The Chestnut King: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards

by N. D. Wilson

  She was gone.

  Henry turned to the raggant. “Go,” he said. But he knew it was hopeless. The animal would never go without him. It would only follow. Henry turned back to the cupboard. The seam he’d stretched was still larger than any he’d ever done, but much smaller than when his grandmother had walked through. He lunged for it but caught himself, hesitating.

  The cupboard would burn behind him. He could still get back to Hylfing, going through Badon Hill and then through faerie mounds, but he didn’t want to lose his own door. He looked around the roof, and his eyes found the cistern, hopefully full. The cupboard would have a better chance in there.

  Behind him, the doorway swung open, and a column of smoke snaked above the roof. Henry exploded toward it before Coradin even stepped out with his blackened face and smoking hair.

  Henry jumped and put both feet in the man’s stomach, folding him over and sending him tumbling back down the narrow stairs. Henry landed on his side and felt a rib crack on the top step. His breath was gone. Gasping, he clambered back onto the roof, slamming the door behind him. Wincing in pain, coughing for air, he bent over to pick up the cupboard, but he’d forgotten the pull. It was sucking him in. Holding it in front of him, he staggered toward the cistern’s red clay back set into the roof. Kicking the narrow lid open, he dropped to his knees, shoved the cupboard inside, and squeezed in headfirst behind it.

  Warm water slid up his arms and splashed around his face. Black pressure crushed his head and slid down to his chest, down to his cracked rib. Henry screamed silently, and the pressure grew. It wasn’t sliding down his body. He wasn’t moving forward. He kicked his legs slowly, underwater, and his feet found the cistern wall. He could push.

  But he didn’t. He didn’t do anything. His body went limp, and his mind left the pain behind. It left the darkness and walked into a sunlit garden.

  Coradin stood in the center of the roof. His eyes stung. His skin was burned and blistered, and his hair was singed. His lungs were in raw agony. The roof cracked and shifted beneath him. Who was he? What was he doing? Why was he here? Memories jerked slowly into place. A family, his wife and sons, killed. He put his hand up to his notched ear—one for each master, two warlords and the king who’d freed him, whom he had loved. A bloody battlefield and the emperor’s men. But where was he now?

  He was in chains again, half-naked, struggling before the imperial throne. Red-shirts were dragging and pushing, pricking him with blades. Men and women, as brightly colored as jungle birds, chattered and laughed, pointing at his scars and tattoos. And then the cage, and the huge tusked tiger. He shut his eyes.

  He’d killed the tiger. Chains again, and a garden at night. A woman. A beautiful, horrible woman.

  The ritual.

  He moved his hand slowly to the back of his head. The finger twitched when he touched it. He wanted to tear it off, to dig out the blood that rooted it to his skull. The roof cracked, and flames rose up beside him. He didn’t care if he was consumed. But not with the finger still bound to him. He would rip it off and burn it first. Gripping it tight, he filled his lungs and opened his mouth to yell.

  Coradin.

  Peace flowed into him through the finger. He was content. He had a new master. His pain was gone—his lungs and eyes and skin, all soothed with something softer and sweeter than the hearts of desert plants. His arms dropped to his sides, and his eyes focused on something beyond the smoke and the flames. His ears ignored the crackling. They could hear only the voice inside him.

  Coradin.

  “Mother.”

  Do you resist my love?

  “No.”

  Where is the boy?

  Coradin flared his nostrils and inhaled, ignoring the flames, the smoke, the slowly collapsing roof.

  “He is gone.”

  Find him.

  The raggant stuck his nose out of the cistern and watched the stranger. Inasmuch as a raggant can hate, it hated the man. It hated him because to its senses, the man was as much the witch as he was himself. And the witch was as much faraway as she was near. And both of those things were very, very wrong and must be stopped. Short legs scrambled against the cistern sides and clawed uselessly through the hot water. Something inside the raggant needed to bite and horn-search the near-far-witch-man for fragile bones and soft spots until he had stopped being anything at all.

  But the man turned away and walked slowly through the smoke until he reached the wall at the back of the house. He threw one leg over it and jumped, without hesitating, through the smoke.

  Pulling its head back down into the cistern, the raggant focused on the bigger problem. The cupboard was cockeyed at the bottom of three feet of water. Bobbing and wing-paddling and chuffing in irritation, the raggant spun in circles, unable to sink.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The wagon bounced and rocked through the streets, surrounded by a thick hedge of soldiers. The trailing crowd grew as they went, pressing after the wagon and its guards, jostling, shouting, clogging narrow streets, flooding the bridge where Darius had fallen.

  Anastasia didn’t cry. She couldn’t. She was in complete shock. And Penelope was crying enough for both of them.

  Henrietta couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t. It just wasn’t possible. And Grandmother. And Henry.

  The soldiers had stayed at the house, guarding the wagon, holding back the crowd, until flames licked the walls out of every window on every story and had sent up spiked tongues above the roof. The soldiers had stayed until a rescue had been impossible.

  A raindrop ran down Anastasia’s forehead and found the corner of her eye. The angry faces in the crowd had become a single unit, a weather system of people. And they stayed back now. When five soldiers had been dragged to the ground and clubbed, the rest had fired crossbows into the front of the crowd and then pushed the press back with bladed pikes. Behind the froth and din of the mob, Anastasia could still see a trail of wounded being tended and five bodies in red shirts. Closer to fifteen townspeople lay in the street, covered by cloaks.

  They were nearing the harbor now, and the gate that would lead to ships that would lead to somewhere unknown—a life or a death.

  Without Henrietta. Without Henry or her grandmother.

  She was cold, numb inside and out, and she couldn’t shut her dry eyes. She couldn’t stop staring past the shouting and the perpetual skirmish behind their parade, past the smoke and the clouds and the sky. She couldn’t stop staring at nothing.

  “Anas,” Una said.

  Anastasia looked at her cousin, at both of her cousins, sitting up straight and strong, swaying with the motion of the wagon. Richard was doing his best imitation of bravery beside them, but his nightshirt worked against him.

  “They aren’t dead,” Una said. “They aren’t.” She shook her head.

  “Who?” Anastasia asked.

  “Hetti and Grandmother,” her cousin said. “Henry got them. I’m sure he did.”

  Hetti. Una shortened everything. Always. And Henrietta liked the name. She’d never liked any of Anastasia’s choices.

  Anastasia looked away, blinking. Why couldn’t she cry? She looked down at the soldiers walking tight against the low wagon walls, at the two sitting on the end. She felt lost. Confused. She looked at her mother, frozen, silent, with her head down on Penny’s and her eyes clamped shut. She wished that Penny would sit up and tell her what to think and what to say and what would happen. She could argue with Penny. She couldn’t argue with Una.

  She looked up at the pillar of smoke, towering on the hill behind them. “They didn’t come back out,” she said. She couldn’t believe that Henry had saved anyone. She couldn’t believe that he hadn’t.

  Irritation burbled up inside her. She wished she had a knife or a baseball bat. She’d swing at these red soldiers till her arms fell off.

  “Hey,” she said to the nearest one, and she leaned over the side. “You’re in trouble. My uncles are going to be mad, and when they’re mad, they’re like …” S
he faded out. Her heart wasn’t in it. Her heart wasn’t in anything. She sat back up. “You’re just in trouble,” she said quietly.

  The man sneered at her.

  “And your teeth look like dead corn,” she added. “I bet your mom doesn’t even like you.”

  The wagon stopped. They’d reached the harbor gate.

  “We’ll gut your mum,” the soldier said. With her arms tied, Anastasia spun on her bench seat and threw a leg over the side to kick the man. But she couldn’t reach, and something else was happening. Something loud.

  Crouching on a stable roof, Fat Frank watched the wagon crawl. He could see the four girls and Dotty, and he could see the scrawny big-lipped boy, but no Henry and no Henrietta.

  He pulled his earlobes. That was either really good or right awful. He’d run into the soldiers and the mob on his dash back to the house, and that had changed his plans. The smoke crawling off the hilltop told him what he needed to know—Franklin Fat had failed Mordecai. Not as a servant or a loyal subject or an ally or a bonded faerie. He’d failed him as a friend.

  He’d still been sneaking through halls and listening at doors when Hyacinth, Frank, Monmouth, and James had been carted off. The city guard had quickly been splintered apart by the red phalanx, and the fat faerie hadn’t had much chance to do anything more than knock down the occasional soldier.

  This time would be different. He ground his teeth slowly. With just fifty faeren, just a dozen, this all could have been different.

  “You reach the wagon or you die right here, Franklin,” he muttered. “What’s there to lose? If you can’t cut through those soldiers, you’re not worth your own fingernails. Might as well be sold for glue.”

  The wagon grew closer. It would pass through the road beneath him on its way through the gate. The soldiers were pushing the pace as much as they could in the narrow streets, forcing their way through the mob. They were smelling safety—the city gate and their galleys.

  Frank crept closer to the edge. He wouldn’t bother with being invisible. That strength could be better used, and he needed the girls to spot him.

  Soldiers in red lined the open gate, the stairs, and the broad dock that led to the longboats.

  With a yell, men in brown and gray, carrying bows and swords and axes, poured out of side streets and clambered onto the wall. The red-shirted soldiers of the empire were thrown down from the walls into the crowd, or flipped over the battlements. Archers poured a volley down into the formations of red and received crossbow bolts in return.

  The wagon stopped. Fat Frank jumped.

  Wood splintered, and the wagon rocked. The soldiers at the tail slipped off, and the faerie bowled into Richard, flipping him into the street. Frank jumped to his feet and spun in place.

  Pikes lunged at him from three sides, but the round faerie bobbed and twisted and wove his way easily between the blades. He grabbed an overextended shaft, ripped it away from its owner, and spun it above his head.

  The weapon, more than twice his height, was well balanced, and the double blades at the end pleased him. He jumped and lunged and swung the pike like a windmill, clearing soldiers back from the wagon on all sides. Una flung a leg over the edge, rolled herself up, and dropped into the street. Anastasia quickly did the same.

  Frank didn’t notice. Sweat dripped from his face. Strength bubbled inside him.

  “There once was a man named Red!” he shouted, and sent three soldiers sprawling, “Who was terribly proud of his head!” He caught another in the face with the butt of the pike. “Poor Red loved a brawlin’, then I came a callin’.” He knocked away a thrust. “And now an old stone marks his bed.”

  The wagon began to move. Frank turned. The soldiers had regained the city gate.

  “Up now!” he yelled. “Off the back!” Dotty and Isa and Penelope all tried to stand. Fat Frank dropped his pike and grabbed at their hands. A crossbow bolt sliced across his thigh. He fell backward, and a pike blow knocked him out of the wagon onto the street. Before he landed, he caught his breath, blocked his pain, and focused his strength. Wincing and invisible, he was kicked and stomped by the now-rushing soldiers and the pursuing crowd, until he managed to roll to the side of the street. And when he sat up and looked, panting, the wagon was gone, and the dock and gate were solid with soldiers. He flopped onto his back and put his hands over his eyes.

  “Franklin Fat Nothin’,” he said, and he began to cry.

  “Frank! Fat Frank!” Anastasia dropped to her knees beside the faerie. “Are you okay?”

  Frank looked at her. He looked at Una, being untied by a guard, and Richard, holding a rag to his bloody nose. He looked up at the smoke in the sky.

  “What are we going to do?” Anastasia asked. “Where are they taking them?”

  He lay back down and covered his eyes.

  * * *

  The cat stood over Henry, looking down into his face.

  Where have you gone? Do you have more doorways, even in Hylfing?

  Henry shut his eyes. “I’m dead.”

  The cat, black with a white face, cocked its head and laughed. No. You are not dead. It licked him. You would taste differently. It licked his jaw, scraping its rough tongue around the scar. I would have tasted all of you.

  The cat sat up on Henry’s chest. You cannot hide. Not with my blood in your flesh. It draws me. I could smell it through all the worlds.

  “Go!” Henry said. He swung at the cat, but his arms were slow and useless.

  You killed a fingerling, one of your blood brothers. The ten are now nine. You shall make up the number. A finger for the pauper son, but it cannot be hidden away in your hair. It will root in your jaw.

  Something scratched against Henry’s face. He could feel it digging into his bone.

  “No!” he yelled, and he slapped at it. No. Where was it? He would rip it out. He would tear the skin down to his jaw.

  Two soft hands touched his face. The cat was gone. His grandmother smiled at him and pinched his nose.

  “Was that real?” he asked. “Can the witch talk to me in my dreams?”

  His grandmother shrugged, and then she beckoned for him to sit up.

  * * *

  Henry stretched and yawned.

  “Henry? Are you awake?”

  He opened his eyes and sat up. His clothes were wet, and he was in the old Kansas farmhouse, on the bed in his grandfather’s room. The windows on either side were smashed, and sunlight poured through. The curtains were on the floor, and the bedding beneath him was filthy Beside him, warm and wide, his grandmother was snoring beneath Henry’s oilskin cloak.

  Henrietta scooted a chair closer to the bed. Her face was smeered with soot. “You’ve been out for a while. A few hours, probably. I don’t have a watch. You only just started yelling.”

  Henry scratched his jaw. His skin felt greasy. “I can’t believe I made it through.”

  Henrietta smiled. “Well, you didn’t actually. I pulled you.”

  “Thanks,” Henry said. He needed to try to stand. He winced in anticipation of the pain in his joints and slid his feet to the floor. They were bare, and the glass and grit stuck to them. Glancing down, to avoid slicing himself, he froze.

  “My toenails are all purple.”

  Henrietta nodded.

  Henry pulled up his damp pant legs. Pale green splotches circled around his ankles. Putting all his weight on them, he pushed off the bed and stood, breathing a sigh of relief. “They look nasty, but they don’t feel that bad.”

  “You should have seen your face.”

  Henry looked up at his cousin. She pulled at her own greasy hair, grimaced, and tucked it behind her ears. “Your nose was bleeding like crazy.”

  “It always bleeds.”

  “Do your eyes?” Henrietta asked. “And your ears? And your, uh—” She tapped her jaw. “All gushing.”

  Henry put his hands to his ears.

  “Oh, I got most of it off,” Henrietta said. “Lucky me. I would have left it, but it was p
retty gross just sitting here watching it scab. Grandmother was no help. She went to sleep right when you did.”

  Henry moved tentatively toward the door. “How’d you get me downstairs?”

  “How do you think?” Henrietta laughed. “I dragged you. Your little bed in the attic was all drenched—you came gushing through with ten thousand gallons of water. Plus I couldn’t stand being by all those doors.” She shivered. “Not right now.”

  “Did Rags come through?” Henry looked around to see if he’d missed a sleeping raggant.

  Henrietta shook her head. “No, but I’m sure he’s fine. He has wings.”

  Henry felt a knot growing in his stomach. The stubborn animal would have followed if he was fine. He was small enough to fit through the cupboard without any of Henry’s swirlings. “Maybe he’s just mad at me for shutting him in the closet.”

  “He’ll show up sometime,” Henrietta said, and she smiled. “He likes to let people know when he’s mad.”

  Grandmother slowly rolled toward her side of the bed and sat up. Henry hurry-hobbled over to her. Her face was red where it wasn’t soot-stained, and her already white hair had been singed off in places. She found Henry’s face with her hands and pulled it down to hers.

  “Here, I speak,” she said slowly. Then she tapped his temple. “There, I see.” She pinched his cheek, kissed his forehead, and let him go. “You must begin. You must hurry into the darkness and the three-mace trees.”

  “We need to go back,” Henrietta said. “As soon as Henry’s strong enough.” She moved around the bed and sat beside her grandmother. “They took everyone,” she said quietly. “They took them to those ships.”

  “Supper first, before the race,” Grandmother said. “Food for the dark paths.”

  Henry and Henrietta looked at each other. Henrietta shrugged.

  “Where are my shoes?” Henry asked. “I’m starving, too.”

  Henry and Henrietta led their grandmother between them. Through every gaping window, they could see green seas of grass stretching to the horizon. Henry wondered what season it was, or if this place had seasons. The grass was as green as when he’d first seen it, and the sweet-smelling air never seemed to age. Curtains ruffled in a breeze that was neither hot nor cold. In the dining room, dust tumbled slowly into clumps on the table, leaving little tracks behind them.