The old man retreated. He put his fingers to the wound on his chest. They came back red. His face began to change. It extended and assumed the shape of a half-moon, the chin curving up so sharply that it almost met the bridge of his crooked nose. Clumps of rough, black hair sprouted from his skull. He cast aside the robe, and David saw a green and gold suit, tied with an ornate gold belt, and a gold dagger that curved like the body of a snake. There was a rip in the fabric of the suit, where David’s sword had cut through the beautiful material. Last of all, a flat black disk appeared in the man’s hand. He flicked with it at the air, and it became a crooked hat, which he placed upon his head.
“You,” said David. “You were in my room.”
The Crooked Man hissed at David, and the dagger at his waist twisted and writhed as though it really were a snake. His face was contorted with fury and pain.
“I have walked through your dreams,” he said. “I know everything that you think, everything that you feel, everything that you fear. I know what a nasty, jealous, hateful child you are. And despite all that, I was still going to help you. I was going to help you find your mother, but then you cut me. Ooooh, you’re a horrid boy. I could make you very sorry, so sorry you’d wish you’d never been born, but—”
The tone of his voice suddenly changed. It became quiet and reasonable, which frightened David even more.
“I won’t, because you’ll have need of me yet. I can take you to the one you seek, and then I can get you both home. I’m the only one who really can. And I’ll just ask for one small thing in return, so small that you won’t even miss it…”
But before he could proceed, he was disturbed by the sound of Roland returning.
The Crooked Man wagged a finger in David’s face. “We’ll talk again, and perhaps you’ll be a little more appreciative when we do!”
The Crooked Man began spinning in a circle, and he spun so fast and so hard that he dug a hole in the earth and disappeared from view, leaving only the brown robe behind. His spittle had dried into the ground, and the images from David’s world could no longer be seen.
David felt Roland arrive beside him, and the two of them peered into the dark hole left by the Crooked Man.
“Who, or what, was that?” asked Roland.
“He disguised himself as the old man,” said David. “He told me that he could help me to get back home, and that he was the only one who could. I think he was the one the Woodsman spoke of. He called him a trickster.”
Roland saw the blood dripping from the blade of David’s sword.
“Did you cut him?”
“I was angry,” said David. “It happened before I could stop myself.”
Roland took the sword from David’s hands, plucked a large green leaf from a bush, and used it to clean the blade.
“You must learn to control your impulses,” he said. “A sword wants to be used. It wants to draw blood. That is why it was forged, and it has no other purpose in the world. If you do not control it, then it will control you.”
He handed the sword back to David. “Next time you see that man, don’t just cut him, kill him,” said Roland. “Whatever he may say, he means you no good.”
They walked together to where Scylla stood nibbling upon the grass.
“What did you see back there?” asked David.
“Much the same as you saw, I suspect,” said Roland. He shook his head in mild annoyance at the fact that David had disobeyed his instructions. “Whatever killed those men sucked the flesh from their bones, then left their remains hanging from trees. The forest is filled with bodies, as far as the eye can see. The ground is still wet with blood, but they injured this ‘Beast,’ or whatever it is, before they died. There is a foul substance on the ground, black and putrid, and the tips of some of their spears and swords have been melted by it. If it can be wounded, then it can be killed, but it will take more than a soldier and a boy to do it. This is none of our concern. We ride on.”
“But—” said David. He wasn’t sure what to say. It wasn’t like this in the stories. Soldiers and knights slew dragons and monsters. They weren’t afraid, and they didn’t run away from the threat of death.
Roland was already astride Scylla. His hand was outstretched, waiting for David to take it. “If you have something to say, then say it, David.”
David tried to find the right words. He did not want to offend Roland.
“These men all died, and whatever killed them is still alive, even if it is wounded,” he said. “It will kill again, won’t it? More people will die.”
“Perhaps,” said Roland.
“So shouldn’t something be done?”
“What would you suggest: that we hunt it down with one and a half swords to our names? This life is filled with threats and danger, David. We face those that we have to face, and there will be times when we must make the choice to act for a greater good, even at risk to ourselves, but we do not lay down our lives needlessly. Each of us has only one life to live, and one life to give. There is no glory in throwing it away where there is no hope. Now, come. The twilight grows thicker. We need to find a place to shelter for the night.”
David hesitated for a moment more, then took Roland’s hand and was hoisted into the saddle. He thought of all those dead men, and wondered at the kind of creature that could inflict such harm upon them. The tank still stood in the midst of the battlefield, marooned and alien. Somehow, it had found its way from his world to this one, but without a crew and apparently without even being driven.
As they left it behind, he remembered the visions in the Crooked Man’s pool of spittle, and the words that had been spoken to him:
“They don’t miss you one little bit. They’re glad that you’re gone.”
It couldn’t be true, could it? And yet David had seen the way his father doted on Georgie, and the way he looked at Rose and held her hand as they walked, and he guessed at the things they did together when the bedroom door closed each night. What if he found a way to return home and they didn’t want him back? What if they really were happier without him?
But the Crooked Man had told him that he could make things right, that he could restore his mother to him and bring them both home in return for just one small favor. And David wondered what that favor might be, even as Roland spurred Scylla, urging her on.
Meanwhile, far to the west, out of sight and out of hearing, a chorus of triumphant howls rose into the air.
The wolves had found another bridge across the chasm.
ROLAND WAS RELUCTANT to pause for the night, for he was anxious to continue his quest and he was concerned about the wolves that were pursuing David, but Scylla was tiring and David was so exhausted that he could barely hold on to Roland’s waist. Eventually, they came to the ruins of what looked like a church, and there Roland agreed to rest for a few hours. He would not allow a fire, even though it was cold, but he gave David a blanket in which to wrap himself, and he allowed him to sip from a silver flask. The liquid inside burned David’s throat before filling him with warmth. He lay down and stared at the sky. The spire of the church loomed over him, its windows empty as the eyes of the dead.
“The new religion,” said Roland dismissively. “The king tried to make others follow it when he still had the will to do so, and the power to enforce that will. Now that he broods in his castle, his chapels lie empty.”
“What do you believe in?” asked David.
“I believe in those whom I love and trust. All else is foolishness. This god is as empty as his church. His followers choose to attribute all of their good fortune to him, but when he ignores their pleas or leaves them to suffer, they say only that he is beyond their understanding and abandon themselves to his will. What kind of god is that?”
Roland spoke with such anger and bitterness that David wondered if he had once followed the “new religion,” only to turn his back upon it when something bad happened to him. David had felt that way himself at times as he sat in church in the weeks and months after his mother’s death, listening to the priest talking of God and how much He loved his people. He had found it hard to equate the priest’s God with the one who had left his mother to die slowly and painfully.
“And who do you love?” he asked Roland.
But Roland pretended not to hear him.
“Tell me about your home,” he said. “Talk to me of your people. Talk to me of anything but false gods.”
And so David told Roland of his mother and his father, of the sunken garden, of Jonathan Tulvey and his old books, of hearing his mother’s voice and following it into this strange land, and, finally, of Rose and the arrival of Georgie. As he spoke, he could not hide his resentment of Rose and her baby. It made him feel ashamed, and more like a child than he wished to appear in front of Roland.
“That is hard indeed,” said Roland. “So much has been taken from you, but so much has been given too, perhaps.”
He did not say any more, for fear that the boy might think he was preaching to him. Instead, Roland lay back against Scylla’s saddle and told David a tale.
Once upon a time, there was an old king who promised his only son in marriage to a princess in a land far away. He bade his son farewell and entrusted to him a golden cup that had been in his family for many generations. This, he told his son, would be part of his dowry to the princess, and a symbol of the bond between her family and their own. A servant was told to travel with the prince and to care for his every need, and so the two men set out together for the princess’s lands.
After they had traveled for many days, the servant, who was jealous of the prince, stole the goblet from him while he was sleeping and dressed himself in the prince’s finest clothing. When the prince awoke, the servant made him vow, on pain of his own death and the deaths of all those whom he loved, that he would inform no man of what had transpired and told him that in future the prince would serve him in all things. And so the prince became the servant, and the servant the prince, and in that way they came to the castle of the princess.
When they arrived, the false prince was treated with great ceremony and the true prince was given a job herding pigs, for the false prince told the princess that he was a bad and unruly servant and could not be trusted. So her father sent the true prince out to herd swine and sleep in the mud and straw, while the impostor ate the finest food and rested his head on the softest of pillows.
But the king, who was a wise old man, heard others speak well of the swineherd, of how gracious were his manners and how kind he was to the animals under his charge and to the servants whom he met, and he went to him one day and asked him to tell him something of himself. But the true prince, bound by his vow, told the king that he was unable to obey his command. The king grew angry, for he was not used to being disobeyed, but the true prince fell to his knees and said: “I am bound by a death vow not to tell any man the truth about myself. I beg you to forgive me, for I mean Your Majesty no disrespect, but a man’s word is his bond, and without it he is no better than an animal.”
So the king thought for a time, and then he said to the true prince: “I can see that the secret you keep inside is troubling to you, and perhaps you would feel happier once you have spoken it aloud. Why don’t you tell it to the cold hearth in the servants’ quarters, and then you may rest easier because of it.”
The true prince did as the king asked, but the king hid in the darkness behind the hearth, and he heard the true prince’s tale. That night, he held a great banquet, for the princess was due to marry the impostor the next day, and he invited the true prince to sit on one side of his throne as a masked guest, and on the other side he placed the false prince. And he said to the false prince: “I have a test of your wisdom, if you will agree to take it.” The false prince readily agreed, and the king told him the tale of an impostor who took on the identity of another man, and as a result claimed all the wealth and privileges that were due to another. But the false prince was so arrogant, and so certain of his position, that he did not recognize the tale as being about himself.
“What would you do with such a man?” asked the king.
“I would strip him naked and place him inside a barrel studded with nails,” said the false prince. “Then I would tie the barrel behind four horses, and I would drag it through the streets until the man inside was ripped to death.”
“That that shall be your punishment,” said the king, “for such is your crime.”
And the true prince was restored to his position, and he married the princess and lived happily ever after, while the false prince was torn to pieces in a barrel of nails, and nobody wept for him, and nobody spoke his name after he was gone.
When the story was done, Roland looked at David.
“What did you think of my tale?” he asked.
David’s brow was furrowed. “I think I read a story like it once before,” he said. “But my story was about a princess, not a prince. The ending was the same, though.”
“And did you like the ending?”
“I did when I was little. I thought that was what the false prince deserved. I liked it when the bad were punished to death.”
“And now?”
“It seems cruel.”
“But he would have done the same to another, had it been in his power to do so.”
“I suppose so, but that doesn’t make the punishment right.”
“So you would have shown mercy?”
“If I was the true prince, then, yes, I think so.”
“But would you have forgiven him?”
David thought about the question.
“No, he did wrong, so he deserved some punishment. I would have made him herd the pigs and live the way the true prince had been forced to live, and if he ever hurt one of the animals, or hurt another person, then the same thing would be done to him.”
Roland nodded approvingly. “That is a fit punishment, and merciful. Sleep now,” he said. “We have wolves snapping at our heels, and you must rest while you can.”