Story's End (23 page)

Duessa nudged him with one foot, and he toppled to the ground. “—I belong to no one.”

Una felt the bite she had just swallowed come back up her throat. She fought down the sensation and willed her hands to work again. How far did the enchantment go? Should she show some emotion? Should she pretend to be happy? One hand was shaking, and she stabbed the fork into the big piece of meat on her plate. Her mother had just killed someone. Right in front of her.

Fidelus was back at the table in an instant. “He brought the Scroll?” Fidelus stepped over Archimago’s body with barely a glance. He reached out both hands for the glowing parchment and held it in reverent fingers. He looked at Duessa. “And so it begins.”

“The beginning of The End”—Duessa planted a kiss on his knuckles—“my king.”

Fidelus’s laugh started low and then built into a wild sound that made Una’s bones turn to ice. His eyes looked half mad, and he cradled the Scroll like it was a newborn baby. From his cloak he drew the Silver Quill. It was nothing like the fake Una had brought from Jaga’s hovel. The silver of the feather was woven with black, as though it was fringed with smoke. With a flick of his wrist, Fidelus took the sharp nib and cut a gash along his forearm. Dark blood gushed out, and Duessa caught it in a silver goblet. And then Una realized what she was seeing.
The Dragon’s Ink
. Una’s mouth was dry. She should do something. She should stop her father. Reach out and grab the Quill. Go over to the edge of the balcony and shout at Peter and the other characters. Didn’t they know Fidelus was about to use the Elements?
Do something.
Una couldn’t make her hand work, couldn’t lift the fork, couldn’t do anything but stare at her father’s face. The space around him grew dark. The air in the room shifted uneasily, and the table began to shake beneath them. Fidelus took the Quill and dipped it into the goblet.

Una braced herself for The End.

A sliver of light shot from the floor to the ceiling, cracking open into a blinding rainbow of color. The black cloud around Fidelus was snuffed out. The table stilled. Her father’s hand froze, black liquid dripping from the quill’s point. And, there, balancing on the edge of the balcony, was the true King of Story.

“The Lost Elements, Fidelus?” Kai asked, leaning on a wooden staff, one ankle hooked behind the other. “An interesting move.”

“You have no authority here. I am the King now,” Fidelus spit. “You abandoned Story long ago.” He aimed a hand toward the King. “And you are about to abandon it yet again.”

“So you still will not bend?” Kai twirled the staff in front of him. “Even now, I will write you a Tale.”

“You will never write another word in Story,” Fidelus said, summoning the darkness with a swirl of his hand. The rest of the ballroom seemed frozen in some faraway scene. Gone was the sound of silverware on china. Gone the sound of laughter and jesting. It was as though Una alone witnessed the duel.

“You will watch The End come to all you have written,” Fidelus said. “And everyone in the new Story will serve
me.
And you, the once-upon-a-time King, will be unwritten once and for all.”

The Enemy blew on the Scroll, and the smoldering ember flamed into brightness. Una shielded her eyes for a moment. A square of fiery parchment hovered in the air before her father. He dipped the Quill into his Ink-blood and, with a flourish, began to write the first words of his new Story.

Chapter 30

S
now cowered behind one of the twisted trees of the Enchanted Forest and tried to catch her breath. At the last second, before Duessa began to speak, Indy had crashed into Snow and shoved his hands over her ears. Then they were sprinting away from the Enchantress’s words, deeper into the forest and far from Duessa’s charming tones. The stitch that had started throbbing in Snow’s side was now an ever-present dagger of pain.

“Do you have any of the potion?” she asked. Her breath was ragged, but she tried to keep it under control. Indy was barely even winded. He had told her he had been chewing on the leaf ever since they entered the forest just in case, but from the way everyone else had stayed behind to listen to Duessa, Snow thought he was probably the only one clever enough to think of doing that.

“Nope.” Indy shook his head. “It’s all sitting there in their pockets, but they won’t remember to take it.” He scuffed his shoe on the ground. “We have to get in there somehow. Do something to save them.”

This part of the forest was all too dreadfully familiar. Here was where her mother had first threatened Archimago. Was it really only the night before that they had raced through these same grounds? And then Snow remembered.
The Ivory Gates!

“Come with me,” she said to Indy, and this time she took the lead. She remembered that the wasteland had melted away to abandoned gardens, but the castle was huge, and they would have to find a way across the moat if they had any hope of finding the gates. The main drawbridge was out of the question. The side of the castle nearest them was impenetrable. Then, as they made a wide circle around the castle, she saw their route. A narrow, crumbling bridge stretched like a sliver of stone over the moat. And there, in front of it, paced a huge, scaly dragon.

Snow tried to size up their opponent. It would not be an easy fight. Dragons were fast, even though they were large, and this one breathed fire. Indy had a scimitar, and Snow had her branding iron, but neither would do much unless they could land a blow in one of the dragon’s few exposed areas, which would be difficult.

“Let’s each take a side,” Indy said, and Snow was grateful he wasn’t going to try and play the part of a Hero. If they worked together, their odds of surviving this were marginally better. The dragon arched its neck, and a blast of heat singed Snow’s eyebrows. The next moment, a volley of flame shot toward Indy, who ducked and darted out of the way. The dragon flicked its tail, and it was faster than Snow could have imagined. She rolled, and the tail’s spiked barbs whistled over her head. She scrambled to her feet, cutting her hands on the sharp stones as she moved.

The dragon reared back to blast more fire at Snow, and Indy ducked in close to its body, aiming his scimitar at the dragon’s exposed underbelly. It was a mistake. The dragon roared and swiped a powerful claw toward Indy.

Indy moved sideways, but it was too late. The dragon slashed across his back, and Indy howled with pain. Snow fought back a scream as Indy dragged himself farther away.

But Snow didn’t go to him to make sure he was okay. While the dragon was busy with Indy, she grabbed the biggest stone she could find and hurled it straight at the dragon’s head. It reared in pain and lashed its tail from side to side. Another stone, this time right in the eye. The dragon roared and wobbled.

Indy was on his feet, his scimitar slicing through the air, cutting into the dragon’s unprotected belly, and then it was done. Quicker than Snow could have thought possible, the dragon was dead.

They sped over the slender bridge, fearful that someone—or something—else might have heard the sound of their fight. The door on the other side had long since been bricked over, but a shred of a path snaked around the nearest turret. Snow pressed her back into the wall as they worked their way sideways. Pebbles shifted under her feet, dropping down into the moat under them. They rounded the corner, and the path widened a fraction and led to a rotting garbage heap. Snow gagged her way over the refuse and tried her best not to identify the soft, rotting shapes bursting under her hands. And then she was beyond it. The smell vanished, replaced by the same hollow air she remembered from the desert. A few more paces and she was there, the familiar Ivory Gates towering over her and Indy.

“She did something with this knot,” Snow said as she ran her fingers over the mess of carved thorns. Next to it was a dozing princess leaning against a unicorn. And a king sleeping in his throne. What was it her mother had done? Why hadn’t Snow paid more attention?

“Are there guards in the castle?” Indy asked. “Will we need to fight our way through?”

“Possibly,” Snow said. “The castle was mostly deserted when we were there, but that was before the ball. If Duessa made a dragon stand guard, who knows what we’ll find inside?” And then she found it. At last. There was the gnome snoozing under the tree. She took a deep breath.
What if there were Taleless inside?
Indy stood solidly beside her, and his silence made her braver. She began to push each of the figures in turn, making a circle just as her mother had done. Then, she shoved hard on the thorns, and the Ivory Gate began to dissolve.

There weren’t guards on the other side. Or Taleless. Instead there was darkness. And instead of silent, deserted corridors, there was the sound of wailing. Of prisoners calling for help, the desperate cries of people who knew they were about to die.

Snow raced toward the sound. Down a staircase and around a corner. And then the awful smell overtook her. She knew this place. They were in the dungeon. Up ahead, a very old man had stuck his hands through the bars of his cell, and he was trying to wedge a piece of stone wall into the lock.

“What’s happening?” Snow asked him. “Why is everyone screaming?”

The man looked at her as if she might be a ghost. “Are you real?” he croaked. “Or am I dreaming?”

“I’m real.” Snow reached out and grabbed his wrinkled hands. “And we’re here to rescue you.”

“The Taleless are coming,” the man whimpered. “They will take our flesh.” Snow didn’t wait to hear more. She began hammering at the lock with her branding iron.

“What’s thissssss?” A hissing, cloaked creature was drifting toward her. “A ressscue?” The dungeon guard had no face, just a gaping black hood where the head should be. It reached out iron claws toward Snow. Until Indy chopped one off. Whatever the hissing beast was, it hadn’t expected an ambush, and it hadn’t been prepared for Indy.

The thing’s blood sizzled on the blade, and Indy wiped it off carefully on the dead creature’s cloak. Then he took the tip and unhooked a large ring of keys from the guard’s belt.

“Would these help?” he asked Snow, and even in the darkness she could see his smile.

It didn’t take them long to empty the cells. Snow went first with the keys, then Indy came after, helping the prisoners out. Many of them were so old they could barely walk, and their thin legs looked as if they might snap under the pressure. Snow thought of Archimago and how crazy he had become in Duessa’s dungeons. What of these poor souls? How long had they been trapped here? And what would happen to them now?

A wrinkled woman patted Snow’s hand as she passed. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, dear.”

Snow wondered how things were faring at the coronation. Emptying Duessa’s dungeons was all well and good, but they needed to do more if they were to stop Fidelus from becoming King. And an army of ancient, frail prisoners wouldn’t be much help. When the last chain was unlocked and the last prisoner escorted outside the Ivory Gates, she turned to Indy. “I have to go to the ball. My mother’s in there.”

Indy looked at Snow. Then he looked back at the crowd of shivering prisoners. “I’ll take them as far as the forest. And then I’ll come find you.”

Snow gave him a brave smile. “I’ll see you then.” She knew as she said it that her words were wishful thinking. Whether any of them made it out of this alive was a long shot.

But Indy didn’t remind her of their small odds. Instead he clasped her arm as she had seen the warriors in Heroics class do. “Fight well, Snow,” he said, and then they were gone, the line of prisoners tottering toward the rocky path.

Snow raced back through the dungeon and up the stairs. She didn’t know where she was going, but she could hear a crashing noise and the sound of shouting. The floor shook beneath her, sending her stumbling around a corner and straight into the arms of the last person she ever expected to see.

“Snow?” Horace’s voice was a question mark as he steadied Snow on her feet. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Snow said with a wry smile. “But I don’t really want to know the answer.” Horace had always been a bit too comfortable in the company of Villains, and Snow didn’t want to find out that her cousin was on the Enemy’s side. “Just tell me how to get to the ballroom.”

“You don’t want to go that way,” Horace said, trying to pull her back toward the dungeons. “The real King just showed up, and Duessa’s enchantment is already beginning to fail. There’s going to be a fight in there, and you won’t want to be anywhere near it.”

Snow jerked free of his arm. Her cousin had also always been a bit of a scaredy-cat. “I’m going to fight, Horace.” She took a step back.

Horace stared at her. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” He shook his head. “There’s no way you can fight the Taleless. Besides, you’ll lose. Fidelus is—”

“I know all about the Taleless.” Snow didn’t have time for arguing. “And winning or losing isn’t the point.” She looked straight into his eyes. “Now’s your chance, Horace. You get to choose. Be brave and fight for Story? Or run away and regret it for the rest of your life.” She turned around and started walking toward the battle. “You do what you want, but I’m going to go rescue my mother.”

Chapter 31

U
na studied the thorny vines in front of her. As soon as Kai had appeared, her parents had forgotten all about her. And Una hadn’t waited another minute. She had slipped out of the balcony and found the way she had come earlier that evening. How had her mother phrased it?
The only ones who can stop you are asleep in the tower.
The Muses were behind that curtain of thorns, Una was sure of it. The stones beneath her shook with the blasts of the battle. Una leaned closer, careful to keep a safe distance from the violent leaves, scanning their tangled mass for some sort of clue. A pattern. Anything.

It happened in a flash, before she could even cry out. Her braid swung forward and caught on one of the thorns. And then the plant had her hair. She heard the crackle of the vines as the plant moved toward its prey. She pulled backward as hard as she could, but she was caught fast. She would have to cut off her hair. She reached for her dagger, and cried out when her hands met empty air. She didn’t have a weapon.