one after the other, showering burning liquid all over the square and killing everything within reach. Only Roland and David were saved, high in their perch in the bell tower, for the flames could not reach the church. There they stayed, the stink of the burning creatures and the smell of acrid smoke filling the air, until there was only the dying crackle of the flames and the soft whisper of snow melting in fire to disturb the silence of the night.
XXII. Of the Crooked Man and the Sowing of Doubt
DAVID AND ROLAND left the village next morning. By then the snow had ceased falling, and although thick drifts still masked the lay of the land, it was possible to pick out the route that the concealed road took between the tree-covered hills. The women, children, and old men had returned from their hiding places in the caves. David could hear some of them crying and wailing as they stood before the smoldering ruins of what were once their homes, or mourning those who had been lost, for three men had died fighting the Beast. Others had gathered in the square, where the horses and oxen were once again being pressed into service, this time to haul away the charred carcasses of the Beast and her foul offspring.
Roland had not asked David why he thought the Beast had chosen to pursue him through the village, but David had seen the soldier looking at him thoughtfully as they prepared to depart. Fletcher, too, had seen what occurred, and David knew that he also was curious. David was not sure how he would answer the question if it was asked. How could he explain his sense that the Beast was familiar to him, that there was a corner of his imagination where the creature had found an echo of herself? What frightened him most of all was the feeling that he had somehow been responsible for her creation, and the deaths of the soldiers and the villagers were now on his conscience.
When Scylla was saddled, and they had scraped together some food and fresh water, Roland and David walked through the village to the gates. Few of the villagers came to wish them well. Most chose instead to turn their backs upon the departing travelers or stared balefully at them from the ruins.
Only Fletcher seemed truly sorry to see them go. “I apologize for the behavior of the rest,” he said. “They should show more gratitude for what you have done.”
“They blame us for what happened to their village,” said Roland to Fletcher. “Why should they be grateful to those who took the roofs from above their heads?”
Fletcher looked embarrassed.
“There are those who say that the Beast followed you, and that you should never have been allowed to enter the village in the first place,” he said. He glanced at David quickly, unwilling to meet his eye. “Some have spoken about the boy and how the Beast attacked him instead of you. They say that he is cursed, and we are well rid of him and you.”
“Are they angry with you for bringing us here?” asked David, and Fletcher seemed thrown slightly by the boy’s solicitude.
“If they are, then they will soon forget. Already we are planning to send men into the forest to cut down trees. We will rebuild our homes. The wind saved most of the houses to the south and west, and we will share our living spaces with one another until we have rebuilt. In time, they will come to realize that, had it not been for you, there would be no village at all, and many more would have died in the jaws of the Beast and her young.”
Fletcher handed Roland a sack of food.
“I can’t take this,” said Roland. “You will all have need of it.”
“With the Beast dead, the animals will return, and we will have prey to hunt once again.”
Roland thanked him and prepared to turn Scylla to the east.
“You are a brave young man,” Fletcher said to David. “I wish there was something more that I could give to you, but all I could find was this.”
In his hand he held what looked like a blackened hook. He gave it to David. It was heavy, and had the texture of bone.
“It is one of the Beast’s claws,” said Fletcher. “If anyone ever questions your bravery, or you feel your courage ebb, take it in your hand and remember what you did here.”
David thanked him and stored the claw in his pack. Then Roland spurred Scylla on, and they left the ruins of the village behind them.
They rode in silence through the twilight world, its appearance rendered more spectral yet by the fallen snow. Everything seemed to glow with a bluish tinge, and the land appeared both brighter and yet more alien. It was very cold, and their breath hung heavily in the air. David felt the little hairs in his nostrils freeze, and the moisture from his breath formed crystals of ice upon his eyelashes. Roland rode slowly, taking care to keep Scylla away from ditches and drifts for fear that she might injure herself.
“Roland,” said David at last. “There’s something that’s been bothering me. You told me that you were just a soldier, but I don’t think that’s true.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Roland.
“I saw how you gave orders to the villagers and how they obeyed you, even the ones who weren’t sure they liked you. I have seen your armor and your sword. I thought that the decoration on them was just bronze or colored metal, but when I looked more closely, I could see that it was gold. The sun symbol on your breastplate and your shield is made of gold, and there is gold on your scabbard and on the hilt of your sword. How can that be, if you are just a soldier?”
Roland did not answer for a time, then he said, “I was once more than a soldier. My father was lord of a vast estate, and I was his eldest son and heir. But he did not approve of me or of the way that I lived my life. We argued, and in a fit of anger he banished me from his presence and from his lands. It was not long after our fight that my quest for Raphael began.”
David wanted to ask more, but he sensed that whatever lay between Roland and Raphael was private and very personal. To pursue it further would have been rude, and would have been hurtful to Roland.
“And you?” asked Roland. “Tell me more about yourself and your home.”
And David did. He tried to explain some of the wonders of his own world to Roland. He told him of airplanes and radio, of cinemas and cars. He spoke of the war, of the conquest of nations and the bombing of cities. If Roland thought these things were extraordinary, he did not show it. He listened to them the way an adult might listen to a child’s constructed tales, impressed that a mind could create such fantasies but reluctant to share their creator’s belief in them. He seemed more interested in what the Woodsman had told David of the king, and of the book that held his secrets.
“I too have heard that the king knows a great deal about books and stories,” said Roland. “His realm may be falling to pieces around him, but he always has time for talk of tales. Perhaps the Woodsman was right to try to lead you toward him.”
“If the king is weak, as you say, then what will happen to his kingdom when he dies?” asked David. “Does he have a son or a daughter who will succeed him?”
“The king has no children,” said Roland. “He has ruled for a very long time, since before I was born, but he has never taken a wife.”
“And before him?” asked David, who had always been interested in kings and queens and kingdoms and knights. “Was his father king?”
Roland struggled to remember.
“There was a queen before him, I think. She was very, very old, and she announced that a young man, one whom nobody had ever seen before but who was soon to come, would rule the realm in her place. That was what happened, according to those who were alive then. Within days of the young man’s arrival, he was king, and the queen went to her bed and fell asleep and never woke again. They say that she seemed almost . . .
They came to a stream, frozen over by the plummeting temperature, and there they decided to rest for a short while. Roland used the hilt of his sword to break the ice so that Scylla could drink from the water beneath. David wandered along the edge of the stream while Roland ate. He was not hungry. Fletcher’s wife had given him great slabs of homemade bread and jam for breakfast that morning, and they were still sitting in his stomach. He
