed, and Charlie and Alina crept behind us. The lamp-lit chamber stood empty and silent. The table was unoccupied, just as we had left it. Except . . .

  “Is that blood?” I gulped.

  Rough lines had been carved into the tabletop, and a pool of dark crimson spilled over the top of them, flowing into the cracks and giving the etching grim definition.

  “It is.” Jackaby’s voice shook. “Hatun’s. Her aura is unmistakable.”

  Silence reigned in the library.

  “There’s something in that chair,” Alina whispered.

  Jackaby’s hand trembled as he reached for the dark shape. He picked up the knitwork lump. “Stubborn woman. I told her not to.” In the flickering lamplight, his eyes looked somehow both full of tears and full of fire as he pulled the thing solemnly over his shaggy hair. It was a floppy heap, but with a little imagination, it was a hat. Hatun had knit him a new hat.

  I turned away, my throat tight, and scrutinized the defaced tabletop. The gouges in the wood spelled out three bloody words: COME GET HER.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Mr. Jackaby was in good spirits, he moved constantly, always fidgeting. I had learned to tell when he was secretly afraid, because he moved more quickly still, clipping along at a run and talking even more incessantly than usual. When he was baffled—really, thoroughly flummoxed—he was practically a blur.

  Now Hatun had been stolen away on his watch. Her blood had been spilled in his house, under his protection.

  And Jackaby.

  Stopped.

  Moving.

  He sat at his desk, still as a statue, thunderclouds rolling across his eyes. For hours, the only motion he made was the slow rise and fall of his shoulders as he took measured breaths. His jaw was set and his fingers steepled in front of his mouth.

  Jenny hovered behind him. Hudson sat in the big armchair across from the desk. We had been taking it in shifts to try to draw him out. After an hour or so, Chief Nudd had gone, making the long journey to bring more of his horde back with him to assist us in the coming fray. Serif had been given permission to examine the rest of the house for any signs of Morwen or the twain, and Charlie had volunteered to clean up the library. It was not a task any of us felt ready to stomach. Jenny, Mr. Hudson, and I remained in the office.

  “Jackaby.” Jenny moved in to put a hand on his arm, but her translucent fingers found no purchase. Her hand dissolved away like vapor, reforming as she pulled it back. She bit her lip and looked as if she would like to cry.

  “Sir?” I tried for the dozenth time.

  “Why don’t you all get some rest,” Hudson suggested. “I’ll wait up with our boy a little longer.”

  Jenny nodded silently and faded away into the shadows. I pushed myself up. “Thank you, Mr. Hudson,” I said. It was very late already. “We will get her back, sir,” I said from the doorway. Jackaby gave no reaction.

  I reached the stairs just as Serif was coming down.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “I did not—but that comes as little surprise.
I will need to report back to the Fair King that the twain is involved. Their kind do not leave a trace.”

  “But there were traces,” I said. “The lock was opened from the outside. The chain was severed. Why would an all-powerful being bother with locks?”

  Serif regarded me for a long moment. “You’re human. It’s a shame.”

  “A shame?”

  “You’ve seen your share of pain and you’ve come out sharper. That scar suits you,” she said. I touched a hand to my cheek, feeling the thin ridges. “I learned a long time ago that we do not survive because we’re strong—we become stronger the more we survive. You’re a survivor. You could be very strong someday. It is a shame that you will never have time to grow into your potential. Human life is fleeting.”

  “Yes, human life is fleeting,” I said. “But that’s what calls us to be strong now.”

  “Hm,” Serif said, but she regarded me approvingly.

  “You look as though you’ve seen your share of pain, as well,” I said. “Where did you get your scar?”

  Her expression cooled. “I became a lot stronger that day,” she said. “I am leaving now. Good-bye, Abigail Rook.”

  I walked Serif to the door and doubled back up the winding hallway. Muffled voices reached me from Jackaby’s office as I passed. I slowed to listen.

  “Have a drink, chum.” I could hear the clink of Hudson’s flask flicking open.

  “You already know I won’t,” Jackaby replied quietly.

  “Yeah. I know ya won’t, but hell if I know why.” I peeked through the crack in the door as Hudson took a swig and then flipped the cap back up with his hook. “I never seen ya touch a drop, but I also know a lotta folks who would never stop drinking if they’d seen half the stuff you’ve seen.”

  “I don’t like to be out of sorts.”

  “Don’t know as I’d call yer usual state of affairs in sorts, but suit yerself. ”