page34 (1/2)

“What are you going to do?”

“Anything,” he said “Everything Whatever I have to”

“But what?”

“There’s so I want to try I had an idea about a trade”

“A trade With who? What have you got to trade?”

“I’ve got rily, in the voice of Martin the little boy, ould exist for only an hour or so longer: “Will you come with me?”

“All right Where are we going?”

“We’re going to see soht be you could do a trade with him too”

He looked over his shoulder, to make sure Fiona hadn’t followed us, then he quickly sketched a square in the air with his fingers The shape beca out over a h it The casual speed hich he did this shocked ic practiced by Fillorian sorcerers, but none of us had studied it, or not as far as I knew Martinan entire life that he concealed from us A secret life within a secret life

I followed hih

“Where are we?”

“Northern Marsh,” he said “Come on”

The ground here was boggy, but Martin picked his way through it with confidence, ever the intrepid explorer I tried to step where he stepped, but I lost my balance and put a hand down, and it came up covered with black muck Soon our shoes were full of water, and theat them as if it liked the taste I wasn’t dressed for this; I was lucky I’d had shoes on at all

After a quarter-hour of this I climbed up on a round rock, an oasis of solidity, and stopped Ahead was just black puddles and reeds and more black puddles and then open water

“Mart! Stop!”

He turned and waved at me Then he took a last look around at the horizon, pressed his hands together in front of him, prayerfully, and dived headfirst down into a puddle

The water barely looked deep enough to reach his ankles, but it sed him as completely and easily as if it were an ocean I watched the surface settle and reseal itself behind hiain

Only then did I become truly afraid

“Mart! Martin!”

I left my shoes on the rock—for all I know they’re still there—and thrashed ahead to where he’d disappeared and shoved my arm into the puddle up to the shoulder It had no bottom I took a deep breath and put my head under

My inner ear spun I tried to steady myself and instead fell forward There was aonlike a fish Gradually everything began to right itself

I was lying on the underside of the swa through Gravity had turned upside-down If I looked doas looking up through the puddles at the blue sky of Fillory If I looked up there was only darkness overhead It was nighttime in the world under the Northern Marsh, and before me, across a flat plain of black mud and sun-filled puddles, was a fairy castle made of black stone Its towers pointed down instead of up, but so did everything, including me

This was new Martin had taken us soe Fillory was a land of wonders, but this place had an uncanny quality that I can only describe as not correct It was a place that shouldn’t have been, soe of the board, where you weren’tpiece down This wasn’t an ordinary adventure, another legend in theI knew already that Plover would never hear about it This was happening off the books

I could have turned back, but I knew that if I did I would never have a brother again I also knew that as happening to him would happen to me too I would have two ame to be over yet I’ll follow behind Martin at a safe distance, I thought, and watch what he does Maybe he’s found a way out of the maze

I stood up, fighting vertigo Martin aiting forwet and sht I pickedthe puddles

“This is it,” he said “Just like they said in the books, but it’s different when you really see it”

“Like who said? Martin, what is this?”

“What does it look like?” he said grandly “Welcome to Castle Blackspire”

“Blackspire”

Of course it was It was just the same as Whitespire, stone for stone, but the stones were black, and the ere empty and dark It was Whitespire upside-down and backward and in the ht, the way itMartin pulled his sopping sweater off over his head and dropped it with a smack on the smooth stone

“But who lives here?”

“I’ht be backward versions of us You know—Nitra What’s Fiona backward? I can’t do it in ht our opposite nu to think it’s not like that at all”

“Well and thank God for that What is it like?”

“I don’t know,” he said “Let’s find out!”

He heaved on one of the big doors and it opened silently on oiled hinges The great hall inside was lit by torchlight Pale silent footainst the walls

“Right” Martin seemed not at all disconcerted I think he was past fear by then He raised his voice—he was full of a kind of hopeless bravado “Is your master at home?”

The footmen inclined their heads, silent as chess pieces

“Good Tell hi has arrived, and his brother We’ll wait for hiht some damn fires, it’s cold in here”

Two of the proper deference Or maybe everybody walked backward at Castle Blackspire

We were far off the track here, off the script and i we’d done till now in Fillory was like a ga all the way back to the nursery But Martin was entering into a darker kind of play This was a double ga to save his childhood, to preserve it and trap it in as that partook of the world beyond childhood, whose touch would leave him even less innocent than he already was What would that make him? Neither a child nor an adult, neither innocent nor wise Perhaps that is what a monster is