The Magician's Land (The Magicians, #3)(84)

I could have turned back, but I knew that if I did I would never have a brother again. I also knew that what was happening to him would happen to me too. I would have two more years, three at the most. I didn’t want the game to be over yet. I’ll follow behind Martin at a safe distance, I thought, and watch what he does. Maybe he’s found a way out of the maze.

I stood up, fighting vertigo. Martin was waiting for me in front of the great door to the castle. He was sopping wet and smiling, though a little sadly I thought. I picked my way toward him, avoiding the puddles.

“This is it,” he said. “Just like they said in the books, but it’s different when you really see it.”

“Like who said? Martin, what is this?”

“What does it look like?” he said grandly. “Welcome to Castle Blackspire.”

“Blackspire.”

Of course it was. It was just the same as Whitespire, stone for stone, but the stones were black, and the windows were empty and dark. It was Whitespire upside-down and backward and in the middle of the night, the way it must look when we were all asleep and dreaming. Martin pulled his sopping sweater off over his head and dropped it with a smack on the smooth stone.

“But who lives here?”

“I’m not sure. At first I thought it might be backward versions of us. You know—Nitram, Trepur, that sort of thing. What’s Fiona backward? I can’t do it in my head. And we’d have to fight our opposite numbers to the death. But I’m starting to think it’s not like that at all.”

“Well and thank God for that. What is it like?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s find out!”

He heaved on one of the big doors and it opened silently on oiled hinges. The great hall inside was lit by torchlight. Pale silent footmen in black livery stood against the walls.

“Right.” Martin seemed not at all disconcerted. I think he was past fear by then. He raised his voice—he was full of a kind of hopeless bravado. “Is your master at home?”

The footmen inclined their heads, silent as chess pieces.

“Good. Tell him the High King has arrived, and his brother. We’ll wait for him in his throne room. And light some damn fires, it’s cold in here.”

Two of them withdrew, backward, showing proper deference. Or maybe everybody walked backward at Castle Blackspire.

We were far off the track here, off the script and improvising. Everything we’d done till now in Fillory was like a game, dress-up, good fun and then laughing all the way back to the nursery. But Martin was entering into a darker kind of play. This was a double game: he was trying to save his childhood, to preserve it and trap it in amber, but to do that he was calling on things that partook of the world beyond childhood, whose touch would leave him even less innocent than he already was. What would that make him? Neither a child nor an adult, neither innocent nor wise. Perhaps that is what a monster is.

I didn’t want to follow him. I wanted to stay behind and be a child for a little while longer. But I couldn’t stand to lose him either.

He led me deeper into the castle—we both knew the way. I dragged my feet, but he strode along like he was on his way to his own birthday party. He was going to make an end of it, one way or another, and he couldn’t wait. He was so relieved he was practically glowing.

“I don’t like this, Mart. I want to go back.”

“Go then,” he said. “But there’s no going back for me. This is my last stand. I’m breaking the rules, Rupe. Either I’ll break them or they’ll break me. I don’t care anymore, not since Ember and Umber decided to punish me for nothing at all.”

“What rules?” I was on the point of tears. “I don’t understand!”

He steered us into a dressing room off to one side of the throne room, a chamber where up in Castle Whitespire, up in the world of light and air, foreign dignitaries visiting Fillory would await our pleasure. There was a fire here, and I was grateful for the warmth. There were dry clothes too, in Blackspire colors, and Martin began stripping off. I kept my wet clothes on.

“I’ll tell you how I came to it,” he said. “I was thinking, isn’t it funny that we get to be kings and queens here? We’re children. We’re not even from here. There’s nothing special about us, not that I can see. But we must have something special, mustn’t we? Something you can’t get in Fillory?”

“I suppose.”

Fully naked, unembarrassed, he warmed his bare pale skin in front of the fire. He was happier than I’d seen him in months.

“What is it? I’m damned if I know. My humanity, I suppose. But whatever it is, it means nothing to me, so I’m going to see how much it’s worth to them. I’ve put it up for sale, on the open market, and now I’ve found a taker. We’re here to see how much I can get for it.”

“I don’t understand. You’re going to buy your way back into Fillory?”

“Oh, I’m not doing it like that. I’m not asking for favors. What I want is power, enough power that even Ember and Umber won’t be able to send me home.”

“But Ember and Umber are gods.”

“Then maybe I’ll be a bit of a god too.”

“But what if—?” I swallowed, simple child that I was. “If you sell part of yourself, what if you aren’t Martin anymore?”