He’d reached his goal.
Guismond’s throne chamber also brought the past to life, but not through voices. Jacob heard only his own steps echo through the silence. Here, just as in the tomb, Guismond’s lost world was evoked in paintings on the walls and ceiling. Their colour was hauled out of the darkness by swarms of will-o’-the-wisps. Battlefields, castles, Giants, Dragons, an army of Dwarfs, a sinking fleet, the city that was now crumbling outside, filled with people. The frescoes were painted so masterfully that Jacob forgot for a few breaths what he’d come here for. On the wall to his left was one particular picture that made him pause. A band of knights was galloping, swords drawn, through a silver archway. Their livery was white, like that of Guismond’s knights, and it was emblazoned with a red sword, but also with a red cross above the sword. Where had he seen this before? The Livonian Brothers of the Sword, Jacob. A knights’ order from his world, disbanded more than eight hundred years earlier, after they had usurped large parts of northern Europe. Jacob looked at the archway. It was covered with silver flowers.
Jacob had always wondered whether there was only the one mirror.
The answer was obviously no.
He looked around. The throne stood in the centre of the room. Narrow steps led up to the stone chair. The armrests and the back were upholstered in gold. An effigy of Guismond was staring at Jacob from empty eyes. But Jacob was looking for a mirror. And there it was, at the rear end of the room. It was huge, nearly double the size of the one in his father’s room. The glass was just as dark, but the flowers on the frame were not roses; they were lilies, just like on the archway in the picture. A skeleton stood next to the mirror, holding a golden clock in its bony hands. No clocks had existed in this world in Guismond’s time. But they had on the other side.
Jacob! Only the pain in his chest finally reminded him why he’d come here. He turned his back to the mirror and went to the throne.
The statue sitting on the throne wore the Warlock’s cat-fur coat, but it also showed Guismond as a warrior King. The helmet, which encircled his face, was shaped like the mouth of a wolf. Beneath the coat Jacob saw knee-length chain mail, as well as the white tunic with the red sword. Jacob had so often looked at the silver ringlet that surrounded the sword and never thought anything of it. Guismond sat with his legs apart, like a man who’d conquered a world. After he’d arrived here from another.
At the bottom of the steps stood a stool, and on it, on a golden cushion, lay a crossbow.
Jacob blew out the candle.
The tiles beneath his feet formed a round mosaic with Guismond’s crest. The stool with the crossbow stood right on top of the crowned wolf’s head.
Jacob was just a few steps from the stool when the moth took its final bite.
He dropped to his knees. He saw, heard, felt nothing, only pain. It seared the final letter from his memory like acid. The Dark Fairy had her name back. Then the moth rose from his skin. It peeled its furry body from his flesh as from a bloody cocoon and began to flap its wings. Jacob heard his scream echo through the throne room, and he flailed in agony on Guismond’s crest as the moth fluttered off, back to its mistress, taking her name – and his life – with it. All she left behind was the imprint on his raw flesh, and Jacob lay there and waited for his heart to stop. It stumbled and raced, clinging to the last bit of life left in his body.
Get up, Jacob! But he didn’t know how. He just wanted the pain to end, this hunt to be over, and Fox to be with him.
Get up, Jacob. For her.
He felt the cold of the tiles through his clothes and on his pain-numbed skin.
Get up.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
EXTINGUISHED
The voices were terrible. They quarrelled. Screamed. Cried. They were waiting behind every door, and as Fox drifted from room to room, from hall to hall, she found gold and silver, haphazardly piled loot from plundered cities, chests filled with precious clothes, golden plates on empty tables (which briefly brought back the memories of the Bluebeard’s dining room), beds under blood-red canopies, jewel-encrusted furniture. The light of her candle peeled them out of the darkness like unreal images – and the opulence just whispered of Guismond’s madness. The entire palace was a ghost. All the voices, the sinister hunger permeating it . . . the dead life that didn’t want to die.
The trembling flame lit a writing room. Books. Maps. A globe. The hide of a black lion spread out on the floor. The patterns on the carpet that hung on the wall announced that it could fly.
The candle died.
Fox felt her heart beat faster.
He’d found it.
Jacob had found the crossbow.
She shifted shape. The vixen would get to him much faster.
Jacob would live.
All was well.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
THE TRAP
On your feet, Jacob. The pain began to subside, but his heart was sputtering as though every beat could be the last.
Never mind, Jacob. Just a few steps.
Take the crossbow. Fox will be here soon.
He actually managed to get up.
What if she didn’t find him in time? Do you want to shoot that bolt into your own chest, Jacob? The thought was almost funny.
From this close, the figure on the throne looked so lifelike, as though Guismond had created it from flesh and blood. The dead eyes stared right through Jacob as he stepped towards the stool. Heavens. His feet were stumbling as badly as his heart.
‘You’re really not making death easy on yourself.’ The Bastard stepped out of the shadows, as quietly as he had in the tomb.
Where did you have your ears, Jacob? The oldest mistake in the world: to forget all caution once the treasure is within reach. He was going to die like an amateur.
The Bastard looked at the pictures on the walls as he walked towards his rival. Jacob reached for his gun, but death was slowing him down, and the Goyl had a pistol trained on him before Jacob could pull his own from his belt.
‘Don’t force me to further shorten these final minutes of your life,’ Nerron said, aiming at Jacob’s head. ‘Who knows? Maybe you even have an hour. How did you open the gate? That damned iron even burnt my hands.’
‘I don’t have the faintest idea.’ The crossbow was so close, all he’d have to do was reach out, but Jacob could see that the Goyl would shoot. He’d learnt to read the speckled face. It reminded him, even now, of his brother’s. ‘Who freed you?’
‘The Waterman. I had a feeling it would prove useful to keep him alive. Though there were a dozen times in the past weeks when I’d have loved to wring his scaly neck.’ Nerron looked around. ‘Where is the vixen?’
Draw your gun, Jacob. At least try. What have you got to lose?
But maybe there just wasn’t enough life left in him.
Nerron stopped in front of him.
‘She is very beautiful, and I don’t usually say that about human women. You think she’ll allow me to comfort her? After all, she also went with the Bluebeard.’
Yes, Jacob would have loved to shoot him.
‘I’m sure the obituary for the great Jacob Reckless will be in all the newspapers.’ Nerron stepped closer to the crossbow. His pistol was still aimed at Jacob’s head. ‘Maybe they’ll come to me, to hear how you breathed your last. I promise, I’ll describe it most touchingly.’
Jacob touched the bloody imprint on his shirt. So close. His hand trembled. ‘Who will you sell it to?’
