Story's End (5 page)

Her mother turned to the man. “How far have you gone into the desert?”

“Three days’ journey in every direction,” he said without expression, and walked forward into the emptiness. “It’s a wasteland. No living things.”

“And how is it that the guards let you roam free?” Snow’s mother came up behind him.

“Free?” he said bitterly. “Oh, I am not free. They are always with me, always punishing me.” The whites of his eyes seemed to shine in the moonlight. “It never ends. I live to serve.” His face took on a crafty look, and he began to move back toward the wall. “Well, here is the parting of our ways. Fair travels for fair ladies.”

“Wait!” Snow called, but the man dropped down on all fours, and, faster than Snow thought possible, he disappeared back into the tunnel. They went after him, but by the time they reached the spot, the entrance was gone and they could only feel rocky wall where it had been.

“How is that even possible?” Snow asked as she thumped the surface.

“Illusion,” her mother said, as though she were savoring the words. “All is not as it appears to be.”

Snow sank to the ground next to the wall. The sand felt even colder than the stone. “That dirty rat! Do you think he’s going to get the guards?”

“Doubtful. I don’t think he’s lying about being a prisoner.” Her mother eased down next to her. “Even if he is mad. His captors might not even know about his tunnels. Or perhaps they’ve forgotten about him altogether.” She gingerly patted the bandages on her feet. “I can’t walk far,” she said. “And I believe him that wasteland surrounds this place. I think we will find nothing but deadness here.”

“Then what do we do? Stay put until
we
die?” Snow asked.

“No,” her mother said. “Not at all. Let me think.” The silence around them grew.

Snow wasn’t sure when she’d last felt such absolute quiet. It hemmed her in and pounded at her ears. She looked up into the inky sky. “There are no stars,” Snow said. There wasn’t even a wisp of a cloud, just the bright moon and a very empty horizon.

“None at all,” her mother said.

“But that’s impossible,” Snow said as realization dawned. “No stars means that . . .”

“This is all a fake. A deception. You
were
paying attention last term, weren’t you?” Her mother smiled at her. “If someone has woven an illusion around this place, it makes sense that the tunnel entrance would also be unreliable. If I hadn’t been puzzling out the mystery of that fool, I might have noticed that the only sound is that of our own voices. And the only smell comes from our own persons.” She frowned at the desert around them. “There are no other living things here. How that man traveled three days in this mirage is a riddle, but one for another day. We must find a hole in the illusion. Think, Snow. Every detail is important. What can you remember of your arrival?”

Snow thought out loud. “When they took me out of the wagon, they dropped me on my back. I felt something soft beneath me. It could have been leaves, I suppose. The wetness of it seeped through my cloak. I had the sack over my head, so I couldn’t see anything.” She hated the memory of that sour darkness, the stifling already-breathed air pressing into her face. “Someone carried me. I heard the sound of footfalls, so he must have come to a road or a bridge or something like that. Then a clanging sound.”

“Describe it,” her mother said.

Snow tried to remember. “It sounded like something heavy scraping on stone.” Her certainty grew. “Like in Weaponry, when the mistress tells you to drop your weapon, and thirty swords clatter to the stone floor. Only louder.”

Her mother nodded. “What else?”

“After the noise, he told someone to open the door. I guess we must have gone inside the prison, because we went down stairs. Lots of them. And then he put me in our cell.”

“It sounds like they put us in a castle dungeon,” her mother said. “How appropriate. No doubt somewhere in the depths of the Red Enchantress’s fortress.”

“The Red Enchantress?” Snow asked. “You mean the woman from the clearing? The one who—?” She glanced down at her mother’s feet.

“Yes,” her mother said shortly. “We are her prisoners.” She stood. “I wish our guide hadn’t left us. I have more questions for him. Come, Snow. We’d best be on our way.”

Snow wasn’t sure she wanted to follow her mother, despite the lack of alternatives. If this was some sort of fortress populated by clawed guards and a Red Enchantress and prisoners like the madman, what good would it do for them to find a way into the real castle? But her worries were for nothing. The wall stretched in endless monotony as far as the eye could see. Each step forward brought the same scenery. Rough stone to their left. An ocean of silvery sand to their right.

Snow’s stomach rumbled. Neither of them had thought to take the food, however questionable, from the tray in the cell. She tried not to think of the Woodland Room back at Perrault Academy. Were her classmates there now, enjoying a mug of chocolate by the fire and bragging over exploits in the exam? When would someone notice she was gone? She wasn’t on the best of terms with Una, but surely Una would notice her roommate was missing. Eventually.

Her mother’s steps were getting slower, and Snow could tell walking was painful.

Snow gazed out over the rolling sand dunes and laughed bitterly. “It doesn’t matter that we’ve escaped. There’s nowhere to go.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve adopted that man’s sour words after one day in this place.” Her mother frowned at her. “At least have the good grace to give it three days of wandering before you give up.”

Snow felt her jaw drop open. Her mother had never openly scolded her before. Oh, Snow had read disapproval across those icy features of hers, but that wasn’t the same thing as being corrected outright. Her mother didn’t take it back.

“Don’t look so shocked,” she snapped at Snow. “This isn’t Perrault. We don’t have the luxury of dancing on eggshells here. We’re in trouble, Snow. In danger. I need you to keep your wits about you.”

Snow opened her mouth to argue, but her mother cut her off.

“I’d think twice about wasting your breath, Snow,” she said, but emotion—anger even—had replaced the icy stillness that usually invaded her mother’s tone. “The things that are unspoken between us. Why it is that you hate me. It can wait. We have to work together. We have to trust each other.” She reached over and grabbed Snow firmly under the chin, drawing her face up so she could look directly into her eyes.

“For better or worse, I’m all you’ve got now.”

They had just started walking again when a speck appeared on the horizon. Or what passed for the horizon in this awful, endless night. It grew to a shadowy form, and Snow ducked into the wall’s scant protection.

“Not to worry, my ladies.” The madman was back, and his voice sounded thin in the enchanted air. “Not to worry. It is I, your friend and guide.” He held one of the moldy rolls that had been on their tray in the cell and gnawed on the end.

“Great,” Snow muttered under her breath. “Just what we need.”

Her mother stepped around her. “Where does this wall go?”

“Nowhere else.”

“Nowhere else,” Snow echoed. “Oh, that’s just perfect. The tunnel goes somewhere else and the wall goes nowhere else. Add that to the list of crazy. A pretend desert that has no end. Torturers who slash up feet for fun. Guards who hide their faces and have silver claws instead of hands. A Tale Master who delivers us to the Red Enchantress with no explanation.” She looked at the man, who had stopped chewing. “And a madman is the only other living soul we’ve seen in ages.”

“What about the Tale Master?” A mushy piece of bread was dangling from the edge of the man’s mouth as he spoke.

Snow wrinkled up her nose. “Um, you’ve got something right here.” She pointed at her face.

“Tale Master Elton,” her mother said in a quiet voice. “Do you know him?”

There was a spark of interest in the man’s eyes, but, just as quickly, they clouded over. He swallowed hard to force the bread down. “I feel like I should know the name. Or the face. I’m much better with faces.” He licked his lips. “Except the Red Lady’s sleepers. Not their faces. Awake faces are best.” He snickered. “Her Taleless are hard, too. Haven’t got any faces. And they never sleep. Not like the dreamers at the Ivory Gate. Dreamers never wake.” The madman was shaking with silent laughter, and he looked even more insane than before. His jaw was open wide, and his tattered garments jiggled as he bent double.

“What do you mean by
the Ivory Gate
?” Her mother’s voice was sharp.

The man stopped and became almost perfectly still, an empty grin stretching the skin taut across his skull. He looked in every other direction but toward Snow’s mother. “Didn’t say anything about an Ivory Gate.”

“Yes, you did,” Snow said. “In your stupid joke.”

The man looked straight at her. “There’s no joke. For us or any of the others.” He leaned in close so that his face was right in front of Snow’s.

Snow moved back. “Get away from me!”

Snow’s mother uttered a short command that Snow couldn’t make out. Her hand stretched out, flesh pale in the moonlight, and then the madman crumpled to the ground. The air smelled of burned hair.

Snow’s eyes felt like they would pop out of her head. “You
killed
him?”

Her mother waved away her concern. “A freezing charm. That is all.” She limped over to what now looked like a pile of rags and nudged him with her toe. “I don’t want him to hear us.” She looked up at Snow. “He knows something of Elton, but his mind has been spoiled by magic. He has been too long under the Red Enchantress’s spell.” She stepped back from the man’s body. “Be watchful around him. I don’t want him to find you alone.” Her mother squeezed Snow’s arm. “Stay close to me. With luck, the farther we get from this evil place, the more his memories may return, and we will see what he knows about the Red Enchantress.”

Snow peered down at the man’s crumpled form. Was that what would happen to her the longer she stayed in this wasteland? She’d go mad?

Her mother raised her arms as if she were lifting the madman, even though he still lay two feet in front of her. “If nothing else, he will be of some use to us if he can lead us away from here.” Slowly, surely, the bent form straightened into the air until it was standing, arms hanging limply as if he were a scrawny puppet. Snow’s mother moved over to him and placed a hand against his forehead, murmuring softly.

Snow stared. She had always known her mother was a Villain. After all, she taught the subject at Perrault. Snow had even guessed that she might be a Witch. But Snow had never actually seen her mother act like one.

The old man jolted to life, and it was as though time had gone backward. He bent at the waist, his frame shaking with laughter. Then he stopped and said once again, “Her Taleless are hard, too. Haven’t got any faces. And they never sleep. Not like the dreamers at the Ivory Gate. Dreamers never wake.”

This time her mother approached and said in a silky voice, “How clever of you to have discovered the dreamers. Shall we follow you to them?”

The old man grinned at Snow’s mother with a besotted look and scampered ahead, glancing back over his shoulder like a dog waiting for his master.

Snow forced one foot in front of the other as she moved to catch up with him. Her mother wasn’t just a Villain. Or a Witch. Snow took a deep breath. She was an Enchantress.

Chapter 6

P
eter walked briskly to keep pace with Indy. At least the other boy had enough sense to keep a Lady safe in a place like Horror Hollow, and he and Indy flanked Una on either side. The harbor road was full of people, and the water next to them was nearly as busy. A towering ship had its gangplank down, and groups of loudmouthed sailors made their way to the deck, bulging sacks slung over their shoulders. Crowds of characters clamored to join them. News of what had happened at Heart’s Place had traveled quickly, and people were leaving the main districts in droves. Peter watched a merchant thrust more sacks of coins than he had seen in his life into the arms of a shifty-looking pirate. Maybe it would be enough to get the merchant and his family far, far away, out of the Enemy’s reach.

“Let me see the map again,” he said. Una handed over the paper the Dystopian had sold them, and Peter ducked out of the main thoroughfare to study it. They should be getting close to the quill shrine, but Peter didn’t see any likely Dystopian sites around them.

“I still think this whole pilgrimage thing is a hoax,” Peter said as he scanned the map.

“The Lost Elements aren’t a hoax,” Indy said. He took the map from Peter, and, after a moment of consultation, ushered them toward a run-down side street. “The Dystopians may prey on peoples’ fears, but they are learned oral storytellers. The Sacred Order thinks they might have access to the oldest backstories.”

Peter snorted. “And does the Sacred Order also know why the Enemy would want the Lost Elements?” He took the map back from Indy and began folding it up. “Oh, sorry, I forgot, the Sacred Order didn’t know anything about the Enemy to begin with.”

“Stop arguing, you two. It’s annoying. Who cares where the information comes from?” Una snatched the map back out of Peter’s hands and slapped it across the palm of her hands. “All of the possible locations of the Dragon’s Ink are in forests. Even the stained glass window showed the dragon dying in a forest. That’s not just a coincidence. I think Fidelus really did find the Dragon’s Ink, and that’s what he gulped down before he was imprisoned.” She started for the side street. “We’ve got to know more about the Elements, and then maybe we can figure out why he wants them so much.”

Indy said nothing and easily caught up with Una.

Peter didn’t need more convincing. If Indy was going, he was going too. He hurried after them. With a loud squish, Peter’s boot sank into a pile of rotting fish guts.
Perfect.
He stomped through the rancid pile and shook his foot. Una had stopped in front of a crumbling brick building. A wooden sign swung out from the street-side wall. There were no words, just a faded painting of a gull, wings spread as if in flight.