Jacob and Fox had to kill four more before the others left them in peace, and Jacob was sure there’d be more of them waiting at the palace. Guismond’s modern knights. Jacob wondered whether it was the magic that pervaded this ruined city that told them to guard it, or whether it was the fear of their own mortality that had brought them to this place of death – the hope that these ruins might harbour the secret of how to escape the ultimate end.
Not much different from the hope that brought you here, Jacob.
They only made slow progress towards the palace. Their path was often blocked by debris, collapsed bridges, crumbled stairs – Jacob felt as though he was again trapped in a labyrinth. This time, however, Fox was with him, and even the fear of his own death was nothing compared to the fear he’d felt for her in the labyrinth of the Bluebeard.
The ruins grew ever higher into the night sky. Some had walls that were constructed like stone grids. Dragon kennels. They were located right beneath the palace. The street climbed ever steeper up the slope. Jacob felt how much even the short fights with the Preachers had exhausted him. You’re dying, Jacob. But the words no longer had any meaning, as if he’d thought them too often.
Another Dragon kennel. Instead of faces, these walls showed huge muzzles, spiny necks, wings and barbed tails. Guismond was said to have captured hundreds of Dragons to use in his wars. Instead of the stone they usually ate, Guismond had fed them peasants and enemy soldiers, Witches, Trolls, Dwarfs. It had driven them insane, like cows fed on meat.
One last kennel. The street in front of it was gouged by giant talons. The stairs at its end were even wider than those that had led them down to Guismond’s tomb. These went up, and they were so long that a whole army could have deployed on the steps. A hundred steps to the Iron Gate, and beyond a hundred ways to die. Jacob couldn’t remember where he’d read those words. He was so exhausted that he barely remembered how he’d got here. His chest ached with every step, but Fox stayed close by his side.
The stairs led to a snow-covered plaza. The clouds hung so low that the palace’s towers were hidden in their haze. Suspended from the grey walls were the golden cages, and through the bars they could still see the remains of Guismond’s prisoners. The whole palace looked as if it had been cursed just the day before, not centuries earlier.
The Iron Gate stood out from the walls like a seal. The iron shimmered like the breastplate of a King. Jacob could see neither a lock nor a latch, just a garland of skulls and the crest they’d also seen on Guismond’s tomb.
The ragged corpses in front of the gate were more recent than the sad remains in the cages. Some had charred hands, or whole arms burnt to their elbows. Others had terrible bite marks. The Preachers must have thought the entrance to heaven had finally revealed itself; instead, they had knocked on the gate of a Warlock.
Jacob felt the same darkness he’d encountered in the tomb, like a clenched fist behind the gate. And all he had was a handful of princely hair and whatever he’d managed to learn about this world in his twelve years of treasure hunting. Fox dragged one of the corpses out of the way. And you have her, Jacob.
As soon as Fox approached the gate, it began to glow like the metal in a smithy’s forge.
Jacob took the sack with Louis’s hair from his pocket. His only hope of getting the gate to let them pass as friends. And a faint hope it is, Jacob. Clinging to the pouch was Earlking’s card:
YOU DON’T NEED THE PRINCE’S HAIR.
Fox looked over Jacob’s shoulder. The green ink kept writing.
HURRY, MY FRIEND.
YOU SHOULD HAVE SHOT THAT GOYL.
THE CROSSBOW IS SO CLOSE.
Friend – the word never sounded more fake. Jacob looked up at the Iron Gate. The Red Fairy was also once that helpful. He threw away the card and took the prince’s hair from the pouch.
Another Preacher appeared on the steps. Fox aimed her pistol at him, but he kept walking until he saw the bodies. His grimy coat was covered in thick layers of metal and glass – it really did look like armour. The gate to heaven. Fox struck him down as he stood and stared at the dead. Jacob and Fox been there too long already. A few more hours and they’d start pinning glass and tin to their own clothes.
Jacob took a step towards the gate. It was so high that a Giantling could have carried him through on his shoulders. Most of the gates from Guismond’s era had been built to accommodate Giants. Guismond had some in his service. Their graves were in the mountains, not far from the Dead City.
Jacob put his hand into the pouch. His fingers were going to smell of Louis’s cologne. Not a pleasant thought. He closed his fist around the ash-blond strands. Louis was only very distantly related to Guismond, so his hair would work like a quietly whispered password. But this was their only hope of not being treated like intruders.
Jacob wouldn’t have been surprised if the gate had melted the skin off his fingers. There were legends of monsters that came forth from its iron. The bodies around them did look like they’d encountered just that. Yet as soon as he reached out his hand, the metal burst open like the skin of an overripe fruit. It split into two wings, and each wing sprouted a handle, like an iron bud. They were shaped like wolves’ heads, and even as their teeth were still growing from their pointy snouts, Jacob could feel the wind brushing across the glowing metal until the entire gate was again back to its cool shimmering grey.
YOU DON’T NEED THE PRINCE’S HAIR.
What had Earlking meant by that? A lie, to see Jacob killed like the ragged men around them? Whatever . . .
Fox and Jacob exchanged a glance.
The passion for the hunt. Was that what bound them, more than anything else?
She smiled at him. Fearless. Yet Jacob could still recall the white fear he’d made her drink in the Bluebeard’s chamber. Over the past months, they had both learnt the limits of their fearlessness.
He closed both hands around the wolves’ heads. He thought he’d need all his remaining strength to open the heavy iron gates, but they opened without resistance, with a sigh that sounded like the death rattle from the gilded lips of Guismond’s head.
The air rushing towards them was icy, and the darkness that awaited them behind the gate was so complete that Jacob was blind for a few steps. Fox took his arm until his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. The hall they had entered was empty, except for the pillars that supported a ceiling somewhere in the darkness above. The echo of their steps bounced between the high walls like the flapping of stray birds.
Fox looked around as the cries of a child came through the silence. The screams of a woman soon joined them. Then the voices of quarrelling men.
‘Stop!’ Jacob whispered to Fox.
The voices faded, as though they were moving away, but they would be audible for hours before they died away completely. The Steps of the Dead. A Dark Witch spell. Every step they took stirred the past: words spoken, screamed, or whispered in the palace. And not just words. Pain. Anger. Despair. Madness. Every emotion would become manifest. The darkness surrounding them was woven from sinister threads. They were going to have to be very quiet, lest they get choked by them.
Jacob could make out three corridors in the dark. As far as he could see, they were in no way different from one another. He pulled from his pocket the pale yellow candles Valiant had given him. He and Fox had used candles like these before in places where they’d had to split up. If one of them was snuffed out, so was the other. Fox got out some matches. Then she silently took the burning candle from Jacob’s hand. The voices again grew louder as their steps rang out on the tiles. Guismond had killed most of the Witches, whose blood and magic he’d stolen, in the dungeons of this palace. The screams were becoming so loud that Fox clearly had trouble walking on. She looked around at Jacob one last time, and then the light of her candle disappeared into one of the corridors. She had chosen the middle one.