Читать книгу Blackfire: The Girl with the Diamond Key - James Daniel Eckblad - Страница 8

Childheart began to wake from a deep sleep, noticing first the water that was gently flowing all around his body—entirely submerged, except for his head. But even that was being bathed by tender hands caressing his face and scalp with soft sponges and delicate fingers. Childheart soon discovered that he was resting in a sling, in a large pool inside a large hall, staffed by dozens of attendants. Unpersons were bathing him and tending to his numerous, but superficial, wounds. Otherwise, he was alone in the pool, and there were no guards. But neither was there any place for him to run to, much less escape from. At this point, in any event, Childheart felt confident in his own security, even as, it seemed to him, his captors must have felt confident in their own securing of him.

More than anything, it was the sole voice he heard back in the forest, giving orders to those who had apprehended him, that told him that things were okay—for the time being, anyway—because it was, he now realized, the voice of his companion, Kahner. But he also knew that things were about to be not okay; for the voice of Kahner was the voice now of one who was an enemy, regardless of the explanation for his capture.

Obviously, Childheart reflected, Kahner was not who he said he was; not a general fighting alongside the Queen, Taralina. And what else that Kahner told him in Taralina’s castle, he wondered, was not true? Perhaps all of it?

Then who was Kahner, the former Unperson who was healed and returned to being a person only by virtue of the girls’—and especially Beatríz’s—love? Precisely who did he appear to be, now? Childheart knew that he was about to find out, for at that moment he heard the tramping of dozens of boots approaching.

“Lower the unicorn here!” ordered a Wolfman. Whereupon Childheart felt the sling, attached by several cables to a crane above, lifting him out of the water. As he was being lowered to the pavement, surrounded by Wolfmen and Unpersons wielding warm towels to dry off the unicorn, several hands clamped a steel collar around Childheart’s neck, alerting him that whatever else was about to happen to him was not going to be fundamentally benign.

“Where am I? And where are you taking me? And who is it who gave you orders to apprehend me back in the forest?” Childheart said as he was being led down a wide stone hallway, not unlike the one he now recalled that led him to his first encounter with Ashani; he could only hope that this next encounter with whomever would turn out in the end to be just as favorable. But he felt quite certain that whatever was about to transpire would not end well for him.

Receiving no reply, Childheart continued, “I know it is one called Kahner who gave you your orders.” Childheart paused and then added, when again receiving no response, “General Kahner and I are friends and companions; I doubt he would take kindly to this treatment of me!” With that, the hallway now echoed not only with the sound of boot leather and the clanging of weapons hung on belts, but with uproarious laughter.

“You? You and ‘General Kahner’ friends?” bellowed the one who had spoken earlier. “Yes! As much as you’re friends with Sutante Bliss!”

Childheart was a bit shocked, but not altogether surprised. He had always wondered about Kahner, and even suspected from the first moments he met him in the Forest of Lament something less than entirely innocuous about him. But it wasn’t as if Kahner, at least while he was with the children, was hiding something. Yes, for sure, he was dissembling behind a front of lies in the castle library, and Childheart knew even then that what Kahner was telling him couldn’t add up without straining credulity, but not earlier in their time together; Childheart was certain there was nothing disingenuous in his words while he was with the others, and especially when Kahner was with Beatríz.

All in the mission party knew there was a hidden, forgotten story that belonged to Kahner. But it wasn’t as if Kahner knew what it was and was keeping it a secret; it was manifestly apparent at the time that Kahner himself knew no more about that hidden story than anyone else, as he freely confessed. In that regard, the Den of Liars had erased his memory just as it had erased his face. With the introduction of love, Kahner’s face returned, and rapidly so. But not his memory, and it was just occurring to Childheart why that would be the case, at least under the circumstances now disclosed.

Those accompanying Childheart halted before a large set of bronze doors being opened from the inside. Two of the guards unshackled the collar; the one in charge of the transport party, who had moments earlier spoken to Childheart, motioned with a shove for Childheart alone to enter.

As soon as Childheart crossed the threshold, the doors were shut, those closing the doors fleeing from the room. The space was vast, as one would expect of a throne room, which it appeared to Childheart to be. The floor was long and wide, the ceiling towering, and the walls made of grey granite and myriad clear, leaded windows on all four sides soaring from floor to ceiling. The hall was empty, except for a tall, triangular pyramid in the center of the room, surrounded by a dais, both constructed entirely of black stone and solid gold. On each of three sides—or what Childheart assumed to be three sides judging from the two he could see from the doorway—stood a throne made entirely of silver and gold and adorned with precious gems. In the sides of the pyramid located behind each of the thrones was a closed door made of steel. Childheart continued to glance all about, but otherwise did not move, for the unicorn stood facing Kahner, who was sitting on one of the thrones.

“You must be hungry, Childheart. May I offer you whatever your heart desires most? I can do this.”

“What my heart desires most is hardly food, Kahner,” said Childheart.

“Please, lay yourself down, and let us talk—as friends.”

Childheart, making no movement, said, “Friends don’t attack and capture friends.”

“But it was not as it appeared, Childheart, I can assure you. You were brought here for your safety and benefit; for had I not ‘captured’ you, you would most certainly have been killed by those surrounding you.”

“And what is my ‘benefit’ of being here, Kahner?”

“In due course—shortly—you shall see.”

“And where exactly is ‘here,’ Kahner?”

Kahner folded his hands on his lap. “You have no doubt heard of Sanctuary?”

“It is the last bastion of the Good’s beauty against the grotesque advance of Evil’s ugliness.”

“But surely you noticed, on entering this land, a beauty surpassing even that of Sanctuary?”

“You refer to the flowers and the trees?”

“Among many other elements of exquisite beauty, yes.”

“They are fashioned, Kahner! All here in this land seems to be fashioned, including the sun and any animals, I suspect.”

“That is correct, Childheart, and this land in all its fabrication has a beauty that far exceeds that of Sanctuary, for unlike the beauty of Sanctuary, this beauty cannot die!”

“What you call ‘this beauty’ cannot die, Kahner; but neither can it live, making it infinitely less beautiful than the beauty of Sanctuary. For what lives is infinitely higher in order than that which does not live.”

“But Childheart, consider the heavens—the endless and eternal universe of stars and galaxies. They do not live, but are they not of far greater beauty than what lives—and will die—in tiny Bairnmoor?”

“Kahner, without at least one living thing to consider it beautiful, nothing of beauty can exist, even if it be otherwise the most beautiful and enduring of all things. And, further, Kahner, I would consider even the most withered of a dead blade of grass to be infinitely more beautiful than all the (as you say, ‘exquisite’) fields of flowers and groves of trees you will ever fabricate.”

Kahner stood and circled the chair before sitting once again. “Childheart, let us not quarrel; but let us speak frankly with each other, for time is short. And let me begin by saying, quite obviously, that not all that I told you back in the library in Taralina’s castle was true.”

“I sensed something was amiss, even then, but since I did not know what, I gave you the benefit of any doubt, trusting you entirely, Kahner.”

“In that, then, oh otherwise rather wise one, you were wrong.”

“No. In that I was in error, but not wrong. It is never wrong to trust.”

Kahner chuckled. “But how can trusting ‘in error’ ever be right? I think they call that a contradiction, do they not?”

“Because trust is a virtue, Kahner; its value isn’t dependent on the thing or one trusted, or on any sort of accomplishment of trust. Rather, trust rewards you regardless, because it enables you to be truly who you are, and truly who you are in relation to another who is truly who that other is—whatever that is.”

“But you trusted one, Childheart, back in the library, who wasn’t who he truly was, but who was merely acting—the entire time acting—with you never once suspecting that I was doing so.”

“Quite to the contrary, Kahner. In the library, I was trusting the Kahner you truly are, and not one who was acting. For you are who you truly were when the girls loved you into personhood, when you shared the deepest of loves with Beatríz—and because with Beatríz, so with all of us who love her. No. That was no act. I do not know what has happened to you, but I do know that you are acting now, and that you are not yourself, not the true self I trusted.”

Kahner stood abruptly. “Impudent unicorn! Do you have any idea who I am?”

“I have already told you: you are the true Kahner all of us knew and loved, and who loved us, whatever sort of false Kahner you seem to be at present.”

“You fool!” Kahner turned toward the closed doors. “General Custagus!”

The doors opened, and in stepped the one summoned. “Yes, my lord?”

“Tell this horse’s ancestor—this horse’s ass—who I am!”

“Why, my lord, you are Santante, also called Kahner, the son of the most high, Sutante Bliss.”

Kahner turned and smiled at Childheart, looking for a face of surprise, if not of alarm, and perhaps even distress, while motioning the general to take his leave. The doors shut with a reverberating echo, as if punctuating the declaration, leaving Kahner and Childheart alone once more. Childheart remained motionless and without expression.

“Now that you know who I truly am, what do you have to say for yourself, Childheart? Think carefully,” he quickly added, “for perhaps your words will determine your fate, and perhaps even the fate of those whom you love.”

“I have spoken the truth. I will say no more.”

“Childheart! I am giving you an opportunity to save your life—and the lives of those you love! Acknowledge me for who I truly am, the son of Sutante Bliss, the heir to the throne of all of Bairnmoor, and I will make you second in command of the whole of my realm—and allow your companions to live, and to serve under you. This I promise you, if you simply acknowledge me as your lord.”

Childheart was silent for a moment, and then spoke. “You can promise nothing now, because you are now nothing; and all who are above and who serve beneath you are nothing.”

“Childheart!” Kahner yelled, and then gathered himself, continuing softly, “Childheart, I am giving you a chance to live, and any of your friends who may yet be alive somewhere in Bairnmoor with you! Their lives, and the life of all of Bairnmoor, as well as your own life, are in your hands and under your control. Only acknowledge me as lord; that is all that is required of you, and you shall save your life, and enable all whom you love to live.”

“Kahner, given who you now pretend to be, there can be no life under your rule—mine, theirs, Bairnmoor’s, or even your life. Therefore you provide no chance for anyone to live.”

“Then death shall be your choice, Childheart! Except that it shall be a long and slow and torturous one. Guards!”

Again the doors opened, allowing in three dozen warriors, mostly Wolfmen, who encircled the unicorn. “Take him to the foundry,” ordered Kahner, “and to the hardest of labors! For as long as he lives! And let that be as long as possible!”

Kahner then turned his back on Childheart and stomped through the door behind the throne. Childheart was shackled and yanked away.