One for the Morning Glory (20 page)

The faceless ones seemed to lose all heart and nerve, weapons dropping from their limp grasps, and the Duke slashed into them fiercely, carrying to the end of the aisle, slaughtering as he went, opening up a space so that Roderick could lunge in as well. In a moment, the three were the only living ones left in the library.

But the Duke's cut was deep and grievous, and even in the dim light it was clear that it was heart's-blood staining his triolet. He sat down, gasping, and spoke softly, "Now, at once, Cedric, you must know. The Prince lives, and so do the Lady Calliope and Sir John, outside the city. I do not know if Sir John will be able to convey them where you wished, but you can . . ."

Bloody coughing interrupted him. "Tell Amatus . . ." but whatever it was that he wanted to communicate to the Prince, at that moment Duke Wassant died.

Gently, Roderick lowered their fallen comrade to the floor, and slipped a wreath of garlic and roses that he had worn under his own triolet around the Duke's neck. "If it takes them any time at all to find him, he'll be spoiled for their use. My lord, do you believe him?"

Cedric spoke softly. "I do. And what I have just learned may be enough to take the Kingdom back, if we use it well. What will you do now?"

"Well, my lord, if there's not some good reason to stay with you . . . er, that is—"

Cedric nodded. "Of course, Roderick. You have a wife to look after, and you will want to look for her. Come with me through the passage, and then go your own way for a while. You will know when the time comes to fight again."

"And I will be glad to do so, sir. Er—if I don't find Gwyn—"

"Then I suggest you load a moneybag with a great number of rocks, and a few small, jingly coins, and hang that on your belt, and ride north along the Long River Road to where it forks. Take the fork to the right, away from the Great North Woods and Iron Lake, and continue for a day up into the mountains to where the road curves back toward the source of the river. And if you should by any chance meet with robbers, I suggest you mention that you are an old friend of Escree Jack."

Roderick repeated the directions, and then asked, "And my lord, what will you—"

"You might mention, if they seem about to torture you, that when last you saw me I was walking south, toward the Bitter River. There is now work to be done everywhere."

As they had been speaking to each other, Cedric had carefully slid back one bookcase, and now he waited a moment by the door this had revealed. "We cannot be sure what will be at the end of this passage, so we must go through it silently, and be prepared to fight without sound at the far end. Poor Wassant—besides himself we will miss his pongee."

The passage was dry, but cool and utterly dark. When at last Cedric cautiously opened the door, there was no one there; they were alone on the rocky hillside. Behind them, bright as full dawn, the city blazed, and the smoke of its burning reached like a great hand to blot out the stars and turn the moon as red as an infected wound.

"Remember," Cedric whispered to Roderick, though there was hardly a man alive who remembered more things more completely than Roderick.

Moments later, they had parted, Roderick heading back toward the city, and Cedric setting off to the south, until he was sure that Roderick would not see him double back and head north on the Long River Road. There was much to grieve for tonight, but if he did not reach the Prince with what he knew, there would be more.

It seemed strange that the fate of the Kingdom should come down to one old man with too many memories and slightly sore feet. But at least the Kingdom still had a fate, or a possibility of a fate, and at least there was one person still bearing it. He kept his pace moderate and cautious, but he kept it up, and dawn found him many furuncles to the north, along the banks of the Long River.

When the monster's head reared up from the underground, Amatus felt the story moving away from him, and his heart sank inside him for he knew that this must presage some great shift in the tale, and likely someone dear to him was to die. Nevertheless he pulled his omnibus to his shoulder and took aim at one of the monstrous eyes.

But just as his thumb turned to cock the chutney, Psyche shoved the barrel up into the air, and shouted, "Don't!"

Amatus lowered the omnibus for just an instant, and saw Sylvia running straight for the monster. He shouted at her to come back, but she paid no heed. He sighted the omnibus again, but the Twisted Man beside him said, "Psyche is right. Sylvia has come back into our tale for a reason. Since she told you not to, do not, Highness."

It was a strikingly mild thing for the Twisted Man to say, and that was why Amatus lowered his omnibus for the second time, inwardly groaning with the hope that all this would eventually make some sense. Sylvia ran on, through the scattering and screaming crowd, to the very point where the stones of the crumbling walls were rattling on the pavement, and shouted something up at the creature.

With a gesture that looked like a bird who was not sure whether to eat an object or not—and like a cat who had just discovered its tail to be inexplicably wet—the beast sat back on its enormous haunches and stared at Sylvia. Then it gave a whimper that all but deafened them, and then—eagerly, happily, it bobbed its head from side to side, climbed farther from its hole, and arced its neck downward so that Sylvia could scratch its enormous nose.

"It's the Riddling Beast!" Calliope exclaimed.

Not knowing anything of the riddling beast life cycle, it was hard to say that it had grown remarkably in the last ten years, but it had most definitely grown. Sylvia beckoned and it followed her into the square, as joyfully as a lost puppy finding its owner.

As it came all the way up, they all gasped in wonder, for it had tremendous wings; a house might have sat on either of them with room for a modest garden in back and perhaps a fountain in front. Now that it drew closer, it seemed to recognize all of them, and it shivered all over.

"It's like a big dog," Sir John said, awe in his voice.

"I beg your pardon," the Riddling Beast said. "Would you care to be described as 'like a big monkey'?"

The Twisted Man shouted and they turned to see a mob of goblins rushing them. Pismires banged and escrees slashed, destroying the few in the lead—

And suddenly the night was pitch dark; an instant later it was moonlit again, and the Riddling Beast, who had flown just over their heads, had landed among the goblins, crushing dozens on impact, squeezing more between its powerful claws, and sweeping with its head to gobble down many of them whole and alive before biting the last one in half. The rest fled screaming.

"We were the first ever to speak kindly to him," Sylvia said, "and to scratch his nose, and when Mortis reversed his spell he got to eat goblin, which he likes much better than human. So he likes us, and when the spells were broken, down below, by Waldo's warlocks, he came up here to find us."

The beast had mopped up the remaining goblins, not so much in the way a mop does water or soldiers do opposition as in the way that a hungry man does gravy, and as he turned to them he was still chewing, faint shrieks and groans emerging from between his champing teeth.

"Well, we surely have use for him," Amatus observed, "but I think we had best fall back to the castle before—"

"Highness, even with this beast on our side, the city is lost," the Twisted Man said.

"This is despair!" the Prince said, turning to him, his hand moving as if he might strike his guardian down.

"This is truth." The Twisted Man flung his words with the same abandon with which he might fire bullets into a mob of goblins. "You may look in any direction and see many hundreds more burning corpses raining down. You can hear the groan and thunder as the earth yawns open over and over again to vomit up more goblins. There is no—"

And he groaned and pointed to the moon. A dark cloud with many holes seemed to move across it—

Calliope swore, under her breath. "Vampires! A great flock of them!"

Psyche spoke to Amatus gently. "My dear one, were you only yourself, you might choose to stand and die anywhere, and none would argue with you about it. But you are a prince and you matter, and if you die then there is no restoration of the Kingdom, and if there is no restoration then no one's death will mean anything. This is a debt which you owe to us all."

"What do you propose?" the Prince said, and his eyes flashed with dark anger. "I shall stay and fight, with my father and the others," he added, for he had no way of knowing that Boniface was already dead, his pyre already blazing.

Sylvia softly said, "We might all ride on the beast's back to somewhere far away. And a fight may be started again while you live; if you do not, it cannot."

Then the Prince stepped back and looked from one of his Companions to the other, and said, "I no longer know whether you are here to help me, or to harm me, or whether perhaps you are just here. I have a duty, and I know it well enough."

The light from the flare of a collapsing, burning building flashed on his face, and his mouth was set in cold determination. "I owe the Kingdom my life. I do not owe it my honor. Brave men are dying everywhere and the city falls while we stand and argue. I cannot—"

And at that moment he felt his outspread hand, with which he had been pleading for their understanding, seized and snapped behind his back. He turned to see Sir John Slitgizzard holding his single wrist with two of his, and then, deftly, the Twisted Man tied Amatus's hand together behind his back.

"Can he escape?" Sir John asked, as they struggled.

"Had he two hands, he might," the Twisted Man said, "but since he has only one, it is tied twice as much together."

Amatus fought as well as he could, but there were four hands to his one, and in very little time he found himself being thrown onto the back of the Riddling Beast—who had sat watching the whole thing with a sort of amused detachment. There was room enough up there for everyone, and for twenty more besides, and the rest climbed on around him while Amatus continued to kick and struggle.

"Can you move him somewhere where he doesn't thump right on my spine?" the Riddling Beast asked. Calliope and Psyche dragged Amatus to the side. He had tried shouting, but the fur of the beast was long and thick and all he could succeed in doing was getting that into his mouth. He managed to roll himself over and sit up, but found he could not stand with his hand tied behind him.

Sir John and Sylvia were up by the beast's neck, talking to him, and Sir John was saying something about the Lake of Winter; the Twisted Man was sitting grim and silent beside Amatus, and Psyche and Calliope were tying saddlebags and weapons onto the beast's fur. A band of goblins burst into the square, and the Twisted Man jumped down to dispatch them—or rather, since he had the time, to wound them all mortally so that they could lie about screaming to amuse him.

The beast, still listening to Sir John Slitgizzard, nodded twice, and its rumbling voice said, "That sounds best to me. We will go there at once. I'm sure I've room enough to get into the air from here."

Amatus looked around him, knowing he might be seeing the city for the last time. The Twisted Man was right; there was no way of getting free of his bonds. All around him he could see the rain of balls of corpses, and though there were still many cries of pain and horror, the battle yells, the shots, the clash of steel were beginning to fade—and this could only mean that resistance was slackening. Flame and dark smoke twisted up in broad braids from all over the city.

The fight had gone out of him, at least for the time being. He realized that they needed him if they were to carry the fight on . . . and yet . . . and yet . . . countless friends were doubtless dying or suffering out there.

Cavalry galloped at full speed into the square, Duke Wassant at its head. There was a moment in which the horses reared, and then Wassant saw Sir John and the others; Sir John and the Duke waved in salute, and then the troopers galloped on through and continued on their way.

Amatus wept, for in that wave he understood all of Cedric's plan, and knew that he had seen the Duke for the last time—and with his hand tied together he could not wave good-bye.

A moment later the Twisted Man had scrambled back aboard, and seated himself next to the Prince. "If it will ease you, Highness, you owe this to the Duke; his sacrifice will mean nothing if you do not flee."

"You may untie me," Amatus said, "I give my word I will go with you. As you say, it is owed."

The bonds were undone in an instant. By now the crash of falling buildings was everywhere. The goblins had been thorough; many houses were undermined with tunnels whose timbers were now ablaze. Though it had been a cool spring night, it was now as hot as summer day, and the smoke was growing thick and foul.

"We must go now," Sir John said, and with a nod the beast raced forward and leapt into the air. One instant it felt like being a mouse in a box on the back of a galloping horse; the next, as if the whole great hairy back had shoved up against them and batted them into the air.

The great currents of hot, rising air, which poured upward from every quarter of the city, caught the Riddling Beast's wings, and he rose on them, climbing high above the burning city. Below, they could see the great fires and the fallen-in places, and the citizens being herded together and driven like cattle out onto the plain, captives to whatever might be Waldo's whim.

The city was dying—these were just its last thrashings—and whatever might grow there again, the old city of Wend Street, of the Hektarian and Vulgarian quarters, the city in which Amatus had grown up, was gone now forever. He thought that he ought to weep, but did not; instead, he felt cold steel in his voice as he said, "This will be paid for."

Sir John, Sylvia, and Calliope sat straighter and seemed to take heart. The Twisted Man nodded, once, very deeply, almost a bow. Psyche stretched out on the beast's broad back as if to go to sleep, though she kept a light grip on its fur.

The beast made a great, wide turn, having gained all the height it could from the hot air over the city, and swept north. The encampments of Waldo's army fell away beneath them, and then the blazing cottages and fields in the nearer villages, and finally a couple of burning castles on nearby hills. Then the countryside below began to look quiet and untouched, but it grew wilder and wilder, and fewer and fewer little roads joined the Long River Road.

The night rolled on under the broad wings of the beast, and every so often he would chat with them about what was below. He said that he was not yet tired, but he was not sure he would be able to ascend into the northern mountains while carrying them. "I'll take you as far as I can, but, you know, even though there's a great deal of it, I am only flesh and I do feel your weight. The great question for me is, after I set you down, what's to become of me? I'm sure you won't take offense if I mention that I really don't want anyone going on a quest to slay me . . ."

"Of course no one will! What a horrible idea!" Calliope said, indignantly.

"Nobles are great idiots for hunting," Sylvia said, "but I don't know that they are such great idiots as that."

"Somebody of Waldo's might," Sir John pointed out. "It would, of course, give us all great pleasure to see such people eaten for their pains. But I'm afraid our friend is right. People have a way of either forgetting or of becoming too familiar; somewhere is needed for the beast to go where three or four generations hence—while he will still be a young beast—some local village youths won't go trying for heroics, nor will he be constantly asked to come down and push the swings for the county fair."

"Exactly," the beast said. "There's also the matter of food supply. I trust it will not offend for me to mention that human smells and tastes dreadful; goblin, on the other hand, has a pleasant, rich, chewy quality—"

"There are goblins everywhere, if you know where to look for them and have a good nose," the Twisted Man said. "They are abundant in the mountains north of Iron Lake—after you drop us off, just fly half a day or so to the west."

"Splendid," the Riddling Beast said. "And perhaps, once these irregularities are taken care of, and the King is back on his throne, some system of friendly questing—something that caused favorable but reasonably fearsome tales to be borne back to the city—might be instituted?"

"Of course," Amatus said. "We will send forth our brighter young courtiers to ask your advice about—oh, whatever odd things come to hand, as long as they aren't riddles."

"That would be marvelous," the beast said. "And it can be riddles as long as I don't have to ask them. One of the deep frustrations of my former position was that I am much better at riddles than most of the people who came to me were. It seemed silly for me to always be asking and them to always be guessing."

"Done, then," Amatus said, "The quest for the answer from the Riddling Beast shall be the highest honor in the Kingdom, going only to our most magnificent young courtiers,"

"I don't much care about magnificence, but do try to send bright ones," the beast said, "If I am only to have one conversation or so per year, it would be dreadful to draw a dullard."

"Absolutely," Amatus assured him. "But are those the Northern Mountains looming on the horizon?"

"They are indeed, and just in time," Sir John said. "The sun will be up soon, and whatever we may feel, we must all have rest, and I should prefer, given that we will be pursued by the undead and by goblins, to sleep outside in the bright sun."

Now the rest of the journey was almost too swift, for the sun rose as they descended, leaving the Great North Woods behind to their left and moving in among the mountains north of them whence the Long River flowed. The mountain peaks burned a brilliant white against the sky, the slopes below rolling from pale greens to almost blue-black, and they found themselves in the middle of the sky in as fine a dawn as ever happened in the mountains that towered around them. The beast flew straight on into the rising valley, looking for the highest point along the Long River at which he might set them down safely, for it was still a long journey to the Lake of Winter, where Sir John had been told to guide the Prince.