Go on! Your victims are already too weak to escape, and you must want your crossbow back.
The words came across his lips almost silently. Witch words.
The magic circle broke with the sound of shattering glass. Guismond kept the sword in his hand as he approached Jacob and the Goyl. The tinkling of his chain mail was the only sound Fox could hear. Guismond’s rasping breath. And the ticking of the clock. But Jacob wasn’t moving. He was so still. What if he was dead already?
No, Fox. The clock’s still ticking.
She laid it on the floor behind the pillar before she stepped out from its cover. Guismond was just reaching for his crossbow.
Fox shot the arm holding the sword. Yes, he still was just a human being. The scream from his sallow lips sounded like the screams that echoed through the corridors of the palace. Not alive, not dead. A man who’d wanted to kill his children so as not to get lost in his own darkness. The Witch Slayer turned to face her and to stare at the weapon that had injured him.
The next bullet got stuck in his chain mail.
You have to aim better, Fox!
His lips moved while he picked up his sword with his uninjured arm. She shifted shape before his curse could find her. It merely brushed through the vixen’s fur like frost. She ran towards him. Quick, Fox. Too quick for his body, which still belonged to death more than to life. Guismond struck out at her with his sword, but he had no strength, and Fox thanked the Fairy for the death she had planted in Jacob’s chest. The vixen dug her teeth into the flesh. It reeked of putrefaction. She jumped back while Guismond dropped to his knees, and she shifted shape once more. Vixen and woman, forever one. One was nothing without the other.
The Witch Slayer rubbed his hand over his face. His skin began to wilt. He thrust his sword at her, but his attack was so feeble, she could have parried it with the knife. And before he could utter his next curse, Fox rammed her blade into his unprotected throat. The blood gushing out of the wound turned to dust even as it dripped on to the white tunic, and the hands clawing at her coat withered before the fingers could close.
Fox stepped back from the body. The face was stiff, as if carved from wood, and the eyes were as empty as glass. An old man, nothing more. But she could sense him in the walls surrounding her, and in the darkness filling the room. She wanted to be far away.
She lowered her knife and listened.
The clock was silent. And Jacob stirred. His hair was dark again, and his face was the face she loved, but the Bastard stood next to him, and he was holding the crossbow.
No.
Fox drew her pistol, but she’d used all her bullets on the Witch Slayer.
The Bastard smiled. ‘Never trust a vixen. How often I heard my mother say that! They are cunning, and like you, Nerron, they are not afraid underground. What would she have said about a vixen saving my stone skin?’
‘Give me the crossbow.’ Fox drew her knife. Guismond’s dusty blood was on the blade. ‘You’d be dead without me.’
‘And?’
A scaly arm came around her neck.
‘They say shape-shifters can do magic,’ the Waterman whispered. ‘Prove it, vixen.’
He was wearing a dozen necklaces, a coat of Unicorn skin, and rings on all his fishy fingers. Fox struggled to free herself, but Watermen were strong.
Jacob tried to get up. His blood was painting the outline of a moth on to his shirt.
The last bite.
Too late, Fox. Where have you been?
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
THE THIRD SHOT
Fox . . . Jacob heard her voice and felt her hands. But death was battling life in his body, and death was stronger. It was spreading through him, even though his skin was no longer that of an old man. The Fairy’s price had not been paid yet.
Let go. It’s over.
‘No!’ Fox grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘Jacob!’
He opened his eyes.
The Bastard was standing just a few steps away. ‘The Witch Slayer as a loving father . . .’ He stroked the crossbow’s gold-plated shaft. ‘Nonsense. I never believed that story about the third shot.’
The bolt in the crossbow was as black as his skin. He nodded at the Waterman. ‘Get her out of the way.’
Fox tried to pull her knife, but the Waterman struck it from her hands. Jacob was too weak even to lift his arm to shield her. He felt his life dissipating with every breath. What would become of Fox? It was all he could think of as the Bastard’s face blurred in front of his eyes. What would they do to her? Was the Waterman going to drag her into some pond, or would the Goyl shoot her? No, she’d escape. Somehow . . .
‘Look at the shaft. Just as I thought. It’s made of alder wood. Do you know what that means?’ Jacob heard the Bastard’s voice as though from a great distance. ‘No. You forgot all about them. But the Goyl remember. They lived even deeper under the earth than us, in their silver castles. Alderelves. Immortal. Devious. And masters at making magical weapons. The Fairies destroyed most of them, but there’s supposed to be a sword, somewhere in Catalunia, that was made by them.
‘The magic is always the same: the weapon brings death to its bearer’s enemies and life to his family. I always suspected that the crossbow is an Alderelf weapon, ever since the first time I heard the story about the third shot.’ The Goyl ran his finger over the reddish wood. ‘Who knows, maybe Guismond actually wanted to kill his son. He was probably already mad back then. After all, he’d been drinking Witch blood for years. But the crossbow wouldn’t allow it.’
He went to Jacob’s side.
‘How did he open the gate?’ he asked Fox. ‘It was easy, wasn’t it? It simply let him in.’
Fox didn’t answer him.
The Bastard drew the bow.
‘He himself explained it to me. The time spell only gives back life if it captures a relative. I most definitely don’t qualify, but Guismond was quite alive. Which means . . . ?’
Jacob could barely hear what the Goyl was saying. His own heartbeat was too loud, his laboured breath, his body’s final attempts to hold on to life.
‘That’s why the gate let him in. That’s why he was faster than I.’ Nerron’s throaty voice was getting louder, as though he could convince himself that he was the crossbow’s rightful owner. He caught himself doing it, and his next words again sounded as cool and cynical as they usually did. ‘Well, well, who would have thought, Jacob Reckless has the Witch Slayer’s blood running through him.’
Jacob would have laughed had he the strength for it. ‘Nonsense.’ He barely got the word out.
‘Really?’ Nerron stepped back and lifted the crossbow.
‘Let me shoot. Please!’ Fox’s desperate voice cut through the rush in Jacob’s head.
‘No.’ Nerron took aim. ‘How else can we prove this isn’t about love?’
Fox’s cry was stifled by the Waterman’s hand.
And the Goyl shot.
His aim was good. The bolt struck Jacob’s chest right where his blood was painting the moth on his shirt. The pain stopped his heart. Dead. You’re dead, Jacob. But he could hear his heart. Strong, and no longer stumbling. It hadn’t beat this regularly in a long time.
He opened his eyes and closed his fingers around the bolt that was sticking out of his chest. His heart hurt with every beat, but it was beating. And the wound did not bleed.
He gripped the bolt more firmly. His chest was numb, and he managed to pull it out with one tug. It didn’t hurt half as much as the moth’s bites, and the sharp point was clean, as though he’d pulled it out of a piece of wood instead of his own flesh.
The Bastard came towards him and took the bolt from his hand.
‘Let her go,’ he said to the Waterman.
Fox was shivering as she knelt down by Jacob’s side. Shivering with rage, fear, exhaustion. He wanted to take her away, far away from Bluebeard chambers and enchanted palaces.
Fox looked at him in disbelief as he got to his feet. The skin above his heart w
as flawless. Even the wound left by the moth had healed. He felt as young as on the first day he went treasure hunting with Chanute.
The Bastard looked at him with a wry smile. ‘That would also be a good story for the papers: Jacob Reckless has the Witch Slayer’s blood.’
He pulled a swindlesack over the crossbow and dropped the bolt into it.
Jacob looked at the mirror. The Bastard could be right, even if not exactly the way he thought.
‘You still want to sell the crossbow to Crookback, or did Louis ruin his father’s chances?’
Talk, Jacob. Play for time.
He’d made a promise to Dunbar.
Fox looked at him.
Two against two.
‘What will be your price? A castle? A medal? A title?’ Jacob looked at the mirror again. Fox had noticed it as well.
What if he was wrong? It was worth a try.
‘Let’s put it this way . . .’ The Bastard put the swindlesack in his pocket. ‘You got what you wanted. I’ll get what I want.’
‘What if I can give you a better price? Better than anything Wilfred of Albion or the Lords of the East could offer you?’
‘What could that be? I have a castle full of treasure.’
‘Treasure!’ Jacob shrugged disdainfully. ‘You can’t fool me. You care about that as little as I do.’
The Bastard kept his eyes on Jacob. The Goyl liked to claim they could read human faces like open books. ‘What are you getting at?’
‘That the Preachers are right.’
The thin mouth stretched into a sneer. ‘The gateway to heaven.’
‘I wouldn’t call it heaven.’ Jacob felt his regained life like a drug. He had cheated death, so why not the Bastard? ‘I think you’re right about the blood,’ he said, ‘but it’s got nothing to do with kinship. It’s just that Guismond and I came from the same place.’
The Waterman grunted impatiently. He was probably already picturing the girl to whom he would offer Guismond’s treasures in some damp cave. He was going to read her every wish from her eyes, but he’d never let her go.
‘They are going to be here soon,’ Eaumbre whispered. ‘The Dwarfs . . . Crookback’s men . . . every self-respecting treasure hunter. They will all come, but we can still shift most of the stuff.’
‘Then why are you still standing there?’ the Bastard replied. ‘Take what you want, and go. It’s all yours.’
The Waterman gave Jacob a six-eyed glance that seemed to know exactly how many of his kind Jacob and Fox had hunted down and cheated of their quarry.
‘I wouldn’t trust them if I were you,’ he whispered to Nerron. Then he turned and disappeared through the door into the audience chamber without looking around again.
Nerron stayed silent until the Waterman’s steps had receded. He looked at the pictures around them. His eyes stopped on the silver archway and Guismond’s knights flooding through them. Jacob caught a brief glimpse of a child’s yearning on the speckled face. He even nearly regretted that he couldn’t let the Goyl have what he longed for. But Dunbar was right. Some things should never be found, and if they were found, then their next hiding place had to be better than the first. He stepped over Guismond’s body. Where was all that life coming from that he suddenly felt coursing through his veins? Was some of it the Witch Slayer’s? Not a pleasant thought.
‘I’m sure you know them as well as I do,’ he said, slowly walking towards the mirror. ‘The stories about Guismond’s origins. That he was a King’s bastard, the child of a Witch, the son of a golden-haired Devil. Nobody ever figured out that he simply came from another world.’
Jacob stopped next to the mirror.
‘This is it,’ he said. ‘The door you’ve been looking for.’
Nerron’s face melted into the dark glass as he stepped to Jacob’s side. Jacob saw how much the Goyl wanted to believe him. He had learnt to read the speckled face.
‘Prove it, Fox,’ he said.
Of course she knew what he was planning. It wasn’t hard to guess. But Fox shrank from the mirror.
‘No. You do it.’ The fear in her voice was not pretend. For a moment, Jacob worried she wouldn’t follow him. But she’d also made a promise to Dunbar, just as he had.
Nerron’s eyes met his on the dark glass.
The best . . .
Jacob wouldn’t have minded letting him claim the title. Just a pity the Bastard also wanted the crossbow.
‘Go on, then,’ Nerron said, ‘prove it.’
Nerron didn’t notice how Fox moved closer to his side. All he saw was the mirror.
Jacob pressed his hand on the glass.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
ONE INSTANT
One instant. Jacob disappeared and the Bastard forgot where or who he was. And what he was carrying in his pocket. Just one instant. But that was enough for the vixen. More than enough.
Fox was at the mirror before he could grab her. She had the sack in her hand. His angry howl pierced her ears as she put her hand on the glass.
And then it was all gone.
The Goyl.
The enchanted palace.
Her entire world.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
THE OTHER SIDE
Fox turned around and Jacob took her hand. He remembered the feeling, that first time your own world disappeared and you found yourself in a different one. The dizziness. The question whether one was dreaming or awake. He was sorry he couldn’t give her more time.
Jacob pulled her away from the mirror and smashed the dark glass with his pistol handle. He hacked away at it until the silver frame held nothing but a few sharp-edged shards. Fox flinched with every strike, as though it were her world he was smashing to pieces. She clutched the sack with the crossbow, holding on to the only thing still connecting her to her world. Jacob was surprised the sack’s magic was still working.
‘Where are we?’ Fox whispered.
Yes, where?
Around them it was so dark that Jacob barely saw his own hands. He stumbled over a cable, and when he tried to steady himself, his hand touched heavy velvet.
‘Kto tu jest?’
The floodlight that flared up above them was so bright that Fox pressed her hands to her eyes. The pieces of the mirror crunched under her boots as she stepped backwards and got tangled in a black curtain. Jacob grabbed her arm and pulled her to his side.
A stage. A table, a lamp, two chairs, and between them the mirror. A prop. Nothing else. How had it got here? Had it been hidden for years among dusty theatre props? Had anybody used it since Guismond passed through with his knights, or had it kept its secret since? How had the Witch Slayer got hold of it? So many questions. The same ones Jacob had asked himself countless times about the other mirror. Where did they come from? How many were there? And who made them? For a long time, he’d searched for the answers, but still the only clue he had was the piece of paper he’d found in his father’s book.
Two more lights came on at his feet. Rows of red seats faded into the darkness. It was a large theatre.
‘Rozbiliscie Lustro!’ The man stumbling towards them stopped dead when he saw the bloody outline of the moth on Jacob’s shirt.
Jacob slid his hand into his pocket and gave the man his friendliest smile.
‘Przykro mi. Zaplaçe za nie.’ That was about the extent of his Polish – if what he’d heard was, in fact, Polish. Jacob had done some business with an antique dealer in Warsaw, but that was a long time ago.
Luckily, he still had a half-decent coin on him, but the man eyed the gold piece warily, as though Jacob had paid him with stage money.
Just get out of here, Jacob.
He took Fox’s hand and pulled her towards the stage steps. He still felt like a reborn man.
Dressing rooms. Another staircase. A dark foyer and a row of glass doors. Jacob found one that wasn’t locked. The air that greeted him and Fox was heavy with the smells and sounds of his world.
Fox stared aghast at the four-lane road in
front of them. The lights above it were so much brighter than anything in her world. A car passed them. Traffic lights tinged the asphalt red, and on the other side of the road a skyscraper stretched towards the night sky.
Jacob took the swindlesack from Fox’s hand and pulled her close.
‘We go back soon,’ he whispered to her. ‘I promise. I just want to check on Will and find a good hiding place for the crossbow.’
She nodded and wrapped her arms around him.
It was over.
And it was all good.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
THE RED
Jacob lived.
The moth was gone and he lived.
How?
The Red Fairy yelled her rage across the water that had borne her.
Nothing could break the most powerful curse of the Fairies. It brought death to any mortal. Eradicated them as though they never existed. Nothing else could ever bring her peace. She wanted her only memory of him to be that of his death.
Yet he lived.
The lake turned as black as the night sky, and the water showed her the weapon that had broken her sister’s curse like a brittle twig.
The Red flinched.
Alder wood.
A string of flexible glass.
An engraved pattern on the gilded shaft.
No.
They were gone. For a long, long time.
All of them.
Banished into the trees that had given them their name. Not one had escaped.
The Red wanted to turn away, but there was something drifting among the lilies. She knelt down and reached for it.
It was a card.
A wilted leaf was stuck to the white paper. Startled, the Fairy pulled back her hand.
Only once before had winter come to her island.
No.
They were gone.
All of them.
From the Chicken House
Nobody is truly fearless. But in Cornelia Funke’s brilliant Mirrorworld the characters have to pay the price for their reckless love and loyalty. Jacob is courageous, but he’s got to be clever too, or can Fox bring cunning as well as love to save the day?