Strangewood (23 page)

She knew it wasn't an attack. The EMTs had assured her of
that. The angle made it clear it was a fall, probably when he passed out. Passed
out from the overdose of barbiturates he had taken with a tumbler full of Wild
Turkey. This was something he had done to himself.

"Why?" she said, her voice a harsh whisper, and
she stared at the slack flesh of Thomas's face, at the total lack of awareness
there. Beneath his eyelids, there was no movement. No dreaming, at least. He
didn't deserve it.

Emily brought both hands up to cover her face, sighed
deeply, and forced herself to stop crying. She knew her anger toward him was
only a defense mechanism. The knowledge didn't do much to deflate her rage,
because the rage was the only thing keeping her together. She didn't want to
live with Thomas anymore, didn't want to be his wife. That didn't mean she was
prepared to have him gone from her life. Without taking her hands away, she
spoke to Thomas again, still in a whisper.

"I can't do this alone," she told him, and
herself. "I can't lose you both."

* * * * *

Strangewood was never silent. It was never supposed to be. There
was such life and color in the wood and in the creatures who lived there that
silence would be tantamount to death.

It was very silent in Strangewood.

The Peanut Butter General's eyes were narrowed to sticky,
spider-webbed slits and his nostrils flared. Each of his senses was taut,
sensitive to the slightest change in their surroundings. He pushed his way
through the trees, moving ever eastward, though there were no real paths in
this part of the forest.

Legendary for their screaming, the Orange Pealers moved
through the undergrowth and over exposed roots without uttering a single sound.
The only noise they made as they passed through the deep heart of Strangewood
was the gnashing of their teeth and the scrape of branches and leaves on the
citrus skin that covered their entire bodies.

Savages. Most of the denizens of Strangewood had thought of
the Pealers as nothing more than that. And the Peanut Butter General had shared
that opinion for a very long time. But when he had explained to the Orange
Pealers what was at stake, the tribe had pledged their lives to the General's
cause. Several of them had already paid that ultimate price.

Yet they marched at his side. For if the General failed,
they might well all be dead.

But the silence of the Orange Pealers, though amazing, was
not nearly as extraordinary as the silence of the small orange and green dragon
who sat on top of the Peanut Butter General's shoulder. The General had asked
Fiddlestick to come along mainly because if navigation were ever needed, the
little dragon's wings would become indispensible. It would take an emergency,
however, to get to that point, for when Fiddlestick flew, he made music. It was
impossible for them to know precisely what agents and monsters the Jackal
Lantern might have roaming about Strangewood searching for opposition. But the
melody of the dragon's wings would most surely draw unwanted attention.

So, for now, Fiddlestick sat on the General's shoulder, his
talons stuck in peanut butter. Despite the dragon's generally polite demeanor,
he'd complained about this fact no fewer than half a dozen times since their
journey had begun. The General had promised him that, when the time came for
him to fly, not an ounce of the sticky stuff would stay on the dragon's feet. Fiddlestick
did not seem comforted by these assurances.

The General was growing tired of giving them.

The General was, in point of fact, growing tired of a great
deal regarding this scenario. Though nothing mattered to him more than the
safety of the boy, sneaking about in the forest was not, in his opinion, the
proper way for a soldier to behave. A terrorist, perhaps, but not a soldier.

Still, he knew enough about soldiers in jungles to keep him
alert.

They traveled in silence for another mile or so, slow going
through the trees, and then the forest became less dense and there was more
room to move. No trodden path, but space enough that one could stride freely
beneath the canopy of branches that was woven together above them by nature or
fancy. The General had never been quite certain which of those two made the
laws in this place.

The dragon's wings fluttered slightly as he repositioned
himself on the General's shoulder, and for only a moment, it was as though
someone had run their fingers lightly along the strings of a harp. The General
grunted in frustration, but said nothing. Fiddlestick had been, upon
reflection, an excellent traveling companion. He kept silent when asked and was
far more intelligent than the General would ever have given him credit for.

The dragon's scales rested against the peanut butter, and
his tail lay along the General's back. The General felt it all. The imprint of
each scale, the gentle question mark left behind as Fiddlestick's tail moved to
take yet another shape. The talons in the peanut butter moved slightly, though
this time the dragon controlled his wings.

Something was amiss.

"You are troubled, dragon?" the General asked.

The Pealers were off in the trees to either side, one far
ahead on recon, and one trailing behind, watching their flank. But several
nearby glanced up at the General, surprise in the mad chaos of their wide
lemon-yellow eyes. The General glared at them, and they looked away.

"Shouldn't I be troubled, General?" Fiddlestick
replied, with none of the glee that usually tinged his voice.

"There is a great deal that is troublesome at the
moment," the Peanut Butter General agreed. "Things we must do that I
am certain you and your friends never imagined."

Fiddlestick was silent for a moment. Then, with the air of
confession in his voice, but no malice, he said gravely, "I never thought
I would be sitting on your shoulder, allied in a single cause. Not after the
times you tried to kill me."

There was a sudden screech above them, and a fat owl snorted
its displeasure at their passing, spread its wings, and lazily dove from a
thick branch, only to glide to a tree just yards away, where it settled down
again. They had seen all manner of creatures as they cut through the deepest
part of the forest. They had passed the huge, crumbling stone figure of an ogre
who'd strayed too far from his cave and could not return home in time to avoid
the sun. Hares and birds were in large supply, and they had, the General
believed, seen a small patrol of flying squirrels making their way through the
trees. But they were too fast for him to have gotten a close enough look to be
certain.

There was life in Strangewood.

That was something to consider.

There was more at stake here than the life of Nathan
Randall. Or the sanity of his father. There was Strangewood itself. And each
creature in Strangewood had its own concerns. Just as did the dragon they all
called Fiddlestick.

"I never wanted to kill you, dragon," the General
admitted, though reluctantly. "It is my role, you see. We all have our
part to play in this world, and mine was to menace the kindest, simplest of
creatures. You were among them."

Fiddlestick laughed. "Nothing personal, huh?"

The Peanut Butter General smiled. "Nothing
personal," he repeated.

After a moment, Fiddlestick sighed. "I'm just worried
about the others, I suppose. Brownie and Mr. Tinklebum will likely be all
right, as long as they stay where they are. But I wish we could have sent
someone else besides Laughing Boy . . ."

"There was no one else," the General said harshly.
"That damned hyena would have laughed at the wrong moment, or been too
thick-skulled to listen to a simple command. He was the only one we could
spare."

Fiddlestick's wings ruffled, and he moved up on his haunches
on the General's shoulders. He craned his neck around to look right into the
General's eyes, his snout beneath the General's cap, a tiny spurt of flame
coming from his nostrils. His double-lidded eyes closed and then opened.

"You mean he was expendable?"

The General froze in place and turned his own head so that
he could face the dragon directly. "We're all expendable, Fiddlestick. All
of us. Without Our Boy, there is no Strangewood. If Nathan dies, Our Boy will
never come here again. In trying to save us, the Lantern will kill us all. We
are all expendable."

He began to walk again, the Pealers scrambling madly through
the brush beneath the trees. They passed an incredibly overweight gray wolf
sleeping on the dirt, snoring loudly as what sun the trees let through dappled
his fur.

"Good thing we're all expendable," Fiddlestick
said, after the silence had stretched on too long.

The General frowned. "That's a terrible thing to say. How
could that be a good thing?"

He could feel the dragon shrug.

"Well," Fiddlestick replied. "We keep going
on straight east this way, we're likely as not to run into the Queen of the
Wood. She doesn't take kindly to visitors."

Unsettled, the General allowed his left hand to rest lightly
on the pommel of his sword.

* * * * *

Cragskull held Nathan's shoulders tightly and grinned,
showing filthy green teeth. His beard was more matted than ever and his hair
was stringy. Nathan closed his mouth and tried not to breathe. This close to
Cragskull, he though he might throw up.

The split-skulled monster just laughed. "Are you
afraid, little boy?" he teased. "You gonna piss your pants
again?"

Nathan shook his head vigorously and tried to back up into
the hallway. Cragskull, who was several steps down from him, held on tightly. Nathan
had a moment to wish the evil thing would slip on the moss that grew between
the slick stones.

Then Cragskull picked him up and threw him over his
shoulder, and Nathan's stomach contorted with revulsion at being so close to
him. He closed his eyes at first, but eventually, when he was forced to take a
breath again or pass out, his eyes opened again. Inches from his face,
something black and slimy crawled in Cragskull's hair.

Nathan screamed, no longer even aware of the stench.

Cragskull stopped halfway down the steps, dropped Nathan
painfully on his butt on the stone, and then slapped him hard across the face. Nathan's
eyes were wide, staring at the green flame that shot up from the crack in the
bastard's head. Bastard was a word he wasn't allowed to use in either of his
parents' homes. But Cragskull wasn't just a monster, he was a bastard.

"Did that hurt?" Cragskull asked, face stretched
into a maniacal smile that made Nathan whimper.

He could feel the heat from that green flame.

"Yes," Nathan admitted in a small voice.

Cragskull shoved his face right up to Nathan's, eye to eye,
nose to nose, mouth to mouth, and screamed with fetid breath. "GOOOOOOOD!"

Nathan flinched and bit his lip.

"I'm not gonna cry, you stinky, ugly bastard!" he
yelled, eyes filling even as he did. But he stopped it right there. No crying.

Cragskull howled with glee.

"Listen, you little shit," the monster sneered,
"you've been invited to dinner. Unless you want to be dinner, I suggest
you shut your little boy trap and keep all that piss and puke and shit inside
your body. Crying's okay, though. Ol' Jack likes to see little ones cry."

He grabbed Nathan's wrist and began to roughly drag him down
the steps. Nathan scrambled to keep his feet beneath him, put one hand on the
stone wall, and then pulled it away. He wiped the slimy goop from the wall on
his jeans and kept up, still biting his lip, still refusing to cry.

Nathan wished Cragskull was dead. He hated to think it,
because he knew it was wrong. But he couldn't help it.

At the bottom of the steps, Cragskull hauled him along by
the arm down a long hallway and eventually brought him to a large set of wooden
double doors with heavy iron rings in them. With one powerful hand, Cragskull
yanked open the right-side door and it swung wide for them to enter.

Whatever Nathan had expected — some kind of dungeon or
torture chamber — it wasn't this. Unlike the rest of the fortress, this
room wasn’t all stone. The floor was wood, and the ceiling and walls were
crisscrossed with wooden beams. In one corner, red and yellow flames crackled
in a large fireplace loaded with logs. A stack of cut wood lay nearby. Each end
of the room was draped with a wide, colorful tapestry unlike anything Nathan
had ever seen except for in the movies.

There were no windows. No light coming in. Only the fire and
the torches, two on each wall. The room was vast, and at its center was a long
table roughly hewn from trees without the same talent that had gone into the
construction of the fortress itself. But it was a table, and good enough to use
for a table's uses. The chairs around the table were only slightly better
constructed.

What drew Nathan's immediate attention, though, were the
plates of food that were spread out across the table. At the center was the
largest roasted turkey Nathan had ever seen. He could smell it now, even over
the stench of Cragskull, and his mouth began to water. He didn't remember when
he'd eaten last. There were large iron pitchers that he thought must have water
in them, or at least something he could drink. There were plates of boiled potatoes
and some kind of green vegetable that he wouldn't even think about eating if he
weren't so hungry. There were other things as well, but Nathan ignored them.

Slowly, he stepped toward the table. Cragskull didn't try to
stop him. The monster just stood near the open door and watched as Nathan made
a plate for himself of turkey and potatoes and some kind of cake that he'd
never seen before. He sat down on one of the uncomfortable chairs and started
to dig in. There were no forks or knives that he could see, other than the huge
carving knife sticking out of the turkey, but Nathan didn't care.