The Petrified Flesh Page 8

  “You and Will can’t stay here alone,” Jacob said, while he once again turned his horse. “You still don’t know this world.”

  Clara didn’t protest. She knew he was right, and so did Fox. And luckily she did care now for both of them more than at the beginning of their journey.

  Will was still in the cave. He didn’t come out when Jacob rode away. He hadn’t even asked where he was going. His brother was learning to fear the sun.

  18

  WHISPERING STONE

  Will could hear the stone. He heard it as clearly as his own breathing. In the cave walls, the jagged ground beneath his feet, the rocky ceiling above… vibrations to which his body responded as if it were made of them. He no longer had a name, only the new skin that cocooned him, cool and protective, the new strength in his muscles, and the pain in his eyes when he looked at the sun.

  He ran his hands over the rock, reading its age with his fingers. It whispered to him about what was hidden beneath the innocuous gray surface: striped agate, pale white moonstone, golden citrine, black onyx. It made him see images: of underground cities, petrified water, of dim light reflecting in windows of malachite…

  “Will?”

  He turned around, and the rock fell silent.

  Clara was standing in the cave’s entrance, the sunlight clinging to her hair as if she were made of it. Her face brought the other world back, where stone had meant nothing more than walls and dead streets.

  “Are you hungry? Fox caught a rabbit, and she showed me how to make a fire.”

  She approached him and took his face between her hands, such soft hands, so colorless against the green that was spreading through his own skin. Will tried to hide that her touch made him shudder. If only her skin weren’t so soft and pale.

  “Can you hear anything?” he asked.

  She looked at him, puzzled.

  “Never mind,” he said and kissed her to make himself forget that he suddenly longed to find amethyst in her skin. Her lips brought back more memories: the old apartment house as high as a tower, nights lit by artificial light. Light his golden eyes didn’t need anymore…

  “I love you.” Clara whispered the words, as if she wanted to banish the jade with them. But the stone whispered louder.

  I love you, too. He wanted to say it, with as much conviction as he’d said and meant it so many times before. But everything felt so different with a heart turning into jade.

  “You’ll be fine,” Clara whispered. She caressed his face, as if she was trying to find his old flesh under the new skin. “Jacob will be back soon.”

  Jacob. Even his brother’s name sounded different. How was it possible that he had never noticed how much pain clung to it. Had he forgotten how often he had called that name without receiving an answer? Empty rooms, empty days. He had left them alone, him and their mother, like the man who called himself their father. All those years in that vast empty apartment. Waiting for his brother, who came and left as he pleased, until more and more often lying in his bed, he had wondered whether he had just dreamed him. His fearless older brother, who would come and protect him from the bad dreams that kept him awake so many nights. But he hadn’t come and sometimes he had been awake all night waiting for him.

  Yes. Why not forget it all? All the loneliness. All the longing. All that anger he had never shown. Why not forget that whole world and become somebody else? Who exactly had he been before he had grown jade in his skin? The younger brother. So gentle. So calm.

  He grabbed Clara’s hand when she caressed his cheek.

  “Please,” he said. “Don’t.”

  She backed away from him, her face showing all the emotions Will knew from his mother’s face. Pain. Love. Blame. He didn’t want all that anymore. He wanted the jade, cool and firm. As a child he had sometimes felt like a mussel that had lost its shell. A snail without its house. So soft. So terribly soft.

  Yes, maybe he had called the jade himself. Wasn’t that what this world was about? All those magical things that made the most secret wishes come true?

  “Go.” He turned his back on Clara. “Please go. I want to be alone.”

  With the rocks. And the images they painted. And with the jade that would turn all that terrible softness in him into stone.

  19

  VALIANT

  If its archives could be trusted, Terpevas was the oldest Dwarf settlement behind the mirror. The city walls were roughly five hundred years old but the large hoardings covering most of them, advertising anything from beer and eyeglasses to patented gas-lamps, made it clear to all visitors that the citizens welcomed progress with a passionate embrace. Like most Dwarfs they honored their traditions, but they never allowed them to stand in the way of a new idea that could improve their lives and, equally important, fill their wallets. Dwarf trading posts could be found in every corner of this world although they were mostly half the size of their human customers, and each Dwarf was very proud of the fact that their talents as spies, acrobats, and professional thieves were unsurpassed.

  The traffic in front of the city gates was nearly as congested as the bridges and crossroads of Jacob’s world, though here the noise came from carriages and carts competing with riders and pedestrians for space on the gray cobblestones. They came from everywhere to Terpevas. The war had increased business for the Dwarfs. Their merchants had been trading with the Goyl for ages and to show his gratitude Kami’en had made many of them his chief purveyors. Evenaugh Valiant had been trading with the Goyl for years, true to his motto of always getting on with the winning side.

  Let’s just hope the devious little bastard is still alive! Jacob thought, as he steered his mare past coaches and chaises toward the city’s southern gate. After all it was quite possible that another cheated customer had ended Valiant’s life by now.

  Even three Dwarfs standing on each other’s shoulders wouldn’t have matched the height of the sentries who channeled the torrent of visitors through Terpevas’s gates. Many cities behind the mirror hired Rieslings who claimed their direct descent from the extinct Giants as guards. Terpevas was no exception. Rieslings were also vastly popular as mercenaries despite their reputation for being rather dim-witted. The Dwarfs obviously paid them very well as the two guarding this gate had even squeezed themselves into the old-fashioned uniforms used by their employers’ army. Not even the Empress’s cavalry wore helmets plumed with swan feathers anymore, but the Dwarfs liked to enjoy the modern era in the reassuring decor of more traditional times.

  When Jacob rode past the Giantlings, he fell in behind two Goyl. One had a skin of moonstone; the other one was an onyx. Their attire was not any different from that of the human factory-owners whose carriage the Giantlings waved through the gates, but their tailcoats bulged over pistol handles. Their wide lapels were embroidered with jade, and the dark glasses shielding their shade-loving eyes were made of obsidian, cut thinner than any human stonecutter could have ever achieved.

  Both Goyl ignored the disgust their presence clearly evoked in all the human visitors. Their faces said it quite clearly: this world belonged to them now. Their King had plucked it like a ripe fruit, and its crowned leaders, who had allowed raiding parties and lynching crowds to hunt the Goyl, were now burying their soldiers in mass graves and begging Kami’en to make peace.

  Will’s face had so much resembled a Goyl’s that Jacob reined in his horse and stared after the pair until the angry shouts of a Dwarf woman, who couldn’t get past his horse with her two tiny children, brought him back to his senses.

  Dwarf city. Shrunken world.

  Jacob left the mare in a stable by the city wall. The main roads in Terpevas were as wide as the streets in human settlements, but other than that the city made no attempt to conceal that it had been built for inhabitants barely larger than a six-year-old human child. Some of the alleys were so narrow that Jacob could barely pass through them on foot. Like all cities of Mirrorworld, Terpevas was growing so rapidly, that it nearly choked on its own progress
. Smoke from too many coal furnaces blackened the windows and walls, and the cold autumn air did not smell of damp leaves, even though the Dwarfs’ sewer system was vastly superior to that in Vena or Lutis. The world behind the mirror seemed determined to not leave out one mistake that had already been made on the other side.

  Jacob didn’t know the Dwarf alphabet well enough to decipher the street signs, and as he didn’t remember much of the route from his last visit, he had soon managed to get hopelessly lost in the maze of narrow alleyways. After he hit his head for the third time on the same barber’s sign, he stopped a messenger boy and asked whether he knew the way to the house of Evenaugh Valiant, Trader in Rarities of Any Kind. The boy barely reached Jacob’s knee and eyed him with the suspicious air that most Dwarfs demonstrate toward humans. His demeanor didn’t improve when Jacob counted two copper coins into his tiny hand, but he accepted them with a nod and darted ahead so quickly that Jacob had trouble keeping up with him. He was just wondering whether his guide tried to shake him off when the boy, slightly breathless but clearly proud of his navigating skills, came to a halt in front of the house Jacob had been looking for.

  Valiant’s name was etched in golden letters on the glass of the entrance door, and like all human clients Jacob had to bend his knees to fit through the door frame. The reception room, though, was high enough for him to stand upright, and he spotted some illustrious clients in the photographs on the walls. Now even Mirrorworld’s rulers went to a photographer for a portrait instead of spending weeks sitting for a painter, although the photos still showed them only in sepia or grayish black. The portrait of the Empress was hanging right next to that of a Goyl officer of course. Valiant was still serving both sides. The photos were framed with moon-silver, a very rare metal that owed its name to the rich luster it had even in the dark. The chandelier was inlaid with the glass hairs of a Djinn, an even more expensive material. Clearly business was going well.

  Jacob was the only customer present. Last time one secretary had greeted him, now there were two, equally unwelcoming. The younger one eyed Jacob with the same disdain the messenger boy had demonstrated, while the older didn’t even lift his head when Jacob approached the desk that was barely up to his knees. Dwarfs did not pretend to like humans even when they were doing business with them.

  Nevertheless, Jacob gave both of them his friendliest smile.

  “I take it Mr. Valiant still does trade with the Fairies?”

  “Indeed,” the older Dwarf replied without looking up. “But we currently don’t have any moth cocoons in stock.” His voice, like that of most Dwarfs, was surprisingly deep. “New supplies are expected to come in at the end of the year.”

  Jacob had to admit that he was looking forward to what would follow.

  Both Dwarf heads shot up when he cocked his pistol with a soft click.

  “I’m actually not here for moth cocoons. Would you both do me the favor to step into that wardrobe over there?”

  Dwarfs are known for their enormous strength, but Valiant obviously didn’t pay his secretaries well enough for them to risk being shot. Both climbed into the wardrobe without any resistance and the lock looked solid enough to ensure they wouldn’t call Terpevas’s vastly efficient Dwarf police while Jacob had a conversation with their employer.

  The crest proudly displayed on Valiant’s office door showed the Fairy lily below a badger sitting on a mound of gold coins, a heraldic animal Jacob suspected Valiant had himself come up with. The door was made of rosewood, a material known for its superior soundproofing qualities, evidence that Valiant was still doing the kind of business that was best discussed behind such doors. It also meant that he probably wasn’t aware of Jacob’s arrival and the events in his front office.

  The Dwarf Valiant was sitting behind a human-sized desk, its legs adjusted to his height, puffing on a cigar that would have looked huge even in a Riesling’s mouth. Valiant’s eyes were closed and there was a very self-satisfied smile on his lips. His beard was gone, as was now the fashion among Dwarfs; his eyebrows, usually as bushy as most of his kind, had been carefully trimmed; and his tailored suit was made of velvet, a fabric rich Dwarfs held in high esteem. Jacob would have loved to toss his old enemy and his wolf-leather chair through the window behind him. The pain and terror he owed him came back even more sharply than he had anticipated. And the shame about his own naivety.

  “Didn’t I tell you not to disturb me under any circumstances, Banster?” Valiant sighed without opening his eyes. “Don’t tell me it’s about that stuffed Waterman again.”

  He’d grown fat. And older. The curly red hair was turning gray, early for a Dwarf. Most of them lived to be at least a hundred and fifty, and Valiant was barely sixty—unless he’d also lied about his age.

  “No, a stuffed Waterman isn’t quite what I came to complain about,” Jacob said, pointing his pistol at the curly head. Oh yes, this felt good. So good. “Three years ago I paid for services I never received.”

  Valiant opened his eyes and nearly choked on his cigar. He stared at Jacob as incredulously as one would expect from the man who had left him to the mercy of a stampeding herd of unicorns.

  “Jacob Reckless!” he exclaimed.

  “Oh, you actually remember my name.”

  Valiant dropped his cigar to reach under the desk, but he pulled his hand back hastily when Jacob’s bullet nearly took one of his fingers off. Rosewood reduced even a shot to the sound of a whisper.

  “You should consider your actions carefully!” Jacob said. “You won’t need both your arms to take me to the Fairies, and neither will you need your ears and your nose. Hands behind your head. Now!”

  Valiant raised his hands, forcing his lips into far too broad a smile.

  “Jacob!” he purred. “What is all this? Of course I knew you weren’t dead. After all, everybody’s heard your story. Jacob Reckless, the fortunate mortal whom the Red Fairy kept as her lover for twelve blissful months. Every man be he Dwarf, human, or Goyl, turns green with envy at the mere thought of it. Go on: admit it. Whom do you have to thank for that? Evenaugh Valiant! Had I warned you about the unicorns, you would’ve been turned into a thistle or a fish, like any other uninvited visitor. But not even the Red Fairy can resist a man who’s lying, helpless, in his own blood.”

  Jacob had to admire the brazenness of that argument.

  “Tell me,” Valiant whispered across his oversized desk without even a hint of remorse, “how was she? And how did you manage to get away?”

  Jacob grabbed the Dwarf by his well-tailored collar and pulled him out from behind the desk. “This is my onetime offer: I won’t shoot you, and in return you’ll take me to their valley again, but this time you show me how to get past the unicorns.”

  “What?” Valiant tried to wriggle free, but Jacob’s pistol quickly changed his mind. “It’s a two-day ride, at least!” he whined. “I can’t just leave the business!”

  No, he hadn’t changed. Jacob shoved him toward the door.

  The two secretaries kept so silent in the wardrobe that Valiant only cast a questioning glance at their empty desks.

  “My prices have increased considerably in the past three years,” he said, plucking his hat from the coatrack by the door. “Don’t forget, you are dealing with a purveyor of the Empress now.”

  “I’ll let you live. That’s a lavish payment considering the debts you have with me.”

  Valiant adjusted his hat in the glass of his front door. Like most Dwarfs, he had a weakness for top hats, as they added a fair number of inches to his stature. “You seem to be quite desperate to get back to your Fairy lover,” he purred, “and the price rises with the desperation of the customer.”

  “Not just the prize, the risk as well,” Jacob replied, waving him to the door. “Trust me. This customer is desperate enough to shoot you at a moment’s notice.”

  20

  TOO MUCH

  Fox smelled golden revulsion, petrified love. The scent came from the cave, and her fur
bristled when she found Clara’s tracks leading away from it. She had stumbled more than walked toward the trees facing the cave’s entrance. Fox had heard Jacob warn Clara about those trees, but she’d rushed toward them as if their shadows were exactly what she was looking for.

  Clara’s scent was familiar. It reminded Fox of the scent she wore, when she let go of the vixen’s fur. Girl. Woman. So much more vulnerable than the vixen. Or men. Strength and weakness side by side, and a heart that knew no armor. Clara’s scent told Fox about all the things she feared and from which the fur protected her. Clara’s hasty steps wrote them into the dark forest soil. The vixen didn’t need her nose to know why she was running. She had tried to run away from pain herself. The shadows of hazel and wild apple trees darkened her fur. They both easily befriended other creatures, be it bird, human, or fox. Each forest contains friends and foes. But Clara couldn’t distinguish between them. Every child behind the mirror stayed far away from those trees, their bark was as spiny as the shell of a horse chestnut. Bird trees. Under their branches the sunlight dissolved into a gloomy brown. Each squirrel knew how to read that warning, but Clara had stumbled right into a tree and it had grabbed her with its wooden claws. She screamed for Jacob, but he was far away. Roots were curled around her arms and ankles, and the tree’s feathery servants had already descended on her body, their plumage as white as virgin snow, birds with pointed beaks and eyes like red berries.

  The vixen jumped among them, her teeth bared, deaf to their angry cries and snapped one of them, before it could escape into the tree’s branches. Fox felt the bird’s heart racing between her jaws, but she did not bite; she just held on firmly, very firmly, until the tree let go of its human prey with an angry groan. Its roots slid off Clara’s trembling limbs like snakes, and when she struggled back onto her feet, they were already slipping back under the autumn-brown leaves, where they would lie in wait for their next victim. The tree’s birds chattered angrily from the branches, but the vixen only let go of her feathered captive when Clara staggered to her side. She was as white as the feathers that stuck to her clothes, but Fox did not just smell the fear of death. There was another scent: of a heart raw with pain, freshly wounded.