by Ian Richards
She felt ashamed then; small and pathetic and undeserving of being his wife. She moved to offer an apology, to beg for forgiveness, but remembered herself at the last moment and remained silent. Firefox didn’t notice. He had already returned to his grimoire. He muttered and giggled and turned pages and quoted lines aloud, and throughout this strange procession she found herself wondering why the words he spoke made her skin prickle so. Her husband-to-be. What a strange creature he was. With his shock of red hair and slender physique. Why have I chosen to marry him? He had a wild, nightmarish appearance. His face was sharp and unpleasant, more suited to snarling than smiling. And yet he will be my husband. We will be together forever and—
‘We brought an extra guest, Firefox. You don’t mind, do you?’
The voice came from the back of the room. She followed it as one might follow the flight of a fluttering moth. Three strange figures were advancing down the aisle towards her. The first was tall and dark. He had flowing grey hair and a tough, weathered face. A crooked dwarf and a frightened-looking boy followed him.
Tony! It’s Tony, I remember now, I do.
But again the mist rolled in, again her thoughts drifted away. By the time these three strangers had taken their seats in the front row she had forgotten all about them.
‘Good evening, gentlemen’ Firefox laughed, tipping an imaginary hat in their direction. ‘I’m delighted you could join us. Your timing is excellent. We’re almost ready for our guest of honor to arrive.’
Guest of honor? The question came out as another mumble, albeit this time a slightly more coherent one. Again Firefox dabbed away the drool.
‘Of course, my dear. This is a night of celebration. Our master of ceremonies must reflect that. We need someone with grandeur and authority to conduct our wedding. Someone who understands how important tonight is to us.’
But who, darling? Why don’t I remember anything? Why do I feel so confused?
Her eyes drifted back to the boy. He was staring at her intently, his eyes filled with desperation. She shook her head, confused. I don’t understand. What do you want from me? But he kept on looking regardless. It made her uncomfortable. She felt as if there was something she had forgotten, something important.
The boy mouthed words towards her in secret.
Va-ness-ah.
Fye tit.
Fye tit.
The rhythm was strangely hypnotic.
Va-ness-ah.
Va-ness-ah.
The sound of the grimoire slamming shut jolted her out of her daydream. Firefox rubbed his hands together and laughed triumphantly. ‘It’s time,’ he shrieked. ‘The spell is cast. Finally, it’s time.’
Scampering down the aisle he stopped in front of the wall and rolled up his sleeves. A newfound energy gripped him now. A sense that he had charged his powers to their maximum capability. Without warning he threw his hands in the direction of the wall like a conductor leading a symphony. At once great bursts of red lightning flew from his fingertips, feeding into the brickwork, turning its surface from dull stone to flickering static. It looked like a television caught between stations.
Is this why I agreed to marry him? It’s certainly an impressive trick. Look at the concentration on his face—the effort. Every sinew straining. His face drenched in sweat.
She shook her head, frowning.
But he seems so old. So unlikeable.
It doesn’t make sense.
For several minutes the wall flickered and seethed, the membrane connecting it to whatever lay beyond seemingly no more than a few millimeters in thickness. As the watching crowd cooed in astonishment—though not the boy: how angry he looks—a bright light appeared on the other side of the static. It was human-shaped—tall, proud and noble.
‘Come on,’ Firefox screamed. ‘Haroo! Come on. I command you.’
And as the shape stepped forward into the flickering static, the surface of the wall began to stretch and swell, an amniotic sac pulled tightly across its emerging brilliance.
Soundlessly, the figure emerged.
Luminous and celestial, beautiful in a way she hadn’t anticipated. She could have started crying.
The flowing beard … the sorrowful eyes … He looks so old … so regal … so wise … He could be my father … he could be all of our fathers …
Firefox simply grinned.
‘Hello Merlyn,’ he said. ‘Welcome home. Like what I’ve done with the place?’
*
As soon as Tony entered the ceremony room he felt a chill in the pit of his stomach. The altar made for the obvious focal point—a wooden table decked out with flickering candles, Firefox perched behind it, poring over an old spell-book. And yet he couldn’t look away from Vanessa. She stood mutely nearby, her eyes glassy and her face devoid of all emotion.
He moved to shout out a warning—‘Vanessa, run!’—but Mr. Krook pressed the knife against his ribs and warned him to stay quiet. Reluctantly, he did so.
They took seats in the front row. There, to Tony’s surprise, he found Martell. The old man had been gagged and bound, but he was alive. He looked back at him with a mixture of astonishment, happiness, and terror. Tony couldn’t stop himself from smiling. He had done it. He had actually found him. He longed to be able to say something to the old man. To crack a joke, to tell him it would be all right, to promise they would find a way to get through this. And yet as he thought about these things he noticed that something about his uncle didn’t seem quite right. His hair. It was tinged with red at the temples. And his eyes. They were somehow blurrier than usual. In every other respect it appeared to be the same old Martell as always. He took heart from that. But events were moving at a frightening speed now. He had no time to worry about Martell. Soon Firefox’s light-show dominated the room. The snakes of red lightning, the flickering wall.
The magician.
As soon as he passed through the portal Tony knew that something terrible was about to happen. The magician was a tall, elderly man. He had long hair, a long beard, and wore a flowing robe that pooled on the floor around him. Even without his luminous glow—which spoke of ghosts, visions, dead things—Tony recognized him, not just by name, for he knew that such a creature would have had many names in his time, but for what he represented. Magic. Magic in its rawest incarnation. This looming, shimmering apparition was power incarnate, knowledge, discipline, compassion, ambition. He was the magician, the first, the archetype. Simply being in his presence amplified everything. Tony felt it all now. The deep, dark sadness brought on by the loss of Sir Roderick. The hopelessness of being small and weak and unable to save his friends from harm. The air tingled—a low-level buzz that made the hairs on the back of his arms stand up. Even compared to the genie this was power on a scale he had never before encountered. The walls themselves seemed to be shivering in supplication.
‘You have summoned me.’ The magician’s voice echoed through the atrium like thunder. ‘Who dares to—?’
‘Me!’ Firefox screamed. ‘I do! And what’s more, by the terms of the summoning you don’t get to make demands of anyone tonight. I’m in control now. You do my bidding. Is that understood?’
The magician remained silent.
‘Yes,’ Firefox continued, his voice shrill with hate, ‘yes, that’s it, you’re getting it now, aren’t you? Do you know how long I’ve waited for this? Locked up in this miserable old house and taunted to the point of madness by a riddle!? You thought you were so smart, didn’t you? You thought someone like me would never be able to figure it out. But you were wrong. Marshwood is mine now—mine.’
The magician shook his head sorrowfully. ‘I built this house to encourage exploration and discovery, not as a means of gaining wealth or power. You will not be able to unlock the doors for you are a selfish, bitter creature. The key is true love and I do not believe you will find that while your heart is so cruel.’
‘Wrong!’ Firefox screamed. He grabbed Vanessa by the wrist, making her squeal with discomfort. The
break remained fresh: an untreated mess of splintered bone and bruised tendons. ‘Once I marry the girl the doors will open regardless. You made a mistake in assuming marriage and true love went hand in hand. Marriage doesn’t have to be anything more than chattered vows and the exchange of rings.’
Tony looked to the magician for some sign of resistance—anything—yet the creature remained solemn and passive. The grandeur that had accompanied his arrival had begun to wither in the face of Firefox’s manic arguing. Tony thought he detected a great sorrow in the magician’s eyes—a paternal disapproval at seeing his finest creation misused so horribly.
‘It would have be nice, magician, if I had fallen in love whilst rattling around this rotten prison. Maybe you imagined whoever you trapped here would have an epiphany—I’m in love, I don’t care about the house, oh look, the doors have opened after all, what a valuable lesson I’ve learnt. But I’m smarter than you thought.’
‘I am sorry. I made the punishment for trying to usurp Marshwood too extreme. Your mind is no longer your own.’
‘Maybe so. Haroo! Maybe centuries of torment have driven me quite crazy. But it’s too late to back out now. You’re going to marry me to the girl and there’s nothing you can do about it.’
‘It should not be like this.’
‘But it is. Now do it.’
Though Tony moved to protest, Kepler held him firmly in his seat. ‘Sit,’ he hissed. ‘Or Mr. Krook will spill your guts right here.’
The magician continued. ‘The girl is drugged. Such a ceremony would not be valid.’
‘You’re not listening, old man. Our marriage is a transaction, nothing more. We don’t have to love each other, she doesn’t have to know what’s happening, and you don’t have to like it. Now marry us.’
The magician lowered his head. ‘I refuse.’
‘You can’t refuse. You’re here at my command. You have to obey me.’
Eventually, reluctantly, the magician nodded. ‘You speak the truth. As much as I loathe doing so, I must adhere to your instructions.’ He looked up again, his eyes as old and weathered as ancient oaks. ‘Marriage is confirmed by the exchanging of vows. Lord Firefox, do you take this innocent child to be your wife?’
The answer was instantaneous. ‘Yes. I do.’
‘And do you, child, take this poor creature to be your husband?’
Vanessa stared at him foggily. ‘I … I don’t know.’
Come on, Tony thought. Fight it, Vanessa. This is your only chance. If you say ‘yes’ it all falls apart, every bit of it. You’ll be his forever.
Fight it.
And yet he could see from the blankness of her expression that the magnitude of the situation didn’t register with her. She was an empty shell, passive and helpless and at the complete mercy of Firefox’s machinations.
The magician repeated his question. His tone was soft and tender, colored by a fatherly concern. ‘Child. Listen carefully, for your answer now will ring for all eternity. Be sure it is the correct one. This creature has taken you to be his wife. Do you take him to be your husband?’
Please, Tony thought. Please Vanessa. Snap out of it.
She paused, her brow furrowed.
Then she shrugged.
‘Yes,’ she said. Her voice floated airily through the moonlight. ‘Yes, I suppose I do.’
‘No!’ Tony cried. ‘Vanessa, you can’t, it’s—’
Mr. Krook’s knife cut him off. The dwarf held the blade to his throat. ‘Last warning, boy. Don’t push it.’
‘Very well. And does anybody present have an objections to this union taking place before it is made official?’
Silence. Heart-pounding, nerve-shredding silence. Tony kept his chin raised above the knife like a drowning man struggling to stay afloat. He couldn’t even swallow without risking his life.
And so the silence lingered.
Eventually, despairingly, the magician nodded. ‘There are no objections. All that remains now is the exchanging of the rings.’
Firefox was already ahead of him. He jammed one of the rings onto his own finger and then did the same to Vanessa. She cried out in pain, but it meant nothing to him. Almost at once the house started to tremble.
‘It is done,’ the magician said. Already he had begun to fade into nothingness; evaporating like a cold mist on a sunny day. ‘You are now one. I can do no more. Marshwood is yours.’
‘Haroo!’ Firefox yelled, punching the air with delight. ‘Mine! All these years and finally it’s mine.’
The house continued to shake violently. Dust fell from the ceiling beams. Those sitting down struggled to retain their balance.
And out in the corridor the doors began to fly open, one after the other, boom, boom, boom, the sound echoing through Marshwood like artillery fire.
After centuries of atrophy the house was waking up.
39 - The Battle For Marshwood
In the moments that followed, the entire house came to life. Timbers stretched themselves up towards the stars. Walls shifted. Tony felt the sickly sensation of having his perspective shift too suddenly. Everything around him seemed to be expanding, contracting, rocking, swaying. He felt like a sailor caught on deck in bad weather. Amidst the deafening sound of slamming doors and creaking timbers the shrill scream of Firefox’s laughter rang out again and again. Haroo! Haroo! Tony couldn’t help but think the house itself had been infected by his madness. It wasn’t Firefox laughing at all now. It was Marshwood itself. Haroo! Haroo! Haroo!
Mr. Krook and Kepler made their play immediately. Rising from his seat, Kepler pointed towards Firefox as if siccing an attack dog on him. ‘Now, Mr. Krook,’ he cried. ‘Get him now.’
The fairy saw them coming. A bolt of blue lightning shot up from his hand, detonating against the ceiling with an almighty crash. The rain of shattered glass and sudden influx of cold air stopped both men in their tracks.
‘So,’ he laughed, pointing his finger at them. Sparks fizzed from its tip like a broken fuse. ‘I might have known. You two criminals want my house all to yourselves.’
He fired another lightning bolt. Krook and Kepler managed to dive out of the way just in time.
‘Silvertongue,’ Firefox shouted. ‘Silvertongue. Why did you hire these traitors? I’ve seen more trustworthy vipers.’
Silvertongue was at his side in seconds—groveling, fawning, subservient. ‘I am sorry, Lord Firefox. They came highly recommended. And if I had known they couldn’t be trusted I would never have …’ Tony had never paid much attention to the scuttling servant before now, but something about the creature’s sycophancy sat uneasily with him. It seemed willfully exaggerated. As false as a politician’s smile.
‘I suppose they did do a lot of work for me,’ Firefox continued, brushing fragments of glass from his clothes. ‘Perhaps I should show a bit of leniency …’
‘Oh no, sir’ Silvertongue hissed. He kept his eyes fixed on Krook and Kepler. ‘As long as they want Marshwood they’re a threat. I think you should kill them right now.’
Kepler snarled. ‘You deceitful little—’
‘You’re dead for this,’ Mr. Krook interrupted, pointing his knife at Silvertongue. ‘Dead, do you hear me?’
He got no further before another bolt of lightning nearly fried him where he stood. Firefox laughed with pleasure, blasting bolt after bolt at them as they scuttled and ran and dived for cover amongst the upturned furniture. In the confusion Tony hurried to Martell’s side and tried desperately to untie him. The bonds were tight, but he managed it, embracing his uncle with a hug and feeling a great sense of relief as those loving arms wrapped around him once again.
‘My dad,’ he shouted. ‘Martell, the fairy is my dad.’
‘I know, my boy.’
‘He’s lost his mind. He’s insane.’
One of Firefox’s lightning bolts narrowly missed them. It blasted the door from its hinges and Mr. Kepler and Mr. Krook made their escape, disappearing out into the corridor before anyone could s
top them. The assembly of fairies followed: an exodus of terrified servants, many of whom were now openly weeping. Firefox stuck out his bottom lip in displeasure, then roared with laughter, as if it were all part of a ludicrous game.
‘Don’t worry, Silvertongue, they won’t get far.’
‘Yes, Lord Firefox.’
‘Let’s hunt them down. It’ll be the perfect way to christen our success. Oh, I do hope they’ve run through one of the doors, that will make it so much more exciting. Imagine, trailing an enemy across all those different planes of existence. Ha! What sport! What adventure!’ He laughed aloud. ‘Haroo! It actually worked. After all these years, it actually worked. Marshwood is mine. I’m free.’
Tony noticed the knife before anyone else did. He tried to shout a warning, but it happened too quickly, a liquid schlick and then it was done. Firefox tottered forward half a step, touched his hand to where the knife had pierced his flesh, then fell to the floor. Silvertongue tossed the blade aside with a sneer. It scuttled across the floor like some sort of metallic insect. ‘Fool. You didn’t do anything. I did. I orchestrated it all.’
Though Martell tried to call him back, Tony ran to Firefox’s side. Already the fairy had lost a lot of blood. His skin was pale and his eyes searched hopelessly for something to lock onto.
‘Silvertongue …?’
There was no hope for him, Tony could see that. His pulse had weakened to a barely noticeable flutter. When the end came, it did so quickly and without fanfare. A tilt of the head, a final breath, and that was it. Firefox’s eyes remained open, green as ever, but they no longer registered anything.
‘You killed him. He’s gone …’
Martell tried to drag him away, but already Silvertongue had turned his attention to the boy, regarding him now with a predatory interest. The moment held—a few terrible seconds—and then Silvertongue turned and went, marching out into the corridor with Vanessa in tow. Tony felt his blood run cold.
