As Kaspar had been speaking, the soldiers fanned out. At the foot of the bed where Cathy once slept sat the first toybox Kaspar had made, his earliest, most unrefined design. Now the soldiers had scaled the summit and, working in unison, heaved open its lid. With arms windmilling wildly they drew Kaspar’s eye.
Inside were cans of bully beef and seasoned ham, jars of new potatoes in brine, sardines and blackberry preserve. Two of the soldiers descended into the chest and returned smeared in dirt from the terracotta pots underneath. They bore up packets of garden seeds as if they were unearthed treasures.
‘Please, Kaspar.’
‘What is this?’
‘Your provisions,’ spat Emil. ‘In the event they don’t accept my terms.’
Kaspar was still – but somehow the soldiers seemed to understand.
‘Because these soldiers can’t be trusted,’ Emil said, ‘because I need a way to be certain this is the end. I’m sorry, Kaspar. I told you I’d do anything, anything at all.’ Emil lifted his hand. There dangled the key to the Wendy House door. ‘You should have listened to me, Kaspar. You should have listened all along.’
In the same moment that Kaspar understood, the soldiers sprang to life. Emil stepped backwards, making for the exit, but already the soldiers were around him. A dozen infantrymen scythed into his shins and Emil lashed out, sending them sprawling. Too late, he realised another unit was besieging his other foot – and, caught off-balance, he crashed into the Wendy House wall. That was when the first artillery fired. From somewhere on the other side of the Wendy House floor, howitzers rolled into place. Emil took the first volley on the breast, turned against the second, only for the third – coming from some unseen corner of the Wendy House – to catch him full in the face. Stars exploded behind his eyes. Blood exploded from his nose. He reared back, fighting to keep balance as the next wave of infantrymen attacked. It was only five more strides to the exit. He would get there however he could.
They thought him a coward? Well, was this what a coward did? He felt mahogany bullets peppering his back and, propelled by them, staggered through the door. Some of the soldiers were trying to stream out alongside him. He took aim and kicked back, stemming the tide one splintered soldier at a time.
There was blood in his eyes, the taste of fresh meat on his lips. Before he closed the door, he dabbed it away and looked within. In the sea of stampeding soldiers, Kaspar was like an island, a god propped up with walking canes either side.
‘I didn’t want this,’ Emil said, and then he closed the door.
The key was in the lock before the soldiers hit it. Wooden shells sprayed into the other side, but the door only tremored; they would never be enough to break through.
The boards were piled where he had left them, on the ground at his feet. Emil took the first and held it in place against the door. A single nail trembled in his hand.
‘They held me to ransom for too long, Kaspar.’ His words were punctuated by the pounding of his hammer. Every nail felt like triumph. Every nail felt like guilt. ‘Well, now I’ll hold them. I’ll hold … you.’
The door bucked. Emil fell back, but the board held in place – and, when he heard his brother’s voice, it was dull and far away. He got back to his feet, continued his task.
‘Don’t try and fight it, Kaspar. Nobody will hear you, not through Papa’s walls. You can’t tear it down. It’s stronger than that. Did you ever know a toy Papa made that could possibly break?’
‘Emil?’
Emil hammered harder. The second board went up, then a third, and with each one his brother grew more distant. Those Wendy House walls, Emil remembered, designed so children could play inside and never be heard …
‘Emil, you can’t mean to …’
He stopped before lifting the final board. ‘I didn’t want to,’ he said, uncertain if his brother could hear. ‘But what else is there when you won’t see?’
Emil paused when the last nail was in his hand. Something was pressing on his foot and, unthinking, he kicked it away; it was only when he had driven the last nail into the wood that he looked down and saw it was the Imperial Kapitan. Somehow, the soldier had forced its way out of its birdcage prison, its back still burnt and scarred from his workshop fire. Now it lay by the picket fence, kicking feebly as it tried to stand. Emil left the boarded door behind and loomed above the Kapitan, lifting his boot as if ready to grind it into splinters and tangled wire.
‘I ought to,’ he said. ‘I should, but … you used to be mine.’
Then, driven by some feeling he did not know, Emil slid his foot away. Lying prostrate on the ground, the Imperial Kapitan stared up. The key in its back was winding down. It turned in circles, desperate to wind itself but unfit for the task.
Slide down, into that sandalwood mind …
The Imperial Kapitan knows what he has seen. The journey from the birdcage was fraught, but he got here just in time: to know the fate of his creator, the fate of his people. Now there is only him left to face the wrath of the evil one. He thinks: I will kill you now, you daemon, smite you down here in the heart of the paper forest. But new connections have been being made in his mind, chasms of confusion and misunderstanding are being bridged daily, and with this comes deeper, richer ideas. And this time, the Kapitan thinks: I will surely perish if I fight him now. My people might be gone – but there is another way.
So he runs.
Under floorboard and through skirting, up the crevasses in the wall cavities, down the undersides of shelving. These are the homelands of the toy soldier and the Imperial Kapitan knows them better than any. But there is a sword hanging over him now and, the more he exerts himself, the more he feels the touch of its blade: the key in his back is winding down, down, down, and the Kapitan must lift himself up, up, up …
The world and all memory of it is separating, turning into fragments and whirling through the grain of his mind, but finally he reaches his destination. He must conserve energy now so he slows, creeping to that place in the skirting where the monsters who once lived here, creatures of fur and whisker and sharp yellow teeth, once mined their tunnels. Through a tiny portal in the wood he sees the room where she is sleeping: the one who lies with the Kaspar god at night. She is the only one who can save him now, the only one who might lead his people back into the light.
The Imperial Kapitan emerges into the midnight room. It is an ordeal to scale the Bedside (his mind is fraying now, his senses are fading), but somehow he hauls himself up, using the dangling tassels of a blanket as ropes. Then he is there, standing on the sleeping lady’s breast. He marches up (his motors almost dead!) and reaches out to open her eyes.
Behind him: the gale of the bedroom door being opened. The Imperial Kapitan turns and sees the great figure stomp into the room.
It is him. The daemon lord. He has come again, by staircase and Secret Door. His feet strike the ground with echoes like earthquakes.
The Imperial Kapitan knows what the daemon is here to do: to capture and imprison the lady, just as he has done the Kaspar god. He will fight him with every iota of tension left in his motors, fight him even though he knows it will do no good. That is his duty, now that he is the only one left. So the Kapitan charges.
When he reaches the end of the bed, ready to launch himself into the black, his motor stops turning. There is life left in his mind, but only the residual echo of energy in his body. He can go no further. He tumbles, tumbles from the bedside, tumbles into the jaws of the lady’s bag lying open below. The tumbling seems to last a lifetime. Perhaps it lasts many, for Wind Down has come and his whole existence is flashing before his eyes.