Story's End

by Marissa Burt

  “You will never write another word in Story,” Fidelus said, summoning the darkness with a swirl of his hand. The rest of the ballroom seemed frozen in some faraway scene. Gone was the sound of silverware on china. Gone the sound of laughter and jesting. It was as though Una alone witnessed the duel.

  “You will watch The End come to all you have written,” Fidelus said. “And everyone in the new Story will serve me. And you, the once-upon-a-time King, will be unwritten once and for all.”

  The Enemy blew on the Scroll, and the smoldering ember flamed into brightness. Una shielded her eyes for a moment. A square of fiery parchment hovered in the air before her father. He dipped the Quill into his Ink-blood and, with a flourish, began to write the first words of his new Story.

  Chapter 30

  Snow cowered behind one of the twisted trees of the Enchanted Forest and tried to catch her breath. At the last second, before Duessa began to speak, Indy had crashed into Snow and shoved his hands over her ears. Then they were sprinting away from the Enchantress’s words, deeper into the forest and far from Duessa’s charming tones. The stitch that had started throbbing in Snow’s side was now an ever-present dagger of pain.

  “Do you have any of the potion?” she asked. Her breath was ragged, but she tried to keep it under control. Indy was barely even winded. He had told her he had been chewing on the leaf ever since they entered the forest just in case, but from the way everyone else had stayed behind to listen to Duessa, Snow thought he was probably the only one clever enough to think of doing that.

  “Nope.” Indy shook his head. “It’s all sitting there in their pockets, but they won’t remember to take it.” He scuffed his shoe on the ground. “We have to get in there somehow. Do something to save them.”

  This part of the forest was all too dreadfully familiar. Here was where her mother had first threatened Archimago. Was it really only the night before that they had raced through these same grounds? And then Snow remembered. The Ivory Gates!

  “Come with me,” she said to Indy, and this time she took the lead. She remembered that the wasteland had melted away to abandoned gardens, but the castle was huge, and they would have to find a way across the moat if they had any hope of finding the gates. The main drawbridge was out of the question. The side of the castle nearest them was impenetrable. Then, as they made a wide circle around the castle, she saw their route. A narrow, crumbling bridge stretched like a sliver of stone over the moat. And there, in front of it, paced a huge, scaly dragon.

  Snow tried to size up their opponent. It would not be an easy fight. Dragons were fast, even though they were large, and this one breathed fire. Indy had a scimitar, and Snow had her branding iron, but neither would do much unless they could land a blow in one of the dragon’s few exposed areas, which would be difficult.

  “Let’s each take a side,” Indy said, and Snow was grateful he wasn’t going to try and play the part of a Hero. If they worked together, their odds of surviving this were marginally better. The dragon arched its neck, and a blast of heat singed Snow’s eyebrows. The next moment, a volley of flame shot toward Indy, who ducked and darted out of the way. The dragon flicked its tail, and it was faster than Snow could have imagined. She rolled, and the tail’s spiked barbs whistled over her head. She scrambled to her feet, cutting her hands on the sharp stones as she moved.

  The dragon reared back to blast more fire at Snow, and Indy ducked in close to its body, aiming his scimitar at the dragon’s exposed underbelly. It was a mistake. The dragon roared and swiped a powerful claw toward Indy.

  Indy moved sideways, but it was too late. The dragon slashed across his back, and Indy howled with pain. Snow fought back a scream as Indy dragged himself farther away.

  But Snow didn’t go to him to make sure he was okay. While the dragon was busy with Indy, she grabbed the biggest stone she could find and hurled it straight at the dragon’s head. It reared in pain and lashed its tail from side to side. Another stone, this time right in the eye. The dragon roared and wobbled.

  Indy was on his feet, his scimitar slicing through the air, cutting into the dragon’s unprotected belly, and then it was done. Quicker than Snow could have thought possible, the dragon was dead.

  They sped over the slender bridge, fearful that someone—or something—else might have heard the sound of their fight. The door on the other side had long since been bricked over, but a shred of a path snaked around the nearest turret. Snow pressed her back into the wall as they worked their way sideways. Pebbles shifted under her feet, dropping down into the moat under them. They rounded the corner, and the path widened a fraction and led to a rotting garbage heap. Snow gagged her way over the refuse and tried her best not to identify the soft, rotting shapes bursting under her hands. And then she was beyond it. The smell vanished, replaced by the same hollow air she remembered from the desert. A few more paces and she was there, the familiar Ivory Gates towering over her and Indy.

  “She did something with this knot,” Snow said as she ran her fingers over the mess of carved thorns. Next to it was a dozing princess leaning against a unicorn. And a king sleeping in his throne. What was it her mother had done? Why hadn’t Snow paid more attention?

  “Are there guards in the castle?” Indy asked. “Will we need to fight our way through?”

  “Possibly,” Snow said. “The castle was mostly deserted when we were there, but that was before the ball. If Duessa made a dragon stand guard, who knows what we’ll find inside?” And then she found it. At last. There was the gnome snoozing under the tree. She took a deep breath. What if there were Taleless inside? Indy stood solidly beside her, and his silence made her braver. She began to push each of the figures in turn, making a circle just as her mother had done. Then, she shoved hard on the thorns, and the Ivory Gate began to dissolve.

  There weren’t guards on the other side. Or Taleless. Instead there was darkness. And instead of silent, deserted corridors, there was the sound of wailing. Of prisoners calling for help, the desperate cries of people who knew they were about to die.

  Snow raced toward the sound. Down a staircase and around a corner. And then the awful smell overtook her. She knew this place. They were in the dungeon. Up ahead, a very old man had stuck his hands through the bars of his cell, and he was trying to wedge a piece of stone wall into the lock.

  “What’s happening?” Snow asked him. “Why is everyone screaming?”

  The man looked at her as if she might be a ghost. “Are you real?” he croaked. “Or am I dreaming?”

  “I’m real.” Snow reached out and grabbed his wrinkled hands. “And we’re here to rescue you.”

  “The Taleless are coming,” the man whimpered. “They will take our flesh.” Snow didn’t wait to hear more. She began hammering at the lock with her branding iron.

  “What’s thissssss?” A hissing, cloaked creature was drifting toward her. “A ressscue?” The dungeon guard had no face, just a gaping black hood where the head should be. It reached out iron claws toward Snow. Until Indy chopped one off. Whatever the hissing beast was, it hadn’t expected an ambush, and it hadn’t been prepared for Indy.

  The thing’s blood sizzled on the blade, and Indy wiped it off carefully on the dead creature’s cloak. Then he took the tip and unhooked a large ring of keys from the guard’s belt.

  “Would these help?” he asked Snow, and even in the darkness she could see his smile.

  It didn’t take them long to empty the cells. Snow went first with the keys, then Indy came after, helping the prisoners out. Many of them were so old they could barely walk, and their thin legs looked as if they might snap under the pressure. Snow thought of Archimago and how crazy he had become in Duessa’s dungeons. What of these poor souls? How long had they been trapped here? And what would happen to them now?

  A wrinkled woman patted Snow’s hand as she passed. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, dear.”

  Snow wondered how things were faring at the coronation. Emptying Duessa’s dunge
ons was all well and good, but they needed to do more if they were to stop Fidelus from becoming King. And an army of ancient, frail prisoners wouldn’t be much help. When the last chain was unlocked and the last prisoner escorted outside the Ivory Gates, she turned to Indy. “I have to go to the ball. My mother’s in there.”

  Indy looked at Snow. Then he looked back at the crowd of shivering prisoners. “I’ll take them as far as the forest. And then I’ll come find you.”

  Snow gave him a brave smile. “I’ll see you then.” She knew as she said it that her words were wishful thinking. Whether any of them made it out of this alive was a long shot.

  But Indy didn’t remind her of their small odds. Instead he clasped her arm as she had seen the warriors in Heroics class do. “Fight well, Snow,” he said, and then they were gone, the line of prisoners tottering toward the rocky path.

  Snow raced back through the dungeon and up the stairs. She didn’t know where she was going, but she could hear a crashing noise and the sound of shouting. The floor shook beneath her, sending her stumbling around a corner and straight into the arms of the last person she ever expected to see.

  “Snow?” Horace’s voice was a question mark as he steadied Snow on her feet. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same question,” Snow said with a wry smile. “But I don’t really want to know the answer.” Horace had always been a bit too comfortable in the company of Villains, and Snow didn’t want to find out that her cousin was on the Enemy’s side. “Just tell me how to get to the ballroom.”

  “You don’t want to go that way,” Horace said, trying to pull her back toward the dungeons. “The real King just showed up, and Duessa’s enchantment is already beginning to fail. There’s going to be a fight in there, and you won’t want to be anywhere near it.”

  Snow jerked free of his arm. Her cousin had also always been a bit of a scaredy-cat. “I’m going to fight, Horace.” She took a step back.

  Horace stared at her. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” He shook his head. “There’s no way you can fight the Taleless. Besides, you’ll lose. Fidelus is—”

  “I know all about the Taleless.” Snow didn’t have time for arguing. “And winning or losing isn’t the point.” She looked straight into his eyes. “Now’s your chance, Horace. You get to choose. Be brave and fight for Story? Or run away and regret it for the rest of your life.” She turned around and started walking toward the battle. “You do what you want, but I’m going to go rescue my mother.”

  Chapter 31

  Una studied the thorny vines in front of her. As soon as Kai had appeared, her parents had forgotten all about her. And Una hadn’t waited another minute. She had slipped out of the balcony and found the way she had come earlier that evening. How had her mother phrased it? The only ones who can stop you are asleep in the tower. The Muses were behind that curtain of thorns, Una was sure of it. The stones beneath her shook with the blasts of the battle. Una leaned closer, careful to keep a safe distance from the violent leaves, scanning their tangled mass for some sort of clue. A pattern. Anything.

  It happened in a flash, before she could even cry out. Her braid swung forward and caught on one of the thorns. And then the plant had her hair. She heard the crackle of the vines as the plant moved toward its prey. She pulled backward as hard as she could, but she was caught fast. She would have to cut off her hair. She reached for her dagger, and cried out when her hands met empty air. She didn’t have a weapon.

  The plant was working quickly. Una could feel something poking into her shoulder. She struggled vainly, ensnaring herself more with every movement. Which was how it happened. One of her fingers scraped across an especially sharp thorn, and a red drop of blood bloomed on her skin. The plant’s response was instantaneous. The pressure on her scalp relaxed. Her braid was free. And then, the unnatural curtain spread to either side, leaving her way clear.

  Una wiped her blood off on her sleeve. It’s my blood. One of her parents had set this enchantment. Her breath came out in a shaky gasp. She was alive. Her own treacherous blood had saved her.

  Una made her way into the interior, peering hard through the darkness in case some new trap awaited her. Every few paces was a miniature tableau. Closest to her, a gray wolf was flat on his back, toppled piles of bricks surrounding his still form. His jaws were open, revealing pointed teeth, and it seemed unnatural that he lay so peacefully in the eerily silent room. Una’s heartbeat quickened, but she relaxed when she saw the slow rise and fall of the wolf’s chest. He was sleeping.

  None of the sleepers even stirred as she moved frantically around the room, studying each figure in turn. Where were the Muses? Next to the wolf was a woman wearing a pointed witch’s hat. She was curled up on her side in the middle of a gilded cage. Scraggly white hair draped over all of her features except for an extraordinarily large nose with a hairy wart on it. A giant padlock fastened the square door to the bars.

  Una hurried up to a big canopy bed and drew aside the velvet curtains that hung to the floor. A tiny woman lay in it, her dark curls fanning out from her wrinkled face. Her brow looked peaceful, if not beautiful, and her hands lay folded across her stomach.

  Una recognized the scenes, of course. The classic fairy-tale touches were a dead giveaway. The cage was from Hansel and Gretel, and this was no doubt Sleeping Beauty’s bower. She would never have pictured the princess so old, though. And wasn’t it Hansel who was in the cage, not the mean old witch? The fairy tales were all backward, with the Villains trapped and bound, but how in the world could any of them defeat her father?

  Una was at another bed now. An ax was sunk deep into the footboard. A red wolf lay beyond it, tucked under an old-fashioned quilt, with wire-rimmed glasses perched crookedly on his nose. His whiskers were neatly trimmed, which provided a stark contrast to the ruffled nightcap on his head. He was snoring softly.

  Una barely stopped at his bedside, but hurried around him to a coffin on the other side. The glass was fogged, though, and she couldn’t see inside.

  This one had to be Snow White. Or her evil nemesis. A wicked Stepmother?

  Una stood. She was missing something. She scanned the room. Two Big Bad Wolves, an old Witch in a cage, an Enchantress in the bed, and whoever was in this glass coffin. She peered over her shoulder at the last scene, where a wrinkled old man sat imprisoned in the floor, surrounded by mounds of golden thread.

  She stooped down to peer into Rumpelstiltskin’s face. He appeared to be the safest villain. It wasn’t like Una had any children he could run off with, and as far as she remembered, the worst thing the old hobgoblin did was disappear into the ground.

  Rumpelstiltskin’s head was thrown back at an odd angle, with soft snores coming from his open mouth. She poked a tentative finger at the creature’s bony shoulder, and then pulled it back with a gasp of surprise. The man’s countenance shimmered when she touched it, revealing an entirely different face beneath.

  Duessa had been quite clever. Not only had she enchanted the sleepers, but she had disguised them as well. Una made her way slowly around the little room, prodding each character in turn. These faces were familiar. It wasn’t because she recognized them from some fairy tale she had read in her old world. They were from a different book. From her father’s book.

  Una had found the other Muses.

  Una made her way around the room once more. The air around the golden cage shimmered oddly. If Una tilted her head just slightly, the witch’s hat disappeared and the dirty blanket became a stream of long red hair. The shadows beneath Clementia’s face made it seem like she had a horrible hooked nose.

  Virtus dozed among the pile of bricks. His ruddy cheeks looked as though they belonged outside in the sun, not in this dim room. Una pulled back the canopied curtains to reveal Sophia’s sleeping form. Her dark skin was the striking color of a starless sky, and Una thought that even under the grip of the enchantment she looked as strong as she had in the clearing.

&nbs
p; Beyond the bed, Una saw scattered stones that looked like the ruins of a crumbling tower, and Alethia lay in the midst of them, her golden hair unbound and her chin tucked in to her chest. Una raced to her side.

  “Alethia!” she cried. She grabbed the Muse’s shoulders and shook gently. “Won’t you please wake up?”

  Una had pushed and prodded every last one of them. She had pinched their arms, whispered in their ears, and, after a great deal of deliberation, tried to kiss one of them. But none of it mattered. They were still fast asleep. The faint sounds of yelling and the clashing of metal told her that something else was happening in the ballroom. Every second mattered, and Una was no closer to waking them than when she first walked into the room.

  Una began patting Alethia gently, and then harder, on the cheek. They had to wake up.

  That was when she saw the sparks. Una stopped slapping the Muse. The light from the enchantment filled the room with an eerie glow. Somehow, Una’s touch was changing the spell.

  She tried again. Could she actually undo the enchantment? If someone who had her father’s blood could affect the magic on his binding, then maybe someone who had her mother’s blood could change her charms. Una’s heart quickened. It had worked on the thorns.

  She looked down at her hand. The blood was smeared across her fingertip, and when she placed it near Alethia’s ankle, a glowing rope appeared.

  Una gasped. She had been staring at the Muses’ faces when she was trying to wake them. But now she let her hand hover in the air over each of them until she could determine how they were trapped. The glowing cord wrapped around Charis’s neck and then over to Sophia’s wrist. It looped around Clementia’s waist and bound Spero’s feet. Una traced the enchantment around each of them until she was back at Alethia. Now that she could see their bonds, maybe she could set them free.

  Untying the enchantment was hard work. Una wiped a palm across her sweaty forehead. This thread needed to be pulled in such a way. Another had to be knotted just so. At least those stupid sewing lessons were paying off. Once, Una made a mistake and had to begin all over again. Slowly, painstakingly, she made her way through the room, until what had at first been braids of glimmering light now stretched in a cord that circled the sleepers.