Chapter 101
Frederico discovered that the hours, when grey, took longer to pass. Grey gestures were slower and less meaningful. He travelled under a heavy, crippling curtain and had the impression, though he could not be certain, that he passed by haggard people running away, dying, dead. He might have seen na army. Frederico was a rock underwater, connected to the surface by a black twig. Every step he took, Faust’s medallion bit his chest. How could a rock learn how to swim?
It doesn’t matter, he had to. If the Old Woman’s book had come back from fire and ash, so too Frederico had to ressurface from the darkness, climb up water with hands of stone, fight shoulder to shoulder with the man who killed his brother. Neville said he didn’t kill Faust, but if not him, then who?
‘Hello, old friend,’ Frederico spread his hand on the metalic Eliana’s snout, trying to gather energy from the metal, so he could walk down the corridor of his nightmare.
He barely turned from the train, and there was Queen Margot, guiding him down the icy path to the door lit with ember. Frederico stepped across the door, leaving behind ice, finding pain. Inside it was darker, in spite of the torches. The air, drunk with carrion, was heavy on Frederico’s eyelashes. There he was, behind the table, the man with gorilla hands petting the little dog, her eyes black with terror.
‘Death is relief,’ said Queen Margot and Frederito tasted once more the rough dagger in his hand.
‘One day you will thank me,’ said Margot.
The little dog’s screams began to echo in the nightmare even before the gorilla hands began to work.
‘Stop,’ said Frederico. ‘Please stop.’
All his life he begged, night after night, please stop.
‘What is this?’ a voice thundered in the nightmare.
Everything stopped. Frederico looked for the owner of that alien voice. Queen Margot blinked, as though she had just woken up.
A red skinned man with eyes the colour of honey pushed away tha gorilla hands and took the dog in his arms. The little dog’s tongue attacked her saviour’s face, her tail was like the wings of a humming bird.
‘Pierre?’ Frederico asked. He looked at his mother, to the big man behind the table. Frederico expected a reaction, na attack. He tohught they would grab Pierre and put him on the table with the dog, but Pierre was not a part of their world. They were astonished.
‘Is this yours?’ Pierre pushed the dog against Frederico’s chest.
If the dog wagged her tail any faster, she’d take flight.
‘She likes you,’ said Pierre. ‘I have to go. I’m trying to wake up.’ He pushed aside a brick wall like it was a curtain, and disappeared behind it.
‘That’s impossible,’ said Frederico.
‘Indeed,’ said Fregósbor. Since when had he been there?
The walls of Frederico’s nightmare all became curtains after Pierre pushed them, and began to flap while Frederico tried to stop the dog from drowning him in licks. He turned his face and saw a valley that did not belong to his nightmare. It was covered in fog so thick that they smothered the sound of blades screaming and voices dying. Frederico knew the smell of nightmares and realized that this battle was someone else’s horror. The little dog stopped licking him, her tail hesitated.
The fog began to break and snow began to fall on corpses. Frederico saw a man trespassing another with his sword. He recognized the murderer and the voice of the murderer, who died with the last word:
‘Father?’
The little dog growled at QUeen Margot, who stood in the cold corridor, by the fog.
‘You lied to me,’ Frederico said to her. ‘Neville didn’t kill my brother.’
‘My son, you must understand,’ said the queen, ‘you have to understand. What is the use of you?’
‘I am not your son,’ said Frederico. ‘I never was.’
The fog faded away, as well as the corridor and the smell of pain. Pierre was nowhere to be seen, but Frederico grabbed the mage’s sleeve.
‘What? Who?’ asked Fregósbor.
‘King Fulbert,’ said Frederico. ‘Where is he?’
Fregósbor raised his nose like a hunting hound. The little dog did the same.
‘In Chambert,’ the mage said and went after Pierre.