Dark Prince
Page 13
But I have heard, and I know. I find myself feeling inside myself. Feeling the ring, after so little time, touching so many parts of myself. I know.
But do I care?
“Liar. Bastard,” I say. “All you ever wanted was power. You sacrificed me for it. You sacrificed Eleanor. I do not know how much truth there is in what you say about the rings. But I am willing to find out.”
I step toward him. I lean down closer. I spit crimson on the ground at his feet.
“Because all you ever cared about is this,”. I say, seizing his hand and holding up his ring, his ring like mine.
He has made it clear—and the burning, gaping cleave in my mouth reminds me—that he can fight for this if he chooses. He can fight and can probably still win. I do not care.
He pulls his hand away from me. Defiantly, silently, he holds it in the air for another few seconds. Then suddenly he raises the other hand, the one with the ring that is his and his alone, the King’s ring, the Gods’ ring, the giant staghorn ring that looks so heavy he must have trouble holding it aloft.
He takes his other hand and grips it.
I see instantly his eyes go wet with physical pain, and more. He gives the ring a jerk and winces with it. Then he pulls harder.
I step back, almost feeling the pain of it myself.
He continues, and I hear it now, bone crackling, sinew tearing, as he begins twisting and twisting the ring, and the finger, in a circle, one and two and more full circles as the ring, if not the finger, begins to let go.
I half turn away. But I watch. I watch.
He is pulling, pulling, tearing. He is groaning now, screaming now. Blood comes up, bubbling up like water out of a hot spring, up out of the joint where the finger has let go at the knuckle.
His knees buckle. He straightens and pulls with renewed strength.
The finger is off of him now. The blood is three times the blood produced by my mouth, but still there are things hanging on. He pulls more and it comes out. He pulls more. Roots, bone, cartilage, ligament, all come streaming up like the chain of a ship’s anchor being hauled up out of murky, thick water, with blood and tissue attached everywhere.
Out. All of it, all the bits of him, all the solid and fluid and what-all in between is up and out of his body, a thick rope of pulpy human matter six twisted feet long in all.
He stands, silent, wobbling.
He holds the entire mess, the ring on down, out to me. Then, gingerly, with his four-fingered hand, he removes the ring easily from the dead finger.
“It is yours,” he says.
I take four, five steps backward, recoiling.
“Time,” he says, and falls in a heap to the ground.
I rush to him, roll him onto his back.
He reaches up immediately, touches his index finger to the underside of my chin.
And I scream with the burning, the cauterizing. But I do not pull away, and in a few seconds more, my bleeding has stopped.
He looks, to me, as near as one can get to death.
“You were not lying,” I say.
He smiles and shakes his head no.
“This is yours,” he says again.
“No,” I say again.
He holds his other hand out to me limply. “Then finish it now. Give them what they want. For we will not survive them now if you are not Prince. And I would not want to witness it if we did.”
“I won’t give them anything,” I say.
“Take it,” he insists.
I stare at the ring in his hand. I am terrified of it. I am terrified of it going elsewhere.
“Will you die?” I ask.
He holds up his Prince ring, the ring that is like mine. “Not yet,” he says.
I take the ring from him, but I do not put it on. I know there is no going back once it is on.
“Time!” he suddenly shouts.
“What?” I ask, “What? Father?”
He stares off, away, back in the direction of town. His eyes are clouded, but there is an alertness in his face, a concentration, and a desperate fear.
“Go, Marcus,” he insists. “Go now. You must get back now. Go home!” He is pushing me away.
I jump to my feet, feeling myself no longer huge and powerful, but myself, and yet strong enough.
“What about you?” I ask.
“I will take care of myself,” he says. “Go, go now! You must.”
I run faster than I can run, shoving the ring down deep into my pocket, sweating and teary and out of my mind with terror of what I do not know.
I freeze at the steps to the porch.
There is blood everywhere. The porch is awash in blood.
I walk slowly, stiffly, up the steps, toward the door. I can see from a distance that there is writing on it, in that same red.
We were afraid that you were not going to be up to it.
Shame we were not able to trust you.
We will keep Eleanor until you are feeling more able.
I burst through the door screaming, “Eleanor, Eleanor!”
Until the scream is strangled, jammed back into my throat.
The blood continues across the floor to the breakfast table, where Eleanor’s food sits exactly as it was when I left.
And at the foot of her chair, in a bath of blood, Chuck.
My Chuck.
I walk to him, breathing two hundred breaths a minute.
“Chuck,” I say in a squeak. I touch, I pat his flat, matted head.
I pick him up, cradle him in my arms.
I drop to the floor, sit on the floor, with Chuck in my arms, and that vile, evil, goddamned ring in my pocket.
I hold Chuck’s head in my arms, hold him tight, and I rock him, I rock him, I hold him, and I rock.
He is all sinew and menace with his graceful, effortless motions. It is as much the case that the trees adjust to avoid him as the other way around. From far away I am already locked and trapped within that gaze of his, as if his eyes are way ahead and will get here minutes before he does.
His eyes are like mine, only something more: awful, soul-searing, gray-green mismatched eyes.
“Up till now,” he says, in a voice both oil and vinegar, “it has all been introduction. Easing you in. Waking your sleepy head. You are awake now, and aware of the powers we are dealing with. Everything will be different from now on. Everything gets serious now.”
There is a point, obviously, where you become as frightened as it is possible to be. Then you either die right there, explode from the horrific tension of it all, or else …
Or else.
What?
Copyright
Dark Prince
Copyright © 2002 by 17th Street Productions, an Alloy, Inc. company, and Russell Moon
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2010 ISBN: 978-0-061-95495-5
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001099467
ISBN 0-06-440796-9
Produced by 17th Street Productions,
an Alloy, Inc. company
151 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001
First HarperTempest edition, 2002
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