The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

always after me. As usual I escaped them. I know many ways of disappearing. But what use are they now, my dear chap? My animals are dead.’

‘But …’

‘Baffled because they could not find me … no, not even with their latest device, that is no bigger than a needle, and threads a keyhole with the speed of light … baffled, I say, they turned from hunting me, and killed my animals.’

‘How?’

Muzzlehatch rose to his feet on the rock, and lifting his arm caught hold of a thick branch that hung above him, and broke it off. A muscle in his jawbone ticked endlessly like a clock.

‘Some kind of ray, it was,’ he said at last. ‘Some kind of ray. A pretty notion, prettily executed.’

‘And yet you had the heart to rescue me,’ said Titus, ‘from the thin man.’

‘Did I?’ muttered Muzzlehatch. ‘I was in a dream. Think no more of it. I had no choice but to make for the Under-River. The scientists were converging. They were after you, boy: they were after us both.’

‘But you remembered me,’ said Titus. ‘You crawled along the beam.’

‘Did I? Good! And so I crushed him? I was far away … I was among my creatures. I saw them die … I saw them roll over. I heard their breath blow bleakly from their ribs. I saw my zoo become an abattoir. My creatures! Vital as fire. Sensuous and terrible. There they lay. There they lay – for ever and ever.’

He turned his face to Titus. The abstracted look had gone and in its place was something as cold and pitiless as ice.

SIXTY-FOUR

Cursing the moon, for it was full, Titus and his two companions were forced to make a long detour, and to keep as far as possible in the shadows that skirted the woods, or lay beneath the walls of the city. To have taken the shorter path across the moonlit woods would have invited trouble.

As they made their way, their pace conditioned by the weary steps of the Black Rose, Titus, perhaps for reason of his supreme indebtedness to Muzzlehatch felt an almost ungovernable desire to shake this from him as though he were a ponderous weight. He longed for isolation, and in his longing he recognized that same canker of selfishness that had made itself manifest in his attitude towards the Black Rose in her pain.

What kind of brute was he? Was he destined to destroy both love and friendship? What of Juno? Had he not the courage or the loyalty to hold fast to his friends? Or the courage to speak up? Perhaps not. He had, after all, deserted his home.

Forcing himself to frame the words, he turned his head to Muzzlehatch, ‘I want to get away from you,’ he said. ‘From you and everyone. I want to start again, when but for you, I would be dead! Is this vile of me? I cannot help it. You are too vast and craggy. Your features are the mountains of the moon. Lions and tigers lie bleeding in your brain. Revenge is in your belly. You are too vast and remote. Your predicament burns. It makes me hanker for release. I am too near you. I long to be alone. What shall I do?’

‘Do what you like, boy,’ said Muzzlehatch, ‘skidaddle to the pole, for all I care, or scorch your bottom on the red equator. As for his lady? She is ill. Ill, you numbskull! Ill as they take them on this side of breath.’

The Black Rose turned to Muzzlehatch, and her pupils gaped like well-heads.

‘He wants to get away from me, too,’ she said. ‘He is disgusted by my poverty. I wish you could have seen me years ago, when I was young and fair.’

‘You are still beautiful,’ said Titus.

‘I don’t care, any more,’ said the Black Rose. ‘It no longer matters. All I want is to lie down quietly for ever, on linen. Oh God, white linen, before I die.’

‘You shall have your linen,’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘White as a seraph’s underwing. We’re not far away.’

‘Where are you taking me?’

‘To a home by a river, where you can rest.’

‘But Veil will find me.’

‘Veil is dead,’ said Titus. ‘Dead as dead.’

‘His ghost will strike me then. His ghost will twist my arm.’

‘Ghosts are fools,’ said Muzzlehatch, ‘and much overrated. Juno will care for you. As for this young Titus Groan: he can do as he pleases. If I were in his shoes I would cut adrift and vanish. The world is wide. Follow your instinct and get rid of us. That was why you left your so-called Gormenghast, wasn’t it? Eh? To find out what lay beyond the skyline. Eh? And as you once said …’

‘I think you said, “your so-called Gormenghast”. God damn you for that phrase. For you to say it! You! For you to be a thing of disbelief! You! You’ve been a kind of God to me. A rough-hewn God. I hated you at times, but mostly I loved you. I have told you of my home; of my family; of our ritual; of my childhood; of the flood; of Fuchsia, of Steerpike and how I killed him; of my escape. Do you think I have invented it all? Do you think I have been deceiving you? You have failed me. Let me go!’

‘What are you waiting for,’ said Muzzlehatch, turning his back on the boy. His heart was pounding.

Titus stamped his foot with anger, but he did not move away. A moment later, the Black Rose began to give at the knees, but Muzzlehatch was in time to catch her up in his powerful arms, as though she were a tattered doll.

They had come to an open space, and stopped where the shadows ended.

‘Do you see that cloud?’ said Muzzlehatch, in a curiously loud voice. ‘The one like a curled-up cat. No, there, you chicken, beyond that green dome. Can’t you see it? With the moon on its back.’

‘What about it?’ said Titus in an irritable whisper.