Page 129 of The Salt King

It wasn’t Saint Hildegard. It was a Hreod man with Brocken tattoos and the blue halite collar that the witches had worn centuries ago. He could see all that because the body was perfectly preserved, as if the man had died an hour ago. Like Avelyn was now, he was burned silver by the light.

He didn’t understand how the body was still so perfect. Was it the salt in the air? Was it just that nothing could rot down here? Or was it the King?

Trying not to think too hard about it, Avelyn unfastened the silver cloth around the eyes, but he was too ragged to hold his thoughts properly still. A witch just like him had come here long ago and . . . what? Maybe he had been light-walking, on his way for a witch stone to prove he was good enough, and become lost, or he had wanted to wake the King, or he was one of those so addicted to the light and the ras he had never wanted to surface again. Maybe he had wandered for years in the incandescent heart of the mine.

In all honesty, Avelyn hadn’t seriously considered the possibility that he could die from the salt light before he even reached the King. Or—not the light. The things in it.

As if a real voice had murmured that to him, Avelyn shook his head once, impatient. No; no. The King could have whatever nightmares he wanted. After Jericho, some gear in his mind had turned. Cogs had clicked, it was built into him now, and he would never need to think about it again.

If he could believe away Jericho, then some nightmare stood no chance.

And that, he thought as he wound the silver around his own eyes and the howling headache quietened, was exactly what Saint Hildegard had done. She had looked into the King’s dreams, and just . . . decided they were nothing to do with her.

Up ahead, the way opened out into a place that wasn’t built. No more lintel stones or carvings. It was a cave. A deep pool of glowing water went down and down, endlessly still, and the branches of trees leaned over it. Pearly acorns floated on the surface. In the centre there was a small island, and on the island was an altar. What was on it was too bright for him to see. It was just what Hildegard had described, only in her story, this place had been barely underground, right near the surface. Here and not here; or, wherever you thought it was.

Behind him, ecstasy roared up closer.

All this salt light. He nearly laughed. All he had to do was use it. He turned back and tried what Jericho had done. You couldn’t will silver into being, it wasn’t wishing, it was . . . just knowing that matter was imaginary.

Silver raced across the wall, pouring down from the ceiling until there was an impenetrable seal of it. Outside, the angels screamed.

The King must still have wanted not to be woken, because from the water rose something terrible. Avelyn didn’t bother to look too closely at it. He believed it into some bright fish, who swam away looking much happier.

“No,” he said aloud to the altar, raising stepping stones out of the water. “You’re not going to scare me away now.”

Something horrendous reared down from the ceiling and the cave was filled with hissing whispers.

Turn back turn back turn BACK—

They were just owls.

When he reached the altar, the brilliant thing chained there was too bright. It was like trying to look into a star, and he realized he was going to have a problem he hadn’t thought about. To wake the King, the King had to be in a shape that could wake. But—he was the King. He was something ancient and unearthly, not human, and for all Avelyn could believe away what he knew to be illusions, the King was real. He had been real for longer than England had existed, he was more real than Avelyn was, raw reality, burning and shining here, and . . . he couldn’t stare at this nuclear core of uranium-dense trueness and convince himself it could be anything but what it was.

Seeing is believing.

God, that was why it had worked for Hildegard. That was why the Witan had sent for an Outsider.

She couldn’t see salt light.

It was too bright even with the silver over his eyes. He pulled the cloth away.

It didn’t hurt, but he felt it, the moment his sight burned away. The world went from brilliant to blotching twilight, to dark blankness, and it was a relief. He set both hands against the altar, breathing slowly, his neck bent under the sudden floating calm of not having lightning stabbing around inside his skull. Good . . . good.

He reached out, half afraid he was going to find nothing but the heat of the raging salt light, but . . . he had been right. It was so much easier to know, without seeing, that he was going to find a person. His fingertips brushed a cool hand. He sagged.

Carefully, he felt upward until he found the chains. The clasps on the manacles were easy to open, even without seeing them. He pulled them both free.

Nothing happened.

He was so tired. What else was there?

“Please,” he said. “Jericho.”

Nothing.

Crackling away like a Geiger counter in his head was a quiet but urgent fear. How long could he keep this up, how long could he believe this thing was a person? If he stopped, if his mind slipped, he was just going to crumble into salt.

“Why did you go from being willing to do this one moment, to being determined to lie here and die the next? You’re not usually that . . . that bloody melodramatic.” His heard his voice crack with frustration.