The Iron Knight (17 page)

I tensed, ready to attack should the giant lunge at us. That single leg, once taken out, would make it easy to bring this huge creature down. But the giant only blinked at us sleepily,
then turned to gaze at the river again, where the string of his fishing pole met the water.

The Wolf panted, grinning at Puck, who had leaped to his feet, furiously brushing mud from his pants. Ariella stepped up beside me, her apathy forgotten as we gazed up at the strange creature, continuing to fish as if nothing had happened. “What is that?” she whispered, clutching my arm. “I’ve never seen a creature like this before. Is this some kind of human nightmare?”

“It’s not a nightmare,” the Wolf said, sitting down to watch us. “It’s fey, just like you, but it doesn’t have a name. At least, none that anyone can remember.”

“I did not think any still existed,” Grimalkin said, reappearing on a piece of driftwood, his tail still fluffed out to twice its size. He peered up at the oblivious giant and sniffed. “This may be the very last one.”

“Well, endangered or not, maybe it can help us,” Puck said, edging up to the giant’s treelike leg. “Oy, stumpy! Yeah, you!” he called as the giant’s massive head swiveled around to stare at him. “Can you understand me?”

The Wolf blinked at Puck, astonished, and Ariella pressed a little bit closer to me. I could feel her soft fingers gripping my arm, and casually reached for my sword hilt. “I’m not about to scrape you off the bottom of its foot, Goodfellow,” I warned.

“Touched that you care, prince,” Puck called back, retreating a few steps to meet the giant’s gaze, craning his head up. “Hey there,” he greeted, waving cheerfully. “We don’t mean to intrude, but would you be able to answer a couple questions?” He blinked as the giant continued to stare. “Uh, bob once for yes, twice for no.”

The faery shifted, and I tensed, ready to attack if it tried to stomp Puck like an irritating cockroach. But the giant
only pulled his line out of the river and turned to face Puck square on.

“What … do … you … want?” it asked, very slowly, as if it was just remembering how to talk. Puck’s eyebrows shot up.

“Oh, hey, you can speak, after all. Excellent.” He turned to grin at me, and I stared back, unamused. “We were just wondering,” Puck continued, giving the giant his best charming smile, “how much farther to the End of the World? Just as a curiosity. Do you know? You look like a local, you’ve been here awhile, right? What do you think?”

“I … do not remember,” the giant said, frowning as if such a thought pained him. “I am sorry. I do not remember.”

“You won’t get anything useful out of him, Goodfellow,” the Wolf growled, standing up. “He doesn’t even remember why he’s here.”

“I was … looking for something,” the giant mused, his large eyes going glassy. “In … the river, I think. I forgot what it was, but … I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Oh.” Puck looked disappointed, but only for a moment. “Well, how about a boat, then?” he went on, undaunted. “If you’ve been here awhile, you must’ve seen a boat floating down the river once or twice.”

The Wolf shook his head and turned to stalk down the riverbank, obviously fed up with the conversation. But the giant frowned, his huge brows knitting together, and nodded thoughtfully.

“A boat. Yes … I remember a boat. Always going in the same direction.” He pointed with a pale white finger in the direction we were headed. “That way. It makes one stop, just one, at the dock on the river’s edge.”

I looked up sharply. “Where?”

The giant’s furrows deepened. “A town? A settlement? I think I remember … houses. Others … like me. Lots of mist …”

He blinked and shrugged, which looked strange because he had no shoulders. “I don’t remember.”

With a final blink, he turned away, as if forgetting we were there, and none of Puck’s continued prodding seemed to reach him.

“Do you know anything about this town?” I asked Grimalkin as we continued down the riverbank. Farther ahead, the Wolf had stopped again and was looking back in annoyance. I would’ve asked him, but he looked ready to snap someone’s head off.

“I only know legends, prince.” Grimalkin picked his way over the ground, avoiding puddles and mincing his way through the mud. “I have never been to this so-called town myself, but there are very, very old stories about a place in the Deepest Wyld where the fey go to die.”

I stared at the cat. “What do you mean?”

Grimalkin sighed. “Among other things, the town is known as Phaed. Do not bother telling me you have never heard of it. I already know you have not. It is a place for those whom no one remembers anymore. Just as stories, belief and imagination make us stronger, the lack of them slowly kills, even those in the Nevernever, until there is nothing left. That giant we saw? He is one of them, the Forgotten, clinging to existence by the thread of those who still remember him. It is only a matter of time before he is simply not there anymore.”

I shivered, and even Puck looked grave. Deep down, that was something we all feared, being forgotten, fading away into nothingness because no one remembered our stories or our names.

“Do not look so serious,” Grimalkin said, hopping over a puddle, perching on a rock to stare at us. “It is the inevitable end for all of Faery. We all must fade eventually. Even
you, Goodfellow. Even the great and mighty Wolf. Why do you think he wished to accompany you, prince?” Grimalkin wrinkled his nose, curling his whiskers at me. “So that his story would go on. So that it would spread to the hearts and minds of those who will remember him. But everything he does is only a delay. Sooner or later, everyone winds up in Phaed. Except cats, of course.” With a sniff, he leaped down and trotted along the riverbank with his tail held high.

A ragged mist began to curl along the ground, coming off the water and creeping through the trees. Soon it was so thick it was difficult to see more than a few feet, the river, the woods, the distant horizon completely obscured by the blanket of white.

The Wolf suddenly appeared, coming out of the fog like a silent and deadly shadow. “There are lights ahead,” he growled, the fur along his shoulders and neck bristling like a bed of spikes. “It looks like a town, but there’s something strange about it. It has no scent, no smell. There are things moving around up ahead, and I heard voices through the fog, but I can’t smell anything. It’s like it’s not even there.”

“That is the problem with dogs.” Grimalkin sighed, nearly invisible in the coiling mist. “Always trusting what their nose tells them. Perhaps you should pay attention to your other senses, as well.”

The Wolf bared his teeth in a snarl. “I’ve been up and down these banks more times than I can remember. There was never a town here. Only fog. Why would there be one now?”

“Perhaps it appears as the ferry does,” Grimalkin said calmly, peering into the mist. “Perhaps it only appears when there is need. Or perhaps—” he glanced at me and Ariella “—only those who have died or are about to die can find their way to Phaed.”

T
HE RIVERBANK TURNED
into a muddy path, which we followed until dark shapes began to appear through the mist, the silhouettes of houses and trees. As we got closer, the town of Phaed appeared before us, the path cutting straight through the center. Wooden shanties stood on stilts above the marshy ground, leaning dangerously to the side as if they were drunk. Tired gray hovels slumped or were stacked atop each other like cardboard boxes on the verge of falling down or collapsing with a good kick. Everything sagged, drooped, creaked or was so faded it was impossible to tell its original color.

The street was full of clutter, odds and ends that appeared as if they had been dropped and never picked up again. A fishing pole, with the skeleton of a fish on the end of the line, lay in the middle of the road, causing the Wolf to curl his lip and skirt around it. An easel with a half-finished painting rotted in a pool of stagnant water, paint dripping into the pool like blood. And books were scattered everywhere, from children’s nursery rhymes to huge tomes that looked completely ancient.

The fog here was thicker, too, muffling all sound. Nothing seemed to move, or even breathe.

“Nice place,” Puck muttered as we passed an old rocking chair, creaking in the wind. “Real homey. I wonder where everyone is.”

“They come and go,” said the rocking chair behind us. We all jumped and spun around, drawing our weapons. A strange creature with blank white eyes stared at us where nothing had been before.

As with the giant, I didn’t recognize this creature. It had the body of a shriveled old woman, but her hands were gnarled bird claws and her feet ended in hooves. Feathers stuck out of her gray hair and ran down her skinny arms, but I also saw tiny horns curling from her brow. She regarded me with a dull, tired expression, and a forked tongue flicked out to touch her lips.

“Oh,” she said as I took a deep, slow breath and sheathed my weapon, “newcomers. I haven’t seen a new face in town for … come to think of it, I’ve never seen a new face.” She paused a moment, peering at us, then brightened. “If you’re new, then perhaps you’ve seen it. Have you seen it, by chance?”

I frowned. “It?”

“Yes.
It.
”

I felt something odd in the air around her, a faint pulling sensation, like water being sucked through a straw. “It … what?” I asked cautiously, facing the old faery again. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed heavily, seeming to shrink in on herself. “I don’t remember. I just know I lost it. You haven’t seen it, have you?”

“No,” I told her firmly. “I haven’t seen it.”

“Oh.” The old creature sighed again, shrinking down a little more. “Are you sure? I thought you might have seen it.”

“So, anyway,” Puck broke in, before the conversation could go in another circle. “We’d love to stay and chat, but we’re sort of in a hurry. Can you point us toward the docks?”

The creature’s tongue flicked out, as if tasting the air around Puck. “You’re so bright,” she whispered. “All of you are so bright. Like little suns, you are.” Puck and I shared a glance, and started to back away. “Oh, don’t leave,” the faery pleaded, holding out a withered claw. “Stay. Stay and chat a bit. It’s so cold sometimes. So … cold …” She shivered and, like mist dissolving in the sunlight, faded away. An empty rocking chair, still creaking back and forth, was the only thing left behind.

Puck gave an exaggerated shiver and rubbed his arms. “Okay, that was probably the creepiest thing I’ve seen in a
while,” he said with forced cheerfulness. “Who else is for finding this boat and getting the hell outta Dodge?”

“Come on,” the Wolf growled, eager to leave as well. “I can smell the river. This way.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned and padded down the street.

I looked for Grimalkin, not surprised to find he had vanished as well. I hoped that didn’t mean there would be trouble soon. “What do you think she was searching for?” I asked Ariella as we continued through the silent town, following the Wolf’s huge silhouette through the fog. “The creature on the riverbank was looking for something, too. I wonder what they lost that’s so important?”

Ariella shivered, her expression haunted. “Their names,” she said quietly. “I think … they were searching for their names.” She drifted off for a moment, her eyes distant and sad. I felt a twinge of alarm at how much she suddenly resembled the faery in the rocking chair. “I could feel the emptiness inside,” Ariella continued in a near whisper, “the hollow places that consume them. They’re like a hole, an empty spot where you’d expect something to be. That creature in the rocking chair … she was almost gone. I think it was just your and Puck’s glamour that brought her back, if only for a little while.”

Figures were starting to appear through the mist now, strange, unfamiliar creatures with the same dead eyes and empty faces. They stumbled through the town in a daze, as if sleepwalking, barely conscious of their surroundings. Sometimes they would turn to stare at us with blank eyes and detached curiosity, but none made an effort to approach.

A booming roar broke through the muffled silence, and a scuffle ahead in the mist made me draw my sword and hurry over. The Wolf stood, teeth bared and hackles raised, over a figure with tiny hands growing everywhere from its
body. The creature’s arms, as well as its dozens of hands, were thrown up to protect it, and it cringed back as the Wolf bared his teeth and went for its throat.

I lunged forward, slamming my shoulder into the Wolf’s head, knocking him aside with a furious yelp. He turned on me with a snarl, and suddenly Puck was there, daggers drawn, standing beside me. Together, we formed a wall between the Wolf and his intended victim, who scurried away on multiple hands and vanished under a building.

The Wolf glared at us, eyes blazing, the hair on his spine standing up. “Move,” he growled, narrowing his eyes. “I’m going to find that thing and rip its head off. Get out of my way.”

“Calm down,” I ordered, keeping my blade between myself and the angry Wolf. “Attack one of them and the whole place might come after us. It’s gone now, so you can’t do anything about it.”

“I’ll kill them all,” the Wolf growled, his voice gone dangerously soft. “I’ll rip every single one of them to bloody shreds. This place isn’t natural. Can’t you feel it? It’s like a starving animal, clawing at us. We should kill every one of them now.”

“I would advise against that,” Grimalkin said, appearing from nowhere. He narrowed his eyes at the Wolf, who stared back murderously. “You would be surprised how many Forgotten exist in this world,” the cat went on. “More than you can imagine, I assure you. And strong emotions like anger and fear will only attract them like ants to honey. So do try to keep your teeth in your jaws without ripping someone’s head off. We might actually make it out of here.”

The Wolf’s baleful glare shifted between me and Grimalkin before he turned away with a snarl, snapping at the air. As he did, I saw the fur on his back and shoulders, normally
pitch-black, was streaked with gray, but then he shook himself and the color faded from sight.

“Geez, this place is making even Wolfman twitchy,” Puck said to me in a low voice, watching the Wolf pace back and forth, growling. Beyond him, a crowd was slowly gathering, curious faces emerging from the mist, blank eyes fixed on us. “Let’s find that boat and get out of here before he starts tearing down the walls.”