Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun(25)
The king’s beautiful wife, Olvido, had borne him a son and a daughter, but they weren’t allowed to play and laugh like other children. Their days were measured and ruled by the clocks the king had given them, ordering them, with their silver and gold dials, when to rise and eat and play and sleep.
One day the king’s favorite fool dared to joke that his master was only obsessed with timepieces because he was afraid of death and hoped that by measuring time he could keep it away.
The king was not a man who forgave easily. The next day his soldiers chained the fool to the cogwheels of his largest clock and the king watched without a hint of compassion as the wheels broke every bone in his former favorite’s body. As hard as they tried, the servants couldn’t wash all the blood from the cogwheels and the clock was henceforth called the Red Clock, people whispering that its ticking repeated the dead fool’s name.
The years went by. The prince and princess grew up and the king’s collection of clocks was envied all over the world. Then one day—it was approaching the tenth anniversary of the fool’s execution—a gift arrived at the palace from an unknown sender. In a box made of glass lay a beautiful pocket watch. Its silver coat case was open, showing the king’s initials engraved inside the lid and two lean silver dials moving from minute to minute, their ticking as subtle as the footsteps of a dragonfly.
When the king took the watch from the box, he found a carefully folded and sealed piece of paper underneath. He turned pale as he read the message, which was written in a firm and beautiful hand:
Your Majesty,
When this watch stops, you will die. It knows the exact hour, minute, and second, for I have locked your Death inside. Don’t try to break it. The end of your life will only arrive faster.
The Watchmaker
The king stared at the watch in his hand. He felt as if the dials were stabbing his heart with every second they measured. He couldn’t move. He could no longer eat or drink or go to sleep. His hair and beard turned gray in a matter of days, and all he could do was continue to stare at the watch.
The prince sent his father’s soldiers out to find the messenger who had delivered the deadly gift. They found him in a nearby village but the man didn’t know the watchmaker’s name. He swore he’d received the box at a deserted mill in the old forest but when he led them there, the king’s soldiers found only an abandoned workshop. The shelves and workbenches were empty except for a small silver figurine of a dancing fool. It was standing in a bowl of blood. The soldiers rushed back to the castle to report their findings. But they were too late. The king was dead, still sitting on his throne, the pocket watch clenched in his cold hand. The watch had stopped at exactly the same hour, minute, and second that the fool had died.
Only then did the prince remember that the fool had also had a son.
18
The Second Task
This time Ofelia did not wake from Fairy wings buzzing in the dark. For a moment the sound piercing her dreams made her wonder whether the forest had come into her room. But when she sat up, the Faun was standing at the foot of her bed, his limbs creaking like the branches of an old tree in the wind.
“You didn’t carry out the next task yet,” he growled.
He once again looked different. Stronger. Younger . . . reminding Ofelia of a very annoyed lion this time, with his catlike eyes, his perfectly rounded ears, and his long pale-yellow hair, which looked more and more like a mane. Lion, goat, man, he was all of it and none. He was . . . the Faun.
“I couldn’t!” Ofelia defended herself. “My mother is sick! Very sick!”
“That’s no excuse for negligence!” the Faun snarled, his hands writing his anger into the night. “Well . . . ,” he added after a pause. “I’ll forgive you for now. And I brought something that will help your mother.”
The pale lumpy root he held up was bigger than his fist and it looked to Ofelia as if it were spreading twisted arms and legs. Like a baby frozen in mid-birth scream.
“This is a mandrake root,” the Faun explained, handing the strange thing to Ofelia. “A plant that dreamt of being human. Put it under your mother’s bed in a fresh bowl of milk, and feed it each morning with two drops of blood.”
Ofelia disliked the scent of the root as much as its strangely human shape. It resembled a baby born with nothing but a mouth. And without hands and feet.
“Now! No more delays. No time to waste!” The Faun clapped his hands. “The full moon will be upon us. Ah yes.” He removed his wooden satchel. “I almost forgot! You’ll need my pets to guide you.”
Ofelia heard the Fairy chattering inside as he put the satchel on her blanket.
“Yes. You’re going to a very dangerous place.” The Faun lifted a warning finger, the lines on his forehead swirling like whirls in a bottomless river. “Far more dangerous than the last one. So be careful!”
For a moment he sounded sincerely worried about her.
“The thing that slumbers in that place—” He shook his horned head and frowned with disgust. “It is not human, although it may look like it. It’s very old and full of cunning and cruelty—and a great hunger.”
He plucked a big hourglass out of the air and dropped it on Ofelia’s bed.
“Here. You’ll need this, too. You’ll see a sumptuous banquet, but don’t eat or drink anything. Nothing!” This time both hands drew a warning sign into the night. “Absolutely nothing!”