"An impressive maneuver no doubt," he said. "I think we are going to get along famously."
In another step, he would have been close enough to wrap those rubbery fingers around my throat. I aimed for his head and threw all of my weight behind the weapon. That jab should have put the steel tip directly through his left eye, but his head simply flopped to the side, like a dead fish, at the last possible second, and I missed him completely. At the same time, his hand came up and grabbed the shaft of the spear.
"Let me hold that for you," he said, and nonchalantly ripped the weapon from my hand.
I backed away from him as his head returned to an upright position. He dropped the spear, and it clanged against the pavement.
"Anotine," I yelled, and looked over my shoulder to see if she had heard me. She remained crouched in the shadows. When I turned back to the Delicate, somehow he was there, right in front of me, though I had never heard him move.
"Rest now," he said, his eyes like stones, his stinking breath all over me.
I didn't have the chance to react. His arm moved like a whip, and his fist caught me right beneath the jaw. My head snapped back with the impact, and I fell to the ground, landing on my side. I felt no great pain, but I was stunned, unable to move my arms or legs. Consciousness was a tenuous thing, but I managed to hold on to it. Struggling to move my head, I looked over to see the Delicate standing above Anotine. He reached his hand down to her as if she were a child.
"It's time to go now," he said in a soothing voice, coaxing her to stand.
I opened my mouth and tried to yell her name, but it came as a rasping whisper. His strategically placed blow had momentarily paralyzed me, and now that some feeling was beginning to return to my limbs all of my muscles were twitching like mad. It took the greatest effort to roll onto my stomach and lift myself to my knees.
"Come now," he said to her, and reached for her hand.
I judged from the slowness of my movements that I would never revive in time to help her. A great anger surged through me but did little to hasten my recovery.
Then Anotine suddenly burst from her crouch with a terrific grunt, swinging the butt end of the spear around and catching the Delicate on his pointed chin. The creature was knocked back two steps. As he worked to regain his balance, she flipped the spear around and jabbed him in the right shoulder, retrieved it, and jabbed again in the same spot.
"That will put a damper on my day," he said, his smile never fading.
Before she could attack him again, he had his hand around her back and had grabbed a handful of hair. His thin arm twisted unnaturally like a wet towel being wrung out and with this spiral motion brought her ear up to his mouth. With his free hand he relieved her of her weapon as easily as he had taken mine.
No matter how hard I worked to stand, I could not. The best I could accomplish was to crawl forward and watch as he attached himself to the side of her head, covering her ear. Anotine struggled wildly, but she could not break free. She called to me, and her eyes looked down into mine. I did not want to watch, but I couldn't look away.
"Don't," I yelled, my full voice returning, echoing through the enclosure. To my astonishment, the Delicate released her hair and stepped away from her.
"Oh my," he said, and the wriggling fingers of both hands clasped above his stomach. His enormous head again flopped to the side and his mouth opened, releasing a belch that was laced with Brisden's babble. A trickle of silver fluid seeped out from between his fingers. We watched as liquid mercury ate its way like acid through his stomach and shirt. It came from a hundred tiny openings that quickly grew together into a huge wound and spilled onto the pavement. Swirling designs full of life puddled at his feet.
"My apologies," he said, no longer smiling. He staggered toward us a step, then fell forward, that enormous head losing its battle against gravity.
Anotine ran to me and helped me to my feet. I was still somewhat weak, but I managed to stand on my own.
"Brisden knew what he was doing," she said as she put her arms around me.
I drew her close and held her tightly, closing my eyes. "I wish I did," I said.
"Cley, listen," she said.
Now that the threat of the Delicate had been canceled there was room for a new fear, and I was able to concentrate on the sound of the disintegration. It had increased from an annoying background hum to an obvious roar. I looked up and noticed that the stars had vanished and the sun would soon be up.
"The wood must be completely gone," she said, "perhaps the field too."
"We've got to move quickly," I said. "Where is the scalpel, the Lady Claw?"
"I dropped it behind the fountain," she said as she let go of me and went in search of it.
I walked over to the Delicate and, using my foot, flipped him onto his back. Two steps behind him I noticed the puddle of liquid mercury, which was eating its way down into the stone of the pavement. Just before it seeped out of sight, I was able to distinguish a remarkable scene coalescing from its animated lines. The images I saw were of a young man standing beside a tall transparent block of what might have been ice. Embedded within that block was the figure of a woman. I quickly bent low to get a better look, and right before the silver tableau sank out of sight, it came to me that the woman was Anotine.
"Are we to take his head?" she asked, holding the scalpel out to me.
It was difficult, but I recovered without letting on how bewildered I was by what I had just seen. "Yes," I said, "the head."
I took great pleasure in separating the Delicate's head from his body. The precision of my cut, the clean circularity of it, proved this. I only wished I had been able to do it while he was still alive.
"No blood," said Anotine, looking over my shoulder as I worked.
"Where do you think everything went when he ingested Nunnly and Brisden?"
"Away," I said, not wanting to divulge my theory that the Delicate had contained somewhere within him the same phenomenon of disintegration that was dissolving the island. "Where do ideas go when we discard them?" I wondered to myself, and discarded the idea as it became clear to me that its spine did not grow up into the neck.
"Look here," I said. This explains how he could drop his head so quickly to either side."
"Beautiful," she said, "but don't we have to return to my rooms before we go to the tower?"
"Why?" I asked.
"The green liquid from the Fetch," she said. "How else will we find the antidote?"
I had forgotten all about that part of the plan. "Harrow's hindquarters," I said. "As if things aren't complicated enough."
Even free of the body that head must have weighed more than forty pounds. When I first attempted to lift it, I nearly pulled my arm out of its socket. Using two hands, and grabbing it just beneath the chin, I managed to lift it off the ground. I leaned it awkwardly against my stomach as if toting a small boulder, and took short, halting steps toward the portal in the wall.
After squeezing the oversize cranium through the opening and out of the garden, Anotine suggested I use the creature's braids to strap it to my back, making it easier to carry. She helped me make that adjustment, and then we were off, moving as quickly as possible toward her place. When I looked over at her, it appeared she was yelling words of encouragement to me, but it was impossible to tell, so deafening was the noise of the island's demise.
Backtracking past the fountain of the pelican and around the corner to the spot where Nunnly was attacked, we were brought up short by the obvious absence of half the staircase from which Anotine had fired the last shell from the signal gun. Although she had been in the lead, she now stepped back next to me and put her arm on my shoulder. Leaning in toward my ear, she shouted, "It's here," and pointed.