Poison (16 page)

“Yes, yes, I see I was right. You know, don't you?”

“Know what?” Poison said automatically, before cursing herself for saying the most obvious thing.

As she had guessed, the Hierophant's answer was evasive. “You know, even if you won't admit it to yourself. You're trying to second-guess me, aren't you? Ha! Good! Good!”

“Do you remember Myrrk?” Poison asked him suddenly.

He cackled with glee. “Good! Good! Change the subject; go on the offensive! Oh, you'll be a gem, my little Poison.” He took off his glasses and wiped a tear from his eye with one bony knuckle. “Myrrk, you say? Yes, I remember him. A sad sort.”

“He remembers you,” Poison said. “He says you didn't bother to work out all the details, like what he eats since he can't get fish. Do you know what that means?”

“Assuredly!” Melcheron said. “I do it all the time! I can't account for every single thing in the world, Poison! I'd go mad!”

Poison's expression indicated that she thought he was halfway there already.

“Still,” he continued, growing suddenly sombre, “Myrrk's not the only one that complained about it. It's been happening more and more, you know. People are
noticing
. Do you think I'm slipping, Poison? My memory's not what it used to be. Do you think they see the holes?”

“What holes?” Poison asked, feeling a growing frustration inside her.

“The holes!” Melcheron said. “The plot holes!”

Poison could take no more.

“
Tell me what you mean!
” she cried, losing her temper. “Everyone I have met since I set foot outside my home town has been incapable of giving me a straight answer! What does it mean? Why do I keep coming across parts of the world that seem taken straight out of a phaerie tale? Why did Myrrk seem to think that you were responsible for him not having anything to eat?
Who are you?
”

Melcheron did not seem in the least shocked by her tirade.

“You already know, Poison,” Melcheron said slowly. “You don't need me to explain it.”

Poison felt something sink into a cold, dark abyss inside her. She
did
know. She had had a growing suspicion since the start, a nameless idea that fed on every experience, every sight, every sound. But it was an idea too terrible to contemplate, too awful even to dare think.

“You know,” he croaked. “Though you will not admit it to yourself.”

“I need to know for
sure
,” she said. “I need to hear you say it.”

“Wouldn't you rather live with the uncertainty? In time, you can forget. You can persuade yourself that you were only being foolish. You can be like the others, the ones who never question, like Aelthar and Peppercorn and Bram, even like Fleet. He doesn't know. None of them know but you, and me, and a few others like Myrrk. And look what became of him.”

The words were a temptation that was almost greater than Poison could bear. She wanted to shut her eyes and clap her hands to her ears and run away from this. She wanted the bliss of ignorance. But that was not her way, and never would be.

“
Say it
,” she hissed.

Melcheron sighed and bowed his head gravely.

“All of it: the Realms, the Lords and Ladies, your parents, even you, Poison. All of it is fantasy. All a creation. You, Bram, Fleet, Peppercorn, Aelthar: you dance to my tune, whether you will it or not. My words shape your destiny. I am the author of you, of everything you have been and are. You are merely my character, albeit an important one. But a character nonetheless; a fiction.
My
fiction.”

He raised his head and looked her in the eye.

“All you know is a story, Poison. And I am the storyteller.”

The void in the pit of her stomach yawned dizzyingly, threatening to swallow her. She felt the strength flee her limbs, and she had to hold on to the edge of the Hierophant's desk to stop herself from falling.

“I . . . I don't understand,” she stammered.

“I am telling a tale, Poison, and you are part of it,” he repeated patiently. “Hard to grasp, I know. Myrrk had the same trouble. He was part of another tale I wrote, a long time ago. A minor cog, a plot device to speed along the heroes; but he really became quite impossible once he learned what the role was. I shouldn't have made him quite so bright. . .”

“You're lying,” Poison breathed. “You can't . . . you don't control the world.”

The Hierophant cackled gleefully. “Of course I don't. But I control
your
world, Poison. The Realms were created many aeons ago, in a time lost to history, by the original Hierophant. Since then, there have been uncountable successors, each one telling their stories, each adding stitches to the tapestry. But a character will take on a life of its own, as any storyteller knows. The tale that Myrrk was part of finished a century ago; yet he lives on somewhere. You see, the world around you is merely an accretion of stories, built over endless time; it evolves of its own accord. But now and then it becomes necessary to manipulate that world.” He tapped a forefinger to the side of his wrinkled head. “And that, as they say, is where I come in.”

“This is idiot philosophy,” Poison protested desperately. “You insane old man!”

“You know it in your heart, Poison. You've felt it. You never existed before I brought you into being. The Black Marshes never existed, nor your family, nor the wraith-catchers. They were all my latest additions to the world. I created you for the purpose of my tale. Of course, Aelthar has been around for a long time; I didn't need to make
him
up. But he is as powerless to resist the force of my tale as anyone else, and just as ignorant.”

“Why are you doing this?” Poison whispered, her shoulders sagging.

“Doing what?” the Hierophant asked innocently.

“Why are you telling me this? Why torture me so?”

The Hierophant studied her with rheumy eyes. “Because you asked me,” he said. “It's in your nature. I wrote you that way.”

 

She could not even cry any more. There didn't seem any point.

Poison lay in Fleet's bed, curled up in a foetal position with the blankets wrapped tight around her. She had been there for days now. Where Fleet slept, or even
if
he slept, she did not know or care.

At first, there were tears; constant, and unending. She felt as if her heart had been ripped out with a hook, and the hole that was left kept filling with sorrow and hurt and raw
betrayal
, so much that she had to weep it out or she would drown. Fleet was as bewildered as he was distressed by her condition. She would not speak to him about it. He would not understand. He was just a fantasy, like she was.

He doesn't want to know. Nobody wants to know. I wish
I
didn't know.

But what was learned could not be unlearned.

Fleet had put her to bed. She remembered Bram and Peppercorn swarming around her; it must have been quite a shock to see their indomitable friend reduced to such a state. She could not muster the effort to answer their questions. What did they care? They were falsehoods, just like she was. They were not real.
Nothing
was real.

And with that thought, Poison simply gave up.

It was easy. Those few words from the Hierophant had sucked all of the fight out of her, and now the most natural thing in the world was to go limp and stop struggling. The possibility that he was lying did not even enter her head. She knew, on an instinctive level, that he had been telling the truth. She knew the truth even
before
he had told her. Her subconscious had pieced the puzzle together long ago.

None of it was real. None of it. She was living in a phaerie tale, and she was just a puppet of the story, like they all were. All the choices she had made, all the effort and heartache she had suffered, all were just an illusion of free will. None of it had been
her
. She had simply been following the story.

Had anything she had
ever
done truly been her choice, or had she merely been given the appearance of independence?

It was too much for her. The ground had been pulled out from beneath her feet, and her entire world had toppled into the abyss that was left. Everything had become worthless. Nothing had a point. What use was anything if she was dancing to someone else's tune? How could she ever make another decision without questioning whether she was simply doing the will of the author, that she only
thought
she was choosing for herself?

Truly, why bother?

So she stayed in bed. Most of the time, Andersen slept in the hollow of her stomach. Bram and Peppercorn and Fleet sat by her in shifts, talking to her all the time, asking her what was wrong, what had happened to her, why was she like this? She never replied. Bram seemed to have convinced himself that Poison had discovered Azalea was dead, and that the grief had broken her heart. Poison felt like laughing. Azalea's death would be nothing compared to this. Why should she even care about Azalea now? She was just a fiction, like Poison was, acting out her little play.

But she
did
care. That was the crux of the pain. Even though she knew what she knew, her life – such as it was – continued on. She still felt the trails of the tears against her cheeks. She still felt the warm heat of Andersen napping on top of the blankets. She still felt the loss of Azalea, and she still felt that giving up on her sister would be a terrible betrayal. No matter how much her head told her that she was living in a fantasy, she could not convince her soul or her senses. Yet, painful though it was, it was not enough to give her the strength to move.

Days passed; though they could have been hours, or weeks, for who knew how time twisted in foreign Realms? Fleet read to her from the old books that she used to read as a child, not realizing the irony of telling her phaerie stories when they were living in one. Did the characters in his books also possess a life like hers? Did they also believe they were alive? And what about the Hierophant, the author of
her
world? Was he merely a creation of someone else, unaware? Wouldn't that be a fine joke! Like two mirrors placed opposite each other, endlessly reflecting, worlds within worlds with no beginning or end.

Just to think about it bent her mind like a sapling on the verge of snapping.

Fleet gave her titbits of information now and then, hoping to spur her interest in the goings-on in the castle. Some of the Lords and Ladies were drifting away now, either angry or resigned, having realized that they would not get to see the Hierophant after all. Grugaroth had departed with his retinue of ur-people. Aelthar, however, was unbowed, and he had resorted to terrible threats now in his demands for an audience.

Poison barely listened. She had not eaten since she took to bed, and had barely drunk a thing. She was pale, her sweat smelled unhealthy, and her long black hair had gone limp and straggled across her face. She began to mutter in her sleep. Her friends – how hollow the word seemed now! – tried to convince her to eat something, anything; but the desire to eat had gone, and even the hunger was only a dull, distant ache inside her.

So wrapped up was she in misery that she did not notice what was happening around her until it was too pronounced to miss.

It was while Fleet was reading to her that she spoke the first conscious words she had said since she had gone to bed.

“Fleet,” she croaked. He looked up instantly, his eyes shining with hope. “Fleet, you're sick.”

He
was
sick. She saw it now. His cheeks were sunken; his flesh was wasting off his bones. She could see the sockets of his eyes. It was as if
he
were the one starving, not her. And yet . . . it was more than simple lack of food. There was something else about his condition, something beyond illness or physical need; but she was too dazed by hunger to understand it.

“We're all sick, Poison,” Fleet said.

“Peppercorn and Bram, too?” She felt a faint stab of concern. “Andersen?”

“
Everyone
,” Fleet replied. “The servants, the Antiquarians, even the Lords and Ladies. Even Aelthar has succumbed.”

“What is it?” she whispered. “What's happening?”

“I don't know,” Fleet said. “It's like the castle is full of ghosts. Everyone's listless, everyone's . . . tired. The doctors can't find a cause. They talk of plague and disease, but it's none of those things. . . It's in the walls, too . . . even the castle itself seems weaker now, paler . . . less solid than it once was.” He sighed. “It's like it's all just fading away.”

“But. . .” Poison began. “How. . . ?”

“I don't know. . . I don't know. . .” he whispered. He seemed so weak then, an impostor, not the tough, wiry Fleet she had always known. He raised his head and fixed her with a weary eye. “Poison, I've heard you talking when you sleep. It doesn't make sense. . . I . . . I can't understand it . . . but you have to stop whatever you're doing.”

“Me?” Poison was shocked enough to be indignant. “I'm not doing anything. Literally.” She surprised herself that she still had the ability to make a joke, however feeble.

“You're. . . You talk about stories, Poison. What did the Hierophant say to you? What did he do?”

But Poison was remembering the words that Myrrk had spoken to her, back in his hut by the lake. How the world had gone wrong because he gave up his role and tried to make a different life for himself.
I had a story myself, once, but I didn't like it and I tried to change it. I'd advise against that.
He had refused to tell her what he meant, saying that it was not the right time; but now, in a moment of sudden clarity, she knew.

“It's me,” she said through parched lips. “It's me. I
am
doing this.”

“What are you doing, Poison? Why?” Fleet's tone of hurt was like a lead block on her soul.

“I stopped cooperating,” she replied.

“With who?” Fleet asked.

She levered herself up a little on her pillows. “You can't see it, Fleet. You can't see it because you don't want to. But this is a phaerie tale; that's all it is. Conjured by the Hierophant. I won't be a part of his game, like some chess piece for him to move. If I can't decide for myself, I won't play at all. If I can't have free will –” she dropped her gaze – “I'd rather die.”

She could see Fleet glazing over as she spoke, but he was struggling to comprehend. She had presented him with an entirely impossible concept, one that was beyond his ability to grasp.

“I don't understand,” he said. “I don't. I don't know how this is linked with this . . . malaise that has fallen on all of us, but I know it's to do with you, Poison. What is so terrible that you have lost all will to live? Don't you see that you're taking us all with you?”

Poison would have shed a tear then, if she had any left. “You're fictions, all of you. Just like me.”

“How can you think that?” Fleet cried, suddenly spurred to animation. “We feel, we love, we cry, we bleed, we sacrifice. . . If that is not life, then what is? What's your definition, Poison? How can you think that the Hierophant is controlling you somehow? Don't you make your own choices? Didn't you choose to come on this quest?”

“Did I? I don't know,” she said, sinking back to the pillows. “If ever I needed proof that my choices are illusions, you have just given it to me. Look what happens when I refuse to do as he wants. The story is fading around me. Why can't I choose to give up?”

To that, Fleet had no answer. Poison turned over in bed, facing away from him, and eventually she heard him leave.

 

They came to her often, now that she had begun to speak again. They saw it as a good sign, but it really wasn't. She merely wanted to tell them she was sorry for what was happening. Though they did not understand as Fleet had not, they pleaded with her to eat, to regain her strength. They were dying, fading, becoming nothing as the story unravelled around her; but how could she ever pull herself back from the pit into which she had sunk? How could she live on in the knowledge that she was reading off someone else's script? She endured Peppercorn's tears and Bram's silence, not knowing which was worse. But she would not flex. She would fade, and they with her, and so it would go. It was the one choice she had made for herself; and if she could only thwart the Hierophant by her death, then that was what it would have to take. It was his fault for making her such a contrary character. The harder she was pushed, the harder she pushed back.

 

She lapsed in and out of consciousness, weakness periodically swallowing her and spitting her out. Day and night meant nothing to her. Time had fractured into brief windows of lucidity. She was starving and dehydrated. Sometimes she woke with moist lips, where one of her carers had dribbled honey or milk into her mouth as she slept, relying on the swallowing reflex to ensure she took it down. But it was not enough to stop the decline. She was dying, and she knew it . . . but at least it was her decision.

One night, she woke in near-darkness, to see Bram sitting by her bedside. A single lantern burned on a table nearby, casting its glow across one side of his face. His eyes were shadowed by the brim of his omnipresent hat.

“Bram. . .” she croaked, somehow managing a smile.

He was silent for a long while, and though she could not see his expression, she sensed that it was grave.

“Bram, what is it?”

“I've been thinking,” he said. “And you're going to listen to what I have to say.”

He tilted his head up and the lantern light fell across his face, and Poison gasped. She could almost see his skull through his skin. His moustache was thinning and limp. His bull neck had withered and hung loose with flesh. His eyes were spidercracked with blood.

“Oh, Bram. . .” she moaned. The sight of him was like a spear through her chest.

“Save your sympathy,” he replied, and his voice was harsh and brittle. “I've heard your apologies before. I'm not interested.”

Poison was taken aback by this sudden change in his manner, and too weak to form a retort.

“You're a selfish girl,” he growled. “Look at what you're doing. Take a good look at me. Have you seen Peppercorn? Fleet? Even that cursed cat? Have you seen what your principles are doing to us? You're killing us, you spoiled little brat, all because you won't stand up for yourself.”

Poison quailed at the raw anger in his voice. She had not known Bram to be capable of such. For such a kind soul to be so turned. . .

“You're fictions. . .” she protested weakly.

“Yes, yes, I've heard that too,” he snarled. “Fictions. Ridiculous! I'm as alive as you, and you're as alive as the Hierophant. We're all
alive
, Poison. By any definition you have, we're alive. Even if you think we've been given life by someone else. We all have dreams and ambitions, we all have plans and wishes, and you're taking them all away from us.” He stood up, making a gesture of disgust with one gloved hand. “Didn't you ever believe in a god, Poison?”