he room was split. To one side the two brothers fought; on the other Ned stood watching as Lucy desperately searched for the Heart Stone. Between them all was the Darkening King.
Ned’s mouth hung open. Every hair on his neck and arms prickled and his mouth ran dry. He’d thought he knew what fear was, what the face of terror looked like. He’d thought he had faced it before, but in front of him, here and now, the end of everything was becoming all too real, grotesque and black and seemingly without end.
The Darkening King rose higher, not as a single creature but as a dripping half-formed thing. Its surface billowed and bubbled, rearing up then falling away again as it clung to its first moments of new life.
On his feet now, Barbarossa took his dear Bessy and hurled the cleaver at his brother with all his might. Benissimo ducked and it struck the pillar behind him, lodging noisily in its stone. Benissimo returned in kind with a flame-tipped lashing of his whip, and again the butcher took the lashing and grinned. The pupils of his eyes were so large now that there was almost no white in them at all and his mouth was locked in a smile full of hunger and hate.
“You know, I tried to turn the boy. I came to his tent last night, but he wouldn’t listen. No one controls the Heart Stone, Bene – not the Fey, nor Tiamat before them. Do you see now? Do you understand how futile all this is?”
The Ringmaster breathed, his chest heaving, eyes and arms burning to fight. “And what if he had fallen? Dear old Barba would have let them all live?”
“The Darkening King needed a battle to rise, just enough killing to bring him back. If Ned had listened and your army had knelt, I could have stopped it before it came to this.”
Bene’s arm pointed to the battlefield and the encroaching darkness outside. “How can you not see it? We’re the Darkening King’s pawns, both of us. Hundreds of years we’ve fought and it’s all led to this, to that horror behind you. It’s going to feed on them and it’s going to feed on everything till there’s nothing left.”
The butcher stopped and turned to see that the Darkening King almost filled the arched window behind him.
“You’re wrong. A Demon’s word is binding. He will give me the world.” But even as he said it, Benissimo could hear the cracking in his brother’s voice.
“Sar-adin betrayed you – he was bound by his word, wasn’t he? Our father made a deal with the Darkening King, without even knowing, but he didn’t get what he wanted, did he? What are you really going to rule, Barba, when this monster kills everything? It will just be you and I and bones, till the end of time.”
As Benissimo pleaded, Barbarossa looked slow and listless, as though waking from a dream. He turned to the beast, watching it grow and grow, and seemed to finally understand.
“Kills everything?”
“We have to stop it.”
“Our curse – our lifeblood – is his. It cannot be stopped, unless …”
Barbarossa’s eyes grew wide. He knew now what Benissimo already understood. To end the Darkening King they would both have to die, here and now.
“StToP!”
The room shook and the Darkening King lashed out. This time it struck both brothers to the floor violently.
“The Heart Stone, Lucy, FIND IT!” yelled Ned.
“STtTopP!”
As it bellowed, the great wall of blackness formed and reformed. First a row of gnashing teeth, then clawed limbs and horned heads. As he watched the beast desperately trying to find its form, Ned realised something as incredible as it was unlikely – the Darkening King was scared.
“Stop?” Ned screamed. “And what will happen to them? What will happen to the BBB, to the fair-folk, to the rest of the world?”
“THheYy aRre FfoOoD.”
The beast filled one half of the room now. All round it great arms rose up like snakes ready to pounce, and within its centre two eyes of burning black light peered down on him.
“You’re wrong,” said Ned. “They’re living, breathing men, women and wonders, who care and feel, and they’re dying in their thousands to stop you, because everything you are is wrong!”
“THhEy’Re wWeEakK.”
“They’re innocent!”
As the words came out of him, a rage in Ned’s chest burned bright and true. He didn’t care about fear, he didn’t care how old or evil the beast in front of them was, and of its own accord his ring fired. He struck at the creature, using slabs of stone flooring, ripping pillars from their bases and hurling them with abandon. Atoms fired and fizzed, blasted and crackled, as Ned filled the air with his rage. The more he struck, the more the beast changed, morphing from one shape to another, striking at the ground with black spears for claws.
From the corner of his eye, Ned saw a streak of light. Benissimo’s whip tore through the air, and next to it, Barbarossa’s cleaver struck out, both aiming at the creature, deep at its core.
“EnNouGhH!”
A hundred arms poured out of the beast like a swarm of giant insects. Again the two brothers were knocked to the ground. One of its claws was about to hit Ned, when Gorrn tore up from the ground, defiantly blocking its path.
“UNT!”
And a second later, Gorrn was no more.
“Gorrn?!”
The beast now filled the room entirely. Two great arms and legs clearly formed, the rest of its hideous body still snarling and twisting to find its final shape. All daylight from the window was blocked, the room now lit only by the flickering fire from the butcher’s hearth. In its folds of black upon black Ned could see two great eyes, glowing and cruel.
“DdieE!” boomed the monster and its blackness closed all around them. Ned held his breath, all light and hope extinguished … and then Lucy took his hand.
“Stop,” she said quietly, her eyes shut tight, and the beast recoiled.
For a second everything was still.
“Take it,” said Lucy, and put the Heart Stone in Ned’s hand.
“What did you do?”
“I’m still doing it.”
A tear was rolling down Lucy’s cheek and her hands were shaking. Ned watched in horror, as did both Bene and Barbarossa from the other side of the room.
“Y-you’re in its mind, Lucy! It will kill you!”
“You’re going to have to do this bit without me, Ned.”
Benissimo took Barbarossa’s arm and together they faced the source of their curse and power, each knowing what they must do. The strangest thing of all, beyond the united brothers, was that Benissimo was smiling as truly and calmly as the old goat knew how.
Ned looked at the Heart Stone. What could he say? What words could he use? How could you control a thing so powerful? Perhaps that was the point – perhaps he couldn’t control it. When Ned worked his ring, he controlled it with his will, but the Heart Stone couldn’t be forced, it had to agree, and for that to happen, it would need to be asked a question.
And then he heard the voice of Tiamat in his head, when he’d asked him for help: “DO NOT ASK ME – ASK THE HEART STONE.”
And quite suddenly Ned Armstrong knew exactly what he had to do.
The room shook and Lucy wavered. Ned took one last look at his friend, at Benissimo and Barbarossa, and then closed his eyes.
In the depths of his mind he felt the Heart Stone’s wordless voice again, and his ring finger thrummed with power. From his lips poured four letters, and as he said them, Benissimo and Barbarossa lunged at the beast.
“Help?” asked Ned in barely a whisper.
And his ring fired.