The Black Palace

by Josh Woods

  And then they heard another kind of echo. It was ticking.

  “This way,” Jan said, pointing the muzzle of his revolver first to a spot on the map by his heart and then toward the stairs that they were already heading toward. The treads were carpeted, but DiFranco’s boots made the material go up in fine clouds, like marching over airy fungus.

  And then they crested the stairs. And then they were in the galleries. This was the place.

  Even though the only lights were those they carried, it had the feeling DiFranco remembered, no longer of underworld catacombs and grottos but of a high castle, grand and abandoned, a place that the mad ghosts of kings would wish to haunt.

  The walls on either of the wide sides of the gallery stretched straight, far beyond their knowing, and wings opened to other spaces at regular intervals. Compared to the chaos of the architecture they had just passed through, this place had a refreshing uniformity, though a cold one. Countless clocks lined those walls. They stood in wooden longcases, and in scaffolds with great swaying pendulums, and in the bodies of paralyzed beasts. A warthog was locked in position trying to lick the clock-face imbedded at its shoulder. A lion stood on its hind legs with a clock where his liver would be. A corpulent fish had a clock for an eye. Perhaps these were the works of an insane taxidermist, but DiFranco suspected that witches had made the clock faces grow like tumors until the creatures were frozen in time. Yet all the clocks were alive. They all showed different times, and they ticked and ticked like a valley of insects. Yet not a single one in that long space of echoes sounded its chimes.

  DiFranco and Jan continued forward. The gallery was so long that it seemed as if they walked in place. And though it was familiar overall, DiFranco knew that they were not quite at the same place yet. She had not yet seen those same wings. She had not yet seen the Gate of Thorns.

  Arranged alongside their walk were occasional sculptures and glass showcases, all covered in a layer of gray dust. Jan dared to peek his flashlight in some of them to glimpse, and DiFranco saw some of them as he did. One showcase had an articulated skeletal hand of unnatural immensity. In another was a vulture contained under a glass dome, and it blinked at them, and under it a plaque read, Je mangeais la chair du Arthur. And she thought they passed the true reliquary of Judas, but she didn’t mention it to Jan.

  And then, ahead in the darkness, came the reports of gunfire.

  They stopped.

  Jan looked at DiFranco with expectation, as if she would answer the question that he was thinking.

  The gunfire continued. There was yelling in American curse words.

  The answer to the question on his face was affirmative: she and Jan were hearing other Witchfinders.

  “It’s them?” Jan said.

  DiFranco nodded.

  Jan was all joy. “Come on,” he said, and he began nearly skipping forward, and he waved her along. But he was forced to pause.

  She was not moving.

  “What are you doing?” Jan said. “Hurry up. We might miss them.”

  “We need to miss them,” DiFranco said. “Stay back with me until they’re gone.”

  Jan was aghast. “They’re here to rescue us.”

  “No, they’re not,” she said. “They’re here to hunt us. It’s Turenbor covering his tracks. We’re the loose ends, remember? We’re the frayed tether.”

  “Witchfinders don’t hunt Witchfinders,” Jan said. “Even if they’re not here to rescue us, they could still help us get out of here if they’re on a raid. They said they were raiding tonight. You were there with me when they said it. This is our chance to get rescued. I even have a map for them now, all over me. When we get out, we’ll be heroes. Even Turenbor would admit that. We’re all on the same side.”

  Jan was wrong. No, DiFranco could not trust Witchfinders, not anymore, but maybe he was right about this being their chance. If they could stalk those Witchfinders, watch them from the shadows and follow them unseen, maybe she could find out where they were coming and going, and even send Jan out on his own, all while staying in the shadows. Yes, they could use the Black Palace to their advantage. Added up, DiFranco now had more living experience inside the Black Palace than any other person she knew of—except for one other. And she could use that experience to follow them with more predatory craft than any wolf or witch could do, because now she knew her prey as well as she knew the shadows around them. She was something more than Witchfinder or witch. But she wasn’t sure this was the right mindset. Something seemed off about it. She needed more time to think.

  Jan yelled, “Come on, DiFranco!”

  “Quiet, goddamnit,” she hissed at him. “Don’t let them hear. I need to think.”

  “No, you need to stop thinking,” Jan said. “You need to do what I say for once, DiFranco. You’re a fucking mess. I’m the only shot we’ve got left.”

  “I’m a mess?” she said. She couldn’t believe she was hearing this from him of all people. She held the lantern light up to make obvious that he was the living map of the Black Palace. “I’m the mess? Look at what you’ve turned yourself into. You’re not doing so hot yourself.”

  “No shit, I’m not doing so hot,” he said. “I need to get out of here. I feel this place in my blood, DiFranco. I feel what it says in my teeth. It’s calling. It’s pulling at me. I don’t even want to tell you what it’s wanting now that we’re up here, and I’m not saying it out loud on purpose. I know I’m not doing so hot. I know that. I need to get out of here.”

  DiFranco said, “Yeah, and I want you out of here too. I don’t want you on my conscience anymore, and I definitely don’t want you getting caught by those Witchfinders.”

  “Just because you’re the odd ball doesn’t mean I am. Those guys are my friends, and they’re looking for me, and that’s where I belong. Maybe you belong in the Black Palace, but I don’t.”

  “You’ve been sounding more and more like you belong in here,” she said. “And with one look, they’ll probably shoot you before they realize that they planned to anyway.”

  “You know what, DiFranco? Sledge was right about you. You’re all black and white. That’s what you are. You tried so hard to be the perfect Witchfinder and prove a point to everybody, and now you’re trying too hard to be their enemy. You’re just always trying to be something you’re not. That’s what I think happened out there in the world with you trying to have a family, and that’s why I think you’re looking for Conrad, and that’s what I think is happening now.”

  “That’s what you think, is it?”

  “Yeah, it is,” Jan said. “If you don’t trust anybody, then you don’t even trust yourself, do you? You don’t even know what you are anymore.”

  “I know what you are,” DiFranco said. “Here you are thinking those guys are your friends when they’re just here to kill you. You’re so damned desperate for a friend that you’ll run right into a trap. That’s what you are, Jan. You’ve been played for a fool by everybody tonight. Even your maidservant that you’re so in love with, and I hate to tell you this, but she’s dead, Jan. That’s the hard truth. And if you go running off after them like a fool, then you’ll finally be with her again, two dead fools.”

  The gunshots in the distance had stopped. The voices grew fainter.

  Jan said, “Look, DiFranco, I don’t want to fight with you like this. But I’m going, now. With or without you. So what’s your choice?”

  “Not them. And not you.”

  “Then what?” he said, walking backward, away from her, on into the darkness. “What should I tell them happened to DiFranco?”

  “Tell them she chose oblivion.”

  And at that, Jan turned from her and ran. The glow of his flashlight bobbed away toward the dwindling sounds of the Witchfinders.

  The lantern she was left with gave her far duller light than she had realized, now that it was the lone source. So she closed the hoods on it further, making everything around her even darker. It was better this way. It was better alone. It w
as better to be unseen. It was better to be quiet.

  DiFranco slunk to the walls and continued forward as if stalking Jan and the Witchfinders but going slowly enough to stay beyond them for now. And she tried to be silent. And she was. She was so silent that she could not hear her own footsteps over the ticking of the clocks, and that was good. But as she continued down the gallery, she left the ticking behind, and instead of clocks, now large shapes hung in patterns along the walls. Their images were only black to her, but she knew they were mirrors. She knew where she was now. This was the part of the gallery where they had entered in that last raid.

  And she crossed by the open spaces where wings of other galleries spread, and she knew this because she could feel the air that came from them as she passed. She was pleased with herself that she was getting a blind feel for the Black Palace already. And she kept crossing those spaces because she wanted to keep forward in this part of the gallery, which was as familiar as a nightmare, and because she knew one of these wings nearby would not be merely open space. She knew what would be closing off the entry, still there, waiting for her.

  And after a time, though she was not quite sure how long, because time already grew difficult to judge alone and in the dark, she heard a soft noise somewhere, like a lullaby.

  She stepped on something small. She got down onto her hands and knees to inspect it. It was stuck to the floor, but she peeled it off. It was a tarnished brass casing. She crawled to another on the floor, and another. Hundreds lay scattered on the floor, discarded years ago from the chamber of the gun that spent the live rounds. She knew whose gun it had been.

  And crawling forward, she came to it. It was where she knew it would be. It was the Gate of Thorns. This is where she had left him. And the lullaby came clearly now from beyond the gate, and she knew it. It was the song that the Haruspex had whispered to her at the beginning of this night, the one that was sung to her as a child. Mariposa, it said. Mariposa, sueñes, sueñes, mariposa.

  So she crawled close enough to reach the Gate with her hand. She held it, and it cut her palm, but as she tested it, she found that it was so light. It swung with ease and made no noise. Its seeds had surely been planted in the wallpaper of the gallery by witches, for it had grown its own hinges, and almost like telling the seasons it seemed to unlatch when it was time for something to pass through it.

  She let it swing fully open, and she crawled past it, past the Gate of Thorns. And in the distance, down that narrow hall lined with fine paper and black mirrors, she saw something looking back at her with a glow of its own, so she would no longer need her lantern. She left it behind.

  And she continued on her hands and knees because the figure had been crawling too, but it had stopped when it had seen her, and now it waited for her, and it kept singing that soft, familiar song, mariposa, mariposa, sueñes, sueñes, mariposa.

  And though its shape looked changed by the tattered clothes and the shaggy hair of years, she saw that it was her father.

  Chapter 14

  Hava sat cross-legged on the cushions in the nook of a window in Lenka’s house, and she savored bites from a peppered lamb shank that she turned by the bone as she looked across the room at the two Witches of Endor. They were held suspended above the floor by the napes of their dresses, one in each of the great hands of Moses the Golem. The two witches’ bare shanks dangled and kicked helplessly. The corpse of what had been their third witch lay on the floor, and a wolf lay beside it gnawing on the ball of flesh he had pulled from its side.

  When Hava had lit the candle from Lenka’s house and had called the Witches of Endor back, they had come quickly, with the speed of the dead, as they had put it. It had been easy, since Lenka had apparently called them to her house many times before. A child’s tombstone, stolen from its grave, sat under a window, and a used candle sat on top. Hava had simply drawn open the curtains and lit the wick, noticing that its flame reflected in the darkened windows of a building across the street, and likely reflected into the sky as well, at least to the eyes of the Witches of Endor. What must they have presumed when they had rushed to meet the signal from Lenka’s house? Maybe they had thought that something was unfinished from their earlier deal in selling Hava—whom they had thought to be Seph—for silver and good will, or maybe they had thought that Lenka wanted to hire them for another job with greater reward, or maybe they thought that they would get to take credit in front of La Voisin for Seph’s capture. Whatever they presumed got them moving fast. But when they had arrived and had been let in to Lenka’s house, and when they had found not another witch waiting for them but instead two wolves and a golem at Hava’s command, they had not known exactly what to do. Hava had led the discussion and demanded that they make amends for their mistreatment of her by performing a service, for which they would receive no payment beyond her forgiveness. The leader of the three Witches of Endor had quickly responded with insults, demands of her own, and an attempt to reach Hava with the back of her hand, as if to slap her like a disobedient maidservant. In an instant, Hava had the wolves drag her to the floor with their teeth, and there they ripped out her throat and tore into her belly, fighting over her liver first but then giving each other space to gnaw on the rest of her at each their own leisure. Hava had also ordered Moses to grab hold of the other two witches. She hoped they would be more reasonable.

  So Hava waited, watching the two witches as they dangled. She wanted them to feel the pain of being held awkwardly by the rough stone grip of Moses. She wanted to see that pain in their faces. She wanted to see in their faces that they recognized their current reality: that their own leader—and sister-witch—was dead, and that Hava was in charge. She waited, and she continued eating the lamb shank that she had found left over in an ice box in Lenka’s kitchen, among other cooked and peppered cuts that she had given to the wolves. There she had also eaten some bread that was still doughy and had fed Nachash an egg, a real one this time.

  The wolf at the corpse grew drowsy as he chewed, and he had not gotten up off of all fours since he had attacked the witch so savagely. The other wolf, apparently sated, had returned to walking on his hinds and had gone upstairs, telling Hava as best he could that he wanted to find clothes to wear.

  The witches said nothing. They feared to speak. Hava finally saw enough fear in their faces, and enough pain. She spoke to them, saying, “Now let me make my offer to only the two of you. I ask simply that you perform your trade, that you call up one of the dead for me. I want you to take the cost of doing so entirely on yourselves, and I want you to hold me to no favor in return. You know as well as I do that you’ll have to swear to both of these promises out loud with blood on the tips of your index fingers, so I expect that too. As one who was a prisoner wrongly treated in your hands this very night, I am owed this.”

  The witch in Moses’s left hand said, “Where is Lenka?”

  The slaughtered witch on the ground had asked this too before she was killed and chewed on. This question from the witch in the left hand was not a response that seemed very promising to Hava. She might have to kill these two as well. She said, “Let me clarify what happens if you do not fulfill my demands. I will have my golem smash you together like dough. The mess of your bodies will be indistinguishable. If you do not die in the process, you will wish you had. Now, I ask you—and I will not ask again—do you accept my demands?”

  The witch in Moses’ right hand said, “Yes, we do. We will summon the dead for you.”

  The left-hand witch cursed at the right.

  The right closed her eyes and shook her head. There was nothing to be done but to submit.

  “Good,” Hava said. “Shall you make your promises while you hang in the air, or do you ask permission to be set back to the floor?”

  The right-hand witch said, “I ask permission to be set down.”

  Hava said, “Moses, please release the witch in your right hand.”

  Moses dropped her. She buckled at the knees but quickly stood and fixed h
er dress around herself with tugs and twists.

  Hava tried to get a read on Moses’ face. She looked for any sign of disapproval from him. This order—to set the witch down—was only the second real direct order she had given him so far, and this was the first threat she had made in which she promised violence from him, never once having asked him whether he was willing to maim or kill. She felt as though she should have asked him about such things beforehand, and she had had a mind to do so while they waited in the kitchen for the Witches of Endor to arrive, but they had come so quickly. Now it was too late to ask him in front of the witches. Regardless, she saw very little change in his face, no sign of any judgment. He grimaced with his wide mouth as he had before, looking just a little grumpy all the time, but grumpy about nothing in particular.

  Hava used the lamb shank to point to the couch, which was, it seemed, more of a cushioned bench. It matched the color and fine woodwork of the gypsy caravan sitting across the room. She said to the witch, “You may sit.”

  The witch sat. She looked back up at her fellow witch who still hung in the air by her nape. She cursed at her stubbornness.

  The witch in Moses’ hand wrinkled her old mouth, and she glowered at Hava. It was almost a look of hate, but it was not pure. There was something of jealousy in the witch’s eyes. Maybe it was jealousy over her youth, or maybe over her control. The witch ground out the words, “I ask permission to be set down too.”

  Hava gestured with welcome and said, “Moses, please release the witch in your left hand.”

  He dropped her too. She limped to the couch and sat with her sister-witch.