The Book of Lost Things(72)
A figure glided over his head, the hem of its gown brushing against his hair, and the woman appeared before him. Her bare feet were not touching the ground. She hung in the air, red and black, blood and night. She was no longer smiling. She opened her lips, exposing her fangs, and suddenly her mouth looked larger than before, with row upon row of sharp teeth like the inside of a shark’s jaws.
Her hands reached for David. “I will have my kisss,” she said, as her nails sank into his shoulders and her head moved toward David’s lips.
David reached into the pocket of his jacket. His right hand sliced through the air, and the claw of the Beast tore a jagged red line across the woman’s face. The wound gaped, but no blood flowed from it, for she had no blood in her veins. She shrieked and pressed her hand to the wound as David struck again, slashing from left to right and blinding her instantly. The woman attacked him with her fingernails, catching his hand and sending the Beast’s claw flying from it. David ran for the doorway to the chamber, with no thought now but to get back to the pitch-black hallway and find his way to the stairs. But the creepers twisted and turned, blocking the way out and trapping him in the room with Not-Rose.
She still hung in the air, her hands now outstretched from her sides, her eyes and face ruined. David moved away from the entrance, trying to get to the fallen sword again. The woman’s sightless eyes followed him.
“I can sssssmell you,” she said. “You will pay for what you have done to me.”
She flew toward David, her teeth snapping and her fingers clutching at the air. David darted to his right, then back to his left, in the hope that he could fool her and reach the sword, but she was too clever for him and cut him off. She moved back and forth before him, so quickly that she was little more than a blur in the air, always advancing, sealing off any avenue of escape and forcing him back against the thorns until at last she was only a few feet away from him. David felt sharp pains at his neck and back. He was standing against the tips of the thorns, long and sharp as spears. There was nowhere left for him to go. The woman’s hand snatched at the air, missing his face by an inch.
“Now,” she hissed, “you are mine. I will love you, and you will die loving me in return.”
Her spine stretched, and her mouth opened so wide that her skull split almost in half, the rows of teeth braced to tear David’s throat open. She shot forward, and David threw himself to the floor, waiting until she was almost upon him before he moved. Her dress covered his face, so that he heard but did not see what happened next. There was a sound like a rotten fruit being punctured, and a foot kicked once at his head, but only once.
David rolled out from beneath the folds of red velvet. The thorns had pierced the woman through the heart and the side. Her right hand too had been impaled, but her left hand was free. It trembled against a creeper, the only part of her that moved. David could see her face. She no longer looked like Rose. Her hair had turned to silver, and her skin was old and wrinkled. A dank, musty smell came from the wounds in her body. Her lower jaw hung loosely on her wrinkled chest. Her nostrils quivered as she smelled David, and she tried to speak. At first, her voice was so faint that he could not hear what she said. He leaned in closer, still wary of her even though he knew that she was dying. Her breath stank of putrefaction, but this time he understood her words.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and then her body sagged against the thorns and crumbled to dust before his eyes.
And as she disappeared, the creepers began to wither and die, and the remains of the dead knights fell clattering to the ground. David ran to where Roland lay. His body had been almost drained of blood. David felt like crying for him, but no tears would come. Instead he dragged Roland’s remains up the steps to the stone bed and, with some effort, laid him to rest upon it. He did the same for Raphael, placing his body by Roland’s side. He put their swords upon their chests and folded their hands across the hilts, the way he had seen dead knights laid out in his books. He retrieved his own sword and placed it in its scabbard, then took one of the lamps from its stand and used it to find his way back to the stairs of the tower. The long corridor with its many rooms was now no more, and only dusty stones and crumbling walls remained in its place. When he got outside, he saw that here too, the creepers and thorns had withered away, and all that was left was an old fortress, ruined and decayed. Beyond its gates, Scylla stood waiting for him by the ashes of the fire. She neighed with joy as she saw him approach. David put his hand upon her brow and whispered in her ear, so that she might know what fate had befallen her beloved master. Then, finally, he climbed into the saddle and turned her toward the forest and the road east.
All was quiet as they passed through the trees, for the things that dwelled within them heard David coming and were afraid. Even the Crooked Man, who had returned to his perch among the topmost branches, now looked at the boy in a new way, and tried to work out how he might best use this latest development to his advantage.
XXVI
Of Two Killings and Two Kings
DAVID AND SCYLLA followed the road to the east. David’s eyes stared straight ahead, but they noticed little of what was before them. Scylla’s head hung lower than it previously had, as though she too were mourning the passing of her master in her soft, dignified way. Snow sparkled in the eternal dusk, and icicles hung like frozen tears from the bushes and the trees.
Roland was dead. So too was David’s mother. He had been a fool to imagine otherwise. Now, as the horse plodded through this cold, dark world, David admitted to himself, perhaps for the first time, that he had always known his mother was gone. He had just wanted to believe otherwise. It was like the routines that he had employed while she was ill in the hope that they might keep her alive. They were false hopes, dreams without foundation, insubstantial as the voice he had followed to this place. He could not change the world that he had left, and this world, while taunting him with the possibility that things could be different, had ultimately frustrated him. It was time to go home. If the king could not help him, then he might yet be forced to strike a bargain with the Crooked Man. All he had to do was speak Georgie’s name aloud to him.