Eventually she got back up and began to walk again. She still did not feel sleepy, even though the last time she had actually slept properly was days ago. More evidence of the skewed time-frame that existed outside the Realm of Man. She considered how long she might be wandering these night-soaked halls before she came across anything, or if there was anything to come across. Was Aelthar’s dagger even here? And where was the Lady Asinastra?
It was hours later that she found something. What it was, however, she was by no means certain.
She had taken to breaking up bits of furniture, picking up rocks and suchlike, and placing them in the centre of each room when she departed, pointing in the direction she was leaving. She could not shake the suspicion that she was going in circles. Apparently she was mistaken, however, for she did not once come across any of the little markers she had left for herself, which only depressed her more as it meant the scale of the place was enormous. Up winding stairs she went, into rooms, along corridors, until finally she saw the dead woman.
At least, she looked dead. Poison could not tell, and she did not trust the evidence of her senses. Certainly, she had been cobwebbed where she sat on a grandiose wooden seat, indicating that she had not moved for a very long time. She was slumped forward, her hands on the armrests and her legs apart. She wore a white dress, tattered and faded by the ages, and her long, filthy black hair showed just enough of her face so that it was possible to see she had a veil concealing her from forehead to chin. But perhaps most disturbing of all was the great bulge in her lower belly. Whether still alive or dead, she was heavily pregnant.
The room was scattered with old and mouldering treasures. Indeed, it seemed as if the entire palace had been scoured of anything interesting just to have it brought here. Whereas Poison had seen nothing more remarkable than a table since she had started exploring the palace, here she found a wealth of glory, left to rot. Ancient suits of armour cluttered the corners; magnificent swords had gone to rust; paintings in gold frames had faded and were spotted with fungus; piles of coins had gone green with the uncountable years. And everywhere cobwebs; though oddly enough, no spiders. Poison had become so used to seeing the swift, jerky movements of the palace’s eight-legged inhabitants out of the corner of her eye that the absence of them was unsettling.
Then her eye fell on something that made her heart leap. A dagger, with a blade that split into two prongs, like the fangs of a snake. It was dull but not rusted, poking out of the hollow of a horned helmet, webbed in place by a thick curtain of silk. There was no question in her mind: that was Aelthar’s dagger.
She glanced at the corpse once again, but her gaze was drawn back by the dagger. She crossed the dark room silently, still mistrusting the dead woman, afraid to make the slightest sound in case it might wake her. Morbid curiosity urged her to touch the woman’s withered hand, to set her mind at rest that she was really harmless; and yet, the child in her still shied from it, expecting at any moment that the corpse might come to her feet and lumber into attack.
Forget her, Poison told herself. Get the dagger.
She crouched down next to the tumbled suit of armour, its pieces connected by sinews of thick white web. The dagger’s blade protruded from the helmet towards her. Unable to resist one more nervous glance at the motionless figure on the chair, she steadied the helmet and reached a hand into the sticky mass of silk that filled it, shuddering in repulsion. At any moment, she expected to feel the swarm of spider-feet racing up her arm towards her face, clambering in her hair, angry at the disturbance of their web. But nothing so terrible happened. She groped for the hilt of the dagger, found it, and pulled it silently out. For a few long seconds, she looked at it, weighing it in her hand. Then she sighed, stood up and turned around.
The corpse was gone.
She felt an icy jolt inside her, an instinctive reaction to the absence of something that should not have been able to move. The cobwebs were torn away, leaving a great, ragged hole where the withered woman used to be. Panic took her, the deep-rooted fear of the dead that humankind possessed on a subconscious level. She looked about desperately, but there was no sign of the woman anywhere in the room. Stumbling a step in retreat, she tripped on a flagstone and fell backwards on to her pack. The fall was not painful, cushioned as it was by the food and clothes within; but then she opened her eyes, and screamed.
The woman was on the ceiling. Her emaciated fingers and toes clutched the stone and held up there as easily as if she was crawling along the floor. She had craned her neck around at an impossible angle, and her matted hair hung down across her dirty veil. But the veil had slipped, and Poison could see her eyes now: black, blank pearls, like the eyes of the changeling Poison had left back in Gull. She felt the terrible weight of that gaze, and it froze her in place.
The woman dropped, suddenly releasing herself and plummeting down towards Poison. Poison’s instincts cried out, telling her to throw herself aside or at least put her hands up in front of her face; but nothing moved. Her muscles seemed empty of life. The woman landed lightly on her fingertips and toes, foursquare over the prone body of Poison, her face inches from Poison’s own, her swollen belly pressing into Poison’s. The marsh girl trembled in terror, but she could not tear herself away from those black, empty eyes, could not break the contact that paralysed her.
The voice was an awful, drawn-out rasp, lisping and strange, as if it were being made by a mouth that was not adapted to human language. Her breath stank of decay and something more acrid. Her hair hung over her face and on to Poison’s, trailing dusty strands of cobweb across her skin. Poison realized with a terrible certainty that this was the Lady Asinastra, and that she was now helpless against her.
Poison barely heard what she was saying, for her attention was fixed on the dark abyss of her gaze, the eyes that seemed to reach into her and rob her of her will to move. She was only barely aware of the insane rhythm of her sentences, the question-and-answer that she seemed to be conducting between herself.
Husband? Poison was still not following her, but how did a husband figure in any of this?
Poison tried to shake her head in denial as the realization set in, but her muscles would only twitch. She couldn’t mean the thing outside? She couldn’t mean the spider?
Asinastra took Poison’s hand and laid it on her belly. Poison attempted to resist, but there was no strength in her while Asinastra’s gaze was locked with hers. For a moment, she felt nothing; then something repulsive shifted beneath the dress, beneath the skin, something large and curled and many-legged. Poison felt tears of fear and horror spring to her eyes. Asinastra let her hand drop away.
Poison could not have spoken even if she had been able.
The silence that followed her mumbling dialogue with herself made Poison realize that the last question had been directed at her, but she could not answer.
Again, Poison tried to force a word out, but this time Asinastra seemed to realize what the problem was. Her eyes tightened fractionally, and Poison felt her throat unclench a little.
Poison dragged in a breath.
“I want an audience,” she croaked. “Under Amra
e’s Law.”
Asinastra shrieked in anger, springing backwards off Poison as if she had been stung. Poison felt the weakness fall away from her as she was released from the Lady’s paralysing glare, and she slowly levered herself upright and got to her feet while Asinastra prowled and hissed around the room.
“And you cannot harm me,” Poison reminded her, recalling the words of Scriddle. “On your honour as a Lady.”
But Poison did not intend to be there by the time the audience was done. She still held the dagger in one hand, and with the other she reached into her pocket and drew out the orb: the cold, black orb given to her by Aelthar.
Bram’s voice came back to her with the force of a prophecy: the orb could kill you as fast as that spider would! The phaeries are tricksters, Poison! And you’re placing your life in their hands.
No choice. Poison raised it above her head; then, in a capricious act of spite, she decided that she owed Aelthar an ill for what he had put her through this far. Marshalling her courage, she said: “Lady Asinastra, I am the Phaerie Lord’s thief.”
But Poison heard no more, for she had already flung the orb down on to the hard stone floor of the chamber, and as it smashed its blackness flooded out and Poison was engulfed, with the echoing shrieks of the Lady of Cobwebs fading after her.
When Poison next opened her eyes, she was staring at the inside of a beautifully ornate waiting-room.
She blinked. It took a few instants for surprise to set in, then a few more for her to reassert herself. She recognized the finery by now. They were in the Phaerie Lord’s palace.
Andersen mewed at her feet.
“Oh, you’re all right!” Peppercorn cried, throwing her arms around Poison.
Poison hugged her automatically in return, still a little bewildered. The orb had brought them back; and what was more, it brought them back together. Bram was there too, clearly unhappy at having his world turned inside-out and fiddling with his moustache while he tried to get over the shock of being magicked into another Realm.
Poison felt a flood of relief wash over her; until this moment, she had dreaded a trick from Aelthar. But it appeared that, against all odds, he had not let her down. Though he had tormented her with uncertainty by refusing to tell her what the orb did – something which Poison would not soon forget – the orb had saved her. No wonder he had forbidden her to use it until after she had the dagger. He didn’t care anything about her. He simply wanted to be sure that she got out with his prize.
The door of the waiting-room burst open and Scriddle hurried in, attended by his usual gaggle of imps who were wittering reports and requests at him in a seemingly incomprehensible frenzy. As before, he fired commands at each of them in turn, and then waved them away when he reached the humans. He grinned a sharp-toothed grin, slicked his hair back afresh and then held out his hand.
“I believe you have something for the Lord Aelthar?” he said to Poison.
She looked down at the dagger in her grip. “Where is he?” she asked.
Scriddle’s grin became strained at the edges. “Preparing for an extremely important conference,” he replied.
“Well, tell him I want my sister back before he gets this,” she said.
“Human, you don’t seem to understand,” Scriddle said through gritted teeth. “I have three Lords just arrived in the palace, representing three Realms, each with their own retinue, their own likes and dislikes and their own personal needs, and the person responsible for coordinating everything to everybody’s taste is me. That makes me very busy!”
“In that case, I’d hate to hurry you,” Poison replied, asserting herself admirably. “Do tell Aelthar that we’ll wait until he’s ready, and then we can talk about trading this dagger for my sister.”
Scriddle tutted. “Ridiculous girl. You humans really do have bloated egos. This is the Phaerie Realm, the land of my master. You have no leverage to bargain with.”
He held up his hand, and in it was the forked dagger. Poison’s hand closed on empty air, and she looked down in puzzlement to see that the dagger had disappeared from her grip.
Scriddle turned on his heel and stalked out. “You will wait here until my Lord decides how to deal with you,” he said over his shoulder. And with that he shut the door and a key turned in the lock.
“Well,” said Peppercorn in the silence that followed. “That was rude.”
“‘Deal with us’?” Bram quoted. “I don’t much like the sound of that. Doesn’t sound like someone interested in a fair swap.”
“No,” said Poison. “No, it doesn’t.” She looked around the room. “In fact, I’m beginning to think it would be better if we weren’t here when Scriddle gets back.”
“Are you sure?” asked Peppercorn. “What if he really does mean to give you your sister?”
“He’d better, after what I’ve been through,” said Poison. “But I’d feel better if we weren’t locked in here. I think we should go and find him. I’m not going to let him think we can be pushed around. He owes me.”
Bram and Peppercorn’s misgivings were plain in the glance they exchanged behind Poison’s back, but both knew her better than to talk her out of it.
Poison tried the door, more out of lack of any other inspiration than in the hope it would actually open. After that, she looked around the room. Despite the opulence of their surroundings, it was surprisingly secure. The only other way out was an arched window that looked out over the Realm, where Peppercorn was already peering out. Poison knew what Peppercorn would say before she said it.
“It’s a long way down,” she commented. Poison sagged. “But there’s a ledge.”
“A ledge?” Poison asked, hurrying over to look. Her hopes were soon dashed, however. What Peppercorn had called a ledge was little more than a few inches wide, an ornamental frill that ran around the tower and out of sight. Poison looked out over the achingly beautiful lakeland and tried to think.
“Won’t there be other windows further round the building?” Peppercorn suggested.
Poison sighed patiently. Peppercorn had an uncanny talent for missing the point. “Probably,” she said. “But what does it matter if we can’t get to them?”
“We can’t,” Peppercorn said. “But Andersen can.”
All eyes turned to the cat. Having not been listening to the conversation, he suddenly found everybody looking at him expectantly. Feeling hunted, he backed off a few paces towards the corner, uncomfortable at the sudden attention.
“Can you?” Poison asked. “Climb along this ledge?” She had become quite used to talking to Andersen as if he were another person, rather than an animal.
Andersen reassembled his dignity and made a great show of idly licking his paw and drawing it across his furry skull, cleaning himself. Poison gave Peppercorn a look; Peppercorn shrugged as if to say: that’s just how he is. Eventually, when Andersen had determined that they had waited long enough, he slid up to the window and jumped up on to the sill. He looked out at the ledge, then back at Poison. It was hard to imagine how a cat could express disbelief, but nevertheless that was the impression Poison got, as strongly as if Andersen had opened his mouth and said: you expect me to climb along that?
“Well, if you can’t do it, we’ll have to find some other way,” Poison said.
Andersen looked affronted. Reverse psychology appeared to be particularly effective on a creature as proud as a cat. He daintily put one paw down on to the ledge, then after a moment he follo
wed with the rest of his body in a graceful cross between a hop and a lunge. Poison could have sworn she saw him shake his head – I can’t believe I’m doing this – before he set off along the ledge at what seemed a recklessly fast trot. Peppercorn chewed her lip anxiously until he was out of sight.
“Oh, I hope he’ll be all right,” she said.
Poison tried to think of something genuine and comforting to say, but being nice was not her strong point. She and Peppercorn were complete opposites; where Peppercorn was helpless and sweet and painfully naïve, Poison was hard-edged and suspicious and capable. Yet she felt an almost sisterly protectiveness towards the blonde girl. It pained her to think how she had almost left her behind in Maeb’s house. Poison felt responsible for her now, having been the one who dragged her from the darkness of the Bone Witch’s domain out into the light; Peppercorn needed looking after, and she found that it was an oddly pleasing role.
But it was not only that. Poison envied Peppercorn’s sunny disposition, her innocence. Poison had grown up in the deadly gloom of the Black Marshes, but Peppercorn must have had an equally unpleasant childhood; yet they could not have turned out more different. Poison wished sometimes that she could be like Peppercorn, and not be weighed down by the cares of the world. But it was fancy, and she knew it. Cynicism was a one-way path, and once taken the way back was lost for ever.
They waited. Time passed. Poison, unable to be patient when imprisoned like this, applied herself to searching for alternative ways to escape in case Andersen should fail in getting them out. It was only after he had gone that she began to doubt that Andersen could do anything, even if he was free. Who could help them? And what could a cat do?
She was still racking her brains when she heard a scratching on the other side of the door.
“Andersen!” Peppercorn cried, racing over. The others crowded round. A moment later, the scratching stopped, and something rattled.
“What was that?” Peppercorn asked.
“The key,” Bram said. “It’s still in the other side of the lock.”
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