The cold that greeted them brought a relieved sigh from the Waterman, and even Nerron was grateful for the respite it gave to his scorched skin. Through the darkness that surrounded them like the fur of a black cat, Nerron caught the scent of Witch magic. Eaumbre gave him a startled look when he heard the voices, but Nerron smiled. A Step-Spell. He once knew a treasure hunter who was driven to madness by it, but nothing left a clearer trail. Once the voices were aroused, they could be heard for hours. You simply had to follow them.
‘You stay here and watch the gate!’ he said to the Waterman. Maybe Reckless was already on his way back with the crossbow.
But Eaumbre shook his head. ‘No, thank you!’ he whispered. ‘I’ve been the doorman for far too long. Anything I find is mine, right?’
‘As long as it isn’t the crossbow.’
The scaly face stretched into a scornful grin.
‘Right. I’d forgotten. A crossbow is not what you’re after,’ Nerron muttered. ‘But I’m sure you can find treasure you can lay at some girl’s feet. There should be enough for a dozen.’
The look from Eaumbre’s six eyes grew icy. ‘We only ever love one, for a whole life.’
‘Sure. Just that they don’t tend to live very long under your care.’ Nerron went to the first corridor and listened. Nothing. But the voices of the dead echoed out of the other two. Reckless and the vixen had obviously split up. Couldn’t afford to waste any time when you had death lurking in your chest.
The Waterman disappeared without a word into the first corridor. Nerron decided on the one to the left.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
AT THE GOAL
Jacob had been in many enchanted palaces. Every door could mean danger, and every corridor could end in a trap. Stairs disappeared. Walls opened up. But not here. Open doors, halls, courtyards. Guismond’s palace breathed him in like an animal whose stone innards were fermenting the past like an indigestible poison.
Horses scraping in empty stables. Weapons clanging on empty courtyards, the stars above still hidden behind dark clouds. Children’s voices from deserted nurseries. Invisible dogs growling. And all the time screams, echoing through the dark halls and corridors. Screams of fear. Screams of pain . . . Jacob felt Guismond’s madness like grime on his skin.
He found rooms filled to the ceiling with treasure, armouries with such precious swords that every one of them would have fetched enough to renovate Valiant’s castle. But Jacob barely looked at them. Where was the crossbow?
He wondered whether he should have taken one of the other corridors. He kept glancing at the candle in his hand, but its flame kept burning steadily. Fox was having no more luck than he.
HURRY, MY FRIEND.
YOU SHOULD HAVE SHOT THE GOYL.
He spun around a dozen times, thinking he’d heard steps, but all that followed him were the ghosts he’d aroused. Maybe that was Guismond’s magic: to make them roam his palace until they lost themselves in his past, becoming one of the ghosts whose voices were haunting them.
Another door.
Open, like the others.
The hall behind it seemed to have been an audience chamber once. The tiles on the floor were worn from countless boots, and the weathered stucco was streaked with the soot of long-snuffed torches. Jacob could feel anger, like acrid smoke, despair, hatred. The voices were whispering, dampened by fear.
Carry on, Jacob.
The door at the end of the hall bore Guismond’s crest.
He stepped through it – and took a deep breath.
He’d reached his goal.
Guismond’s throne chamber also brought the past to life, but not through voices. Jacob heard only his own steps echo through the silence. Here, just as in the tomb, Guismond’s lost world was evoked in paintings on the walls and ceiling. Their colour was hauled out of the darkness by swarms of will-o’-the-wisps. Battlefields, castles, Giants, Dragons, an army of Dwarfs, a sinking fleet, the city that was now crumbling outside, filled with people. The frescoes were painted so masterfully that Jacob forgot for a few breaths what he’d come here for. On the wall to his left was one particular picture that made him pause. A band of knights was galloping, swords drawn, through a silver archway. Their livery was white, like that of Guismond’s knights, and it was emblazoned with a red sword, but also with a red cross above the sword. Where had he seen this before? The Livonian Brothers of the Sword, Jacob. A knights’ order from his world, disbanded more than eight hundred years earlier, after they had usurped large parts of northern Europe. Jacob looked at the archway. It was covered with silver flowers.
Jacob had always wondered whether there was only the one mirror.
The answer was obviously no.
He looked around. The throne stood in the centre of the room. Narrow steps led up to the stone chair. The armrests and the back were upholstered in gold. An effigy of Guismond was staring at Jacob from empty eyes. But Jacob was looking for a mirror. And there it was, at the rear end of the room. It was huge, nearly double the size of the one in his father’s room. The glass was just as dark, but the flowers on the frame were not roses; they were lilies, just like on the archway in the picture. A skeleton stood next to the mirror, holding a golden clock in its bony hands. No clocks had existed in this world in Guismond’s time. But they had on the other side.
Jacob! Only the pain in his chest finally reminded him why he’d come here. He turned his back to the mirror and went to the throne.