"No." He pulled her close again, pressing his lips against her forehead. "I know you won"t."
Vines stirred around her feet, p.r.i.c.kling against her calves like insect feet, twining slowly up her legs. She wanted to scream, but the sudden pain in her hands stole her voice. The left throbbed with her pulse, and the right burned so hot she thought her flesh must have already blackened.
"It"s all right," Blake whispered, still holding her. All she could smell now was sap, and the bitter moisture from the fountain. "You can stay here with me. Isn"t that what you really want?"
The vines reached her knees now, feelers p.r.i.c.king at her skin, searching for a way in.
"Just us," he continued. "No more fear, no more pain."
"You can"t live without pain." But oh, how she wished she could. Just for a little while.
"Not out there, maybe. It"s different here." His hands rested on her shoulders, the leaves on his wrists shivering against her neck.
Rest, they whispered. Peace.
"No." She drew back, knocking his hands away.
His smile faltered and grew sad. "Do you think you have a choice?"
She recoiled, but ivy trapped her feet and she fell. The jolt jarred both her hands and she screamed. The ring glowed. Silver melted, spilling across her hand to encase her in a gleaming glove, burning where it touched. With a shriek of pain and fear, she tore at the vines with that shining gauntlet. Leaves browned at its touch, tendrils shriveling.
"Liz!"
Blake-or whatever wore his face-reached for her, and she slapped his hand away. His skin blackened at the blow, withering like the vegetation.
"No," she said again, stronger this time, and ripped away another handful of vines. Beads of blood welled on her legs.
"No." With the third denial she was free, scrambling back across the stones. The vines retreated with an angry hiss, and the shape that had been Blake curled and crumbled into dust.
The ring was a ring once more, and the pain in her hand cooled and faded. With a sob, she pounded her fist against the ground to bring it back.
"You needn"t go out of your way to injure yourself. This place is dangerous enough already."
She didn"t startle at Seker"s voice. Her nerves were worn through.
His sandals slapped softly against the stones. Liz straightened, wiping salt and snot from her face. She stared up at him for a moment, then took his offered hand and let him draw her to her feet.
"Did you see?"
He nodded, his face grave. "That was just a little treachery. The kind that grows throughout the city. Did you think it would be easy?"
"No," she said with a sigh. "I really didn"t."
"WHY ARE YOU here?" she asked as they left the fountain behind. The words came out harsher than she intended. "You said you wouldn"t stop me again."
"And I won"t. I"m here to help you." Her eyes narrowed and he lifted his hands in a shrug. "I warned you, and you wouldn"t be deterred. Now your presence here widens the breach between Carcosa and your dreamlands, your waking world. The damage is already done, and if you fail here, if you fall, the King will have two more souls for his retinue. So it would be best for everyone if you succeeded. And the sooner the better; your friend has been here too long already."
She lifted her chin and lengthened her stride, despite her bruised and bleeding feet. Seker smiled at her bravado.
She meant to stay stern and silent, but the hush grew too deep around them. "Is it always so deserted here?" she asked.
A breeze stirred, fluttering Seker"s robes. "I don"t think so. I imagine your friend"s arrival is keeping the locals busy."
The wind picked up, thinning the smothering fog but worsening the cold. Liz clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering. She stumbled on feet grown numb and Seker caught her elbow.
"You"re not well," he said with a frown.
"I"m fine." She tried not to lean on him, not to fall in a heap at his feet. "Just c-cold."
He glanced at her bare, b.l.o.o.d.y legs. "I shouldn"t wonder." He unclasped his linen mantle and wrapped it around her shoulders. The heat of his skin enveloped her, along with the scent of myrrh and oranges. The gold and lapis scarab glittered as he pinned the cloth in place.
"Thank you," Liz whispered.
Black eyes blinked. "Thank me when this is over, if you still feel the need."
They walked on. Her feet bled, her side st.i.tched, and still they walked. Liz felt like Sisyphus without the stone. Maybe this was Tartarus after all.
"Who is the King?" she asked, anything to distract herself from the cold.
"Something very old, and he serves a power older still. The Yellow King was human once-his master never was. Carcosa is dead and hollow, filled with shades and echoes. He wants something new, something fresh."
"The dreamlands? Earth?"
"Either. Both. He"s never been particular."
"Why Blake?"
"The King fancies himself a patron of the arts. But he"ll take anyone he can, anyone talented and foolish enough to find this place. He offers them visions; if they survive that, he gives them power. In exchange for service."
She couldn"t imagine Blake offering to serve anything. But vision... Yes. That might tempt him.
"You know him. The King, I mean."
"I do, him and his master. I served once, too. No longer." Liz glanced up. Seker"s face was a mask, cold and grim. He didn"t meet her eyes.
She tried to think of other questions, but she was so cold, so tired. Her shoulders slumped, and then her head, until she watched her feet shuffle one in front of the other. That too faded into grey. Seker"s hand on her arm roused her from her fugue. She stumbled, stubbing a toe on the pavement, and nearly fell.
"I-" She sagged in his grip. "I ca-" She bit back the word can"t. She could, or all this had been for nothing.
"It"s all right," Seker said, drawing her up. "We"re here." He lifted her head with gentle fingers, turning her to face what lay ahead.
The castle rose before them, a phantasmagoria of pale stone. Bone-white and cream, yellow as old ivory, towers branching like fingers from a cupped palm. Some dripped with intricate reliefs, so many shapes that they blurred together like softening wax; others were honeycombed with windows-dark shapes crawled between the openings, tiny as ants with distance. Clouds shredded on spindle peaks.
Liz"s breath rushed out as the sight drove back her fatigue. She stepped forward, but a wide chasm lay between them and the palace. Black water seethed at the bottom and the drifting fumes seared her nose. She retreated, rubbing her eyes.
"Do we fly across?"
"Flying might be easier, but no. That is our path."
She followed Seker"s pointing hand and saw a bridge sagging between the chasm walls. An ominous looking thing, and it became no more rea.s.suring the closer they came. A piecemeal creation-bones and grey boards, sc.r.a.ps of cloth and shards of gla.s.s, all bound in wire and rope and leather cords. It clattered like a windchime in the breeze.
A shape moved as they drew near, what she"d taken for a statue rising from its crouch to become a gaunt old man. Yves, she thought for a wild instant, but no. This man was taller, thinner, eyes sunken on either side of a beaky nose. He grinned, and his teeth were crooked and very sharp.
"What"s this? Pilgrims?" His voice was the sc.r.a.pe of broken gla.s.s, the crunch of gravel being ground to dust. "Supplicants to the King?" He peered at Liz, and his eyes gleamed under heavy brows, the irises wide and yellow as a goat"s, with the same sideways pupils. "You, at least. You I know of old," he said to Seker. "Wanderer, trickster, conjure man. Come begging at the tables of your betters."
Seker"s face hardened. "We don"t have time for games, old man. Let us pa.s.s."
The bridgekeeper cackled. "It"s my bridge. We have as much time as I say we have. And as many games as I wish."
"Please," Liz said, stepping around Seker as he tried to hold her back. "I need to reach the castle. How do I cross?"
"You pay the toll, of course. The real question is, what do you have that I want?" The old man tapped his staff on the ground and sucked his teeth pensively. His coat was patchwork, like the bridge, rags of velvet and brocade, burlap and leather. The colors must have been vibrant once, but now they had faded to dirty yellows and greys.
"What do you want? I don"t have much-" Liz spread her hands. She didn"t have anything, not even pockets. Only Blake"s ring and Seker"s brooch, and those weren"t hers to offer.
"Oh, you have plenty. Flesh and bone and blood. Hair. Eyes." He opened his coat with a flourish, like a fence unloading stolen watches. But instead of gold chains and fake Rolexes, the lining was pinned with bones and locks of hair. Phalanges, metacarpals, clavicles, all polished slick and gleaming. Red hair and golden and glossy black. A bit of pale leather, inked with part of a tattoo.
Liz swallowed. "I need those." Not her hair, she supposed, but it was mousy and tangled, nothing anyone else would want.
The man hrmphed and shrugged his coat shut. "Then what about all the bits and bobs swirling around in your head. You monkeys have more grey matter than you know what to do with. It only gets you into trouble. You know," he said to her blank stare, waggling one bony hand for emphasis. "Thoughts. Dreams. Jokes. Ideas."
"I don"t know any jokes. What about-"
"No riddles," he said before she could finish. "Everyone thinks of riddles. My bridge is lousy with them. Riddled, even." He winked one inhuman eye and Liz winced.
"What, then?" she asked, biting back impatience.
The old man leaned in, wizened cheeks splitting in a smile. "I am fond of memories. No two are ever the same. Better than snowflakes."
"What kind of memories?"
"What sort do you have?" He waved her closer. "Come here, come here. I won"t eat you. Have to show me the wares if you want to barter."
Her eyes narrowed. "Are you the King?"
He cackled again. "Clever girl. But no. I"m the bridgekeeper, the ferryman. The King is in his castle, and I"m here. He binds. I collect."
"Are the two of you the twins?"
"Curious little monkey, aren"t you. No. The twins are in the castle with the King. Except when they aren"t. They are the vine and the wine, the mania and the melancholy, the desire and the spasm."
"And between them falls the shadow?"
"Exactly! You"ll learn, Curious George, you"ll learn quickly here. Now step closer."
Seker"s hand closed on her shoulder. "This is not a good idea, dreamer."
She shot him a glare. "Do you have a better one?"
The bridgekeeper"s caprine eyes narrowed. "He thinks he can defeat me. Don"t you, conjurer? And I"m sure you could, an old man like me. But this is my bridge. It does what I say. And it"s the only way to reach the palace."
He snapped his fingers and the ground shuddered. Liz stumbled, her stomach flipping over. The black rock beneath the castle cracked and splintered, stretching as it shot upward, until it was no thicker than a wine stem and the top of the cliff was lost in the clouds. The bridge dangled from the heights, but now it was only gossamer threads thin as cats" footsteps and fish"s breath, nothing that would bear weight.
"Do you see, monkey? This will be so much easier if you simply pay the toll."
Liz drew a breath and let it out slowly. Shrugging off Seker"s hand, she stepped forward. "Fine. But just one memory."
"It will have to be a good one, then." He cupped her chin, long nails pinching her flesh. "Now show me your pretty pink brains."
He let his staff fall and wrapped his other hand over her skull. Liz twitched with a sudden vision of him cracking her head like an egg. Her lip trembled, and she shut her eyes against her reflection in his eyes, so tiny and scared.
She waited for pain, but what came instead was a dizzy floating sensation. A burst of color and meaningless noise. The sickening sensation of fingers picking through her brain, selecting images like beads from a bowl and holding them to the light.
How about this one?
"Excuse me."
Rubber soles squeak on warped linoleum, and Liz looks up at the boy standing beside her lab table. Tall and spindly, a worn leather biker jacket sagging over narrow shoulders, chin-length scarlet hair fading to rust and dirty blond at the roots. Fluorescent light washes his gla.s.ses white and blind. "Do you mind if I sit here?"
She shakes her head and he folds into the plastic chair like a string-cut puppet. "Thanks. I"m Alex." He smiles at her, this scarecrow boy, and his eyes are bright and blue behind his gla.s.ses.
No, she said. No. She might never see Alex again, but she wouldn"t give him up. Not like this. Not him.
Fine. Again the nauseous swirling in her head. Here"s a pretty one- Red hair flattens beneath a brush, glinting copper and gold as curly strands pull straight. It bounces free at the end of the stroke, coiling over Lorna Drake"s shoulders. Liz stands beside the old walnut vanity, turning a powder compact between her chubby fingers while her father watches them from the doorway.
Lorna winks as she reaches for her lipstick. "Remember your Chomsky, Elizabeth."
Not this, Liz thought, but her resolve weakened. Her parents were years dead, and so many of her memories of them had already dissolved. What was this moment compared to Blake?
Fine. Take it.
Good, good. But it"s an older one, faded around the edges. Perhaps a little something extra....
One memory. That was the bargain.
Yes, yes. Only one memory. But something else, something small. A little spice. Lagniappe. A color, perhaps, or a scent or a flavor... Oh, no. A word. Yes, a word. Give me a word.
What kind of word?
Your favorite, of course.
Liz froze. She loved so many words: sesquipedelian, penultimate, numinous, liminal, spleen, cellar door-did that count as one word?-incandescent...
Pick one, the bridgekeeper said with a sigh, or we"ll be here all night. And nights in Carcosa are very long.
It might have taken her that long to choose, but far in the distance she heard the waves of the black sea breaking against the sh.o.r.e, their rhythmic hiss and rush- Susurrus, she said.
Done!