Once In a Blue Moon (68 page)

“At least there aren’t any gargoyles,” said Raven, trying to cheer his uncle up by distracting him. “I never did like gargoyles. I always got the feeling they were turning their heads to follow me, as I passed. Just waiting for a chance to drop down and grab me and carry me off.”

“Hush,” Jack said shortly. “Don’t give it ideas.”

“What?” said Raven.

“The Cathedral,” said Jack. “It’s listening. Can’t you tell?”

Raven looked at Jack with new respect. “It isn’t just listening, Uncle. It’s talking . . . So many whispering voices, coming from everywhere at once.”

Jack nodded. “I’ve been hearing them ever since we entered the Cathedral.”

“What are they saying?” said Fisher. “Because I can’t hear a thing.”

“They’re saying we shouldn’t be here,” said Jack.

“That we should turn around and go back while we still can,” said Raven. “I don’t think they’re unfriendly voices, necessarily . . .”

“It’s a warning,” said Jack.

“Hell with that,” Fisher said briskly. She raised her voice to address the huge empty chamber before her. “You know me! I am Princess Julia and I have been here before! I demand entry to the Ossuary!”

“The voices have stopped,” Raven said softly. “They know you. They remember you. I can feel it . . .”

“They’re scared of you,” said Jack. “Why are the dead scared of you, Mother?”

A light appeared, just a small glowing sphere hanging and bobbing on the air before them. It was warm, and somehow comforting. Fisher reached out a hand to it, and it retreated before her. They followed the light through a maze of marble corridors, until Fisher finally stopped.

“I remember this place,” she said. “And I remember that door.”

She strode forward, and the bobbing light disappeared like a bursting soap bubble as she walked right through it. Fisher stopped before the door, frowning hard. Jack and Raven crowded in close around her. The door in the wall was . . . door-sized and normal.

“This is it?” Jack said finally. “The door to the Museum of Bones? Are you sure?”

“Look closer,” said Fisher. There was a cold anger in her voice, her face heavily lined with distaste.

Jack leaned in until his nose was almost touching the door. He made out the fine outlines of interlocking pieces, as though the entire door was one carefully constructed jigsaw. And then he realised what he was looking at, and his head snapped back.

“What?” said Raven. “What is it, Uncle?”

“It’s bones! Human bones!” Jack could barely speak, as outrage choked his voice. “This whole door has been constructed out of human bones, fitted together!”

“Museum of Bones,” said Raven. “Of course . . . My God.”

“No,” said Jack, his face as twisted as Fisher’s. “God had nothing to do with this.”

Raven shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”

“No,” said Fisher. “You haven’t.”

She pushed the door open with one fingertip, and it swung easily back before her, as though it didn’t need more than a touch to welcome them in. Fisher took a deep breath, bracing herself. She knew what was coming. Jack and Raven could see the strain of old memories and old horror in her face, in her eyes. She strode into the room, and Jack and Raven hurried in after her, because they didn’t want her to be alone in the Ossuary.

The long, narrow room before them had been constructed entirely out of bones. No effort had been made to hide the true nature of the museum. Arm and leg bones had been fused together to make the walls, with finger joints packed in to fill any gaps or crevices. The ceiling was a sky of skulls, looking down on their new visitors with dark, empty eye sockets. Two rows of glass display cases took up the whole length of the room, showing off all kinds of unpleasant things. At the farthest end of the Ossuary stood a large bone altar, with grasping bony hands for candleholders and a hollowed-out skull for a drinking vessel. The floor rose and fell in bony waves beneath their feet, a frozen sea of gleaming rib bones.

Jack put his hands together and prayed quietly. Raven didn’t know what to say. Fisher looked slowly around her.

“Hasn’t changed a bit, in all these years,” she said, her voice carefully calm and controlled. “But I suppose blasphemy never goes out of style.”

“This is sick,” said Raven. “This place reeks of suffering, and the unquiet dead. I deal in death every day and even I’m offended.”

“Then there’s hope for you yet, Nephew,” said Jack. He looked at Fisher. “When we’re done, this . . . Museum of Bones must be dismantled and destroyed. Even if I have to do it myself, bone by bone. I will not allow this abomination to continue.”

“That’s what your predecessor said,” said Fisher. “But it’s still here. Perhaps its existence is necessary, to contain them.”

She pointed, and there the swords were. It was as though a subtle veil had been suddenly whipped from their eyes, so they could see what had been there all along. Together, in their own little niche in the bone wall were three huge swords in long chased silver scabbards. Hanging in the air, as though held in place by their own awful presence. Fully seven feet long, six inches wide at the crosspiece, with a foot-long hilt bound in dark leather. There was nothing graceful or elegant about them. They were killing tools, designed for brutality and slaughter and the ruining of lives. Death and destruction, formed in steel. And yet there was still a base glamour to these swords, something that called out to the darkest part of the human soul. The promise of satisfaction for all the most secret dreams of revenge, against an uncaring and an unjust world. A chance to make everyone pay for what they’d done. Raven took a step forward. Jack grabbed him hard by the arm and pulled him back.

“Don’t,” he said quietly. “You might wake them.” He took his hand away, and Raven nodded jerkily. Jack glanced at Fisher. “You shouldn’t have brought us here. This is a bad place. Don’t tell me you can’t feel the evil in these swords!”

“Of course I can feel it,” said Fisher. “I felt it before, with the first Infernal Devices. I knew what I was getting into then, when I agreed to wield Wulfsbane. But these swords can win the war that’s coming, all on their own.”

“What good does it do to win the war if it costs you your soul?” said Raven.

“If it saves lives, if it saves the Land, I’m ready to risk it,” said Fisher. “Besides, my soul is a pretty tarnished thing after all these years. The sword would probably spit it out.”

“Don’t joke, Mother, please,” said Jack.

“It is possible to use the swords and not be corrupted,” said Fisher. “I did it before; I can do it again. And so can you, and Raven. I have faith in you.”

“You think the King will agree to this?” said Raven.

“You mean Prince Richard,” said Fisher. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders. He’ll understand.”

Raven nodded slowly. “How do we do this?”

“Step forward,” said Fisher. “Make yourself known to the swords. Let the sword choose its master.”

“This is wrong!” insisted Jack.

“It’s necessary,” said Fisher. She looked at him unflinchingly. “You don’t have to do this, Jack. But consider this: if you don’t take a sword, someone else will. Can you honestly name anyone else that you would trust not to be corrupted? You were the Walking Man. Who better to wield one of these swords than a man who already found the strength to give up a power he didn’t want?”

“I never could win an argument with you, Mother,” said Jack.

“Damn right,” said Fisher.

Raven stepped forward, and his hand went straight to the sword on the left. His fingertips trailed down the long hilt, almost caressingly. “Soulripper. This is Soulripper . . . It knows me. It wants me.”

“You have to be in charge,” said Fisher. “Take the sword and strap it on your back. Draw it only when you absolutely have to, and use it only when you absolutely need to. Don’t draw it here. You’re not ready; not yet.”

Raven nodded stiffly, took the sword from where it hung in midair, and strapped the long silver scabbard into place. It hung down his back, all the way to the floor, with the leather-wrapped hilt standing up beside his head. He looked suddenly older, tireder, as though weighed down by some new burden.

Jack stepped forward, to stare coldly at the sword on the right. He didn’t try to touch it. “I don’t want you,” he said. “I don’t need you. I have my staff, and my faith. But I will bear your burden, Blackhowl, so no one else has to.”

He took the sword and strapped it awkwardly into place. His face was cold, determined, as though he was carrying out some messy, distasteful task. Afterwards, he stood a little straighter than he had before. Perhaps remembering other times when he’d worn a sword.

Fisher took the third sword out of its niche. The hilt seemed to nestle into her hand, as though it felt comfortable there. As though it belonged there.

“Belladonna’s Kiss,” she said. “I wonder what you do. I just know I’m going to hate it.” And then she brought the hilt right up close to her face, so she could whisper to it. “I beat Wulfsbane, and I’ll beat you.”

While she busied herself strapping the sword into place down her back, Jack moved restlessly up and down the two rows of display cases, peering through the glass and studying the various exhibits. Most of them were of a thoroughly unsavoury nature, but he wouldn’t allow himself to look away. When he’d finally examined them all, he looked back at Fisher.

“Where is it?” he said flatly. “Where is the box, with God’s Light in it?”

“You want to take it with you?” said Fisher. “Use it in the war that’s coming?”

“I would like . . . to see it,” said Jack. “I would like to see a truly holy thing.”

“Jericho said he’d put it back here,” said Fisher. “But then, he also said he’d dismantle this place. I think . . . if it is here, and it wanted you to see it, it would have revealed itself to you by now.”

“I could make it show itself,” said Raven.

“No, you bloody couldn’t,” said Fisher. “You try to mess with what’s in that box, and we’ll be carrying what’s left of you out of here in a bucket.”

Jack sighed quietly. “I am not worthy. But then, I always knew that.”

“None of us are worthy,” said Raven.

“You speak for yourself,” said Fisher.

•   •   •

K
ing Rufus was supposed to be resting, in his private chambers. The Seneschal had even placed guards outside his door so he wouldn’t be disturbed. And so he wouldn’t go wandering. But Rufus had expected that. He left his rooms by his secret door, which gave onto his secret tunnel, the one he’d had put in place long ago. For when he’d wanted to be able to just go out and about, unofficially. Doing things other people wouldn’t have approved of, like visiting his wife before they were married. And sometimes he would put on a disguise and go walking through the Castle, to see what was really going on, and what people were really saying about him. Rufus had always understood the advantages of being well informed. And not just knowing what other people thought he should know.

Of course, that was then, and this was now. Rufus stumbled down the dimly lit stone tunnel, holding a storm lantern out before him in a shaking hand, making the shadows dance disturbingly all around him. He didn’t like the shadows. He didn’t like the dark at all these days. He always felt it was hiding something from him. He moved quickly through the Castle, like a mouse in its walls, sometimes forgetting where he was going, sometimes even forgetting where he was. And then he would stop, and frown till his head hurt, and beat his fist against the old stone walls, until he remembered and could move on. He had to hurry, to get to where he was going while there was still enough of him left to know why.

He emerged from Forest Castle on the opposite side of the moat, through an old sewer outlet that was actually a secret door. Still smelled a lot like a sewer. He moved cautiously away from the moat, putting the Castle at his back, and headed for the edge of the great clearing and the beginnings of the Forest. It was early evening, and he forced himself to keep to what shadows there were. He didn’t want anyone to see him. They might try to stop him, and it was vital for the safety of the whole Forest Land that he wasn’t stopped. He kept telling himself that, so he wouldn’t forget.

He knew he wasn’t as sharp as he should be. He was holding on to what remained of his faculties through a heroic act of will, and he knew he couldn’t keep it up much longer. He just prayed he could hang on long enough to do what he had to do. He shuffled forward, to the very edge of the clearing, holding his lantern out before him, and there it was, waiting for him. The Standing Stone.

King Rufus put down his lantern and then pressed both hands into the middle of his back as he straightened up. He’d been complaining about his bad back for years, but no one ever listened. He looked at the Standing Stone. A tall, jagged outcropping of dark stone, of no particular shape or design, that still somehow gave the impression of a human shape or form. No face, no features. That bothered Rufus somehow, obscurely. The Stone stood alone, on the very edge of the clearing, just before where the trees began. It was surrounded by a circle of dead grass, because nothing would grow, or flourish, in the shadow of the Stone. Some said birds and insects fell dead out of the sky, if they flew too close to the Stone. Very old stories said there was an ancient pagan god sleeping, or perhaps imprisoned, within the Standing Stone.

King Rufus looked around, to make sure he was alone, and unobserved. It was important that no one know what he was about to do. Not for himself, but for his country.

“You called me,” Rufus said to the Stone, as steadily as he could. “You called, and I came. I’ve been hearing your voice for some time now. At first, I thought it was just another sign of my . . . problems. But no. You’re real. The Old Presence. The God Within. The peasants remember where Libraries forget. You have to help me! The Forest Land needs you.”

And a voice came to him, quiet and calm and entirely reasonable.

“The threat is nearer than you think, Rufus. You don’t have much time. The Redhart army is coming here, to Forest Castle, very soon now.”

“I know how this works,” said the King. He pulled open his robes, to bare his white-haired chest. “Take my heart! Take my soul! I will pay whatever price you ask, to save this Land! Please. Make me again the man I used to be. Just for the duration of this war, make me whole and sound again, in mind and in body! So I can be the King I need to be. Take all the remaining years of my life, to give me one last chance to be the kind of King I always wanted to be. Are you listening, Stone? Do we have a deal?”