“I should kill you now,” he snarled, his face red and damp.
“Captain,” came a hoarse whisper from the bed. “Let him free.” The King’s voice was weak, but his tone brooked no argument. “You do not want to incur the wrath of the Brotherhood.”
Bream held the magus by the throat as he turned to the Queen. She appeared to consider for a moment, then nodded.
As the captain dropped the magus to the floor like a heap of grey laundry, the Queen untied the thong closing the leather sack.
Jacqui stood for several seconds in the doorway, listening, expecting someone to come running at the sound of her breaking into the house. A single lamp burned on the table in the foyer before her. When no one came, she stepped inside, leaving the door open.
In the lamplight she could see a staircase, but it was pitch dark at the top. The same for a doorway to her right: dark and silent. She turned to the left, where a light was on in what looked to be a small sitting room.
She walked through it and into a kitchen. And through the next door saw a narrow staircase.
She took the steps carefully, planting her feet softly on each in order to prevent any creaking. From the landing halfway up she could hear the faint sound of voices coming from above. Voices that became clearer as she climbed: a woman’s voice, mostly. And then a man’s. Chris’s voice.
But she had never heard him sound like he did right now.
She peered over the top stair into what looked like an office; she could see a desk, and the back of a woman standing next to it. She was speaking to someone hidden behind the frame of a doorway behind the desk.
Pushing down her fear, Jacqui climbed the last few steps and pressed herself against the wall outside the office.
Mareigh had to trot to keep up with the captain of the watch as he led her through the wide halls of the castle. She clutched the letter tightly.
She had been inside the castle only once, years ago. Like everyone else in the walled city, and many of the people from the shore, she had gathered in the large square to watch the new King’s coronation, late the same afternoon that had seen the passing of his father, the old king.
He had looked every bit the prince regent that day. The way the sun caught his eyes had made his hair look like a river of gold over his shoulders. He wore a simple white tunic as he walked the length of the yard, two steps behind the Master of the Stone, the senior member of the Brotherhood.
Behind the prince strode his two closest friends, the men who had been at his side at the Battle of Deren Plain. Paul Bream, who had been named captain upon his return from the war, marched proudly in full dress, the sunlight sparkling off the crest on his chest. Loren, however, looked the same as he always did, older than Bream and the prince, but looking older still in the grey robes of his order. While Bream stared straight ahead, the magus seemed distracted, glancing furtively about as if looking for someone.
When he saw Mareigh in the front row of the gathered crowd, he stopped searching. He smiled at her, a sad, understanding smile, then turned away.
The prince had passed near her that afternoon, almost close enough to touch, but he hadn’t seen her, his eyes fixed forward, head high, unwavering on that day that had mixed tragedy and jubilation. His jaw was set, but she could see the puffiness around his eyes—he had been crying, and she alone of all the hundreds gathered was able to recognize it.
She watched as he knelt before the empty throne, and heard him swear the oath to the country, and to the Stone which was its symbol, its very source. And then the Master lowered the thin gold crown to rest on his head, draped his shoulders with the blood-red cape.
When he rose to his feet and turned to face the people gathered—his people, now—she couldn’t help herself, lowering her head so her tears fell to the ground. She knew that she wasn’t alone, that many others within the crowd were weeping, but none, she knew, for the same reason.
That was the last time she had seen him. She had refused to attend the ceremony marking the Royal Wedding, the King’s arrival home with his new Berok wife. She was, she explained to people, far too busy, trying to establish the Mermaid’s Rest with a little boy underfoot.
“It’s not much farther, ma’am,” the captain of the watch said, leading her around a corner.
She bit her lip and tightened her fingers around the letter, praying that she wouldn’t be too late.
Cora prodded me through the door with the barrel of her gun. I stepped into the room, reeling from a foul smell of rot and decay.
It was an octagonal room, cold, stone. A candle guttered in a nook carved into each wall, the flames casting a dancing light around the small space.
“What have you done?” I said hoarsely.
Painted on the floor in rusty tones was a perfect circle, equidistant to the edges of the octagon. Inside the circle were the same symbols as on the cover of the book. The same pattern was painted on the ceiling.
At the centre of the circle on the floor was a bed, barely big enough for the man who lay in it.
“Lazarus, honey, this is Chris Knox. He’s a big fan. He’s read all your books.”
I barely recognized the shape on the bed as a man. He was wizened almost to the point of desiccation, his skin stretched tight over his bones. He looked mummified. Skeletal.
And then he opened his eyes.
“He’s alive,” I gasped, the bile filling my throat.
“What?” she said. “Did you think I was making the introductions for dramatic effect?”
“But how …?” I took another few steps into the room, toward the bed.
“It was necessary,” she said, as if that phrase were enough to excuse everything. “I couldn’t write the book myself, and the spell that he wove with the words was enough to …” She gestured with the gun. “Well, you can see.”
I did see. “The book is keeping him alive as well.” Clutching it closer to my chest, I moved closer to the bed.
“More or less. Once I realized I couldn’t do it without him, I made him part of it. All this—” She gestured at the symbols on the floor and the ceiling. “That’s all mine. Well”—she smirked—“his.”
What I had thought was brown paint used to craft the symbols was actually blood. Took’s blood.
With a groan, Took turned himself in the bed, pushed himself up slowly to a sitting position. As the covers fell away, I retched: his skin was grey, covered with oozing sores, caked with mustard-coloured pus. As he moved, the stench in the room became unbearable.
“He’s a prisoner,” I said.
“He’s a conduit,” she said. “These symbols and glyphs, they focus the power of the book—”
“The souls of the children.”
“Through him and his story, and into me,” she said, with a feral smile.
I took another step toward the bed, around the end of it now. I shifted the book, holding it close to my heart. The beginning of a plan was coming to me.
“So this is how you treat the man you claimed to love?”
Step one—keep her talking.
She rolled her eyes. “Love. Love had nothing to do with it. We both went into this relationship knowing what we were looking for. Power. Magic. Renown. And that’s exactly what we got.” She too stepped closer to the bed, leaning over to meet Took’s eye. “As long as we both shall live, right, darling?”
I took advantage of the momentary wavering of her attention to take two quick steps along the bed, tucking myself in close beside him, putting him between me and the gun. I crouched slightly, reaching into my pocket, disgusted with myself for hiding behind the body of a suffering man.
“Oh, very clever, Chris,” she said. “You think I won’t just come around the bed? How long do you think you can hide there?”
“Long enough,” I said, “to do this.” With my left hand I held the book by one cover and let it fall open, allowing the pages to fan free. I struck my Zippo with my right thumb, bringing the flame toward the open pages.
“What are you doing?” she cried, her voice betraying her surprise.
Lazarus’s eyes flashed in the firelight.
“Don’t come any closer,” I said. I held the book near my body, keeping the flame close to the pages.
“You don’t want to do that,” she said. She was coming around the bed, the gun in plain view again.
“This is keeping you alive, right? Either you let me go, or …” I teased the lighter close enough to singe the edges of the pages.
“Right now it’s keeping your son alive, too,” she said. “Is that what you want?” She took another step toward me.
I moved around the bed, behind her husband again.
“Do you want to be the one to kill your son? Because that’s his soul you’re holding there.”
I looked down at the book again, at the flames playing near the dry paper. I wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to be part of the greater good, to protect future children from this woman, no matter the cost to myself.
“You’re a terrible bluffer, Chris.”
I dropped my lighter, heard it hit the stone floor.
Looking at the book, the charred edges, the unscathed leather, I realized that I was crying.
“That’s better,” she said, back in control. “Now why don’t you put that down, before you do something you’ll really regret.”
I didn’t have any choice—there was nothing else to do but drop the book on the bed beside Lazarus Took.
As I watched it fall toward the stained sheets, I heard Jacqui call from the direction of the doorway, “Chris, don’t!”
I looked up in time to see her face, to see her reaching out toward me, before Cora turned and fired the pistol. The shot blossomed red in the centre of Jacqui’s chest, the force of it throwing her backwards with a sickening thud on the stone floor.
David wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand as the magus rose slowly to his feet, rubbing his bruised throat.
Both of them were watching the Queen.
She untied the thongs holding the bag closed with a look of barely contained excitement, then opened the mouth of the bag and poured the Stone into her hand.
Her smile widened, a dark, bitter maw. “It’s mine!” she cried triumphantly. She raised the Stone high in one hand, extending her other hand toward David. She muttered a few words in a language he didn’t understand, and then—
Nothing.
She frowned, a sharp line crossing the centre of her forehead and between her eyes. She shifted her grip on the Stone, flexed the fingers of her right hand toward David.
And again, nothing happened.
She lowered the Stone, staring at the markings on its surface, then glared at David. “What have you done?” she demanded.
A wheezing, gasping sound came from the bed, barely recognizable as laughter. The King’s laughter. His eyes were pressed tightly shut, his mouth wide, his head thrown back.
“You?” the Queen snarled, rounding on him. “What did you do?”
The magus spoke. “The King did nothing, My Lady,” he said.
She stormed toward the bed. “Then why doesn’t it work?” she shrieked.
“Because the Stone is not yours,” the magus said, no satisfaction in his voice. “It belongs to the rightful rulers of Colcott.”
“But I am the Queen,” she thundered.
“And the King is still the King,” the magus said.
“Then let the King be no more,” she cried, reaching for the sword in the captain’s belt. With a single motion she drew it, turned, and drove the point deep into the King’s chest. The wound gushed blood onto the bedsheets, the King’s head snapping forward with the ferocity of the blow.
“My Lady—” the captain gasped, but he was interrupted by a voice from the doorway.
“Dafyd!”
David turned. His mother. Dafyd’s mother. Her hands pressed to her mouth, face twisted in anguish.
Mareigh rushed into the room, not toward her son but to the side of the man dying in the bed, the King of Colcott, the only man she had ever loved. “Oh gods,” she cried, leaning over him. “Oh gods, Dafyd, what did they—?”
“Who are you?” the Queen commanded, heaving the sword from the King’s chest.
Mareigh turned at the sound of her voice, her face stained with tears, her eyes flickering between the Queen’s cold gaze and the bloodstained sword in her hand.
“You?” she whispered.
“Me,” the Queen said, as she thrust the sword into Mareigh’s chest.
“Mother!” Dafyd cried out.
David felt the full force of the other boy’s will spill free of whatever had been holding it back, the sheer power of his thoughts, his emotions, his memories and his anguish, pushing David out, forcing him loose of the body he had begun to feel was his own.
With a sudden shock, David jerked, just once, his body snapping against the seat belt.
The world came dizzyingly back into focus. It was like waking from a dream.
With a cautious, shaking hand, he reached for the buckle, pressing the button to release himself.
As he opened the van door, he heard a sound, faint, like a firecracker, borne on the sea wind.
“Mom!” He ran toward the dark house.
My heart surged in my throat as Jacqui fell to the floor. I called her name, and started to step forward. The room lurched around me.
“Don’t move,” Cora Took said, swinging the barrel of the gun back toward me.
The stone floor seemed to move under my feet. My vision swam, and I stumbled, putting my hand down on the bed to keep from falling.
“Jacqui,” I whispered.
“Mother!” Dafyd cried out, running to the bed and falling to his knees.
Mareigh had fallen on her side across the foot of the bed. He turned her gently onto her back. Her eyes were open, her face a mask of pain, her hands clutching the wound as it billowed blood from just below her ribs.
“Leave her!” the Queen commanded.
“Dafyd,” she whispered.
Dafyd looked at her, his eyes blurring, his stomach lurching as the room seemed to shift and move around him.
The door swung open at David’s touch, and as he stepped into Lazarus Took’s house his feet felt unsteady under him. He had difficulty walking. Not surprising, considering how long it had been since he had used this body, since he had moved his own legs, walked with his own feet.
He turned to the left, the way he knew, somehow, that his mother had gone.
“Mom,” he said breathlessly, moving through the shadowed rooms.
“Your pretty wife?” Cora asked, her tone mawkish for a moment before the gun wavered in her hand. Her eyes darted around the room, and she stumbled, as if trying to keep her footing on a moving boat.
It was all I could do to hold onto the bed and not fall. I tried to focus on the gun, watching as it lurched and bobbed in her hand, but I couldn’t. Cat seemed to shift in and out of focus, not blurring, exactly, but fading somehow, the barrel stretching and bending, then snapping back into sharp clarity.
The Queen glanced around the King’s bedchamber, and Dafyd followed her eyes. The stone walls seemed to curve, bulging outward, then twisting the other way, pulling away from the room. The floor followed the motion of the walls, sometimes stretching, sometimes rippling.
She turned sharply toward the magus. “Stop this,” she sneered, letting the point of the sword sag.
The magus, however, looked as confused as she did.
She dropped the sword to the floor with a clatter, raising her right hand toward the old man, the Sunstone still clutched in her left. “I command you,” she began, then stumbled as the floor moved under her.
As he started to climb the stairs on the far side of the kitchen, David realized that his legs weren’t the problem. The house seemed to be moving around him, the steps like Jell-O under his feet, shimmering and bouncing.
Matt, he whispered urgently, inside his mind. What i
s this? What’s going on?
He stopped halfway up the stairs. Matt didn’t answer, and there was no sense of him inside David anymore, no niggling presence in his thoughts.
He took the last stairs more slowly, trying to stay quiet. He tried to push down the fear he was feeling, tried to ignore the fact that, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he was completely alone.
Cora looked at the desiccated body on the bed. “Lazarus,” she hissed. “What is happening?”
I glanced down at the old man, looking for the same answers. He didn’t have any. His eyes were filled with fear.
I was dizzy, the room seeming to spin, the walls seeming to breathe. I could hear my breath, taste bitterness in the back of my mouth.
I had to close my eyes against the nausea.
As the Queen stumbled, the captain stepped behind her, his body rocking with the motion of the room. He didn’t try to fight it, just rode the movement as he reached for his bloodied sword.
Dafyd flinched and pulled his mother close to him, his stomach pushing up toward his mouth as he watched the Queen’s hand, waiting for the crackle of power he knew was to come.
David would have known it was a writer’s study even if he hadn’t known the first thing about Lazarus Took. It looked like his father’s office, in a way, with a chair for reading and a desk and—
He had to blink, shake his head. For a moment, the room had seemed to shift somehow, the desk replaced by a flickering image—thrones. A tapestry behind them.
He blinked again and the study was the way it had been: a heavy wooden desk, an open door behind it, voices rising from inside. The air, though, the air seemed thick, gelatinous somehow, and moving through the room felt almost like swimming. He had to fight his way forward, his body seeming to pull and stretch with every motion.
He blinked—
I opened my eyes, hoping that the nausea had passed, then closed them again as quickly as I could. What I had seen, it couldn’t be real.
The Queen lowered her hand. “You lied,” she screamed at the magus. Her mouth seemed to stretch and pull, as if it were melting. “You told me it would work.”
Bedtime Story Page 46