by Lani Lenore
You’re not going to die, she promised herself. You’ll cheat death. They’ll help you. When you get out of this, you can have a nice, warm cup of tea.
The puppets were not giving up, coming on as if they felt no pain. Were they after her? Sent by the Rat King? She closed her eyes against the sight and the thought.
Then, very suddenly, the attack was over.
6
Silence. The puppets had retreated from the house completely. Those that couldn’t walk simply crawled away, forgetting entirely about the three of them that remained inside. Armand still held his weapons; Brooke was hesitant to put his own away. Anne stepped away from the wall.
The nutcracker stepped cautiously to the broken doors and peered out. He glanced out over the area. The puppets were still in view, but they were simply standing about, swaying lightly. There were still a great number of them. Other toys were out of sight, hiding perhaps.
Mindless abominations, Armand thought, but did not voice it.
“What are they doing?” Anne asked quietly from somewhere behind him.
He shook his head shortly. “I don’t know.”
Upholding some ritual?
“Perhaps we should retreat as well and examine this further,” Brooke suggested.
Eventually, Armand decided that this was the best idea. They could cut most of the puppets down as they were standing dumbly in their stupor, but it might be unwise to lead Anne into it.
“We need to find a room without windows,” Armand said.
Brooke gave a short nod of understanding and led them past the staircase and around the block of the house, finally leading them to a room that was most certainly the center room on the first floor. The silence was so thick it seemed they could have reached out and touched it.
“I think I know another way out of the kingdo–I mean, the larger room,” Brooke told them once they’d all trailed inside. “I’ll go scout to see if there’s any way we can get to it.”
Armand gripped the soldier’s arm as he tried to pass, holding him back with firm strength. He peered into his brown eyes with sternness at his mouth. He didn’t have to speak. His message was clear.
“You can trust me,” Brooke assured him with the same firmness, his expression unchanging. “You have blood on your face, by the way.”
He moved past the nutcracker without being restrained. Did Armand trust him? Armand didn’t trust anyone. However, letting the soldier go out there was better than allowing him to stay here alone with Anne. The nutcracker rubbed the rest of the blood free of his face with his coat sleeve.
For the moment, Armand saw fit to seat himself on the floor. It was quiet save for the departing footsteps of the foreign soldier. If anything came into the house, he’d know.
He then sent his gaze toward the woman in the room with him. She was standing against the wall, peering off into nothing, her fingers touching her lips in silent consideration. He knew a look like that when he saw one. She was lost in deep thought.
He considered what he’d shown her tonight, and wondered once again if he’d gone too far. He’d only wanted to make her fully understand the things in this world that she was dealing with. Perhaps though, he shouldn’t have been trying to keep her so selfish. He wanted to keep her convinced that he knew what was best to help her, yes; but not selfish. That sort of thing could turn against him.
Before he could stop himself, he’d opened his mouth.
“Are you upset?”
Armand wasn’t sure why he’d asked or why he even cared to know. He didn’t wish anything bad to happen to Anne, but what was she to him? Judging her to be the way she’d lived her life, she was just as much of a puppet as those wicked pawns outside.
“Hm?” she asked, looking over to him. It took a short moment, but she finally seemed to understand what he’d said. Moreover, she was shocked that he’d asked.
“Oh…no. It’s fine,” Anne insisted. “I was just thinking.”
She walked to his side, letting herself down onto the floor next to him. Sitting on her knees, she turned to look into his face, and he could tell instantly that she needed more than the illustration he’d given her with the princess. She wasn’t too bothered, but her doubt remained. In fact, it had grown.
“I know you’re right about those toys,” she said. “That they aren’t actually real and that their lives don’t matter. I told myself that even before you showed me. I saw it just the same. But something inside me still doesn’t believe that…”
“Human compassion?” he interrupted. “You may as well forget about that here. Oddly, you seem to be gaining it by the more you learn about this world.”
“A puppet told me he loved me earlier tonight,” she said abruptly. Armand fell silent and listened. “At the time, I was much too afraid and confused to even realize the impact of it. Yes, it was completely awful, and of course I don’t return that feeling, but…”
She paused and shook her head.
“These toys may not be able to digest or bleed, even, but they do still feel pain. And they feel joy. Love...no matter how misdirected. The reason the princess was to be executed was for love, and that soldier that just left us may claim he feels nothing, but he gave Pirlipat to death because of love. He couldn’t bear to watch her go on so ignorantly when he could no longer see the falseness that she saw. I suppose I just wonder: how can things that feel in those ways be considered nothing?”
He nearly understood what she was saying, but he hadn’t once felt that way himself. He’d always known that the toys were nothing–ever since he’d first seen any of them–and that he was not like them. But he had to stifle this for her. If not, she might have serious qualms with what had to happen later on. She’d not stopped him from destroying the princess, but would she allow him to do such a thing again if she was allowed to think on it?
The nutcracker turned toward her, gripping her shoulders gently and demanding her full attention.
“Listen to me,” he said, softer than he had thought himself capable. “The toys did not ask to feel those things. Those desires and emotions have been forced on them when they shouldn’t have been. They are alive, yes, but they’re not real. They’re not like you. The things they crave are to no purpose. Returning them to their inanimate state is doing them a favor.”
He thought the words appalled her deep inside, but she couldn’t protest. Applied to people–to humans–the words would have been atrocious. Consider: people all die eventually, so it’s better to kill them so that they don’t have to struggle through the obstacles of life? No, that was wrong. But toys were different. They had no souls.
Did they? And who was to say that humans did? Her aunt would have argued otherwise.
“There’s nothing right about what has happened to any of us that are here tonight,” he went on, and he was including himself. He spoke with passion. Hatred. “But there is someone to blame. Once his magic ends, those toys will fall, lifeless once again. There is no point in trying to save them or preserve them if it will help yourself.”
She nodded, finally admitting that he was right.
“I’ll put it behind me,” she promised.
He nodded, showing her he was satisfied with that.
“Good girl.”
Sitting there, facing each other, Anne was compelled to press her forehead against his, closing her eyes. Armand allowed this. He wasn’t sure exactly why. Behind his lips were protests, and his brain was telling him to move away, only his body would not cooperate. She was so pleasant–but it wasn’t as if he’d just noticed. He couldn’t have this though. He shouldn’t have teased himself before with kissing her so spitefully. This was a time for more important things and not for feeding the flesh. And yet…
This is temporary, he thought to himself. Like everything else.
With that thought in mind, it was only by keeping her at a distance that he could allow her to stay close.
7
With her head resting against Armand’s, Anne
opened her eyes. She wasn’t surprised to see that he was tolerating her closeness. In fact, she didn’t think of it at all. She examined his face, so close to hers. His wooden skin was hard against her forehead, but it wasn’t cold. It was warm with life just beneath.
She glanced at his lips. So perfectly carved; so attractive. He’d kissed her earlier, and those wooden lips were not unpleasant, but it had not been a real kiss. She would correct that. Anne wanted to kiss him for real. Why? Because in this world of illusion, they were the only ones who were real.
Her head tilted and she guided her lips toward his. He did not move away. She put her hand to his chest, bracing herself to move closer…
But then she felt something familiar there. Beneath her fingers, something within the nutcracker’s wooden chest pumped steadily.
Th–thump. Th–thump.
“You have a heartbeat,” she blurted, stopping suddenly before their lips met. “Why?”
For a moment, he didn’t speak, perhaps confused by her abrupt turn until his realization made him turn to anger. He stood.
“The soldier is coming back,” he said, luck coming with the sound of measured footsteps within the house. “That means we have to go.”
“Why do you have a heart and those other toys do not?” she demanded, standing after him, unwilling to let him dodge this.
“Nein,” he replied. Her protest didn’t stop him from walking away.
“Why do you have a heartbeat, Armand?”
He ignored her. He passed into the next room, escaping her like a coward. At that doorway, he met with Brooke, and Anne lost her opportunity.
“Did you find a way out?” the nutcracker asked without hesitation.
“I think we may have to make one,” the soldier informed him.
He’d hardly gotten the words out before sound broke through the silence. There was a groaning noise, followed by cracking sounds. It only took them a moment to realize that the racket was coming from the walls of the house.
But by that time, it was much too late. There was no time to run.
Brooke headed for Anne, but Armand had already gripped her. He pulled her to the floor, shielding her with his body as the entirety of the three–story castle house fell apart and crashed down on them.
Chapter Eighteen: Moth to a Flame
1
The weight of the destroyed castle house was great, but Armand managed to push up through it, relieving his back of the fallen walls. He held them up, unable to push the rubble away as it was. He might injure her.
Anne was there beneath him, unconscious. Whether she had been hit by something or she had simply fainted, he did not know. She was alive, and all else was quite fine for now. Princess Pirlipat’s former soldier, Brooke, had survived the crash easily, already having pulled himself from the debris. He headed toward Armand’s position.
“They’ve left,” Brooke said, referring to the puppets that had invaded the realm. There were none in sight. “The large door is open.”
“Take her,” Armand instructed, wincing against the weight of the broken house on his shoulders.
Brooke waded through the mess and pulled Anne up into his arms.
He looked down at her while the nutcracker freed himself. Her hair was in long tangles. There was a line of bruising across her throat. A small cut on her arm seeped blood on an area of the dress.
“Dreadful bad luck this one’s had today,” Brooke commented.
The nutcracker said nothing. Brooke looked to him, seeing that he was peering around at the flickering room that seemed so dark and empty; so quiet and vast. Something wasn’t right about his stance. He wasn’t nearly as erect as he’d been before, slumped just slightly. Brooke noticed a patched spot on the nutcracker’s leg where it had been damaged recently, and he seemed to not be putting much weight on it.
“Are you alright?” he ventured, though his face did not show much concern.
Armand ignored him. “So they left through the larger door, you assume?” His voice was not as strong as before, seeming to lack breath.
“That would be my guess,” Brooke said, leaving the other matter alone. If the nutcracker was hurt and wanted to ignore it, he would also.
“To the passages with us, then.”
Armand riffled around a bit through the rubble until he saw the gleam of the cat’s eye. He collected it and met with Brooke near the edge of the mess. The dark–haired soldier was standing there, looking over the pile of rubble that remained. He might have been reflecting on past days here, or possibly even mourning the loss of the only life he’d ever known, but Armand didn’t see either of those things there on his pale face of glass. There was a complete absence of feeling, and the only dedication Brooke had left now belonged to the woman he carried in his arms. Armand couldn’t have respect for that–since the soldier was nothing but a toy–but he was pleased with it.
Wincing for a sudden pain, Armand gripped his side lightly.
Not too much further, he told himself. Rest can be had after I get what I want from the Shaman.
He happened to glance toward Brooke, who was staring at him resolutely.
“At your word,” he said with a nod.
Armand nodded in return and moved then toward the open grate that would lead them into deeper darkness. In Anne’s unconsciousness, the cat’s eye would not work for them. The nutcracker mused for a moment about how strange it was that the mice had possessed this relic. Why would they want it? It reacted with the life–force of a human. The toys could not use it because they had no flesh. The mice could not even touch the eye with bare paws. So perhaps the King had simply used it to inspire fear in his own?
Or perhaps it still had some sentimental value to him?
But this was nothing to be wondering about. Armand needed to keep his focus. He’d already made too many mistakes with that so far.
The shafts were quiet and warm, littered with pieces of toys, no doubt cut off by the bladed puppets as they’d made their escape. It was unknown to any of them what those demons had been doing in Pirlipat’s kingdom, for as soon as their attack had begun, it was over. But this was another matter that wasn’t thought on.
2
Brooke moved on for a while in the silence, impassively trudging through the doll scrap–yard that this end of the passage had become. He couldn’t see well, but did decently to maneuver Anne and himself through the mess. She slept on in his arms.
At the first fork in the passage, he stopped.
“Perhaps you should be leading,” Brooke said to Armand, glancing in both directions that looked decently alike. “And I have a match for light if you need it.”
The nutcracker didn’t reply, and upon listening, Brooke realized that there were no footsteps sounding behind him. Carrying the woman, he turned, looking back in the passage to see the white–haired prince bracing himself against the wall. He appeared quite uneasy. There was certainly something wrong with him. It must have happened when the house fell, or perhaps a blow to the head from that chain had actually made the nutcracker bleed. Brooke did not understand what could be wrong, but he knew by this that the nutcracker was not a toy at all. He was real.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
As if the words had triggered it, Armand opened his mouth and heaved, spilling dark, bloody bile from within. It was completely liquid, without substance, splattering the ground. Brooke could not smell it, but guessed it was decidedly rancid.
Having finished, Armand stood straighter, guarding his dripping mouth with his arm.
“I need to rest,” he said.
Brooke gave a nod of understanding, not managing to be disgusted by the sight. “I know a place.”
3
The smell in the rodents’ realm was far more stringent than ever before. It stunk of death, seeping into the inner parts of the house, but not enough that it reached the noses of the human inhabitants–yet. The stench of the cold dark was not much of a problem for the pretty little poppet named
Clara. Her tight curls bounced as she trotted across the uneven ground, which was littered with mess. She carried a scrap of paper in her hand.
Eventually, she found the one she’d been looking for.
He stood in the middle of everything, mice darting all around the area in an attempt to finish their job. He supervised intently, glaring at them all. As always, the large razorblade was on his back.
Clara would have never thought that he would gain the favor of the Master so quickly. If she’d been capable of much higher thought, she might have guessed that her master needed a much stronger ally in his time of weakness, especially since his scout had been destroyed. But Clara thought none of that. All she cared for was that she’d not gotten into trouble for bringing him here.
“Edge!”
At the sound of her voice, Edge turned his red eyes toward her. She moved straight up to him, not noticing until she got there how incredibly dirty and smelly he was. His lovely pale skin was smudged with blood. His clothes and hair were not much cleaner.
“You shouldn’t be running around out here,” he scolded lightly with a mockingly self–righteous grin. “You might get a glob of something nasty in your pretty hair.”
She examined him confusedly, holding the paper behind her back.
“What happened?” she asked him.
“Tying up loose ends in preparation for the climax.” There was pride in his voice. “Are you ready?”
The child nodded eagerly, opening her mouth to tell him what she’d come all this way for, but once again, her attention was diverted. Several puppets marched into the torch–lit area from the side, and Edge gave them his attention as well. They stepped to the place where Edge stood, one nearly slipping on the floor’s fresh coat of human–fluid paint.
From behind Edge, Clara looked at the marionettes, examining their twisted claws and pike arms. These puppets were creepy to her. They always spoke in whispers. Very sneaky.
One puppet with the look of a circus clown leaned forward to Edge’s ear. Clara could not hear the words, but she heard the hiss of the whisper. She saw the pleased smile emerge on the face of the doll in the bloody, purple attire.