Reckless II

by Cornelia Funke

  He didn’t seem alarmed that Jacob had escaped his labyrinth.

  “You cannot kill him!” What was she thinking? That if she spoke the words loudly enough, they would become the truth? Fox felt her fear return.

  Troisclerq touched the white liquid in his hand. “We shall see.” He nodded at his servant. “Take her to the others.”

  Fox kept screaming Jacob’s name while the servant dragged her down the corridor. What for? To warn him, to call him, to wrap herself in his name, the way she would wrap herself in the fur the Bluebeard had stolen from her. Don’t call him, Fox.

  The servant stopped.

  Take her to the others.

  The door was no different from the other doors, but Fox could smell the death behind it as clearly as if there was blood actually seeping through the dark wood.

  “You forgot something.” Troisclerq was standing behind her. He was holding the bunch of keys he’d put next to her plate. Maybe he wanted to see her hands tremble as she tried to put the golden key into the lock.

  Jacob hadn’t let her inside the house where the Bluebeard had killed Donnersmarck’s sister. Fox had mocked him for it. The vixen had herself killed too often to be shocked by death, yet the sight awaiting her behind the door still filled her with dread.

  This hunter never let go of his prey.

  Nine women. They hung, held up by golden chains, like string puppets killed by their own fear. Their eyes were empty, but the terror was forever written on their pale faces. Their killer kept them in his red chamber like jewels in a casket. Frozen remnants of the pleasure they’d given him, of the life they’d fed him, of the love that had lured them to him.

  The servant wrapped the golden chain around Fox’s neck and wrists as though he wanted to adorn her one last time for Troisclerq. There wasn’t much space left in his horrible dollhouse. Her elbow touched the arm of the dead girl next to her. So cold and still so beautiful.

  “They won’t let me go.” Troisclerq put the empty pitcher on a table by one of the shrouded windows. “They become part of me. Maybe that’s part of why I kill them—to free myself from them. But they remain, silent and still, and they remind me. Of their voices. Of the warmth their skin once had.”

  The gaslights that illuminated the chamber cast the shadows of the dead on the red wall. Fox could see her own among them. She was already one of them.

  Troisclerq approached her. “You’re still afraid more of his death than of your own?”

  “No.” Fox didn’t care whether Troisclerq knew that was a lie. “He will kill you. For me. And for the others.”

  “Many have tried.” Troisclerq nodded at his servant. “Bring him to me,” he said. “But only him.”

  Then he leaned against the silk-covered wall that gave the room the color of the insides of an animal. Troisclerq waited.

  And Fox saw her fear trickling into the pitcher.

  45

  THE WRONG RESCUERS

  In a well. They threw him into a damn well.

  Why? All he did was repeat Louis’s unintelligible mutterings in a few shops around the market square. White as milk. Black like a sliver of night. Set in gold.

  And, Nerron? Shouldn’t the way the fat butcher stared at you have been warning enough?

  He clawed at the slippery wall. Eaumbre was drifting in the briny water deep below. The Waterman was staring up at him as though it was his fault they’d ended like that. Eaumbre could probably survive for years down there in his scaly skin.

  The best? My foot! No more eternal glory as a treasure hunter. Into a well, Nerron, a well! The good people of Champlitte now clearly used it only to dispense of unwelcome visitors. Running water, gaslights… wherever all that wealth came from, they didn’t like strangers, and definitely not ones with a stone skin.

  Nerron put his forehead against the damp wall. Do not look down. Water. The Goyl’s ultimate fear.

  He’d tried to heave up the iron plate they’d placed over the well, but after that landed him next to the Waterman, he refrained from any further attempts. His clothes were still damp and as slimy as a snail’s flesh.

  His only consolation was that now Reckless wouldn’t get the crossbow, either. Maybe someday one of those scholars who dug up old stones would fish his well-preserved remains from the well and would wonder why he’d been carrying a golden head and a severed hand.

  Nerron groaned—by now his claws were aching as though they were being slowly pulled from his fingers—and he pressed himself against the cold wall as he heard voices above. Were the townspeople coming back because they’d decided to burn him alive instead, as they used to do with his kind in Austry?

  The iron plate lifted. It had been afternoon when they were thrown into the well, but the piece of sky that now came into view was already darker than Nerron’s skin. His golden eyes squinted as the light of a lantern beamed down the well shaft.

  “What a picture!” A twangy voice echoed into the well. Arsene Lelou was staring down at him, thrilled, like a child staring at a captured insect. Nerron never thought the sight of the Bug would make him that happy.

  His aching fingers barely managed to grab hold of the rope Lelou threw down the well. Someone yanked him so roughly over the well’s wall that he grazed his stony skin. Nerron knew the oafish face from the household of Louis’s cousin. One of the kitchen hands. Milkbeard. He even used that name himself. He threw Nerron on the ground as though he’d spent his whole miserable existence waiting to lay his lumpish hands on a Goyl.

  “By all means, hurt him. But don’t kill him!” Lelou stabbed the tip of his boot into Nerron’s side. It smelled of wax. The Bug spent hours polishing his buttoned boots. “What did you expect?” he hissed. “That I’d return Crookback’s son as a Snow-White and get myself executed in your stead? That wasn’t the deal. Elven dust! You really have to try a bit harder if you want to fool Arsene Lelou.”

  The Bug loved speaking of himself in the third person.

  “Take his backpack!” he ordered.

  The kitchen boy pressed his boots so hard into Nerron’s back that he thought he could hear his spine crack.

  “I hope you still have the head and the hand,” Lelou purred. “Otherwise I’ll have to throw you right back into that well. We will find the crossbow together, and should you try to sneak off again, I’ll immediately telegraph Crookback about what you did to his son.”

  Milkbeard dragged Nerron to his feet. They had an audience. Despite the late hour, half of Champlitte had gathered around the well. The butcher wasn’t the only one who looked disappointed that the stoneface was still alive. Nerron was probably the first Goyl they’d ever seen in the flesh. He wanted to scream at Kami’en: Forget Albion! Start invading Lotharaine already. Nerron wanted to see them dead, all the brave burghers of Champlitte who’d tried to drown him like a cat.

  Lelou pressed his pistol into Nerron’s side.

  “Go on. Fish the Waterman out as well!” he barked at the boy. How, by the Devil and all his golden hairs, had he found them?

  The answer was standing in front of the butcher’s shop. The gold ornaments on Louis’s cousin’s carriage would have fed not only the butcher but the whole of Champlitte for a year. Sitting on the coachman’s box was the dog man who trained the princely cousin’s hounds. In Vena, he already used to stare at Nerron in a way like he’d love nothing more than to set his dogs on a Goyl for a change. And he’d brought two of them with him. Bloodhounds. They sat next to him on the coach box and bared their fangs as soon as they caught sight of Nerron. Damn. He hadn’t even tried to cover his tracks. He’d clearly underestimated the Bug.

  “Get in!” Lelou shoved him toward the carriage.

  Louis was lying on one of the gold-upholstered benches with his mouth open, uttering grunting snores. Lelou shook him by the shoulder. “Wake up, my prince. We
found them!”

  Wake up? Hardly.

  But Louis did indeed open his eyes. They were swollen and bloodshot, but the princeling was awake.

  Lelou gave Nerron a triumphant look.

  “Toad spawn!” His lips pouted into a self-satisfied smile. “Two treatises from the seventeenth century list it as an antidote to Snow-White apples.”

  Nerron had never heard about that, but the spawn seemed to work. Never mind that Louis looked even more moronic than before.

  “How did the dogs find our trail so quickly?”

  Lelou looked at him with compassionate disdain. Your pathetic performance in the well has forever negated the effect of your Three Souvenirs, Nerron. “We didn’t need the hounds. Louis has been saying nothing but ‘Champlitte’ for days.”

  Yes, Snow-White apples did have that effect. Most victims, should they ever awaken, spoke nothing but the words they’d said as oracles.

  Louis began to snore again.

  Lelou frowned. “I think we may have to up the dose,” he said to the dog man. “Fine. That obviously takes care of the question of whether we still need the Waterman. I’m sure he’s very qualified to find us more toad spawn.”

  He looked at Eaumbre, who was just being hauled out of the well by Milkbeard. The people of Champlitte shrank back as the dripping Waterman was shoved across the market square.

  “Right then, Goyl.” Lelou looked at Nerron. “Before I might wonder whether you’re still any use to us. Where is the heart?”

  “Show the hounds the sack with the head,” Nerron said.

  If they were lucky, it would still have enough of Reckless’s scent.

  46

  BRING HIM TO ME

  The window behind which Fox had stood was dark by the time they reached the house. Jacob forced himself not to think what that might mean. Donnersmarck leaped up the steps as though, if he only hurried, he could have his sister back. The heavy door simply swung open as he pushed his shoulder against it. Donnersmarck did not need Jacob to explain that an unlocked door on a house like that was best treated with caution. Both drew their sabers. Pistols were as useless against a Bluebeard as they were against the Tailor in the black forest.

  The entrance hall smelled of forgetyourself, even more so than the endless paths of the labyrinth. Jacob plucked the flowers from the vases by the door, and Donnersmarck pushed open the high windows to let in the night air.

  Several corridors led away from the hall, and a broad staircase swung up to the second floor. What now? Should they split up?

  They didn’t have to make that decision. A servant stepped from one of the corridors. Judging by his hairy hands, he hadn’t always been human.

  Jacob drew his pistol. It was useless against the master, but it might work on the servant.

  “Where is she?”

  No answer. The eyes staring at him were uniformly dark, like an animal’s.

  Donnersmarck grabbed the servant by his stiff collar and put the tip of a saber to his throat. “If she’s dead, then so are you. Understood? Where is she?”

  It happened too fast.

  Antlers sprouted from the servant’s head. They tore through Donnersmarck’s body before he could parry them with the saber. Jacob shot, but the bullets had no effect, and the Man-Stag deflected Jacob’s saber effortlessly, as though it were nothing but a stick wielded by a child. Jacob had read about them—stag calves that took the form of a man if human hair was mixed into their hay. It was said they were mindlessly loyal to their masters.

  The Man-Stag wiped Donnersmarck’s blood from his brow and made a summoning gesture toward the corridor he’d come from. Jacob ignored him. He reached into his belt pouch and knelt down next to Donnersmarck. Yes, he still carried the Witch’s needle with him. Jacob pressed it into his friend’s bloody hand. It wouldn’t be able to heal a wound as terrible as this, but it could at least close it. The Man-Stag snorted impatiently. Only his head had changed. The blood was dripping from his antlers onto his black tailcoat.

  “Go, Jacob!” Donnersmarck’s voice was a croaky rattle. Maybe the needle would keep him alive long enough. Long enough for what, Jacob? He got up.

  The servant pointed at the corridor again. Jacob thought he could hear Chanute berating him: ‘Damn it, Jacob! What did I teach you about Bluebeards? You seriously believed you could just barge into his home and steal his quarry?’

  Doors. At each one, Jacob thought Fox might be lying behind it, dead. But every time he stopped, the Man-Stag just uttered a menacing grunt.

  The door he led him to was open.

  Jacob already saw the red walls from many steps away.

  And the dead on golden chains.

  And Fox among them.

  47

  LIFE AND DEATH

  For an instant, Fox feared that the blood on Jacob’s shirt was his own, but then she saw the servant’s bloody antlers, and that they’d come without Donnersmarck.

  Jacob just brushed her with a quick glance. He knew they were both lost if he let his concern for her distract him from the murderer who was waiting for him among the dead. Jacob was unarmed. His face was blurred by the tears in Fox’s eyes. Tears for her own helplessness. Tears for her fear for him. As they ran down her face, she nearly expected them be as white as the liquid that was filling Troisclerq’s pitcher.

  The Bluebeard pushed himself off the blood-red wall. Lost in his house of death. Guy. He briefly regained his name. He went to Fox and touched her cheek as though he wanted to feel her tears on his fingertips.

  “You may go,” he said to the servant, who was still standing in the door with his bloody antlers. The Man-Stag looked puzzled.

  “I said, you may go!” Troisclerq’s voice sounded composed, as though time was his. And it was his. The dead bodies around them had procured it for him.

  The servant bowed his horned head. Then he hesitantly stepped back and disappeared into the dark corridor.

  They were alone. With the dead and their murderer.

  Fox recalled all the hours Jacob had sat next to Troisclerq in the coach, relaxed, as though they’d been friends for years. She could still see a trace of that friendship on Jacob’s face. He liked Troisclerq, and he despised his heart for it.

  “No one has made it through the labyrinth in more than eighty years. The last one was a police constable from Champlitte. I kept his weapon as a souvenir.” Troisclerq pointed at a rapier hanging on the wall behind the dead girls. “Help yourself. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. I know you prefer a saber, but since this is my house, I hope you’ll respect my choice of weapon.”

  Jacob went to the rapier. He still avoided looking at Fox. Yes, forget me, she wanted to whisper. Forget me, Jacob, or he will kill you. She saw her fear trickle into the pitcher.

  Troisclerq saw it, too.

  “Only nine?” Jacob looked at the dead. “I’m sure you killed many more than that. Am I right?”

  He took the rapier from the wall.

  “Yes. I only bring the prettiest ones here.” Troisclerq brushed back his black hair. “I killed my first ones during the Giant Wars. A long time ago. A very long time.”

  “You forget their names, don’t you?” Jacob pointed the unfamiliar blade at the dead girl with the red ruby brooch on her dress. “Her name is Marie Pasquet. She was the granddaughter of a famous goldsmith. I promised her grandfather I’d kill you when I found her.”

  “And I know you usually keep your promises.” Troisclerq smiled. “I already knew we’d end up here when I cut you out of those vines. A downside of such a long life. After just a hundred years or so, everybody becomes so predictable, transparent, like glass. Every virtue, every sin, every weakness… nothing but endless repetition. Every ambition—seen it a thousand times. Illusions, lost hundred times over, all hope childish, all innocence a jo
ke…”

  He lifted his rapier. “What remains is death. And the search for that perfect thrust. Death in its most… immaculate form.”

  He struck out so suddenly that Jacob, trying to dodge the thrust, stumbled into the hanging dead. Fear. How much could one have? The dead girls, watching the duelers through empty eyes, knew the answer. Fox died with every stumble, with every cut Troisclerq’s blade left on Jacob’s skin. He was toying with Jacob. And he let Fox see it. He left himself open so that Jacob would charge into his blade; he drew bloody lines on Jacob’s skin, sketching his death before he’d fill it in with red. And the pitcher filled with white fear—more lifetime for the Bluebeard.

  Fox had often watched Jacob fight, but never against such an adversary. It only dawned on her slowly that he was Troisclerq’s equal—and he wanted to kill the Bluebeard. Never before had Fox seen that desire so clearly on Jacob’s face.

  The rapiers snagged on silky robes; they slashed through the golden chains and dead flesh. The two men were breathing heavily. Their wheezes and the silence of the dead… Fox knew both would stay with her until the end of her life. If she’d have a life. She tried to free herself so desperately, blood streaming down her arms, and she screamed when Troisclerq’s blade nearly pierced Jacob’s throat. So much fear. She closed her eyes, trying not to choke on it. But the next scream did not come from Jacob.

  Troisclerq pressed his hand against his slashed knee. “That was dirty,” Fox heard him gasp. “Where did you learn that?”

  “In another world,” Jacob replied.

  Troisclerq stabbed at his chest, but Jacob slashed his blade through the other knee, and as Troisclerq collapsed, Jacob rammed his blade so deep between the Bluebeard’s ribs that the thrust was only halted by the hilt of the sword. Troisclerq cowered on the floor, spitting his own blood on his chest. Jacob dropped to his knees and pulled the key from the Bluebeard’s pocket.