“And Elden can open this Deep Well when it happens? That’s the legend?”
No answer from Woody or Eye, but the look on their faces was enough to tell me that, as far as they were concerned, it was no legend.
“And a creature lives in this Deep Well? The thing that turned Elden into the Flight Killer?”
“Yes,” Woody said. “You know its name. And if you do, you know that even saying that name is dangerous.”
I did know.
“LISTEN TO ME, SHARLIE!” At Claudia’s bellowing, toneless voice Radar opened her eyes and lifted her head, then lowered it again. “TOMORROW WE GO INTO THE CITY AND RE-TAKE IT WHILE THE NIGHT SOLDIERS ARE AT THEIR WEAKEST! LEAH WILL LEAD US, AS IS HER RIGHT, BUT YOU MUST FIND ELDEN AND SLAY HIM BEFORE HE CAN OPEN THE WELL! IT SHOULD BE LEAH, SHE IS THE RIGHTFUL HEIR TO THE THRONE AND AS SUCH IT SHOULD BE HER TASK… HER BURDEN… BUT…”
She didn’t want to say the rest any more than she wanted to speak the name of Gogmagog, the lurker in the Deep Well. And she didn’t have to. Leah was firm in her belief that her beloved brother, with whom she had listened to the songs of the mermaid, couldn’t be the Flight Killer. In spite of all she must have heard and all she herself was suffering, it was easier for her to believe Elden was dead, that the monster who ruled over the ruins of Lilimar and its few remaining inhabitants was an imposter who had taken his name. If she discovered it was indeed Elden, and found him somewhere deep in the maze of tunnels and catacombs far below, she might hesitate.
And be murdered, as so many of her relatives had been.
“YOU ARE THE PRINCE WHO HAS BEEN PROMISED,” Claudia said. “YOU HAVE ALL THE SENSES OF WHICH WE HAVE BEEN ROBBED. YOU ARE ADRIAN’S HEIR, HE WHO CAME FROM THE MAGIC WORLD. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO MUST KILL ELDEN BEFORE HE CAN OPEN THAT HELLPIT!”
Iota was listening with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. It was Woody who broke the silence. He spoke quietly, but each word hit me like a blow.
“Here is the worst thing, the worst possibility: what went back into the Deep Well once may not go back again. By opening it, Elden risks not just the graying of our world, but its total destruction. And then? Who knows where that thing might go?”
He leaned forward until his eyeless face was inches from mine.
“Empis… Bella… Arabella… there are other worlds than these, Charlie.”
Indeed there were. Hadn’t I come from one of them?
I think that’s when the coldness started to come over me, the one I remembered from the worst of my outings with Bertie Bird. And from Polley, when I’d broken first one of his hands and then the other. And from Cla. I had thrown the drumstick at him and said I’m going to fuck you up, honey. Which I did, and without regret. I was no Disney prince, and maybe that was good. A Disney prince wasn’t what the people of Empis needed.
5
Claudia and Woody were asleep. So were the grayfolk who had come with them. They’d had an arduous trip, and more work for them lay ahead in the day—or days—to follow. I, on the other hand, had never felt more awake, and not just because my waking and sleeping hours had been turned upside-down. I had a thousand unanswered questions. The most terrible was what Gogmagog might do if it got out of its well. I was haunted by the idea that it might come to our world, just as the oversized cockroach had done.
The roach that started it all, I thought, and almost laughed.
I went outside. The sounds of the sleepers—grunts, moans, the occasional fart—reminded me of my nights in Deep Maleen. I sat against the wall of the shed and looked up at the sky, hoping for a break in the clouds, just enough to see a single star or two, possibly even Bella and Arabella, but there was only blankness. Which in daytime would be more gray. Across Kingdom Road, Falada continued to graze outside of the church. A few dying campfires illuminated more sleepers over there. There had to be a hundred people now, at least. Not yet an army, but getting there.
Shadows moved beside me. I turned and saw Eye and Radar. Eye squatted on his hunkers. Rades sat beside him, her nose moving delicately as she took in the scents of the night.
“Can’t sleep?” I asked.
“Nah, nah. The clock inside my head’s all wrong.”
Join the club, I thought.
“How often do the moons pass overhead?”
He considered. “Three times a night at least, sometimes ten.”
This made no sense to me, because I lived in a world where the clock of the universe always ran on time. Moonrise and moonset could be predicted to a nicety ten, fifty, a hundred years in advance. This was not that world. This was a world where mermaids and a red cricket called the Snab could project songs and thoughts into the heads of those who listened.