Scene Forty Two
Will stands next to Proteus, Proteus's left arm holding him up and his right hand holding a knife at his throat.
Will felt the knife at his throat and knew that this was the end — if not this way, then another, for the evil elf did not intend to let him go.
Will, and Hamnet also, would die here, in this cursed land beyond imagination.
Oh, how far Will had come only to die, and yet not so far at all. His ambition had ever been tempered with fear, he thought. Marlowe’s ghost had been too right.
For Will had wished to be a poet, but had borrowed his words from Marlowe and not dared to put down his own words, or bare his own soul upon the paper. He had never thought himself the like of those other poets who, with their university educations, had stormed the London stage. Will had but a grammar-school education.
How could he be their equal? Everyone knew that university men had learned all about theater, and the proper way to construct a play.
He knew himself a fool to even dream on it, and thus had stayed within the safe boundaries of the art form as Marlowe had created it, blazingly alive, from his fiery mind.
Will was nothing but an empty shell, a crow beautified with another’s swan feathers. And for his pretensions without support, for his ambition that he was not willing to fight for, he would now die. He and Hamnet, his only son. Hamnet, for whom he would gladly have given his own life -- or at least he’d said so, but in the end he’d been too timorous to attempt risking anything for Hamnet.Oh, if he had it all to do again, Will would be braver and save his son. Even if Hamnet were now different and changed, even if Will could not longer claim him as his legitimate son and integrate him seamlessly into the world of men.
Even if Will had already lost his son, as such, he wished he could restore this new Hamnet to freedom and the sane world of men.
To free Hamnet from here, to give him a chance at happiness, Will would gladly sacrifice himself.
Alas, he had already sacrificed himself in vain, without fighting.
The girl on the ground opened her eyes, and now Proteus hissed close to Will’s ear, “Miranda, protect me, or the mortal dies.”
The woman looked on with uncomprehending blue eyes. “But he will die anyway,” she said slowly as though speaking out of dreams. Then, with blazing fury, “You’ll let him die. Kill him now, villain, kill him swiftly if you will, for I will not help you.”
Will closed his eyes. He would die.
On the darkness of his closed eyelids, Marlowe’s ghost appeared, and Marlowe’s voice spoke clearly in Will’s head. You think, Will, that like Doctor Faustus, you shall trade your soul for magic. And yet, you need not. Without magic is your soul forfeit as is that son you claim to love more than your own soul.
This was said in mockery, and Will felt Marlowe doubt Will’s affection for Hamnet.
Will opened his eyes and saw Miranda and Quicksilver, both helpless, lying side by side on the ground and staring up at him.
He felt the cold edge of Proteus's weapon, heard Proteus say, “I mock not, so trifle not with me. Obey me, or he dies.”
Will thought of how desperate he himself had been when he’d tried the like gambit on the witch.
Would he have killed the woman? Perhaps not, but then Proteus was no Will.
Will knew he’d die if he allowed this to go on.
But how to stop it?
There was only magic. Could Will, even if he dared, summon that magic he’d disdained till now? Would it damn his immortal soul if he did? Or if it didn’t, prove all Will had been taught wrong?
At that moment, fearing to destroy his own beliefs, Will remembered what Miranda had believed and how, without those beliefs had led her to here, to this near death. Perhaps Will’s beliefs were just as wrong. He must dare test them.
His fear, his fury, his love for his son -- all in a bundle -- pressed in on his brain, and with all his might he willed the gag to tear and give around his mouth.
The cloth ripped as though cut by knife.
As the pieces fell away from around his mouth, Will spoke, “Back,” he told Proteus. “Back, dread creature, and touch me not, nor dare harm these elves whom I protect.”
Thus speaking, he stood before Quicksilver and Miranda. The assault of Proteus's power hit him like a breath-robbing pain-- blow upon blow, as though Proteus and the centaurs were punching him, enough to fell a man in a tavern brawl. Such a tavern brawl as poor Marlowe was rumored to have died in.
But Will, who’d never brawled in his life, stood under the blows, legs wide apart for balance, and threw back blow for blow and punch for punch, magically willing the villains to be crushed.
He saw his enemies flinch and duck.
But Proteus and the centaurs looked one at the other, as though coordinating their attack, and returned to the fray with redoubled force.
A magical punch, then quickly another, fell on Will, punches so strong Will tasted his own blood in his mouth.
He stood and defended himself as he could. And yet he knew he couldn’t hold on much longer.