“What of the woman?” he asked, before he thought.
“Give her to Merm and his crew. Call it incentive, if you like.” Droam went still and spoke no more.
Aandred carried her slowly down through the castle. He tried to think, but he could see no way out. He reached the kennel, shut the portal behind him, laid her on the work table. She was pale, but a pulse beat strongly at the base of her throat. Better if she'd died in the probe, he thought. Do it now, before she wakes; she'll never know. He flexed his hands, cupped them around her fragile skull. Such a shame, to destroy so lovely a vitality.
For a long moment, he could not move. Then he thought of the trolls; and their spits and fires and hooks. His resolve hardened. But before he could do the kindness, her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him. Disconcertingly, there was no confusion in them; it was as if she understood what he meant to do. He snatched his hands away from her.
Minutes passed in charged silence. Finally she struggled to sit up. “What did I say?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“Everything. The truth.”
“What will happen now?”
He looked at her, thankful for the mad mask that served him for a face. He could do her one kindness, at least: he could conceal from her the imminent death of her people. “I don't know,” he answered.
“But nothing good?”
He shrugged, searched for some soft lie. His mind would not respond; in frustration, he thumped his forehead with his fists.
She huddled away, frightened: “What is it, Aandred?” A pounding came from the portal. “Huntsman! Were here to collect our prize!” It was Merm's oily voice. The Troll King thrust open the portal and waddled into the room, followed by two of his subjects.
Merm started to push past Aandred. The troll was bright-eyed with triumph and anticipated pleasure. “What fun, what fun,” Merm said, reaching out for Sundee Gareaux.
Time seemed to stop. Aandred had forever to look into her unbelieving face — the wide green eyes, the pale, taut mouth. The moment ended; he roared and threw Merm away.
The Troll King smashed into the wall, then bounced up quivering, his loose mouth working furiously. “You dare? Droam will punish you. But first we will punish you!” He drew an iron truncheon from his sash, as did his two henchmen.
The dogs pressed against their gratings, snarling. Aandred felt his rage expand, a beautiful, soundless explosion, lighting up all his dark corners. He flipped open his forearm, touched a switch, and the gratings snapped open. The dogs bounded forth, leaped on the astounded trolls. All three died before they could make another sound.
The dogs played with the tatters of plastic, the mangled steel struts, the tangles of wire and hydraulic tubing, making happy dog noises. “You see,” Aandred said. “Such good dogs. So loyal.” He waited, hunched over with dread, for Droam's response.
When it came, he fell among the dogs, writhing. The pain enfolded Aandred with an intensity that drove away all thought. After a timeless period, the pain eased enough for him to hear Droam's words. “Come to the hall, Huntsman. Bring your prisoner, alive; bring your miserable, ruinous beasts.” The pain closed in for a final searing moment, then ceased.
He lay on the floor for a moment, gathering his strength, while the dogs sniffed him anxiously. Then fear drove him to his feet. “I dare not wait, Sundee Gareaux. Droam has summoned me — and you. And the dogs.” A great sadness stole into him, filling the emptiness left by the pain.
He held her leash loosely, led her toward the audience hall. Her face still white with fear, but she walked steadily, head high. “What will it do?” she asked.
“Droam will punish me,” he said. The dogs sensed his mood and stayed close, casting worried looks up at him.
“How? Pain?”
That too, he thought. “It will kill dogs. It knows what I value, it knows how best to hurt me.”
They paused before the tall doors of the audience hall. “What will it do to me?” she asked.
He set his hand on the great silver latch. “I think you must die, Sundee Gareaux. If I have a chance, I'll try to make it easy.”
Her face crumpled, but only for an instant. Then she nodded, and her mouth lifted into a very small smile. He swung back the door, and they went inside.
At the far end, Droam's hulk paced back and forth with quick little steps. “Come,” it roared, and now its voice was not so beautiful. “Come here swiftly. There are things I need to do with these hands.”
Aandred glanced aside. She was shaking, but under control. Admirable, he thought. Admirable.
As they passed the glowing nexus, his hand darted into his hip compartment, came out with the magic ball. He gave himself no time to reconsider, in the same motion, he tossed it over the wall into the nexus. The tiny homunculus inside shrieked piercingly. Aandred shouted, “Fetch!”
Instantly, Droam began to kill him, and he felt his hulk collapse. But before he was quite dead, Droam had transferred its attention to the dogs.
It was too late. One dog stiffened and spasmed in mid-leap, but the rest landed on the force bubble. The bubble collapsed with a flat, snapping implosion, spilling the dogs onto the surface of Droam's intellect. They scrambled after the ball, floundered through the delicate crystalline strands, shattered Droam into a cloud of glittering shards.
Aandred got to his knees, shuddering, his hands clattering against the floor. Droam's hulk had toppled and lay facedown, motionless. Inside the castle an emptiness spread, until it had swept through every niche and corner of that great pile. The first faint screams reached his ears.
A long time later, a red-haired boy of ten led his younger sister along a path through green woods. On a stone bench sat a statue of black metal. The statue's hand rested on the withers of a rusting steel dog; two similar dogs lay corroding at the statue's feet. The statue's face was mad, brutish, with horrible glaring eyes, and the little girl was frightened. “Ugly,” she said.
“No,” the boy said sternly. “Never say that! When we first came to Neverland, he killed a hundred monsters with his dogs and kept the rest away until they wore out. Without him, we'd all be dead.”
“Well, then, why is he out here by himself?”
The boy's face was somber, as if he remembered a sorrow too deep for his years. “He got slower and slower, after the last monsters were gone. One day he came up here with the dogs he still had left. For the rest of that summer, he would wink at me when I came to see him. But in the spring, he'd stopped moving.”
“That's sad.”
“Yes.”
After a while they turned and went back down the hill, toward their lives.