“Well, okay, then know this.” Janet put her hands on her hips. She had struck an unexpected vein of bitterness in herself, and it was running away with her. “We human beings are unhappy all the time. We hate ourselves and we hate each other and sometimes we wish You or Whoever had never created us or this shit-ass world or any other shit-ass world. Do You realize that? So next time You might think about not doing such a half-assed job.”
A ringing silence followed her outburst. The torches guttered against the walls. They’d left streaks of black soot on them all the way up to the domed ceiling. It was true, what she was saying. It made him angry. But there was something about it that made him nervous, too.
“You are incensed, daughter.” Ember’s eyes were full of kindness.
“I’m not your daughter.” She crossed her arms. “And yeah, no shit I’m incensed.”
The great old ram sighed deeply. A tear formed in His great liquid eye, spilled over, and was absorbed into the golden wool on His cheek. In spite of himself, Quentin thought of the proud Indian in the old anti-littering commercials. From behind him Josh leaned into Quentin’s shoulder and whispered: “Dude! She made Ember cry!”
“The tide of evil is at the full,” the ram was saying, a politician staying relentlessly on message. “But now that you have come, the tide will turn.”
But it wouldn’t. Suddenly Quentin knew it. It all came to him in one sick flash.
“You’re here against Your will,” he said. “You’re a prisoner down here. Aren’t You?”
This wasn’t over after all.
“Human, there is so much you do not understand. You are still but a child.”
Quentin ignored him. “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why You’re down here? Somebody put You down here, and You can’t get out. This wasn’t a quest, this was a rescue mission.”
Next to him Alice had both her hands over her mouth.
“Where’s Umber?” she asked. “Where is Your brother?”
Nobody moved. The ram’s long muzzle and black lips were still and unreadable.
“Mmmm.” Eliot rubbed his chin, calmly assessing. “It is possible.”
“Umber’s dead, isn’t He?” Alice said dully. “This place isn’t a tomb, it’s a prison.”
“Or a trap,” Eliot said.
“Human children, listen to Me,” Ember said. “There are Laws that go far beyond anything in your understanding. We—”
“I’ve heard pretty much enough about my understanding,” Janet snapped.
“But who did it?” Eliot stared down at the sand,n. He sneezed.
Quentin felt a prickling in his shoulders. He looked around at the dark corners of the cave they were in. It wouldn’t be long before whatever had broken Ember’s leg turned up, and they would have to fight again. He didn’t know if he could take another fight. Penny was still on his knees, but the back of his neck as he looked up at Ember was flushed crimson.
“Maybe it’s time to hit the ol’ panic button,” Josh said. “Back to the Neitherlands.”
“I have a better idea,” Quentin said.
They had to get control of the situation. They could quit now, but the crown was right there, right in front of them. They were so close. They were almost home; they could still win it all if they could just figure out a way to push through to the end of the story. If they could gut it out through one more scene.
And he realized he knew how.
Penny had dropped his pack on the sandy floor. Quentin bent down and rummaged through it. Of course Penny had webbed and bungeed the fucking thing to within an inch of its life, but in among the Power Bars and the Leatherman and the spare tighty whiteys, wrapped in a red bandanna, he found what he was looking for.
The horn was smaller than he remembered it.
“Right? Remember what the nymph said?” He held it up. “‘When all hope is lost’? Or something like that?”
“I wouldn’t say all hope is lost …” Josh said.
“Let me see that,” Dint said imperiously. He had been conspicuously silent since Ember woke up. Ana?s clung to his arm.
Quentin ignored him. Everybody was talking at once. Penny and the ram were locked in some kind of intense lovers’ quarrel.
“Interesting,” Eliot said. He shrugged. “It might work. I’d rather try that than go back to the City. Who do you think will come?”
“Human child,” the ram said loudly. “Human child!”
“Go for it, Q,” Janet said. She looked paler than she should have. “It’s time. Go for it.”
Alice just nodded gravely.
The silver mouthpiece tasted metallic against his lips, like a nickel or a battery. The breath he took was so deep that pain lanced hotly into his arrow-stuck shoulder as his ribs expanded. He wasn’t sure exactly what to do—purse his lips like a trumpeter, or just blow into it like a kazoo?—but the ivory horn produced a clear, even, high note as gentle and round as a French horn winded by a seasoned symphony player in a concert hall. Everybody stopped talking and turned to look at him. It wasn’t loud, exactly, but it made everything else quiet around it, so that it was instantly the only sound in the room, and everything resonated with its pure, simple strength. It was natural and perfect, a single note that sounded like a grand chord. It went on and on. He blew until his lungs were empty.
The sound echoed and faded away, gone as if it had never been. The cavern was still. For a moment Quentin felt ridiculous, like he’d just blown a noisemaker. What was he expecting, anyway? He really didn’t know.
There was a snuffling sound from Ember’s p topic of conversationgs alternategoedestal.
“Oh, child,” came the ram’s deep voice. “Don’t you know what you have done?”
“I just got us out of this mess. That’s what I’ve done.”
The ram drew Himself up.
“I am sorry you came here,” Ember said. “Children of Earth. No one asked you to come. I am sorry that our world is not the paradise you were looking for. But it was not created for your entertainment. Fillory”—the old ram’s jowls shook—“is not a theme park, for you and your friends to play dress-up in, with swords and crowns.”