Fearless Read online

  The man who traded in all this looked as though he himself had become a victim of his craft. The yellow skin was stretched over his bones as if it had been worn by someone else before. He was wearing a white coat, like all the apothecaries who’d switched from the healing to the hurting kind of medicine because of its larger profits and because the clients could hardly come and complain if the sinister remedies failed to work.

  ‘The undertaker told you what I’m looking for?’

  ‘He did indeed.’ The surprisingly full mouth stretched into an obliging smile. ‘It’s about a heart. A very special heart. Very expensive merchandise.’

  Nerron emptied a purse of red moonstone on to the spotless white counter. The smile grew even wider.

  ‘That might be enough. It was quite a challenge to find the merchandise. But I have my sources.’

  The apothecary turned around and opened one of the enamelled drawers behind him. It contained hearts of every size and shape; some were as small as hazelnuts, and the biggest one looked like the well-preserved heart of a Giant.

  ‘You won’t find a finer collection in all of Vena.’ Another smile, proud, like that of a florist praising his roses. ‘The spell that keeps my merchandise fresh is quite complicated and not without hazards, but that’s, of course, not necessary for this heart. This, after all, is the heart of a Warlock. And I probably don’t have to explain what that means.’

  He reached for a silver case next to the Giant heart. The heart the case contained was no bigger than a fig and had the consistency of black opal. Guismond’s heraldic animal was etched into the smooth surface: the crowned wolf.

  ‘As you can see, it’s in pristine condition. It was, after all, in the possession of the imperial family these past centuries.’

  The undertaker first, Nerron.

  Nerron spun around and smashed the man’s head into the wall before the dolt even realised what was happening.

  ‘How stupid does one have to be to try and sell a fake stone to a Goyl?’ he hissed at the apothecary. ‘Do you think we’re as ignorant as you people and can’t tell an opal from a petrified heart? One stone’s like any other, right? What do you think my skin’s made of? Jasper?’

  He swiped the case off the counter. Disappointing. Very disappointing. Your own fault, Nerron. You’re trying to find the heart of a King, and here you are, searching in the gutters. Reckless never would’ve been so stupid.

  He pointed his pistol at the trembling apothecary and nodded towards the glass jar by the register. Floating among the human and Dwarf eyes were also two Goyl eyeballs.

  ‘Try the golden ones,’ Nerron said as he poured the moonstone back into the purse. ‘I’m sure they taste better. And who knows, maybe you’ll end up seeing my kind with fresh eyes.’ The idea came to him as the apothecary was forcing down the first eye. It was a dirty idea, but he’d been looking for the heart for more than a week now, and patience had never been his strong suit. Nerron grabbed the pale shaking hand before it went into the eye jar again. ‘You can skip the second one. Do you have a Witch tongue? But no fake this time!’

  The apothecary hastily pulled open another drawer. He used a pair of pliers to pick out a tongue that differed from a human tongue only by a small slit at the tip. Nerron poured the fake heart out of the case and put the tongue inside.

  He was already at the door when the undertaker began to stir.

  But he never came after Nerron.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  A GAME

  It was less than a half hour’s walk from the train station to the state archives, but all the big avenues leading to the palace were cut off by police blocks. The crowds on the sidewalks were nearly as thick as on the day of the Blood Wedding, and Jacob felt himself being washed along by the throng, like a piece of driftwood. Kami’en was in Vena. There was going to be a parade to celebrate the pregnancy of his human wife. The new Empress’s guards were decorating the streetlights and facades with garlands. The guards were, without exception, Goyl. Amalie left her protection to her husband’s soldiers. It was said she preferred to pick ones that had Kami’en’s carnelian skin. The garlands were strung with moonstone flowers, and the barricades along the streets were decorated with silver branches. Yet all Jacob saw was Troisclerq as he pinned a flower to Fox’s dress. What was going on with him? You’re jealous, Jacob. Don’t you have enough problems already?

  He turned into the next alley – and ended up in front of another roadblock. Damn. Who was he fooling? The Bastard had long since found the heart. Stop it, Jacob! But he couldn’t remember ever having felt so tired. Not even the fear of death penetrated the fog in his head.

  He pulled out the city guide he’d bought at the station. It was an unwieldy, chatty thing, as thick as a novel and filled with tiny print. But the Goyl had changed Vena so much that he hardly knew the place any more. The archive was on a street that was also on the parade route. Maybe he should try the mausoleum first. He leafed through the densely printed pages – holding Earlking’s card in one hand.

  YOU’RE WASTING YOUR TIME, JACOB.

  MUSEUM OF AUSTRIAN HISTORY.

  HALL 33.

  THE MAN WHO WAS GUISMOND’S EYES ALSO KNEW HIS HEART.

  Jacob looked down the street. The pain in his chest was now constant, like a wound that wouldn’t heal. The price should be payable. He flagged down a cab and gave the driver the address of the museum.

  Columns shaped like the bodies of tethered Giants. The entrance a frieze of vanquished Dragons. Dwarfs and Heinzel as chiselled ornaments beneath the windows. The building that housed the Museum of Austrian History had originally been a palace. One of the Empress’s ancestors had designed every detail himself. In his day he was called the Alchemist Prince, but it wasn’t his statue in front of the museum; it was that of his great-grandson, flanked by the equestrian statues of two victorious generals. Jacob pushed through the stream of uniformed schoolchildren flooding down the steps. He put the entrance fee in front of the ticket lady. Luckily, a goldsmith had agreed to change a few of the pathetic coins Jacob’s handkerchief still produced for brand-new guilders. The currency now bore Kami’en’s profile instead of the Empress’s.

  Unlike the imperial Chambers of Miracles, the museum held no magical objects, but in its halls Jacob had learnt more about the Mirrorworld than many who were born there ever did. Weapons and armour of Austrian knights, long spears for fighting Giants, Ogre claws, gilded Dragon saddles, a copy of the original Emperor’s throne, and the head of the horse that had warned the Empress’s mother of a poisoned apple. Thousands of objects brought the history of Austry to life. Jacob remembered his first visit very well. Chanute had taken him to find information on a castle that had sunk into a lake more than a century before. Jacob had stopped in front of every display until Chanute grabbed him by the neck and shoved him along. But Jacob had snuck back every time they stopped in Vena, usually while Chanute was sleeping off his cheap wine. Jacob could find his way through the halls blind, but the Goyl hadn’t just changed the map of Vena. They’d done the same to Austry’s history.

  The room where Jacob stopped had, until a few months earlier, housed the robes of state of the deposed Empress. Now the room was dominated by her daughter’s bloody wedding gown. The wax doll wearing it looked eerily like Amalie. The wax rendering of Kami’en’s stone skin was not half as convincing. Jacob approached the wax figure next to the King. The Jade Goyl stared at him through golden glass eyes. It looked so much like Will that Jacob could hardly bear to look at it. There was, of course, also a wax effigy of the Dark Fairy. She was standing a little aside. Wax corpses covered with black moths were strewn around her feet.

  It’s in the past, Jacob. Like everything else here. Yet for a few breaths, he was transported back to the cathedral. Clara was again lying among the dead, Will was wearing the grey uniform soaked in Goyl blood, and his own tongue was forming the name that had planted death in his chest.

  His brother’s glassy glance followed Jacob
from room to room. He nearly walked past the one with the number 33.

  The red walls were covered with portraits of Austry’s imperial family. They hung all the way up to the ceiling, frame on frame, countless faces with the brown patina of many centuries. The deposed Empress’s great-grandparents, her grandmother’s infamous brothers, the Emperor whom everybody called the Changeling (he’d probably been one). And of course there was also a portrait of Guismond. He wasn’t wearing the cat-fur coat from the tomb’s door, but was clad in the armour of a knight, though his helmet was shaped like the head of the crowned wolf on his crest. Next to his was a portrait of his wife with their three children. In the painting the children were still very young and stood very close to their mother. The pupils of Guismond’s wife were not those of a Witch, but that didn’t mean much. Every Witch could make herself look like a human woman. There were also portraits of Feirefis and Gahrumet as Kings, but Jacob just gave them with a quick glance. He also passed Orgeluse’s portrait, which showed her with her husband. The picture he did stop at was the one painting in room 33 that didn’t depict a member of the imperial dynasty. Jacob had noticed it years earlier, because the man looking out from the heavy golden frame bore a slight resemblance to his grandfather. Hendrick Goltzius Memling had been the Witch Slayer’s court painter, but it was not his art that had made him famous. He was also rumoured to have carried on a passionate affair with Guismond’s daughter. His was a self-portrait. Memling had painted it three years after Guismond’s death, and he’d dated it himself. Hanging from his neck was a gold-set stone. Memling was touching it with the fingers of his right hand, which was crippled but had reportedly enabled him to handle the tools of an engraver better than anybody else. The stone was as black as coal.

  The golden hearts and the black hearts. Chanute’s voice had sounded almost devout when he told Jacob about them. ‘The golden ones are those of alchemists. At some point they got the silly idea to turn their hearts into gold to make themselves immortal. Many had theirs cut out of their living bodies.’ ‘And the black ones?’ Jacob had asked. What did a thirteen-year-old boy care about immortality? ‘The black ones are the hearts of Warlocks,’ Chanute had replied. ‘They look just like black jewels. Whoever carries one around his neck supposedly gets anything he desires. But if you wear it too close to your heart, it will rob you not only of all joy but also of your conscience.’

  Jacob stepped closer to the painting.

  Memling was looking down at him through cold eyes. There were stories that he had poisoned not only his wife but also Orgeluse out of jealousy. It might have been Orgeluse’s downfall that she had given the man she loved her father’s heart.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  THE RIGHT KING

  The Dragon’s lair lay beneath the back yard of a brewery. Nobody in Vena had known of its existence until a Goyl patrol had noticed the unmistakable smell of sulphur and lizard fire.

  Kami’en’s bodyguards were hiding in the shadows of the brewery’s gate. They were probably counting on their alabaster skin being mistaken for a shimmer of moonlight. They’d become too used to how easily human eyes were deceived. Sneaking past them was fun, and after the debacle with the apothecary, Nerron really could do with some cheering up.

  Two more guards were posted where the Dragon’s breathing tunnels opened behind the brewery drays. Nerron was past the guards before they could turn their heads, and he quickly melted into the darkness of the tunnel. The Dragon had been dead for centuries, but its smell enveloped Nerron as though it were still lurking in its lair below.

  Quiet, Bastard. Like a snake.

  At its end, the tunnel opened into a cave that was black from Dragon fire. Only in some places a little gold gleamed through the soot. The treasure cave. Better preserved than most Nerron had seen. He pressed himself against the cool rock.

  And there he was, his skin like petrified fire – even in the darkness. The King of the Goyl.

  Kami’en had his back to the tunnel. Just one well-aimed bullet. Or a poisoned arrow between his shoulder blades. How many assassins had the onyx hired in vain to stand right where he was standing? And it had been so easy. Yes, you’re the best, Nerron. Never mind that you haven’t found the damned heart yet.

  ‘How long will it take?’ Kami’en’s voice sounded calm, as usual. As though he had nothing to fear in this world.

  ‘The architect tells me two months, but I can make sure work is completed earlier.’ Of course. Hentzau was standing next to the King. Only a few years earlier, he would have caught Nerron’s scent, but the years spent above ground had made Kami’en’s loyal dog half-blind and had dulled his sense of smell until it was barely better than that of a human.

  ‘Hire some Dwarfs. They work fast.’ Nerron stepped out of the tunnel.

  Hentzau spun around and positioned himself protectively in front of Kami’en.

  Good dog.

  ‘What is this?’ he barked at Nerron. ‘You want me to put a bullet into your speckled skin?’ His jasper face had turned even more craggy since the Blood Wedding. Compared to Hentzau, even Nerron could pass as attractive. Nerron bowed his head with a smile and pressed his fist over his heart, a gesture of obedience he usually had problems with, but not in front of this King.

  ‘Be grateful, Hentzau. He’s just demonstrating my need for better bodyguards.’ Kami’en turned around as leisurely as only one could who owned half the world. He was wearing the same uniform in which he’d survived his wedding. Moonstones for the human bloodstains, rubies for the Goyl blood. The Dark Fairy knew how to turn horror into beauty.

  ‘He’s right. Hire Dwarfs,’ Kami’en said to Hentzau. ‘I want work to begin immediately. I’m tired of that human palace. This will be my study. The guards in the sleeping cave. One tunnel to the palace, one to the train station, and a third one connecting to the road beneath the river.’ He shot a cool glance at Nerron. ‘You still haven’t found the heart?’

  ‘No. But I have the hand and the head.’

  ‘Good.’ Kami’en rubbed the sooty wall until the gold appeared beneath. ‘The Witch Slayer’s crossbow. Maybe I should send my aeroplanes to the Dwarf mines. Teach them not to keep secrets from me.’

  ‘There are many places we should send them to,’ Hentzau growled. ‘Even in the east, the Doughskins are now joining forces against us. Ask him who’s getting them all to sit around the same table. Without the onyx, they’d still be killing each other.’ He stared at Nerron. Like all soldiers, Hentzau never trusted anyone not in uniform, and especially not an onyx bastard who had the trust of the King’s enemies. Maybe he sensed that Nerron, despite all his admiration for the King, served nobody but himself. Yet they owed him for the names of many spies, and his information had helped thwart two attempts on Kami’en’s life. Even Hentzau realised they needed the Bastard, though he didn’t trust Nerron as far as he could spit.

  ‘Hentzau’s spies tell me you have some serious competition for the crossbow.’ Kami’en’s face was as impassive as the likeness they minted on his coins. Only once had Nerron seen the King less composed, and that was when he’d first heard from him how far-reaching the onyx conspiracy against him was.

  ‘It seems you don’t just need better bodyguards but also better spies.’ Nerron brushed Hentzau with a taunting glance. ‘That competition is no more.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Hentzau’s thin mouth moved. It nearly smiled. ‘My useless spies are reporting that your competitor is in Vena and very much alive. Jacob Reckless has a penchant for rising from the dead.’

  Nerron caught his heart doing a few extra beats.

  Surprise. On the other hand . . . how disappointing would it have been if Jacob Reckless had let himself be devoured by wolves just like that?

  The best . . .

  ‘Reckless paid a visit to the history museum.’ Hentzau’s left eye had that milky sheen that came from too much daylight. ‘I assume you know why?’

  Nerron hadn’t the faintest idea, but he hoped his face didn’t
give him away.

  ‘I put an old friend on his trail. He’ll take care of Reckless.’ Kami’en leant down and inspected the gouges left by the Dragon’s claws. ‘What a waste to exterminate them,’ he said, running his fingers through the crevices. ‘They were such great weapons. Though never very obedient. Machines are easier to control.’ Kami’en stood straight again. The gold in his eyes was brighter than that of the onyx. ‘Hentzau would like to kill Reckless, but since the wedding I’ve developed a weakness for him. Who is he hunting the crossbow for?’

  Nerron shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. Because it’ll be me who finds it.’

  ‘Together with Crookback’s son?’ Hentzau’s voice sounded harsh, as when he spoke to his soldiers.

  Watch yourself, old man.

  ‘We have to get back.’ Kami’en turned around. ‘Hentzau’s right. From now on you search alone.’

  Hentzau threw a purse of silver towards him. Expenses. The King of the Goyl was a less generous employer than the onyx, but Nerron would have worked for him for free. Not everything was for sale. He listened until their steps had faded into the Dragon’s breathing tunnel.

  The parade would begin soon for the grumbling people of Vena. The Goyl showing off his pregnant human wife. Her subjects had already come up with many names for the child. ‘The monster’, ‘the skinless prince’ . . . everybody seemed to assume the child was going to be a boy. Human-Goyl mongrels didn’t live long. You could sometimes see them in freak shows at country fairs. Some were so stony they could hardly move; others had a skin through which one could see the bones and organs, as through glass; some had no skin at all. But Kami’en was determined to keep this child alive. There were rumours he’d even asked the Dark Fairy for help.

  What did Reckless want in the museum?

  Nerron leant against the claw-gouged stone. The darkness around him reeked of the Dragon’s odour. He opened the medallion, and the spider crawled sleepily on his hand. Why hadn’t he asked her earlier whether Reckless really was dead? Because he hadn’t wanted to know the answer? Interesting . . .