With the light held at arm’s length before her, Rose Red continued on across the plain. Now and then when she blinked, the rolling, spurge-covered hills vanished, and she saw herself in a hallway of the Eldest’s House, still dark with otherworldly gloom. It would seem she had climbed that endless stair at last. But the hall, when she glimpsed it, stretched ever on before her, and it was easier in a way to return to the plain.
The darkness shifted. Along the distant horizon a thin scarlet line like seeping blood appeared. The sun began to rise. Only it wasn’t the sun Rose Red knew. It was like the Dragon’s eye, red and boiling, and it peered at her from over the hills. A vast, ugly head, smoke pouring from its nostrils—or were those clouds? It was too horrible. Rose Red lifted up the silver lantern to shield her face.
The light in the lantern grew in potency, as though to combat that leering sun. Rose Red closed her eyes, then felt rather than saw a bolt of blinding light.
The words of the Dragon crashed down around her like fiery hail. “Take it from her! Destroy that light!”
The light of the lantern grew in potency, swallowing up the fire in its pure glow. It was all too terrible, and Rose Red screamed.
When she looked again the plain was gone, as was the boiling eye.
She stood on a mountain. It was barren, stripped of all growth, naked rock beneath that empty expanse above. Rose Red, still clutching the lantern in both hands, turned to gaze at the half-lit range of mountains stretched about her. They were the Circle of Faces. In this place, the faces themselves were more clearly defined than ever; hollows became gaping mouths and eyes, landslides became hair, became tears, became teeth. The ugly faces and twisted bodies of ancient giants.
And this mountain upon which she stood . . . Rose Red looked up to its peak, black as pitch. This must be Bald Mountain.
The Place of the Teeth rose up before her.
Rose Red stared. She knew the story behind the Place of the Teeth, a secret hollow somewhere on the slopes of Bald Mountain to which no one ever ventured anymore. It was a site of sacrifice. Five stones like jagged teeth, carved from the natural rock, rose up from a smooth slab of stone, four of the teeth at the slab’s corners, and one jutting from the middle. All were stained with blood, the middle one most of all. For here, in ancient days, the warlike elders had sacrificed ewe lambs to appease the Beast that was their god.
And here too it was that Maid Starflower had been bound and left under the cold light of the moon. Only there was no moon in this place.
No sooner had this thought crossed Rose Red’s mind than she heard deep, guttural breathing. An instant later, an enormous black shape leapt onto the slab and paced around the central stone. It was like a wolf but, terribly, also like a man. His face was the face of the Monster Cave, only in flesh rather than rock. Blood matted his fur and dripped from his jaws.
“That cursed light,” he snarled. His voice heaved, as though speech gave him pain. But his eyes gleamed in the glow of the lantern, glaring at Rose Red with hatred and despair. “Who dares bring that poison light and shine it in my eyes? Have you no compassion?”
Rose Red swallowed hard, her hand trembling so hard that she would have dropped the lantern had she not reached up hastily to grasp it in her other fist as well. “I ain’t nobody,” she gasped. “Nobody important.”
The creature paced to the edge of the slab. He was bigger than a horse, with a ruff of shaggy fur like a mane about his face. But Rose Red realized that the blood in his coat was from many, many horrible wounds. Savage teeth had torn the flesh and left it gaping and bleeding.
“You . . . you’re dead,” she whispered. “Ain’t you?”
He raised his enormous head and howled at the empty vault. The sound shattered through Rose Red’s soul, and she crouched down upon the mountainside, holding the lantern before her face.
“They tore into me!” he bellowed. “My own! My own! She betrayed me, though I loved her. Yes, my love was all too violent, too terrible and great for her to comprehend. But she betrayed me, and they tore me to pieces.”
The words trailed off into another long howl that rattled the Place of the Teeth like a chattering skull. But the howl too caused him pain. It ended abruptly in a snarl, and he bowed his head, panting and showing his teeth.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” Rose Red managed, sitting upright at last. “It don’t sound like you’ve had too great a time of it.”
“Why,” the creature gasped, “do you walk this Path? You are yet living.”
“I’m lookin’ for someone.”
“Look elsewhere. Flee this place while you may.”
Rose Red swallowed hard then set her jaw. “I cain’t,” she said. “The Dragon’s taken someone I promised to protect.”
“It’s too late for that one,” said the beast.
“No it ain’t. She weren’t dead neither, and he wouldn’t dare kill her.”
“How do you know this?”
“I just . . . know.”
Here the creature looked her right in the eye. “If she’s not dead, then she’s been taken to the Village.”
“Where’s the Village?”