added, “I don’t know what’s got me! I can’t see! Not yet—it’s too bright! But something’s got me!”
“You mean, Elli, that something else has caught us?” she squealed.
“No. I mean, I don’t know if we’ve been caught—as in captured by something or someone—or caught, as in falling into something that’s gotten us stuck—or, at least gotten me stuck! Something I got caught in, Beatríz, when I fell back holding on to you, when you fell forward into me!” Elli sat still for a brief moment. “It feels, Beatríz, as if I’ve fallen into some tree branches—that then sprang up and away from the Blackmouths, and, and . . . well, I’m sort of caught in them, sort of caught in two large branches wrapped around me. I’m trying to get used to the light so I can see where we are and get out of what’s trapping me—maybe get to my knife so I can cut the branches away.”
“Well,” inserted a new voice, at once imposing and feminine, “I wouldn’t be going after those branches if I were you. What you call being caught was, in fact, being saved; and what you call branches are, in fact, my arms; and what you call being trapped is, in fact, being protected; and, if, in fact, you’d like to get away, you’re free to do so—free to go back down the hill to the Blackmouths and the OOnwees, if you’d like,” the voice said, rather nonchalantly, if not liltingly.
~four~
Childheart began to wake from a deep sleep, noticing first the water that was gently flowing all around his body—entirely submerged, except for his head. But even that was being bathed by tender hands caressing his face and scalp with soft sponges and delicate fingers. Childheart soon discovered that he was resting in a sling, in a large pool inside a large hall, staffed by dozens of attendants. Unpersons were bathing him and tending to his numerous, but superficial, wounds. Otherwise, he was alone in the pool, and there were no guards. But neither was there any place for him to run to, much less escape from. At this point, in any event, Childheart felt confident in his own security, even as, it seemed to him, his captors must have felt confident in their own securing of him.
More than anything, it was the sole voice he heard back in the forest, giving orders to those who had apprehended him, that told him that things were okay—for the time being, anyway—because it was, he now realized, the voice of his companion, Kahner. But he also knew that things were about to be not okay; for the voice of Kahner was the voice now of one who was an enemy, regardless of the explanation for his capture.
Obviously, Childheart reflected, Kahner was not who he said he was; not a general fighting alongside the Queen, Taralina. And what else that Kahner told him in Taralina’s castle, he wondered, was not true? Perhaps all of it?
Then who was Kahner, the former Unperson who was healed and returned to being a person only by virtue of the girls’—and especially Beatríz’s—love? Precisely who did he appear to be, now? Childheart knew that he was about to find out, for at that moment he heard the tramping of dozens of boots approaching.
“Lower the unicorn here!” ordered a Wolfman. Whereupon Childheart felt the sling, attached by several cables to a crane above, lifting him out of the water. As he was being lowered to the pavement, surrounded by Wolfmen and Unpersons wielding warm towels to dry off the unicorn, several hands clamped a steel collar around Childheart’s neck, alerting him that whatever else was about to happen to him was not going to be fundamentally benign.
“Where am I? And where are you taking me? And who is it who gave you orders to apprehend me back in the forest?” Childheart said as he was being led down a wide stone hallway, not unlike the one he now recalled that led him to his first encounter with Ashani; he could only hope that this next encounter with whomever would turn out in the end to be just as favorable. But he felt quite certain that whatever was about to transpire would not end well for him.
Receiving no reply, Childheart continued, “I know it is one called Kahner who gave you your orders.” Childheart paused and then added, when again receiving no response, “General Kahner and I are friends and companions; I doubt he would take kindly to this treatment of me!” With that, the hallway now echoed not only with the sound of boot leather and the clanging of weapons hung on belts, but with uproarious laughter.
“You? You and ‘General Kahner’ friends?” bellowed the one who had spoken earlier. “Yes! As much as you’re friends with Sutante Bliss!”
Childheart was a bit shocked, but not altogether surprised. He had always wondered about Kahner, and even suspected from the first moments he met him in the Forest of Lament something less than entirely innocuous about him. But it wasn’t as if Kahner, at least while he was with the children, was hiding something. Yes, for sure, he was dissembling behind a front of lies in the castle library, and Childheart knew even then that what Kahner was telling him couldn’t add up without straining credulity, but not earlier in their time together; Childheart was certain there was nothing disingenuous in his words while he was with the others, and especially when Kahner was with Beatríz.
All in the mission party knew there was a hidden, forgotten story that belonged to Kahner. But it wasn’t as if Kahner knew what it was and was keeping it a secret; it was manifestly apparent at the time that Kahner himself knew no more about that hidden story than anyone else, as he freely confessed. In that regard, the Den of Liars had erased his memory just as it had erased his face. With the introduction of love, Kahner’s face returned, and rapidly so. But not his memory, and it was just occurring to Childheart why that would be the case, at least under the circumstances now disclosed.
Those accompanying Childheart halted before a large set of bronze doors being opened from the inside. Two of the guards unshackled the collar; the one in charge of the transport party, who had moments earlier spoken to Childheart, motioned with a shove for Childheart alone to enter.
As soon as Childheart crossed the threshold, the doors were shut, those closing the doors fleeing from the room. The space was vast, as one would expect of a throne room, which it appeared to Childheart to be. The floor was long and wide, the ceiling towering, and the walls made of grey granite and myriad clear, leaded windows on all four sides soaring from floor to ceiling. The hall was empty, except for a tall, triangular pyramid in the center of the room, surrounded by a dais, both constructed entirely of black stone and solid gold. On each of three sides—or what Childheart assumed to be three sides judging from the two he could see from the doorway—stood a throne made entirely of silver and gold and adorned with precious gems. In the sides of the pyramid located behind each of the thrones was a closed door made of steel. Childheart continued to glance all about, but otherwise did not move, for the unicorn stood facing Kahner, who was sitting on one of the thrones.
“You must be hungry, Childheart. May I offer you whatever your heart desires most? I can do this.”
“What my heart desires most is hardly food, Kahner,” said Childheart.
“Please, lay yourself down, and let us talk—as friends.”
Childheart, making no movement, said, “Friends don’t attack and capture friends.”
“But it was not as it appeared, Childheart, I can assure you. You were brought here for your safety and benefit; for had I not ‘captured’ you, you would most certainly have been killed by those surrounding you.”
“And what is my ‘benefit’ of being here, Kahner?”
“In due course—shortly—you shall see.”
“And where exactly is ‘here,’ Kahner?”
Kahner folded his hands on his lap. “You have no doubt heard
