Red Hood's Revenge

by Jim C. Hines

  “You’re getting better,” Danielle whispered. “That wasn’t nearly as painful as the last time you cast that spell on me.”

  Snow smiled and unstrapped the small waterskin she had brought with her. “More importantly, I figured out how to transform us without leaving our belongings behind.” She rinsed and spat.

  Silver light filled the top of the stairs. The prince peered down, spotting them despite the darkness.

  Snow took another drink, then began weaving a web of magic within it. Her eyes watered as she worked her spell. She was used to the pain, but the vomiting was new. How much more could she push before her body couldn’t take it?

  “What are you doing?”

  Snow waved her to silence. The ghost was halfway down the stairs. He wore heavy armor, though the steel plates of his mail obviously hadn’t protected him from the hedge. Snow wondered how far he had gotten before the thorns pierced his armor.

  He was close enough now for his light to illuminate Snow and Danielle. Danielle held her sword ready, and the prince raised his spear in response.

  “Snow?” Danielle whispered.

  “Almost ready.” Snow forced her attention back to the waterskin. Jaw clenched, she wove the final threads of the spell.

  “Snow!”

  Snow tossed the skin forward. The prince swung his spear as if to knock it away. Instead, the spear vanished from his hand.

  The ghost tried to back away, but a trail of light bound him to the mouth of the skin. Even as water dribbled from the skin, it pulled the ghost inexorably back. Snow climbed onto the stairs and picked up the skin, filling it with her own magic and drawing the ghost inside. Moments later, Snow and Danielle were alone in the darkness.

  “What did you do?” Danielle asked.

  “Soul jar.” Snow folded the waterskin’s mouth shut and tied it tight. “Want a wet ghost?” She set the skin carefully on the floor beside the steps. “It won’t last for long. A few days if I’m lucky. I didn’t have time to do a proper job.”

  She waited, but no more ghosts followed. She sat back on the steps and called sunlight from her mirrors, illuminating a broad cavern with a vaulted ceiling. Pillars stretched in endless rows, disappearing into the darkness. Toward the center, the floor changed from dirt to black glass.

  “Is that water?” Danielle asked. “Where are we?”

  Snow closed her eyes, then opened them again, willing her doubled vision to merge. It didn’t help. She stepped down and walked toward the water. “This is the cistern. There should be a hole somewhere overhead that they used to bring up the water.”

  The floor sloped like a shallow bowl. When they reached the water, it came no higher than Snow’s ankles at the deepest point. The fact that any water at all remained after a hundred years was impressive. Snow suspected she would find magical protections worked into the pillars if she looked for them.

  Instead, she used the water to wash her face and dampen her hair, slicking it back from her head. “There are too many ghosts.” She didn’t look at Danielle. “I’m not strong enough to get us past them all, not to mention the Wild Hunt.”

  “It’s all right,” Danielle said. “Talia wouldn’t want you to kill yourself trying to save her.”

  “I didn’t say we weren’t going to save her.” Snow sat down, resting her feet in the water. “We’re just going to have to be clever about it.”

  CHAPTER 21

  SNOW BRUSHED HER FINGERS OVER HER mirror and waited until Ambassador Trittibar became visible. He appeared to be on the northern wall, staring out at the ocean. “What are you moping about?”

  Trittibar jumped. He spun around, searching until he spotted the small mirror hidden in the crenellations of the northwest tower. “Snow?”

  Snow beamed. “Did you miss us?”

  He stepped closer and folded his arms. “Do Theodore and Beatrice know about all of your mirrors?”

  “You’re looking better.” His arm was bandaged, and his skin was pale. Tonight he was dressed even more garishly than usual, a sure sign of his improving health. That yellow and green shirt was more suited to a jester than to an ambassador. A former ambassador, rather. “If you have any ideas for banishing the Wild Hunt or controlling an army of ghosts, I’d love to hear them.”

  “Ghosts too?” Trittibar stared. “You’ve been gone less than a week! I’ve found no answers for you regarding the Hunt, and now—”

  “It’s not my fault!”

  “It never is.”

  “Trittibar, they have Talia.” Quickly as she could, she told him what had happened since arriving at the palace.

  “The hedge was formed to hold its prey,” Trittibar said, playing with his beard as he thought. “If its magic was strong enough, it might have trapped these men even after death. Killing the hedge could weaken its hold over them.”

  “The hedge is all but dead,” said Snow. “Nothing remains but dry, broken vines. The hedge might have held them, but Zestan controls them now.” She stopped. “Ghosts are . . . simple. They’re caricatures of who they were in life.”

  “What does that mean?” Danielle asked.

  Snow kissed the mirror. “Thank you, Trittibar! Go tell Beatrice what’s happening.” She slapped the mirror back onto her armband and started making her way back to the wall. She brightened her light, searching until she found a pipe built into the base of the wall. “The ghosts are princes of Arathea. They died trying to reach Sleeping Beauty. What do you think will happen if they realize she’s returned?”

  Danielle stared. “I’m not sure.”

  “Neither am I.” Snow dropped to the ground and peered into the pipe. It looked wide enough, though she could see where roots had cracked through the clay, and she wouldn’t be surprised to find spiders and other crawly things inside. Maybe Danielle should go first. “But whatever hold Zestan has over them, they died for Talia. I say we find out whether that’s strong enough to beat even deev magic.”

  Danielle dropped to the ground and crawled into the pipe. “Where are we going?”

  “This place is built in the old Arathean style,” Snow said as she followed. “The public gardens would have been behind the palace, but the royal family would also have a private garden in the center of the palace, complete with a pool. If I’m right, this pipe fed that pool.”

  Snow allowed Danielle to move ahead, then stopped to massage her skull. The throbbing had made its way to the front of her head, behind her eyes, and it would only get worse from here. She envied Trittibar his ability to tap into the power of the fairy hill at Fairytown. Or she had before that ability had been severed.

  Human magic came from the one who wielded it, and it always exacted a price. Snow’s mother used to sleep for days at a time after working particularly powerful magic, even with her mirror to help her.

  Snow had always been able to ignore the warning signs. She cast spells almost as easily as a fairy. She might sneak an extra nap from time to time, and often she ate enough for two in order to regain her strength. But that was before the accident.

  The pain wasn’t the true problem. Pain could be ignored, at least for a while. The danger was what could follow the pain. Sooner or later she would push too hard. If she was lucky, the effort would leave her unconscious and exhausted. If not . . .

  She pushed such thoughts aside. Magic wasn’t a game for those expecting a long, peaceful life.

  Snow sniffed the air. She couldn’t see the end of the pipe, but she could smell flowers on the far side. She slowed. “Deev prefer the underground.”

  “What?”

  Nothing could survive here without magic. The hedge had sucked the life from the land. Why would a deev waste magic on flowers? She twisted her head, looking back toward the cistern. The whole thing was one big cave, yet she had seen no sign of habitation. The sand on the steps had been undisturbed. “I’m not sure. This doesn’t feel right.”

  She crawled on, extinguishing the light from her mirrors as they neared the end of the pipe. Meta
l bars blocked the end, but the pipe was so old and cracked that Danielle was able to yank them loose.

  “Another ghost.” Danielle handed her own waterskin to Snow.

  Snow did her best to repeat the spell she had used before. It took longer this time, and she turned away to keep Danielle from noticing the pain. Not that it helped.

  “You need to rest.”

  “Sure.” Snow wiped her face. “You think Zestan will agree to wait until we’ve napped to use Talia against Lakhim?” She finished the soul jar and shoved it back to Danielle. “Throw this at the ghost.”

  Danielle did so, then crawled out into the moonlight. “I think it worked.”

  Snow followed, finding herself in a broad, circular pool, long since dried. Old tiles clung to the sides. The edges of the pool were flat and broad, designed to be used as benches. Snow picked up the dribbling waterskin and tied it shut.

  “This is beautiful,” Danielle said.

  “Yes.” Snow frowned as she looked around. “And that’s bad.”

  No mortal had ever possessed a garden like this. Pink-leaved trees bordered meandering paths of green moss. Lavender buds hung from the branches like strings of tiny bells. Deep blue flowers rose like sweet-scented stalagmites to meet them. This place made Rajil’s garden look like a patch of weeds beside the road.

  The walls of the garden rose several stories all around them, the balconies curtained in flowers that reminded her of roses with blossoms the size of a man’s head. Arched walkways passed overhead, a web of vines stretched between them.

  Petals and fallen leaves blanketed the ground. Blue-green moss sank beneath her feet as she walked to pick up a leaf. She rubbed it between her fingers. The leaf left a golden residue on her skin. “This makes no sense.”

  She wiped her hand on her robe, then sat on the edge of the pool and grabbed a mirror. She waited impatiently for Trittibar to respond.

  His voice sounded distant. He was in the royal library, with several books laid out on the table in front of him. “Theodore is talking to Lakhim. I know you’re in a hurry, but you have to give me time to—”

  “I think Zestan-e-Jheg is a peri.”

  Silence. Snow watched Trittibar set aside the book he had been reading. He approached the mirror, which was hidden in the back of a sconce near the door. “I don’t understand.”

  “Look through the mirror.” Snow turned slowly, giving him a good view of the garden. “Remember Volume Three of Penkleflop’s Histories? ‘Round him grew blossoms of every shape and color. Pleasing perfumes eased his troubles. Here the peri gathered to anoint their champion.’ ”

  “Lots of fairies have gardens,” Trittibar said. “The fairy queen—”

  “The fairy queen isn’t deev. The deev preferred the darkness of their caves. But the peri needed their gardens. ‘They took neither food nor drink, subsisting only on the sweet scents of the world.’ We know Zestan is powerful enough to command the Wild Hunt. When the Kha’iida studied the curse Zestan laid on Faziya, they couldn’t identify it. It wasn’t deev magic, but something similar. It was peri, not deev.”

  “Why would a peri take Talia?” Danielle asked. “I thought they were the ones who protected Arathea.”

  The howling seemed to come from nowhere, making Snow jump. She squinted at the mirror, trying to make out the windows behind Trittibar. Was there an orange tint to the glass?

  “What’s happening?” Trittibar asked.

  “It’s dawn there, isn’t it?” Dawn in Arathea came later than in Lorindar. About one hour later. The Wild Hunt ended their ride each night an hour before dawn, and it sounded like the rest were coming home.

  Two hunters brought Roudette to what had once been the palace library. Most of the contents had been looted or destroyed long ago, judging from the sand and dust covering the empty stone shelves. What books remained were torn and damaged, though the desert air had preserved them better than Roudette would have expected. Broken statues lay on the floor, as if they too had fallen asleep when Talia’s curse struck.

  Roudette was dropped roughly against the wall. The impact jarred the arrows in her body, making her cry out. She tried to stand, to fight and force them to kill her, but the hunters had already vanished, and her leg wouldn’t support her weight anyway.

  Naghesh gestured, and Talia followed her into the library. “Remove her weapons.”

  Without a sound, Talia bent over Roudette and began stripping her of her hammer and knives. Roudette held her breath, waiting for Talia to reach for the dagger on Roudette’s left hip. As Talia’s fingers closed around the handle, Roudette grabbed Talia’s hand. She twisted the knife toward Talia’s chest.

  Talia snapped a light kick against the arrow in Roudette’s ribs. Roudette howled and fell, clutching her side.

  “She retains the reflexes I gave her,” Naghesh said as Talia finished disarming Roudette. “The only difference is that now those reflexes serve me.”

  “You?” The voice came from the doorway.

  “Us,” Naghesh said quickly. “She serves us. Serves you, I mean.”

  “Zestan-e-Jheg?” Roudette guessed.

  “Welcome, Roudette.” Shadows clung to Zestan’s body, obscuring all detail.

  Roudette had spent her life hunting fairies and learning their ways. She might not have memorized every detail the way Snow White had, but she knew fairykind better than most. The deev were supposed to be horned monsters, twisted creatures of such ugliness and evil that mortals fled in despair. Creatures who tortured their victims or crushed them with their bare hands.

  Zestan moved with such grace as to make Talia appear clumsy, and her voice was song. “What are you?” Roudette demanded.

  The shadows snapped outward, then fell away.

  Zestan was taller than any human, with pearl skin. Elongated ears poked through ebony hair. A green jewel hung from a silver chain around her neck, similar to the one Naghesh wore. She was dressed in a violet tunic that clung to her form, a body that seemed neither male nor female. From Zestan’s back stretched brown-feathered wings, so broad they would have struck the walls if fully extended.

  She—he?—was beautiful. Too beautiful. Her face was too perfect, her body without a single flaw. She seemed less a living, breathing thing than an artist’s masterpiece come to life.

  Zestan’s smile held genuine warmth. “I’ve plans for you as well, Roudette. The Wild Hunt—”

  Roudette grabbed the arrow in her side. “I’ll kill myself before I let you turn me into one of them.”

  “Go ahead.” Zestan’s smile never changed. “Dead or alive makes no difference to the Hunt, but that’s not what I meant. The Wild Hunt was created by lesser fairies, and they are flawed. Limited to the darkness, burdened by the remnants of their humanity. Soon they will no longer be of use to me. I would make you the first of a new hunt. A band formed by peri magic. Angels, perfect and without limits.”

  “So the stories were wrong,” said Roudette. “It wasn’t the deev who meant to conquer and destroy this world. It was you.”

  “Oh, no. The deev are evil, brutish things. Strong and cruel. Like yourself, in many ways.”

  Roudette caught herself relaxing, lured by the gentleness of Zestan’s voice. She twisted the arrow, using the pain to help her focus.

  “We protected this land,” Zestan said. “We saved the people from the deev. We fought and we died, all in the hopes that the people would grow and redeem themselves, and in doing so earn redemption for us as well.”

  “You sound like a preacher.” The words were the same ones her father had spoken, but never had his voice carried such sorrow and pain.

  “We were cast out of Heaven for our cowardice.” Zestan’s wings shivered. “Banished to this world for failing to fight in the uprising, and sentenced to watch over and protect your race until we earned forgiveness. Only then would we be welcomed back home.”

  Roudette had heard variations of this lie from the fairy church ever since she was a child. “You actu
ally believe this?”

  “Not anymore.” Zestan was no longer smiling, and her words chilled Roudette. “We saved this world. Do you know how many of our kind died against the deev? How many of us were tortured and maimed, imprisoned in cages and left to wither into nothingness? We gave you freedom.”

  “I thought it was humans who fought the deev,” Roudette said.

  “Girded with our power.” Zestan’s wings snapped out, then slowly settled behind her like a feathered cape. “All these years we’ve tried to guide you, until one by one we fell into despair and retreated to our mountains to sleep. I’ve tried to rouse them, but the loss of hope casts a curse as potent as the one that struck Sleeping Beauty. They choose to sleep until humanity finds peace or until this world comes to an end. Would you care to wager which will come first?”

  “You’re alone?” Roudette tried to keep the hope from her voice. A single peri couldn’t fight all of Arathea. Once the people learned the truth, they might still destroy her.

  “I’m tired.” Zestan spoke plainly, the weight of her desolation striking Roudette like a blow. “We will never return home. If paradise is forbidden to us, then I will remake this land into paradise.”

  She took the zaraq weight from Naghesh and examined it. “For a year Naghesh and I worked to duplicate this poison.”

  “Why?” Roudette asked, genuinely curious. “You’re peri. I thought you could wave your hand and crush this entire palace to dust. Why go to such lengths?”

  “I could destroy Lakhim and all who serve her,” Zestan said, “but it would turn this nation against me. Better to let them believe a deev has escaped and loosed this chaos on the world. When the time comes, I will break Talia’s curse myself. Her story will end the way it always should have ended. Talia will return to lead Arathea.”

  “Under your control,” Roudette said, looking to Naghesh.

  “An elegant plan, don’t you think?” said Naghesh. “We don’t even need to waste an assassin this time. Once we send Talia into the palace, I’ll force her to poison herself and trigger the curse.”