The Magician King

He should have expected it. She’d been one of his guides on their trip down into Ember’s Tomb. She was the good one, the one who didn’t betray them. He barely knew her in life, but she was unmistakable, with her fishy lips and her short dykey haircut. The last time he’d seen her she was being simultaneously crushed and set on fire by a giant made of red-hot iron. Now she looked as healthy as she ever had, if a little wan, playing a slow-paced, low-pressure game of Ping-Pong. If she recognized him she didn’t show it.

Now he allowed himself to wonder the thing he’d been trying not to wonder ever since the sloth first brought it up: whether Alice was here. Part of him was yearning to see her, would have given anything if one of the faces in the crowd could just belong to her. Another part of him hoped that she wasn’t here. She was a niffin now. Maybe that counted as still alive.

There were big metal pillars here and there holding up the ceiling, and Benedict was sitting leaning against one of them, staring off into the pale, empty distance. Half a game of solitaire was arranged in front of him, but he’d lost interest in it, even though it was pretty obvious he wasn’t stuck. He could put a red five of diamonds on a six of clubs.

He looked more like the Benedict Quentin had first met in the map room, than the suntanned bravo he’d become on board the Muntjac. He was pale and thin-armed, with his old black bangs falling over his eyes. His hair had grown back. He looked like a sullen Caravaggio youth. Death made him seem younger.

Quentin stopped.

“Hello, Benedict.”

“Hello,” Julia said.

Benedict’s eyes flicked over to Quentin, then back to the distance.

“I know you can’t take me with you,” he said quietly.

The dead didn’t mince words.

“You’re right,” Quentin said. “I can’t. That’s what the sloth said.”

“So why did you come?”

Now he did look at Quentin, accusingly. Quentin had worried that he would have a gaping wound in his neck, but it was smooth and whole. He’s not a zombie, he’s a ghost, Quentin reminded himself. No, a shade.

“I wanted to see you again.”

Quentin sat down next to him and leaned back against the pillar too. Julia sat down on his other side. Together the three of them looked out at the milling throngs of dead people.

A period of time passed, maybe five minutes, maybe an hour. It was hard to keep track in the underworld. Quentin would have to watch that.

“How are you, Benedict?” Julia said.

Benedict didn’t answer.

“Did you see what happened to me?” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. Bingle said to stay on the ship, but I thought—” He didn’t finish, just frowned helplessly and shook his head. “I wanted to try some of the stuff we’d been practicing. For real, in a real fight. But the minute I stepped off the boat, tschoooo! Right in my throat. Right in the hollow of it.”

He pressed his index finger into the soft part below his Adam’s apple, where the arrow went in.

“It didn’t even hurt that much. That’s the funny thing. I thought they could pull it out. I turned around to get back on the boat. Then I realized I couldn’t breathe, so I sat down. My mouth was full of blood. My sword fell in the water. Can you believe I was worried about that? I was trying to figure out whether we could dive down later and get my sword back. Did anybody get it?”

Quentin shook his head.

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Benedict said. “It was just a practice sword.”

“What happened next? You went down the slide?”

Benedict nodded.

Quentin was evolving a theory about that. The slide was humiliating, that’s what it was. Deliberately embarrassing. That’s what death did, it treated you like a child, like everything you had ever thought and done and cared about was just a child’s game, to be crumpled up and thrown away when it was over. It didn’t matter. Death didn’t respect you. Death thought you were bullshit, and it wanted to make sure you knew it.

“So did you get the key?” Benedict said.

“I wanted to tell you about that,” Quentin said. “We did get the key. There was a big fight, and we got the key, and it turned out to be really important. I wanted you to know that.”

“But nobody else got killed. Just me.”

“Nobody else died. I got stabbed in the side.” Not much to brag about under the circumstances. “But what I wanted to tell you is that it was important, what we were doing. You didn’t die for nothing. Those keys—we’re going to use them to save Fillory. There was a point to it all. Without them all magic is going to go away, and the whole world will collapse. But we can use the keys to fix it.”

Benedict’s expression didn’t change.

“But I didn’t do anything,” he said. “My dying didn’t make a difference. I could have just stayed on the boat.”

“We do not know what would have happened,” Julia said.

Benedict ignored her again.

“He cannot hear me,” Julia said to Quentin. “Something strange is going on. No one here can see or hear me. He does not know I am here.”

“Benedict? Can you see Julia? She’s sitting right next to you.”

“No.” Benedict frowned the way he used to, like Quentin was embarrassing him. “I don’t see anybody. Just you.”

“I am like a ghost here,” she said. “A ghost among ghosts. A reverse ghost.”

What was different about Julia, that the dead couldn’t see her? It was a serious question, but not one they were going to answer right now. Instead they watched the crowd some more, and listened to the kuh-tik kuh-tak of the Ping-Pong games. For all the time they had to practice, the dead didn’t seem to be that good at it. Nobody ever tried for a slam, or a fancy serve, and the rallies only ever went a few shots before the ball hit the net or went bouncing off into the crowd.

“This whole place,” Benedict said. “It’s like somebody almost tried to make it nice, with all the games and stuff, but then they didn’t quite care enough to think it through. You know? I mean, who gives a shit? Who wants to play games forever? I’m just so bored of everything, and I haven’t even been here that long.”

Somebody. Those silvery gods, probably. Benedict kicked at his solitaire game, messing up the nice straight rows.

“You don’t even get powers. You can’t even fly. I’m not even see-through.” He held up his hand, to demonstrate his opacity, and let it drop again. “Because you know, that would have been too cool or whatever.”

“What else can you do here? Besides the games and such?”

“Not a lot.” Benedict put his hands in his hair and looked up at the ceiling. “Talk to the other shades. There’s nothing to eat, but you don’t get hungry. A few people fight or have sex or whatever. You can totally watch them do it even. But after a while, I mean, what’s the point? It’s just the new people who do it.

“Once they did a human pyramid, to try to reach up to the lights. But you can’t reach them. They’re too high. I never had sex,” he added. “In the real world. Now I don’t even want to.”

Quentin talked on for a while, filling Benedict in on everything that had been happening.

“Did you have sex with that Poppy girl yet?” Benedict said, interrupting.

“Yes.”

“Everybody said you were going to.”

They did? Julia, a ghost’s ghost, smirked.

Out of the corner of his eye Quentin couldn’t help but notice that they were attracting some attention. Nothing obvious, but a couple of people were pointing at them. A kid—he might have been thirteen—stood there watching him fixedly. Quentin wondered how he died.

“I am starting to understand,” Julia said. “It is really gone. The part of me that was human, the part of me that could die—it is gone, Quentin. I have lost it forever. That is why they canot see me.” She was talking to him, but her black eyes were fixed on the distance. “I am never going to be human again. I did not understand it till now. I have lost my shade. I suppose I knew it. I just did not want to believe it.”

He started to answer, to tell her he was sorry for what she had lost, sorry he couldn’t do more, sorry for everything that had and hadn’t happened, whatever it was. But there was so much he didn’t understand. What did it mean, losing your shadow? How did it happen? How did it feel? Was she less than human now, or more? But she held up her hand, and then Benedict spoke.

“I hope you fail,” he said suddenly, as if he’d just made a decision about it. “I hope you never find the key, and everybody dies, and the world ends. You know why? Because then maybe this place would end too.”

Then Benedict was crying. He was sobbing so hard he wasn’t making any noise. He caught his breath and started sobbing more.

Quentin put a hand on his back. Say something. Anything.

“I’m so sorry, Benedict. You died too soon. You didn’t have your chance.”

Benedict shook his head.

“It’s good I died.” He took a shuddering breath. “I was useless. It’s good it was me and not anybody else.” His voice went away to a squeak at the end.

“No,” Quentin said firmly. “That’s bullshit. You were a great mapmaker, and you were going to be a great swordsman, and it’s a fucking tragedy that you died.”

Benedict nodded at this too.

“Will you—will you say hi to her for me? Tell her I liked her.”

“Who do you mean?”

Even though his face was red from crying, and dripping with tears, Benedict’s face had all its old adolescent contempt.

“Poppy. She was nice to me. Do you think she could come visit? Down here I mean?”

“I don’t think she has a passport. I’m sorry, Benedict.”

Benedict nodded. There were more shades around the two of them now. A group was definitely gathering, and it wasn’t at all clear that their intentions were friendly.

“I’ll come back,” Quentin said.

“You can’t. That’s the rule. You can only come one time. Didn’t they take your passport? They didn’t give it back, did they?”

“No. I guess they didn’t.”

Benedict took a shaky breath and wiped his eyes on his white sleeve.

“I wish I could have stayed. I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s so stupid! If I’d just waited on the boat I’d still be up there. I looked at that arrow and thought, this little stick, this little piece of wood, is taking my whole life away. That’s all my life is worth. One little stick can erase it all. That’s the last thing I thought.” He looked directly at Quentin. It was the one moment when he didn’t seem angry or ashamed. “I miss it so much. You don’t understand how much I miss it.”

“I’m so sorry, Benedict. We miss you too.”

“Listen, you better go. I don’t think they want you here.”

A whole crowd was standing around them now, silently, in a rough semicircle. Maybe it was Quentin’s nonstandard pajamas. Maybe they could just see that he was alive somehow. That kid was one of them, who’d been staring at him before. Quentin wished the shades weren’t so solid-looking.

Quentin and Benedict both stood up, with their backs to the pillar. So did Julia.

“I have something,” Benedict said, suddenly shy again. “I was going to give it back.”

He dug something out of his pocket and pressed it into Quentin’s hand. His fingers were cold, and the thing was hard and cold too. It was the golden key.

“Oh. My God.” It was the last one. Quentin held it up in both hands. “Benedict, how did you get this?”

“Quentin,” Julia said. “Is that it?”

“I had it all along,” Benedict said. “After you and Queen Julia went through the door I picked it up when no one was looking. I don’t know why. I didn’t know how to give it back. I thought maybe I’d pretend to find it. I’m sorry. I wanted to be a hero.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Quentin’s heart was hammering in his chest. This was it. They were going to win after all. “Don’t be sorry at all. It doesn’t matter.”

“Then it came down here with me when I died. I didn’t know what to do.”

“You did the right thing, Benedict.” He’d been so wrong about everything. After all that, he hadn’t had to kill a monster or solve a riddle. He just had to come down here, to see how Benedict was doing. “Thank you. You are a hero. You really are. You always will be.”

Quentin laughed out loud and clapped poor Benedict on the shoulder. Benedict laughed too, reluctantly, and then not so reluctantly. Quentin wondered when the last time was that anybody laughed down here.

“It is time,” Julia said. “I am ready.”

It was. It was time to go, if that’s what she meant. But the shades didn’t seem to want them to leave. They stood around them in a semicircle, maybe a hundred of them, blocking the way back to the door. He couldn’t push his way through them, there were too many. He backed up, hoping to get the pillar in between him and the mob, trying to think. His heart leaped for a second when he spotted Jollyby sitting on the floor, maybe fifty yards away, with his good legs and his big beard. But he was just watching, too apathetic even to stand up. He wasn’t going to do anything.

The key. He could open a portal. Quentin jabbed at the air with it frantically, but it didn’t catch on anything. He couldn’t find the lock. He jabbed more vigorously and more wildly. God knew where it would take them, but anywhere was better than here.