Fearless (5 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHANUTE

A
long the road to Schwanstein, the workers were already crowding the gates of the weaving mill. Sirens were calling the morning shift to work, and as their wailing battled with the sound of church bells in the early morning, Jacob could barely calm the old horse Alma had lent him. The mare pricked her ears as though the Dragons had returned, but she was hearing only the modern times. The howling of sirens. The ticking of clocks. Machines wanted to run, and they ran fast.

Many of the men shivering in front of the gate looked up at Jacob as he rode past. The treasure hunter who always had some gold in his pocket, who came and went and did as he pleased, and who knew neither the toil nor the tedium that galled their lives. On any other day he would have understood the envy on their tired faces, yet on this morning Jacob would have gladly swapped with any one of them, even if that meant fourteen hours of hard labour for two copper coins an hour. Any life was better than death, wasn’t it?

It was a ridiculously beautiful morning. The flushing trees, the fresh green . . . even the old mare’s hide seemed to smell of spring. Pity. Dying in winter might have been a little less hard, but Jacob doubted he had that much time left.

A boy was sleeping by the side of the road, his bundle clutched to his chest so that the Thumblings didn’t steal what little he owned. Jacob had not been much older when he first came to Schwanstein, but thanks to Alma he’d at least been better nourished.

The pointy gables had looked like one of the illustrations in his grandparents’ yellowed fairy-tale books, and the coal soot in the air had smelled so much more exciting than the exhaust fumes in the other world. Everything had smelled of adventure: the leather harnesses on the carriages, even the horse manure on the grimy cobblestones and the butcher’s scraps that were being picked over by some hungry Heinzel. A few months later he’d met Albert Chanute, and he’d lost his heart for good to the world behind the mirror.

The windows of The Ogre were still shuttered. Jacob tied Alma’s horse in front of the tavern’s door. Only the windows to his own room were open, just as he’d left them. Fox sometimes slept there when he was gone. He’d spent the whole journey lining up the words he wanted to say to her. But there was no version that made the truth sound any better.

Chanute’s new cook was behind the counter, washing the previous night’s dirty glasses. Chanute had hired the former soldier after too many tavern guests had complained about the food the owner cooked himself. Tobias Wenzel had lost his left leg in one of the battles with the Goyl, and he drank too much, but he was a very good cook.

‘He’s upstairs,’ he said as Jacob approached the bar. ‘Careful, though. He’s got a toothache, and the Goyl just raised the taxes.’

The Goyl had been ruling Austry for half a year, and nobody in Schwanstein suspected that the Reckless brothers had not been entirely blameless in this. Not that it would have interested anyone much, anyway. The men were back from the war (those who had survived it), and the Goyl were building new factories and roads, which was good for trade. Even the mayor was still the same. There were bombings and organised resistance in the capital, but most of the country had learnt to live with the new masters. And the Empress’s throne now belonged to her daughter, who was pregnant by her stone-skinned husband.

Chanute barked a grouchy ‘What?’ when Jacob knocked on his door. His chamber was crammed with even more memorabilia than The Ogre’s taproom.

‘Well, I never!’ he growled. His hand was pressed to a swollen cheek. ‘This time I really thought you wouldn’t come back.’ A toothache. Not something you wanted to have on this side of the mirror. Jacob had once had an infected tooth extracted in Vena. Fighting an Ogre took less courage.

‘And?’ Chanute scrutinised him through squinting eyes. ‘Did you find the bottle?’

‘Yes.’

‘See? I told you it wouldn’t be a problem.’ Chanute wiped a quill on his wooden hand and stared at the paper in front of him. He’d been writing his memoirs ever since some drunk patron had told him he could make a fortune from them.

‘Yes, I found it.’ Jacob went to the window. ‘But the blood didn’t help.’

Chanute put down his quill. He tried very hard not to look concerned, but he’d never been a good actor. ‘Damn,’ he muttered. ‘Never mind, though. You’ll think of something else. What about the apple? The one in that sultan’s cursed garden? You know the one!’

Jacob already had the answer on his tongue, but the old man looked worried, so he quickly swallowed the truth. Chanute probably would have ridden off himself to find a cure. Chanute had grown old. He wore his prosthetic arm less often now because it caused him too much pain. And his hearing had grown so weak that twice already he’d nearly run into a carriage in the market square. No. Jacob still felt those calloused hands on his skin from all the beatings the old man had given him, but he owed everything he’d achieved in this world to Albert Chanute and to what the old treasure hunter had taught him. He owed him a lie.

‘Sure,’ Jacob said. ‘The apple. How could I forget?’

Chanute’s ugly face stretched into a relieved smile. ‘There you go. You’ll sort it out. And there’s also always that well.’

Jacob turned his back to him. He couldn’t let Chanute see the truth on his face.

‘Damn! I wish that Ogre had chewed off my head instead of my arm.’ Chanute held his hand to his cheek again. ‘You don’t have any moor-root on you?’ Eating moor-root numbed any pain, but it also made you feel for days as if you were being swarmed by will-o’-the-wisps. Jacob pulled the tin that contained his first-aid kit from his rucksack: moor-root, fever-haulm, a wound-dressing salve Alma had concocted for him, iodine, aspirin, and some antibiotics from the other world. Jacob fished out one of the roots and offered it to Chanute. The roots looked like shrivelled grubs, and they tasted hideous.

‘Where is Fox? Is she here?’

She’d been sensing for a while that something was wrong. But as long as there’d been hope, he’d found it easy to convince himself that it was best for her not to know the truth. He couldn’t wait to see her.

Chanute shook his head as he put the root into his mouth. ‘She’s been gone for weeks. The Dwarf wanted to hire you to get him a Man-Swan feather, and since you weren’t around, Fox offered to get it for him. Don’t look at me like that! She’s more careful than you, and smarter than the two of us together. She got the feather, but the swan got her on the arm. Nothing to worry about. She staying at the Dwarf’s until it’s fully healed. He bought himself some ramshackle castle with all the gold your tree’s giving him. Fox left you the address.’

He lifted the Ogre’s jaw, which he used as a paperweight, and held out an envelope to Jacob. The crest on it was embossed in real gold. The tree that Jacob had paid to buy a way into the Goyl fortress had made Evenaugh Valiant a very rich Dwarf.

‘Take her this if you’re going to see her.’ Chanute pushed a package towards him. It was wrapped in silk. ‘Tell Fox it’s from Ludovik Rensman. His father has the law offices behind the church. Ludovik is a good catch. You should have seen his face when I told him she was gone.’ He rolled his eyes. The last woman Chanute had been involved with was a rich widow from Schwanstein, but she hadn’t been able to tolerate the wolf heads he’d hung in her parlour.

‘Ahhh!’ Relieved, Chanute dropped on his bed. ‘It tastes worse than a Witch’s backside, but you can always count on moor-root!’ He still slept on the same old tattered blanket he’d always snored on in the wilderness. Maybe it made him dream of his old adventures.

Gold leaf stuck to Jacob’s fingers as he opened the envelope with Fox’s letter. Her handwriting was much better than his, even though he had taught her to write in the first place. The letter contained nothing more than a brief greeting and directions.

He’d been gone a long time.

‘Gallberg,’ he muttered. ‘That’s more than ten days’ ride from here. What does the Dwarf want with a castle in those godforsaken mountains?’

‘How would I know?’ Chanute’s eyes were already glazing over. ‘Maybe he’s trying to commune with Mother Nature? You know how sentimental those Dwarfs get with old age.’

Maybe, but that was definitely not true for Evenaugh Valiant. The Dwarf must have discovered a ream of silver beneath the castle. Jacob tucked Fox’s letter into his backpack. A Man-Swan feather . . . a dangerous assignment. But Chanute was right: Fox already knew just about as much about treasure hunting as he did.

‘Why aren’t you getting drunk?’ Chanute began to babble as his hand swatted at imaginary will-o’-the-wisps. ‘That apple isn’t going nowhere.’ He giggled like a child at his own joke. ‘And if that doesn’t help, you can still work your way through my list.’

Chanute’s list. It hung in the taproom, under his old jagged sabre: the list of those magical objects he’d sought and never found. Jacob knew it by heart, and there was nothing on it that would save him.

‘Sure,’ he said. He put another moor-root next to Chanute’s pillow. ‘Now sleep.’

Ten days. The damned Dwarf. Jacob could only hope Alma was right and he had a little time left. If death managed catch up with him before he saw Fox, he couldn’t even wring Valiant’s short neck for it.

CHAPTER NINE

GODFORSAKEN MOUNTAINS

T
en days’ ride. After studying the route on Chanute’s grimy map, Jacob decided to take the train. Valiant’s castle was so inaccessible that any horse would have broken its legs on the way up there, but luckily the Dwarfs had spent the past years blasting tunnels with such abandon that there was actually a railway station nearby.

The train took four days and nights. A long journey with death as your luggage. Every tunnel made breathing harder, as though someone was already shovelling dirt on to his chest. He tried to distract himself with the memoirs of a treasure hunter who’d scoured Varangia for firebirds and emerald nuts for his prince. Yet while Jacob’s eyes were trying to hold on to the printed letters, his mind saw other images: the blood on his shirt after the Goyl shot through his heart; Valiant standing by a freshly dug grave; and, over and over again, the Red Fairy whispering the name of her sister. Four days . . .

A cable car took him from the sleepy railway station where he’d stepped off the train up to the rocky peak on which Valiant’s castle stood. Its high walls rose from the deep snow, and Jacob only cursed the Dwarf even more after having to pay a farmer one gold coin for the use of his snappish donkey.

The castle didn’t make a very impressive sight. The left tower was collapsed, and the others were also nearly shot to pieces, yet when Valiant greeted Jacob by the decayed gates, the Dwarf wore as proud a grin as if he’d acquired the Empress’s palace itself.

‘Not bad, is it?’ Valiant called out towards Jacob while a grouchy Dwarf servant took his bag. ‘I’m the lord of my castle! Yes, I know, the renovations are stagnating a little,’ he added as Jacob eyes went over the hole-riddled towers. ‘Not easy getting materials up here. And also’ – he shot a quick glance at the servant and lowered his voice – ‘the tree is giving me some trouble. It’s taken to shedding nothing but slimy pollen.’

‘Really?’ Jacob had to try hard not to show his pleasure. He’d never had much luck with the tree himself.

Valiant stroked the moustache he’d been growing. It sat on his upper lip like a caterpillar, but a Dwarf with any more beard than that would have been considered hopelessly old-fashioned. ‘And how are you? Hunting for something?’ He leered at Jacob. ‘You’re looking pale.’

Great.
Pull yourself together, Jacob.
The last thing he needed was the Dwarf guessing how bad things stood with him.

‘No. Feeling fine,’ Jacob answered. ‘I was looking for something, but I didn’t find it.’ The best lie was always the one closest to the truth.

The servant who opened the castle door for them was a human. No Dwarf could have reached the handle, and of course nothing showed off Valiant’s wealth better than a human servant. While the man took Jacob’s snow-encrusted coat, Valiant named the price of every piece of furniture in the draughty entrance hall. They were, without exception, made for humans. Dwarfs were prone to ignoring their own size. But Jacob had no time for Mauretanian vases or tapestries depicting the enthronement of the last Dwarf King.

‘She’s upstairs,’ Valiant said as he finally noticed Jacob’s impatience. ‘I had a doctor look at her yesterday, even though she would have none of it. You two spend too much time together. She’s already just as bull-headed as you. Mind you, she did bring me a gorgeous feather. You couldn’t have got me a better one yourself.’

Valiant had put up Fox in the best-preserved tower of his castle. She was asleep when Jacob entered her room – on a bed that would have been big for a Dwarf but that was barely long enough for her. She’d been lucky. The swan had only given her a flesh wound. Jacob picked up a bloody shirt from the floor next to the bed. It had once been his. Fox had learnt from Clara that men’s clothes could be much more practical.