The guard releases one key, and turns in my direction.
My lock clicks. My door swings open.
I’m on my feet in an instant, clutching my own hands to keep from panicking. The thing slumps two feet into my cage and extends a hand, just as he did the little girl Megan. I just stare, unable to accept his offering.
“Go with him,” Ben grunts. “Take his hand and go.”
“Where are you taking me?” I ask so quietly I can hardly hear myself over the howling winds.
“To … the Black … Tower,” moans the guard.
“To see the King?” I’ve almost lost my balance at the words. “I’m—I’m being summoned too?”
“The … Deathless King … summons.”
Ben and I lock eyes. We share a moment of shock.
“Go on then,” he urges me. “This is our … our final moment.”
I think he meant to say, “This is our chance,” but edited himself at the last second, I guess to keep the guard from suspecting anything amiss.
“I will see you soon,” I promise him, though my heart’s not in the words.
Benjamin can tell. “You too,” he says anyway.
And so I at long last leave with the guard.
It feels like days since I was brought here, but I recall being dragged down some of these streets. And if it wasn’t bad enough being dragged through them half-conscious, I’m brought once again, this time fully awake.
As we walk down the aisles of scared prisoners, I can’t tell if they’re all Undead like me, or if there’s any Humans among them like the little girl Megan. Funny, no matter who they are, they all look the same … Terrified, as if looking up means staring into the eyes of death.
We pass through a warehouse. There’s so many cages. There’s so many screams. I can imagine a happy Human family that once ran this place centuries ago … Maybe it was a toy factory. Or a candy factory.
We’re in the streets again. We take a left here, a right there, another right.
I regret every little gripe I had about my hometown Trenton. Every whiny remark and misgiving shared. I’d so readily cast them away after my time here in this stuff-of-phobias Deathless domicile.
The buildings of the city give way to a small muddy field where, no doubt, lines of vegetables once grew at the hand of some cheery farmer who died centuries ago when the world was alive. I see mushrooms sprouting from the heaps of dirt, only to realize upon seeing one of them twitch that they are actually fingers, loose bones. Empty holes have been recently dug, no doubt awaiting fresh corpses. I’m sure there are heads buried in this field too, heads of the uncooperative Undead who will live out the rest of eternity in the earth, buried alive, buried blind.
I wonder if one of those holes is waiting for me.
After passing a large open barn where Humans, male and female, are lined up on all fours like horses in their stables patiently waiting their turn at some medieval torture device, we arrive at the foot of a giant rice silo painted black.
“This … way,” the guard grunts.
He presents me to the tower door like I’m some guest at a ritzy hotel.
“Alright.” I turn the handle and let myself in. A colossal iron staircase spirals up the inside of the rice silo. After casting a doubtful glance at mister deadpan, I slowly begin to ascend the creaky steps. Of course they’d creak.
Every step I take is a negotiation.
After I’m fairly certain the staircase may never end, it does. At the top is a brief landing where a set of double-doors awaits me. I stay on that last step for a good while, just staring at the doorway. I can’t enter it. I simply can’t. I don’t want to spend the rest of eternity broken apart and buried in a farmyard. I can’t face this alone.
I want Grimsky with me. I want him to tell me I’ll be okay. I want his lips near my ears, his arms around me.
It’s a strange sensation, knowing full well that I am utterly stomach-churning nervous, but having no racing pulse or throbbing heart to tell me so.
I push open the doors and accept whatever awaits.
Inside the dull room, the first thing that strikes me is the wide wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling balcony at the opposite end, welcoming in the breeze and the silver sky and the peace of a dead world. In the center of the room is a table with something on it, but I can’t tell what from this angle. At the far precipice rests an overwhelmingly tall iron chair upon which is seated a shrouded figure: the Deathless King, presumably. He wears a very tall crown forged of black metal that stands half the height of him. His clothes are a mess of frayed fabrics and dark robes, none of which scream royalty. A King he’s called, but a King he doesn’t appear to be, save the crown he wears.
Just his silhouette paralyzes me with fear.
Prompted by nothing at all, he rises from the iron chair—which I take to be the throne—and turns to meet me. His face is shadowed completely by a hood which the heavy crown keeps in place.
“Welcome,” he says in a clear, high tone.
I’m not sure why I expected the Deathless King to sound like a throatless demon with six hissing tongues, but his elevated, unblemished voice surprises me still.
I clear my throat pointlessly. “Is—Is this when I die?”
The King tilts his head. The effect that has on his enormous, tall crown is comical. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I mumble. “Maybe the agonized screams of your other prisoners tipped me off.”
“They are not prisoners,” he explains simply.
Oh, okay, sure, he says so.
“I have brought you here,” he goes on, his voice lilting in an unexpectedly feminine way, “because I admire your bravery. With just a little sword, you stood against my army, downed as your friends were and all alone. I admire that kind of unflinching mien. Have a seat, child.”
For some reason, I do not argue. I reluctantly move to a nearby chair closer to the table—and that’s when I see it. I stop, my entire body paralyzed at the sight of her bound to the table.
Helena, bound to the table.
“Please, have a seat,” the King repeats.
Staring at my helpless Reaper, how she just lies there spread-eagle without a care in the world, I finally, slowly lower myself into the chair. Its texture is rough and offputting, which I assume to be the point. I can’t imagine how offputting lying on that table must feel.
In a poor attempt to mask the reaction I just had at seeing Helena, I slouch into the chair as though I enjoy its unwelcoming shape. My hands gripping the armrests, I lift my head and say, “And what now?”
“You are so beautiful in your sadness.”
“I’m not sad.”
“Don’t you so loathe those pretty clothes you were given?” he goes on unwearyingly, “That pretty hair? Those eyes of such chilly, unnatural hue? Why do you accept this body that was given to you, child? Why cannot your body be your own, as your soul is, as your Anima?”
“Get to the point,” I say, irritated enough not to care what the hell an Anima is.
“Take care to watch your tone,” he warns me sweetly, like a parent warns a cute baby. “The very chair you sit in is made of those who lost such tone.”
Too slow to have realized the armrests I’m gripping are made of actual arms, I quickly stand, edging away from the chair. I don’t want to look disgusted, but I am.
I glance at Helena again, so quiet and unmoved. She almost looks bored, sprawled out, chained to that table.
“You are different than your friends,” he tells me. “I see a lot of myself in you … A fire inside. Don’t you?” My squinted eyes and smirk answer him. “You are vibrant.”
I find it curious there’s no guards in this room. That I’m trusted to be here with the King. Is this even a sign of trust, or is it rather a subtle clue that the King is such a dangerous figure in this world—a person with formidable, unseeable power?
“You belong here,” he says, reaching up to remove his enormous crown, “but y
ou don’t yet see. The path to peace in this dead world—the one and only path—is acceptance. Accept the dead. Parade the dead. Embrace the dead.” And he pulls back his hood, revealing at last the face of the Deathless King.
Deathless Queen.
I slap a hand over my mouth to keep from emitting a shriek. How I recognize her as a woman, it’s hard to say, because all that remains of her face is a chin, half a forehead, and two beady eyes that seem almost pink in tone. Horrifying at first sight, it’s like the center of her face has been removed, only the hint of a jawline remaining. What’s left of her lips almost form a plush black heart, and colorless hair falls down into her robes, creating an illusion that it goes on forever. Something seems to glow beyond her teeth, back where a brain might be, something of an azure nightmare that pulsates.
“Deathless I am,” she says. “Deathless, forever be.”
I was not prepared for this. I’ve no words, none at all. This faceless, Deathless Queen, a sight I cannot wrench my eyes from, a sight I wish quite frankly I’d been spared.
“Here we are. Six feet under … now six feet above. I think the greatest regret in life is living it,” she declares, the side of her teeth like alien piranha fangs visible even as her jaw snaps shut at the abrupt end of each sentence. “What’s the point in any life if it’s simply to be taken away? Only Death is forever. So here we are. Snack?”
She offers up what appears to be a tiny platter holding slices of deep red fruit. I can’t help but wince at the sight and, politely as I can manage, shake my head no.
“I like you. Do you know what the best part about ending is?” I think I see the left corner of her bony jaw—whatever skin remains there—pulling up into what I daresay is a smile. “Starting over anew. Don’t you agree?”
After being assaulted with the view of the Queen’s real face—or lack thereof—it takes me a moment to gather enough gall to actually speak: “I wouldn’t—excuse me—I wouldn’t know. I don’t know what my life was, so I don’t know what ended. I only know what’s started.”
“Winter,” she states. The sound of my name coming from her toothy maw inspires chills down my arms. “You started Winter, knowing not what you ended for price.”
“What’s the point? What are you going to do to me? Or her?” I ask finally, my courage deciding to show up.
She tilts her head. “Let you choose, of course.”
“Choose what?”
“Deathless … Or death.”
I’m tired of the riddles, her every answer inspiring another question. “We belong at home. Not here in this filthy, vile place. Let us leave.”
“Us,” she breathes, her tone changing to something a notch less pleasant. “Us, you say.” She begins to slowly pace across the balcony. “People of Trenton, you mean. The Pretenders, to whom you refer. I wonder if you wonder whether you even belong with them?”
I frown. “Pretenders?”
“Isn’t it all your life’s become since your Raising?” she poses. “Pretending to eat? Pretending to sleep? Pretending to smile, to share, to laugh, to cry, to love …?”
My eyes disconnect, gaze casted to the floor. I don’t want her to see how her calm, supple words are affecting me. Already I reflect on that uncomfortable evening in the restaurant with Grimsky when I almost ate wax.
My unbeating heart gives a jump. “Grimsky. Tell me where he is! I demand to know!”
“Grimsky? You’ll reunite with him soon,” she assures me. “It was not wise to travel where it rains. Our kind do not belong in such places, Winter. We are made of ruin.”
“You might be,” I spit back.
“The one who was weakened by the rain, he is not so well,” the Queen notes in a syrupy tone. “We may need to disassemble him for now and cast him to the Well … just as we had to do with the uncooperative Judge.”
I clench my eyes shut, as though to stop myself from picturing what she means by them being … disassembled.
“But that is to be expected,” she goes on, “with a lady of her moral height. She will take as much time as she needs in the Well to come around, if she ever does. The poor thing will have all eternity.”
I can’t help but imagine the pit Benjamin had so unhelpfully described … filled to the very top with pulled-apart Undead … feet, elbows, thighs, heads … all of them no longer knowing whose completeness they belong to, functionless and waiting to be put back together … stranded, stuck, alone and yet surrounded. I wonder how long some of them have already spent waiting—with only all of forever to look forward to.
“The Well isn’t your fate, child,” the faceless woman tells me, her voice attempting to console an inconsolable me. “I have much, much better plans for you.”
I can’t hide what I’m feeling from my face any longer. “Bury me up to my fingernails for all I care.”
“I was thinking more in the vein of … reuniting you with your princely pale one.” She smiles wanly.
I look up, incensed at once. “Grimsky?”
“If that’s what you call him. The pale one is alive, and he awaits you.”
“How do I know for sure?” I’m annoyed at how antsy I sound. “There’s no evidence of anything you say! The only one I know is alive is her … My death mother.”
The Queen stops pacing at once. Slowly, she turns my way and, with those sickly, pink-hued eyes, studies me for a while. The wind, so fierce and biting on the ground, is but a gentle sigh up here at the top of the Black Tower.
“Helena … is not your mother,” she says finally.
I smirk. “Well, yes, unless she gave birth to me when she was a toddler, obviously she is not my mother. You know quite well what I meant.”
One sharp chuckle escapes Helena’s lips. It’s strangely relieving, to know that even in this circumstance, her dark humor endures. At least everything tries to in this world.
“Still pretending.” The Queen’s voice is so sweet and light, but I know better. “Even when you detest the very way of your life that you’ve been taught, you still yet live it. Why?” She’s drawn closer to me. I automatically take a step back. “Death is a dangerously delicate design. It isn’t meant for waste. I don’t offer you a cabaret of fake smiles and dinner parties. What I offer you is real.”
Once more, she offers the tiny platter of fruit slices, wordless, watching me with her icy, ghoulish gaze.
“Fruit?” I ask carelessly. “Is this a peace offering?”
“Taste.” She presses the tiny platter into my palm. For whatever reason, I don’t retreat or pull away from the shadowy Queen. “Taste and, for yourself, experience.”
I glare at her, my indignance too late finding me. “I refuse to eat something I can’t name.”
“Call it the Fruit of Life,” she offers tenderly.
This platter could be poisoned. These fruit slices could be mind-altering or parasitic. This “snack” could very well be dead flesh of some nasty 400-year-old rodent bathed in the blood of the Deathless Queen herself for all I know, for all I would be able to taste anyway.
It could be mango. “I still don’t—”
“Taste,” she says slowly. “You will understand.”
Whether this Deathless King-Queen is ensorcelling me with her lies, or telling nothing but truths, I guess it doesn’t matter in the least. Whether I cooperate or not, I know I’m never getting free of this place, Helena assured me of that. Neither is the Judge, who’s in pieces and cast into a pit somewhere, apparently, soon to be joined by her men. I’m a goner, whether above ground or not.
The platter still patiently waits in my hand.
Casually, I pop one of the fruit bites into my mouth and chew. It tastes like nothing.
“Alright,” I murmur, shrugging. “What now?”
“Weren’t you angry?” she asks, peering at me with what I daresay is concern. “The world is dead. The world and all its history, its people, its societies and cities and countries and laws. Yet here we are.” She squints, noticeable only by the ti
ny wrinkle of forehead she has. “Does that not anger you to the bone?”
“Am I supposed to be tasting something?”
“All that progress humanity made, gone. Who’s to blame, girl of Winter? They were selfish, humankind, and they’re paying the price. They deserve the price, just as we wretched deserve this fateless fate. Think on the many, many choices a single person can make … and so many, many chances humankind forfeited.” She smiles. “The Old World. That’s what it is called, but I doubt you’ve ever been told the name by your … Pretenders.”
I frown at her use of that word, which I find suddenly to be very derogatory.
“They don’t mention the Old World because they hate so very much to be reminded where they come from. They Pretend they were just willed into existence, as though they weren’t once Human themselves, the ignorant lot of them. We all had a first life we utterly wasted. We made bad choices and hurt people.” She steps closer. “Here, there is no death. Here, there is no life. We endure forever. Humans, they are so temporary … so delicate. Even their bodies, where just a centimeter underneath is something so soft and gooey you couldn’t keep it in your hands. So tragic … Tell me, what do you think happened to that Old World?”
I take another bite, annoyed to my fingertips. This tasteless fruit is starting to taste quite nasty, in truth.
“Fury, forever … Abandon. Terror. Accept the dead. Embrace it.” Her eyes go dark. “Humans deserve to die.”
“Including that little girl in the cage next to me?” I ask, teeth clenching. “She deserves to be tortured and fed to you filthy people? What on God’s Dead Earth has she done to deserve that?”
“What could have been, forever will never be.” She smiles eerily. “You and I, child … We can change that.”
The Beautiful Dead Page 14
