Страница 65 из 67
“No!” he screamed, then reached out and grabbed David by the throat. “The name. You must tell me the name, or else we will both be lost.”
David was very frightened, and knew that he was about to die.
“His name is-” he began.
“Yes!” said the Crooked Man, “Yes!” as the king’s last breath bubbled in his throat and Leroi cast his dying body aside, wiping the old man’s blood from his mouth while he advanced on David.
“His name is…”
“Tell me!” shrieked the Crooked Man.
“His name is ‘brother,’ ” said David.
The Crooked Man’s body collapsed in despair. “No,” he moaned. “No.”
Deep in the bowels of the castle, the last grains of sand trickled through the neck of the hourglass, and on a balcony far above, the ghost of a girl glowed brightly for a second, then faded away entirely. Had there been anyone there to see it happen, they would have heard her give a small sigh that was filled with joy and peace, for her torment had come to an end.
“No!” howled the Crooked Man, as his skin cracked and all of the foul gas began to burst forth from within. All was lost, all was lost. After time beyond measure and stories beyond telling, his life was at an end. And so furious was he that he dug his nails into his own scalp and began to tear it apart, ripping at skin and flesh. A deep cut appeared in his forehead, extending quickly down the bridge of his nose as he pulled at himself before bisecting his mouth. One half of his head was now in each of his hands, the eyes rolling wildly, yet still he tore, the great wound continuing through his throat and chest and belly until it reached his thighs, whereupon his body at last became two separate pieces and fell entirely apart. From the two halves of the Crooked Man crawled every nasty spineless thing that ever lived: bugs and beetles and centipedes, spiders and pale white worms, all of them twisting and writhing and scurrying upon the floor until they, too, grew still, as the final grain of sand fell through the neck of the hourglass and the Crooked Man died.
Leroi looked down upon the mess, gri
David watched Leroi dying. He alone understood what was happening.
“You were the king’s nightmare, not mine,” he said. “When you killed him, you killed yourself.”
Leroi’s eyes blinked uncomprehendingly, then ceased all movement. He became merely the broken statue of a beast, now without another’s fear to animate it. Tiny fissures covered his entire body, and then he collapsed into a million pieces and was gone forever.
All around the throne room, the other Loups were crumbling to dust, and the common wolves, deprived of their leaders, began to retreat through the tu
David felt a hand upon his arm and looked around to see a familiar face.
It was the Woodsman. There was wolf blood on his clothing and his skin. It dripped from the blade of his ax and pooled darkly on the floor.
David could not speak. He just dropped his sword and pack and hugged the Woodsman tightly. The Woodsman laid a hand on the boy’s hand and stroked his hair gently.
“I thought you were dead,” sighed David. “I saw the wolves drag you away.”
“No wolf will take my life,” he said. “I managed to fight my way to the horse breeder’s cottage. I barricaded the door, then fell unconscious from my wounds. It was many days before I was well enough to follow your trail, and I could not get through the ranks of the wolves until now. But we must leave this place quickly. It will not stand for much longer.”
David felt the battlements shake beneath his feet. A gap opened in the wall beneath his feet. Others appeared in the main buildings, and bricks and mortar began to tumble down to the cobblestones below. The labyrinth of tu
The Woodsman led David down into the courtyard, where a horse was waiting, and told him to climb on, but David instead found Scylla in her barn. The horse, frightened by the sounds of battle and the howling of the wolves, whi
The Woodsman and David dismounted before the great tree.
“It is time,” the Woodsman said. “Now you must go home.”
XXXII Of Rose
DAVID STOOD in the middle of the forest, staring at the length of twine and the hollow in the tree that had now revealed itself once more. One of the trees nearby had recently been scored by the claws of an animal, and bloody sap dripped from the wound in its trunk, staining the snow beneath. A breeze stirred its neighbors so that their branches caressed its crown, calming it and reassuring it, making it aware of their presence. The clouds above were begi
“Now that it is time to leave, I’m not sure I want to go,” said David. “I feel that there’s more to see. I don’t want things to go back to the way they were.”
“There are people waiting for you on the other side,” said the Woodsman. “You have to return to them. They love you, and without you their lives will be poorer. You have a father and a brother, and a woman who would be a mother to you, if you let her. You must go back, or else their lives will be blighted by your absence. In a way, you have already made your decision. You rejected the Crooked Man’s bargain. You chose to live not here but in your own world.”