The Black Palace

by Josh Woods

  “I do not know,” said Hava.

  “I still hold out hope that you do not speak of the same Ashurbanipal I am suspecting,” the witch said. “I have been told that tonight he was freed from the old bonds that Gróa had set on him. No one can do such a thing, and only a fool would, for he is dangerous, and has many schemes in his mind, and he harbors a grudge against witches, or at least he should. I can only presume now that you were the one who loosed him.”

  “I was,” Hava said. “You need not worry. If it is him, I will not let him harm you.”

  “I am not comforted by that. I doubt you will find him easy to command, even with his soul in your possession.”

  The two figures neared, and the one at the lead had a small, sharp light on the corner of the black tablet that he now carried aloft on a scepter. Hava could now see that he was indeed Ashurbanipal, the Deathless One. His tiered beard looked the same, waved with columned curls and ringlets, but he was newly adorned to her eyes, no longer heavily covered in his bear-hide cloak like a cold old man. His limbs were strong, and he was full of warm-skinned vigor. He wore a coned helm that reflected what little light there was between the two parties. A fringed shawl and horsehair tassels wrapped his richly embroidered tunic, and golden necklaces draped his chest. He had rings on the toes of his sandaled feet, and he strode up the stairs as if he had returned in royal glory to his Library of Nineveh.

  He led a huge mechanical slave by a chain. It was one of the terrifying suits of armor she had seen against the wall of his chamber, one decorated like an ox, and it was now alive with sparks and steam, and it made much noise as its heavy limbs moved to follow its master. Ashurbanipal must have been busy with his work since the time she had left him.

  Hava called to him, “Welcome, dear Ashurbanipal. It is good to see you again. I am glad that you found me.”

  He reached them and stopped, standing on the steps below Hava. He said, “I did not think that, if ever we were to meet again, my conqueror, it would be like this. Lo, how the world tilts. I stand here again, in the Black Palace, commanded now by you. I have not even a guess as to how this has come to pass, or how you won my soul from Gróa. And to add to my shame, I brought but one slave, and I see that you have brought many. A curious band yours seems. This is the army you called on me to join?”

  “Yes, it is all the army I have for now,” Hava said. “Shall I introduce them to you?”

  “No,” he said, tapping at his tablet, sliding his fingers across its screen to illuminate it and adjust its images. “I do not much care who they are. I hope only that your bidding with me is fated to be briefer and less cruel than Gróa’s. I have been loosed again for only a short time, and yet I have seen that the world is full of great wonders. There are machines and powers, Hava, my conqueror, machines and powers that I could not have imagined. Men are sailing across the skies like dragons. They have coiled thunderbolts in the earth like serpents. Yet their mechanisms cannot discern the commands of one master from another, and I have brought down one of their false satellites from the firmament to show the men of this age that I could. They had the key for the completion of my work, the reason I had failed for countless years while locked in my chamber, and now I have succeeded.” He held out his hand to show off his slave of armor. “And this is only the beginning, for now we can hear past the stars. We can hear him now. Metatron has waited out there for me. O what great and terrible works I shall wreak on the world! Though the strange destiny of this night has brought me here to your feet, there is so much else to be done, so please be quick with me in your squabbles with witches, my conqueror, and let me be free again. If, in your great mercy, you do so, I shall serve you quickly and well in ways unlooked-for. But please be quick indeed. I must return to my works.”

  Although Hava did not fully know all that he was talking about, she was glad to see that he was enthusiastic about the world he was freed into and the works he wanted to return to. If Ashurbanipal helped her defeat La Voisin, she saw no reason to keep him in servitude afterwards. She might as well turn him loose as soon as it was done to do what terrible and wonderful things he had a mind to. She felt continued joy at being the one who sets loose all that was bound, the harbinger of a great change, the one who calls forth a wave of freed things that washes over the world and cracks its very foundations. Perhaps once she defeats La Voisin, she will take the Black Palace for herself, and set loose everyone and everything it holds. For ages upon ages, witches have bent and bound the things of the night for their own purposes, and men have ruled the daylight with impunity, heedless of any danger to themselves other than themselves. It was time for this to change. All that was bound shall be loosed, and all that was asleep shall be awakened, and all that was possible shall come to pass, and the day shall be as fearful as the night for men and witches alike. It shall be a great and glorious age, and in the tumult, Hava’s name shall be praised, and Hava’s name shall be feared.

  So she told Ashurbanipal that she would indeed be quick with him and that he would be free again after the defeat of her enemy, who waited for her at the top of those steps, and he seemed pleased enough with that—a finite task, he called it—not that he had much of a choice, since she owned his soul. Hava suspected, though, that if he felt more begrudged, even while under her command, he could work against her in ways unlooked-for, all the more reason to set him free soon.

  And she said that if she were to succeed, she would set the whole Black Palace free along with him.

  But the witch spoke up at that, saying, “Not even La Voisin can see all doors to open. No witch or queen can make her commands so known to so many places that she cannot even see. The Black Palace is no place for making claims of what none can do.”

  “We shall see,” Hava said. She clicked her tongue and spurred Buck-Tooth onward up the steps, leading them. But with her back to them, Ashurbanipal called out to stop her.

  He said, “The flesh of your back, my conqueror. Do my eyes see right?”

  He meant the pattern of her new scars. “It is from Gróa. I believe I have been marked by her fingerprint,” she said. “I do not think she will ever be seen in the world again, but she has left me filled with great wonder.”

  “You have the mark of her fingerprint indeed,” he said. “Any who are well-informed can read that much. And any who would accept such a mark knows not what it means.”

  “It was her blessing,” Hava said.

  “So be it,” he said. “I worry for you, but it is too late for me to advise you otherwise. There is no going back for you now, for there are yet some things that cannot be undone. That, my conqueror, might be a lesson that you learn through great tribulation.”

  Hava agreed that it was too late to worry about what had passed. So, together, they all continued up the stairs again. Buck-Tooth carried Hava well up the steps, and he did not seem slowed by her weight or his own plumpness but instead seemed rather happy to climb. He was, however, naughty a few times. He let droppings in the path of some of the others in their party, and he kicked one of the chickens off of the edge of the stairs, where it was lost to the abyss of the Hollow. Hava scolded him for that, and he did not kick any more chickens.

  In time, after much climbing along the spiral of the Hollow, they came to the end of the stairs. It was a landing that faced two great doors of wood and iron.

  From the other side, a single voice seemed to wail in agony.

  Hava dismounted and walked to the doors. “This is the throne room of La Voisin?” she asked the witch.

  Ashurbanipal said, “This was once the Crossroads of Night, a room of doors. I remember it from long ago, before the Black Palace made its mind known. It was where I first beheld one of the Three Dread Sisters when she had flown down from her eyrie on high, riding the storms with her fleet of night hags and valkyries. She was a thing of glory, Lilith was, but I do not think she will bother herself with this place ever again. O how the world of the witches has waned. And if Gróa has gone, as you say,
I do not know if they can ever be stirred again.”

  “This is La Voisin’s room,” the witch said to Hava, looking vexed. “And your stirring of this night might be enough to anger every witch in the world.”

  The screams of pain continued from the other side.

  Hava asked the witch, “Is La Voisin in there now?”

  The witch whispered, for she was nervous before these doors. “Yes, but do not think that you will surprise or out-wit her. Her mind is more wicked than yours by far, perhaps as wicked as his.” She meant Ashurbanipal, but she would not look at him or speak his name now that he stood near her. “By now, she will know you are coming. And she will know whom you have in tow. She will be more ready for you than you for her.”

  The screams of agony were those of a woman. That was clear to Hava. She said, “Do those cries belong to her? Are they La Voisin’s?”

  The witch said, “They are surely from one she tortures, and when they are finished, yours will be next.”

  “We shall see,” Hava said.

  Seph had come forth from the bottle, and she looked faint. But before she spoke, she went to one of the chickens, which had been clucking and pecking around the legs of Buck-Tooth. She pulled herself into the mouth and eyes of the chicken, and it flapped and made horrible throttling sounds. It fell limp, and Seph emerged from its corpse, clear and strong, and of a larger countenance than it seemed she had ever had before. “I am ready,” Seph said, floating beside her.

  Hava considered the door knocker, which was graven from iron, an image of the pained face of a young lady. The ring was pierced through her cheeks and ran between her teeth like a bit. The size was that of a real face. Perhaps it was once a real person. Perhaps it still felt the pain of its torture. This was not a pleasant reminder of what could happen if things did not go as she hoped.

  But she wanted to think only of her victory, so she swept such thoughts of doom from her mind. She stood on the tips of her toes to reach the ring of the knocker, which looked to be just beyond her fingers, but she held it without any strain. She flattened her feet with the ring still in her hand. She felt somehow taller than she had thought herself to be, as if the presence of Gróa at her back held her higher.

  “You are simply going to knock?” the witch asked in her sharp whisper. “You are mad.”

  Perhaps it was odd to knock, but a knocker was before her to use nonetheless. And the door was there to be opened for Hava nonetheless. So she lifted the ring, and she knocked on the door three times. The heavy sound echoed down the Hollow.

  She waited.

  There was no answer. Nor was there much change in the wails of pain from the other side.

  Hava looked back at the witch to see what she had to say about it.

  The witch sat on her table, fully bound and gagged now by herself, and she shook her head with wide, frightened eyes.

  Hava knocked three times again. She shouted, “Open these doors, La Voisin. I am Hava, and I have come. You have already welcomed your destruction through your treachery and your cruelty, and I have brought that destruction, so do not hide from it now that it waits at your doors.”

  There was no answer. And the screams continued.

  Hava spoke to Moses, saying, “Moses, I need you to rip this door off its hinges. Will you do that for me?”

  Moses sighed and said that he would, but that soon it would be the Sabbath and that he would do no work for her or for anyone in the world on that day, not even to pull a thread or lift a kettle.

  Hava told him that she understood.

  He went slowly to the doors, and with his great stone fingers, he punched through the wood at the edges of one of them. He set his grip, and then he pulled. The door ached and cracked, and iron bolts popped loose. He reset himself, bending at the knees, and then with a great heave he ripped the door away, and he tossed it over Hava’s head. It hit the steps behind her, and slid down a short way farther, and came to a rest.

  The room was open and dimly lit before her, and that one door was enough for her. But before she stepped across the threshold, she looked back at her companions, and she thought of the danger she was about to put them in. She would be wrong to do so. Although she and Nachash owed vengeance to La Voisin for what she took from them, and though Shamir was safer at her breast than in the cruel hands of those who sought him, none of the others had any true need to risk themselves for victory here. This was Hava’s moment to rise or to fall on her own, not to force others to fight for her. So she told them, “I will go inside and battle La Voisin, but I should not have made any of you come with me. I am sorry for that. I will go alone. And I dismiss the rest of you. You are free to leave.” She was saddened at her own words, but she continued, saying, “If this is the last I see of you, know that you have my thanks for all that you have done to help me.”

  They looked at her. The wolves tilted their heads. Buck-tooth sniffed at the chickens, who had not been paying attention. The witch waited on her table. Seph remained in the air. Moses did nothing.

  “You are free to leave,” Hava said again.

  But they still stood with her before the door.

  Ashurbanipal said, “Then we are also free to stay. I do not suspect that it was the force of your will alone that bent destiny to gather us here. Fight your battle alone if you will, my conqueror, but I for one am curious, especially in this night, and I have never turned my eye away from anything that I wished to know, no matter how harrowing.”

  So Hava went forward through the door.

  It was a great room of doors indeed, though it was long since sparse and cobwebbed from neglect. In the center of that wide-open space there sat a bed masked by a white canopy. It was encircled by dozens of mirrors, and flickering torches on tall iron stands, and, closer to it, six dark-robed figures bent their heads around the bed, and five cloaked women kneeled. Hava could not see through the canopy to discover who lay in the bed, but it was where the cries of pain originated. Now those sounds were clear to her ears, echoing in the great room. Those sounds of pain came from one who either wished for death or could not bear the thought of it.

  The dark-robed figures turned their faces from the bed to Hava. Their heads were the skulls of dead rams, charred and rotten from the sacrifice of priests, and they hissed at her, and they had no eyes. But she was most surprised that only one bothered to leave the bed and come to her. She had instead expected them all to attack her.

  The figure slid toward her and spoke in a cracking voice, calling her insolent and telling her to leave.

  Ashurbanipal called out strange words from the doorway behind her, and Hava saw him tracing his finger through the air in a geometric shape.

  The figure paused at that for a moment.

  Ashurbanipal must have warded it off, keeping the thing safely at bay. So Hava said to the one lying in the bed, “La Voisin, call back this servant of yours before it is destroyed.”

  The figure hissed from its skull for the others, who slid forward to join it before Hava. And the witches stood too, and they came closer too, and they smiled at her.

  One of Hava’s wolves barked at their display, and he rushed forward past her before she could catch him back. She called for him to stop, but he would not. Instead, he bolted after one of the witches, perhaps to account for his earlier flight in the valley, for this was the wolf who wore no clothes. The witch blocked him by brandishing a vase that held just one thorned flower, and he was somehow cowed by it down to his side. She cursed at him, which made him yelp and convulse on the floor. His throat swelled, and it kept swelling.

  Hava called for him to retreat and join the others behind her, but it was too late. The wolf’s throat splattered apart, and he lay dead.

  Hava was shaken at that and was unsure of what to do. She drew Nachash into a blade. She wondered whether she could rush past those guardians, to La Voisin in that bed. Behind her at the door, all of her companions still waited. They had chosen to stay with her. Perhaps they could be vic
torious if they all attacked together.

  Ashurbanipal must have seen the thought on her face, for he said, “I can dismantle the hosts of each of those demons in due time, but they are enough to keep me occupied for several nights, and in that time, those witches will defeat you. I certainly hope that you have prepared a wiser strategy.”

  One of the witches had mortar and a trowel, capable of erasing Moses’ forehead. Two of them had glass containers and chimes made of mirror shards that could catch or destroy Seph. The other wolf would suffer the same fate to the witch with the flower vase. One witch shook a dead woodchuck by its leg, though what that threatened Hava did not know. Yet the conclusion was clear. La Voisin had prepared specifically for her. No matter who helped her, Hava would surely lose a direct confrontation like this.

  Hava told her companions to stay away and to prepare to flee down the steps for their lives.

  Then Hava walked forward.

  The hellish figures encircled her, cutting her off entirely from help or escape, tightening toward her, reaching their hands at her. The witches laughed at her. The demons hissed at her. Over their noise, the pained voice from the bed called out final commands, saying, “Unlatch the girl’s limbs and keep her body alive in the basket for later.”

  Hava knew what her mistake had been in coming here: she had thought too much of her own victory. At the beginning of this night, she had flung herself boldly at what challenge stood before her without fear of death, not because she was ignorant of it, but because she had embraced the truth of it already. She had done that just before she had cut away her bonnet, when she had held the blade of Nachash to her own throat. Her mistake was that she had forgotten that. She needed to believe again in the truth of her own death.

  She closed her eyes and breathed deeply to make the thought clear to herself once again: she was going to die this very night. She placed her hand over her heart, already in memoriam of what she had been, and how far she had come. In her palm, at her chest, was the pendant that held Shamir.