The Magician King_ A Novel - Lev Grossman [126]
He was standing in the doorway of a darkened library. Inside, sitting at a desk with two lanterns on it, was a skeleton in a nice brown suit. Or not quite a skeleton, a man, but an obviously dead one. He still had flesh on him, but it had shrunk and turned leathery.
It was very still in the library. Bookshelves smoldered and crackled quietly on either side of Quentin, from the fireball. The corpse watched him with eyes like hard dry nuts.
“No?” it said finally. Its voice buzzed and flapped, a blown-out speaker. It obviously didn’t have much left in the way of vocal cords. Some unnatural force was keeping it alive, long after its sell-by date. “Well. That was my only spell.”
Quentin waited. The thing’s face was immobile, unreadable. Its dried lips didn’t cover its teeth completely. It wasn’t pretty to look at, but for some reason Quentin didn’t feel angry at it. Why were they fighting again? For a second Quentin really couldn’t remember. He wondered if he’d gotten too far ahead of the others. But no, this was on him. He’d started it. And this was the boss fight.
The corpse came to convulsive life again and whipped a throwing knife at him with one skinny, loose-jointed marionette arm. Quentin ducked, purely out of instinct, but it was a wild throw, nowhere near him. It went through the open door behind him and skittered on the flagstones.
“All right,” it said. “Now I’m really done.”
The corpse might have sighed.
“Where’s the key?” Quentin said. “You have one, don’t you?” For a terrible second he worried that it might not.
“I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore,” the corpse said wheezily. It pushed a small wooden box toward him with one shriveled hand. The skin had worn off some of the knuckles, like the leather off the arms of an old chair. “It used to be my daughter’s.”
“Your daughter’s,” Quentin repeated. “Who are you?”
“Don’t you know the story?” It sighed again. It seemed much more resigned to its fate than Quentin expected. He didn’t know if it had to breathe anymore, but apparently it could still suck air in and out of its leathery chest like a bellows when it wanted to. “I thought everybody knew it.”
Now that he’d stopped moving he realized he was covered with sweat. It was cold in the nighttime island air.
“Wait. You’re not going to tell me you’re him. The man from the fairy tale. The Seven Golden Keys.”
“Is that what they’re calling it? A fairy tale?” Air hissed between its teeth. Was that laughter? “I suppose it’s a little late to quibble about things like that.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you were one of the good guys.”
“We can’t all be heroes. Then who would the heroes fight? It’s a matter of numbers really. Just work out the sums.”
“But isn’t this the key your daughter gave you?” Quentin had a terrible feeling he’d grasped the wrong end of something. “That’s what the story said. You set her free, from the witch, and she didn’t remember you, but she gave you the key.”
“That was no witch, that was her mother.” More hissing laughter. Only its lower jaw moved when it talked. It was like talking to an animatronic president at a theme park. “I left them to look for the Seven Keys. I suppose I wanted to be a hero. They never forgave me for it. When I finally came back my own daughter didn’t know me. Her mother told her I was dead.
“The key kept me alive. It’s just as well, your taking it like this. It’s terrible living in a dead body, I can’t feel anything. You should see how the others look at me.”
Quentin opened the wooden box. A golden key lay inside it. He was part of the fairy tale now, he supposed. He’d crashed through a shared wall into an adjoining story. Enter the Magician King.
“Just tell me,” the corpse said. “What is it for? I never knew.”
“I don’t know either. I’m sorry.”
Footsteps behind him. Quentin risked a glance back. Just Bingle, catching up at last.
“Don’t be sorry. You’ve paid for it. You paid the price.” The life had started going out of it as soon as it let go of the box. It slumped forward, and its head hit the table with a bang. It muttered