Scene 46
The same scene as previously, but seen through Quicksilver’s eyes. The landscape seems to waver and shift even more than before, since Quicksilver is dying of weakness and lack of magic.
Quicksilver saw fear of death in Will’s eyes. Ariel, her arm around Quicksilver, attempting to support him, trembled at the wolf’s words.
And Kit—Kit was perforce already dead, already a ghost. Never Land would eat the substance of Kit’s spirit and wholly drain him away. Kit would be no more. No soul would remain of the great human poet. Kit would have no ever-after, no life after life such as other humans were entitled to.
And Quicksilver himself, feeling himself die, could only think that he couldn’t allow that.
He himself was dead. All his mistakes, all he’d done since taking the crown of the hill, had only justified Sylvanus’s belief that he’d bring ruin to all.
Ariel had told Quicksilver of the blight and the deaths in the hill, and on whom should the blame for those rest, but on Quicksilver?
Oh, let him die, but let Ariel and Will leave here in peace. And let Kit go free, while his spirit yet existed.
Trembling, but thinking that if the wolf listened to anything, it would be Quicksilver’s true submission, Quicksilver shook off Ariel’s arm.
He walked halfway to the wolf and knelt down on the shifting ground, now marsh now sandy desert.
How cold the ground. How cold Quicksilver. He gathered his meager force and spoke, his voice scarcely louder than the howling wind. “Brother, the time and case require haste: Look here, I throw my infamy at thee. I will not ruin my father’s hill, nor by demanding the crown see my friends dead. Maybe I was never fit to govern the hill. The present seems to confirm it.” Quicksilver took his hand to his chest in a show of honesty. Never Land had leeched him so, he could barely feel his own hand.
“I’ll no more bend the fatal instruments of war against my brother and my lawful king. Aye, have the kingdom, Sylvanus, return to the hill. Let the hill power cloak you in a new body. And be our king, and I your loyal subject. In witness of which, I bend my knee.” He opened his hands, as if to show that he was there, on his knees, and he bent his head in true submission.
Oh, only let Sylvanus believe his submission. Oh, only let the others go.
Behind him, Ariel said, “No, milord. You cannot give the hill to him.”
Quicksilver looked over his shoulder. A single look that commanded his loved lady to silence.
The wolf grinned, fangs exposed in a gloating smile. “You beg prettily, brother.” The smile broadened and green, glowing saliva dripped from the fangs. “See what fear does. And longing for life.”
His life? Quicksilver had never expected to get out of this with his life. “Life? Oh, I long not for life, nor did I ever expect you’d let me live. Only let these three go on whom my heart is set. Let Ariel to the hill, let Will to London, and let Kit go to whatever destiny awaits him, beyond this desolate land, where his spirit will be swallowed by nothingness.” He looked back over his shoulder, taking a last look at Kit, Ariel, and Will. “Listen, listen. I am so sorry for my trespass that I here proclaim myself ready to die. Ariel, you must be loyal to my brother, now your king. And Will, you must strive to be a friend to the king of elves. And Kit . . . . Fare thee well, Kit . . . and pardon me. I was wrong and so to my brother I turn my blushing cheeks.
“Pardon me, Sylvanus. Spare them. And take revenge on me as you will.” His words were exhausted with his breath. He knelt, and tried to hope.
Silence reigned yet after he had stopped speaking.
The cold, leeching wind howled around them and Quicksilver shivered with it.
Then Sylvanus laughed. His laughter, colder than his voice, visibly curled in coils of darkness around them all. “Brother, you call me? I have no brother, I am like no brother, and this word ‘love,’ which graybeards call divine, be resident in men like one another and not in me: I am myself alone. And what do you expect with your speech to excite: pity or fear?” The dog snarled and growled and, with bared fangs, approached Quicksilver’s kneeling figure, walked around and around him, in sullen menace.
Quicksilver quivered, but made no sound, nor did he change his kneeling, imploring stance. Was it all lost? Even this, his meager hope, that he might die here alone?
“You ask me to spare your loved ones? I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.” More laughter echoed, chillingly, through the air.
“Indeed,” the wolf spoke again. “I often heard my mother say I came into the world with my legs forward. The midwife wonder’d and the women cried ‘O, bless us, he is born with teeth!’ And so I was; which plainly signified that I should snarl and bite and play the dog.”
With a low growl, half-laughter half-menace, the wolf said, “And so I shall. And so you die. All of you.”
Quicksilver saw the wolf jump through the air and tried to roll out of the way. But he had not the energy to be quick, and he knew he would die.
And the other three hostages after him.