Witchbreaker (Dragon Apocalypse) (29 page)

She scanned the skies. The palace could no longer be seen, but she knew which direction it had been heading. It would be simple to give chase.

“Will you be able to carry me?” Slate shouted.

Did she want to carry him? She’d always imagined she would be making the journey to see Avaris alone. She didn’t even know why Slate was here. Yes, she understood his primary motive. Avaris might be able to explain who he was and why he had no memories. But then what? Would Slate swear allegiance to Avaris, grateful that her magic had given him life? Or would he attempt to kill her, reverting to the witch-breaking cruelty that she’d seen in the painting?

On the other hand, she’d been keeping journals for almost fifteen years and the one constant theme was her complaint that no one ever chose to stand by her side in her battles. She was in a nightmare landscape full of unknown dangers, and Slate wanted to be here with her.

In the end, it wasn’t a difficult choice.

“Spread your arms,” she yelled. “I’m going to swoop down and try to grab you from behind.”

He did so. She wheeled through the air, then adjusted her flight with frequent small movements to keep herself on target. The horror she’d felt waking up with her legs replaced by a serpent’s tail was replaced by a casual, matter-of-fact acceptance that she now had wings. Perhaps it was the dream-like nature of the abstract realms that explained how natural her new limbs felt. Here the impossible became the mundane.

But if flight had been second nature when is was her own body being carried through the sky, the second she slammed into Slate the absurdity of what she was doing was knocked back into her. She lost most of her speed on impact, with the wind knocked both from her wings and her lungs. Worse, while she’d managed to wrap her arms tightly around his chest, momentum was carrying them both toward the swamp. She had only seconds before she discovered if the mind-numbing properties of the water were true.

Of their own accord, her wings beat a mighty down stroke that altered her trajectory. Slate’s boots left ripples as he danced across the water, dangling from her grasp. Her wings beat again and they rose, barely clearing the trees. He brought his hands to her wrists and grasped them with a death grip. She couldn’t drop him now if she wanted to.

They continued to climb. The dead forest lay in shadows beneath them, a jumble of jagged trunks and limbs, twisted so that they looked like men frozen as they writhed in agony.

“I see it!” Slate shouted, pointing in the darkness.

His eyes proved superior to hers. She flew in the direction indicated for a full thirty seconds before she could distinguish the moving shadow.

The castle’s back was to them. As they drew closer, she could see that her initial hunch that the structure resembled a turtle was accurate, assuming turtles grew to be a quarter mile across. Now that they were closer, she could see that the shell was bleached white. There were no obvious windows or doors.

“We’ll have to go around to the front,” she said. “Maybe we can enter through the mouth.”

As she spoke, the castle shuddered. With startling speed, the beast whirled on its spindly legs until its glowing eyes faced her. It opened toothy jaws that would have been more at home on a shark than a turtle. Without warning, a jet of puss-colored fluid arced toward them. She banked hard, wincing as droplets of the yellow liquid spattered her wings, burning holes. Fortunately, her human skin was shielded by Slate. His glass armor proved well suited to defend against an attack of acid. Still, as she climbed higher, she said, “Okay, maybe not the mouth.”

“Drop us on the center of the shell,” said Slate. “The creature’s head can’t possibly turn to cover its own back.”

Sorrow wasn’t certain that was true in a place like this, but had no better strategy. She tilted her wings and they slowly dropped onto the apex of the beast’s shell. She wasn’t surprised to discover that this area was defended as well. As soon as Slate’s boots hit the bone, the roof splintered for a dozen yards in every direction. Human skeletons rose from their bony matrix, their eye sockets turning to face the two interlopers, their jaws open wide in silent, outraged battle-cries.

“Let’s try closer to the—”

Before she could compete her thought, Slate broke free from her grasp. Following the battle with the pirates, he’d expressed satisfaction with the results he’d gotten from Bigsby’s mace, so she’d crafted one for him with a longer shaft and larger head that took advantage of his unusual size and strength. He tore into the nearest skeletons with a fury, reducing them to splinters with each blow.

Sorrow realized she would only get in Slate’s way, so she leapt into the air before the remaining horde could reach her and patiently flew in circles for the handful of minutes it took Slate to pound his way through the last of the undead. She landed amid a cloud of chalky dust and said, “Sorry I wasn’t more help. You looked like you were having fun.”

Slate shook his head as he picked up a fallen skull. “These were men once. It’s tyranny to enslave the living. How much greater is the crime of enslaving the dead?”

Sorrow didn’t feel like debating the matter. Instead, she studied the roof they stood on. Her Rott-informed sense of the decay in all things kicked in as she studied the joints of the bone plates.

“It’s weakest here,” she said, running her fingers along a seam. “One good whack will split this wide open.”

“Stand back,” Slate said, bringing the mace overhead with both hands.

Sorrow shielded her eyes as he swung, sending a shower of needle-sharp bone splinters shooting toward her. There was a loud cracking sound, followed by a
WHUMP
. She lowered her arms to find Slate missing. Her toes were at the edge of an octagonal hole large enough for an elephant to fall through. She peered over into the room below.

Slate was on his butt in the middle of the collapsed roof. He’d fallen into what looked to be a library, with long rows of shelves lit by orbs of glass filled with what looked like fireflies. From her training in soul-catching, she suspected the lights were actually the souls of unborn children. They gave off a particularly gentle light when restrained.

She dropped into the library and looked around at the rows of leather-bound books.

“It would take a lifetime to read all of these,” she said.

A single book near her feet said, “Read me before you read the others. My unread words burn within me, like a breath held burns the lungs. Release my words! Free them!”

Sorrow’s eyebrows rose as she took a second look at the book, which plainly had a face. The leather binding, it seemed, had come from a man. His eyes were sewn shut, and his lips had once suffered a similar treatment, but the thread that closed the mouth had frayed, perhaps torn loose when the ceiling fell.

She turned away, pointing toward a door at the far end of the room. Slate nodded as he headed toward it.

“You can’t leave me,” the book cried, loudly enough that other books on the shelf awakened. Most of their lips were stitched together, reducing their pleading to incoherent whimpers. A fresh voice broke free of its binding, shouting, “There’s no hell so dark as an unopened page! Read me! Restore my purpose!”

Slate paused, looking worried as he asked Sorrow, “Should we—”

“Ignore them. You could be trapped here for all eternity trying to satisfy them. The unread books of the world will always demand more of the living than can be given.”

“But these aren’t ordinary books.”

“More ordinary than you think,” said Sorrow, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him toward the door.

She pushed it open. She wished she’d looked for another door.

Beyond was a chamber of horrors. There were double the shelves of the previous space, but rather than being filled with books, the space was filled with jars. And if the dancing fireflies in the lights were the souls of unborn children, the jars most certainly held their bodies. Pickled babies in various stages of development floated in pale gray alcohol. She’d seen such things before, curiously enough, in the collection of her father, who had a room of his mansion devoted to such oddities as calves with two heads and human babies with flippers instead of limbs. But this room contained thousands of the unborn. At least, she assumed they were unborn; some looked suspiciously large and well developed.

“Who would possess something like this?” Slate whispered.

“Try not to judge. It’s disturbing to look upon, true. But physicians learn the skills they need to help the living by dissecting the bodies of the dead. I’m certain these bodies have some educational purpose.”

Slate looked around. “Which way should we go?”

Sorrow shrugged. “It’s not like I have a map. Just keep moving until we see a door. What’s the worst that can happen?”

She regretted the question the instant it left her lips.

The next room was the kitchen. Sitting on the butcher’s block was a child’s head. It looked fresh. Slate looked as if he was going to be sick.

“You’ve seen decapitated heads before,” Sorrow said, trying not to stare at the cutting board. Poppy’s book had said that Avaris ate babies. This was definitely not a baby. It looked like a girl six or seven years of age. Why that mattered, Sorrow couldn’t say. But could she even trust her eyes in a place like this? Or was she seeing a butchered child only because she’d been told she’d see them?

Slate covered the head with a towel, looking pale.

“We really can’t know what happened here,” said Sorrow.

“A young girl was killed, butchered, and eaten?”

“Maybe she died of natural causes. Or some accident that severed her head. Maybe she’s been brought here to be cleaned up before burial.”

“To a kitchen.”

“Kitchens get used for lots of things.”

“You cannot excuse this.”

“I’m just saying we may not understand everything we’re seeing. This isn’t the world we know. We’re in no position to judge the inhabitants.”

“I believe I
am
in a position to judge,” said Slate. “I’m a tolerant, patient man. But I’ve no mercy for those who would harm a child.”

Sorrow ground her teeth together. She, too, thought of herself as a protector of children. Was she so hungry to learn from Avaris that she was ignoring plain evidence that Mama Knuckle had been right?

Slate marched from the kitchen, opening a door into a long hall.

“I may be turned around, but I think this leads toward the head,” Sorrow said.

Slate moved down the hall with his mace at the ready. The door at the end of the hall was far more ornate than any they’d yet encountered.

“It would be nice if Sage were here to tell us what’s behind the door,” Sorrow whispered.

“After what we’ve seen, I’m ready for anything,” Slate said. He leaned back and kicked the door open.

They’d found the throne room. A red carpet led to a throne of black bones. Perched upon it was a woman of breathtaking beauty. She wore a jeweled red gown that glistened like fresh blood on her ivory skin. Her hair was black as coal, held in place by a crown of teeth. She was fifty feet away, behind a crystalline orb nearly a yard wide. A black, bat-winged creature could be seen in the light moving within the crystal. It took Sorrow a few heartbeats to realize that the creature was herself.

The woman clapped her hands together in an exaggerated fashion as a large man in plate armor stepped from behind the throne.

“Bravo,” she said. “A magnificent performance from both of you. Kicking in the door of my throne room was satisfyingly dramatic. I imagine it must have been quite cathartic for you as well. You came looking for Avaris, Queen of Weavers. You’ve found her. Now that the dramatic parts are past, may I summarize the rest of the plot? You’ll growl a few threats. I’ll respond with witty banter. We’ll bargain. In the end, we’ll all get something we want, and I’ll spare the lives of your friends.”

“Our friends?” Sorrow asked.

“The three you left behind,” said Avaris. “The three who can’t see my palace. I’ve turned us around so we can kill them. They’ll die without ever knowing why.”

“No one needs to die,” said Sorrow. “I’ve come looking for answers, not to fight you.”

“I’m not sure your companion agrees,” said Avaris. “He’s positively trembling with rage.”

“We found a girl in the kitchen,” Slate said.

“Part of one, at least,” said Avaris.

“Did you kill her?” Sorrow asked.

“Heavens, no,” Avaris answered. “Her body was given to me in exchange for favors.”

“Favors?” asked Sorrow.

“Why would you traffic in the body of a child?” Slate asked.

“To eat it, of course,” said Avaris. “I’m six hundred years old. Without a steady diet of youth, I imagine I’d be quite the fright.”

Slate growled, brandishing his mace and charging. The large, armored man stepped forward, drawing his sword. The blade was pitch black, and as it left its scabbard the air was filled with the distant howls of souls in agony.

“Slate!” Sorrow cried. “It’s the Witchbreaker!”

Slate showed no caution, however, charging the man and swinging his mace with both hands. Sparks flew as Avaris’s defender caught the shaft of the mace against his blade. The iron in both weapons rang as they slid against one another, bringing the two men’s faces inches apart. Slate wasn’t wearing his helmet, while his opponent was wearing a helm that hid his face. Which was why everyone was surprised when Slate head-butted his opponent. The swordsman was knocked back by the blow. As the gap between them opened, Slate drew back his mace. But he didn’t aim his blow at the warrior. Instead, he threw his weapon at Avaris. She was caught off guard by the attack, dodging at the last moment. The mace missed, smashing into the back of the throne where her head had just been. But the heavy iron handle slammed into the side of her head just above her ear, knocking off her crown.