The Palace of Glass (19 page)

CARDS ON THE TABLE

A
LICE'S MIND
FELT LIKE
a car tire in deep mud, spinning madly with no traction.

“He got back . . . early?” she said. All she could think was,
That's not fair.

“I assume it was his intention from the start,” Ending said. “He must already have been suspicious of us.”

“He sounded angry when Mr. Wurms told him you were off in the library,” Ashes said. “He's had me waiting here for you ever since.”

“But . . . what are we going to do now?” Alice looked from Ashes to Ending and back again, then shook her head, trying to collect her scattered thoughts. “We can't just give up. There has to be something we can do.”

“I see two options,” Ending said. “The first option, most likely to succeed, is that you blame me for everything. Say this endeavor was my idea from the first. I think he will believe you, and while you may be punished, it will not be severe.”

“But if we do that,” Alice said, “he'll think you're rebelling like Torment, trying to get me to murder him. He'll—” Alice stopped. She didn't know
what
the Readers would do to a rogue labyrinthine, but it couldn't be good.

“He'll bind me away,” Ending said. “Like the Dragon. An ironic fate, given our history.”

“Mother,” Ashes hissed, “you can't be serious.”

“I am only facing the truth as I see it,” Ending said. “If Alice wishes to do this, I cannot stop her.”

“What's the second option?” Alice said.

“Ashes,” Ending said. “Perhaps you could keep watch on Mr. Wurms for us?”

Ashes bristled, his hair standing on end, but a low growl from Ending silenced his protest before it began. He stalked away haughtily, tail lashing in his wake.

“It is best that he not be involved. For his sake, if something goes wrong.” Her golden eyes followed Ashes for a moment, then returned to Alice. “The second option is to attempt to complete the plan. To trap Geryon with
The
Infinite Prison
. But if his suspicions are already raised, I can see only one way to do it, and if you fail, then you will bear the full force of his wrath.”

“I'll do it,” Alice said immediately. “I'm not going to hang you out to dry, not now.”

“Somehow I thought as much,” Ending said. Her huge eyes were hard to read. “Come with me, then.”

“Geryon doesn't know yet that you've returned,” Ending said as they walked. “We'll have a little time to prepare, at least.”

They reached the nook where Alice had practiced her Writing.

“Sit down here.” Ending indicated the familiar wing-back chair. “You're going to transfer the trap spell from
The Infinite Prison
into this volume.” Ending nodded at a slim book bound in tatty red fabric on the small table.

“Geryon keeps a book in his study that contains his innermost wards and protections,” Ending continued. “He uses it when he requires the utmost security. If he suspects that you and I have betrayed him, he will certainly activate them when he speaks to you. It happens to be almost identical to the one I have here.

“You will have only one chance. You must swap the
books, so Geryon opens the trap and Reads it before he realizes what has happened.”

Alice dug the
The Infinite Prison
out of her pack and looked at it with her inner eye. The spell inside was far more complicated than the simple wards she had created on parchment. She could see certain basic similarities, but the full depth of it was well beyond her understanding. Her heart sank for a moment as she traced the web of power that ran through the book.

“How can I transfer something this complicated?”

“Examine it closely. The trap, which binds the Reader, is only a small part. The majority is the prison that
keeps
him bound, and that can remain here.”

Alice looked more closely. Ending was right—most of the spell was an endless loop, turning back on itself over and over like a tangled ball of yarn. The trap hung from it, a vicious, jagged thing, connected by a few thin strands.

She found her attention drawn to the prison, though. It was hard to see what lay at the very center, but she felt like there was something
moving
there, and she felt a tingle in her mind. An odd buzz, like radio static, that almost seemed to shape itself into words. Into her name.

“Alice . . .”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Alice said, blinking
her eyes and coming back into the real world. “What if I get it wrong?”

“There is a risk,” Ending said. “But this is the only path we have left. The only way for you to get your revenge.”

Anger flared, and Alice gritted her teeth. She opened her inner eye again and got started.

It wasn't easy. Even the trap spell, the smaller part of
The Infinite Prison
, was too massive for her to get ahold of at once. She had to grab the biggest chunk of the spell that she could manage to keep in her grip at once, gently detach it from the rest, and move it from one place to another. Once it was settled, she went back for the next piece, re-creating the connections between them as best she could where they seemed to fit. It was like moving a jigsaw puzzle, lifting up chunks of pieces and fitting them back into place. Only they were more fragile than that—
a jigsaw puzzle made of cobwebs, maybe.

It took a good deal longer than she'd expected, and she had to rest between one chunk and the next, when her mental grip started to weaken. During one of these pauses, she told Ending what had happened when she'd tried to use the wards, and how she'd had to repair them afterward.

“A feedback loop,” Ending said, sounding a bit smug.
“Yes, that makes sense. It's one reason I wanted to test the spell. But it was fortunate for you that it burned out when it did.”

“Why?” Alice said. “The bluechill got loose and nearly killed us.”

“If the spell had held, it would have continued to drain your energy at an accelerating rate. That would have killed you just as quickly.”

“Oh.” Alice remembered the sensation, like the blood was being piped out of her body and replaced with something thick and cold. She shivered. “Will we get a chance to test this one, do you think?”

“Unfortunately not,” Ending said. “There is no way to test it without becoming trapped in it yourself. But on the other hand, a spell draws its power from the one who Reads it, which in this case will be Geryon. If something goes wrong, he will bear the consequences.”

“I don't want to kill him,” Alice said. “I told you that.”

“We won't,” the labyrinthine said. “I would worry more about yourself. If the spell doesn't hold, or Geryon catches you trying to make the switch, he will not hesitate to kill
you
.”

Alice paused.

“You've done a great deal for me,” she said. “And I don't
want to seem ungrateful. But I have to know. Why?”

“Why?” Ending said.

“Why
me
? I know why
I
am taking this risk. I know what I have to gain. But why are you helping me? Do you want revenge on Geryon? Or is it something else?”

There was a long silence. Alice tried to match Ending's luminous gaze.

“What you have to understand,” Ending said eventually, “is the relationship between the Readers and the labyrinthine.”

“The labyrinthine serve the Readers, don't they?” Alice said. “Not as bound creatures from a prison-book, but like Mr. Black or Mr. Wurms.”

“Not like them,” Ending said. “Such creatures serve because they are promised rewards, or in exchange for favors. Someday they may leave their master's service and seek another. But we labyrinthine have served the Readers since the very beginning, and will serve them forever, if they have their way. Without us, without the labyrinths, they could not maintain their libraries. The books
leak
. So much magic, in such a small space, is only stable with our efforts.”

“But you said the Readers haven't bound you,” Alice said.

“We are too strong for that,” Ending said with a hint of pride. “They must blackmail us instead. There was a creature, long ago, that threatened to destroy all labyrinthine. We could not defeat it, so in desperation we bargained with the Readers, exchanging our servitude for their help. They combined their efforts—the first and last time they have worked for a common purpose—and created the Great Binding, locking the thing away. But they still hold the key. We serve them to ensure that the creature will not be released.”

Ending's voice had lost its usual sly, knowing tone. Alice was quiet, thinking hard.

“We all suffer, but some of us bear it better than others,” Ending said. “Torment, for example, has always been half-mad. But he is not the only one to dream of turning on his master.”

“So why haven't you betrayed Geryon before this?” Alice said. “Like I said, why
me
? I'm a Reader, just like he is.”

“Because I am
not
mad. Torment's fate was sealed when he slew Esau. The Readers will bind him into a prison-book, and there he will stay until the end of time.”

“Am I just a tool, then? Someone to take the blame?”

“You don't trust me,” Ending purred.

“I don't know.” The Dragon had warned her, before it had gone to sleep, that Ending exploited everyone around her as naturally as she walked and breathed. “But I'd like you to answer: If this works, where does it leave you? What do you
want
?”

There was a long pause.

“Have you thought about why we need to use the trap to capture Geryon?” Ending said.

“Because he's too powerful for us to fight?”

“It's not only that. Suppose we
could
fight him. Suppose we won, and you killed him.”

“I never said I would
kill
him,” Alice said. There were things you didn't do unless you absolutely had no choice, and killing a
person
was at the top of that list, no matter what terrible things he'd done to you. She remembered trying to explain herself to Flicker.
I
am
better than Geryon. I have to be.

“This is only hypothetical,” Ending said. “Suppose you did. What then? What would happen to all the creatures in his domain?”

“Flicker told me,” Alice said, “that Geryon protects the fire-sprites from the other Readers. He asked me what I would do if I got rid of Geryon.”

“Precisely,” Ending said. “They are not so different
from we labyrinthine in the end. If Geryon
died,
the other Readers would descend on this place, to claim me as a servant or bind me away. And, in the long term, we will always need the Readers. Someone has to maintain the Great Binding.”

“But if Geryon is only trapped . . .”

“It will be a long time before word gets out,” Ending said. “Fear of him will keep the others at bay. We will have a long time to work.”

“To work on
what
? What does this have to do with me?”

“As I said, we will always need Readers.
I
will always need a Reader to serve.” Ending's tail lashed. “For a long time, I have been waiting for the
right
Reader. First of all, she would need to be powerful, powerful enough that, in time, she could become the equal of Geryon or any of the others.”

Alice blinked. Geryon had told her she was strong for an apprentice, but he hadn't said anything like
that
.

“And second,” Ending said, “she would need to be . . .
kind,
for lack of a better word. Willing to treat magical creatures as equals. Someone with whom I could be
partners
rather than master and servant. Only such a person would be able to help me.