by Ben Tripp
I was back inside before the thing had even struck the ground, and scooped up Morgana. I bore her outside and stretched her out upon the moss, where Willum and Gruntle immediately deployed their reviving comprimaunts upon her. Meanwhile, I went straight back inside for Lily, from whose brow blood was flowing. By the time I had her outside as well, Uncle Cornelius had managed to untangle himself from the curtain, and shuffled through the wrack of the interior to the door.
“Reminds me of Russia,” said he, surveying the scene. “I was courting a countess when another countess of my acquaintance came along, and the waiting chamber looked much the same as this when they were done discussing the matter.”
Then he fixed his old eye upon me. “Careful of women’s hearts, young Petrovio. When they crack, the world cracks with them.”
By now my every limb was quaking, in that way that follows when a brush with death is averted. Fred was beneath the wagon, looking on with his red eyes wide. Lily was in a trance, her eyes rolled up behind open lids.
“See to her head, will you?” I implored her uncle. He complied with admirable speed.
Morgana’s eyes drooped and she mumbled behind her teeth; Willum and Gruntle plied her with so many enchantments that her skin flickered purple and green.
Then, all in a moment, she sat up straight and pointed directly at me.
“Destroy the phantolorum!” she wailed, and fell back, unconscious.
“You ’eard ’er!” Gruntle shouted in his piping voice. “Busticate the phantorolium!”
“What, pray, is a phantolorum?” I was, as always, bewildered.
“That blinkin’ mirror,” Willum said. “It’s not done with us.”
I hurried into the darkness in the direction I’d thrown the thing, stumbling over root and rock, nearly blind. Dead branches scratched at me. I fell on my face before I’d gone very far, tripped by a rotten log. It wasn’t long before I was almost out of sight of the wagon. I had hurled the accursed looking glass as far as I could, but it seemed impossible that I had not yet encountered it. I could not throw this far.
Had it gone into the branches of a tree, and hung there now like some glass bat? Or had it burrowed beneath the springy turf of moss underfoot?
Then I spied a wink of light up ahead, and another, and as I got closer, I saw it. The glittering arm was dragging itself along the moss like a wounded animal, the looking glass forming a backing to the place where it would otherwise have shown the anatomy of a severed limb. It betrayed no evidence of tiring, this disembodied arm. How did one destroy such a thing, especially when it possessed demoniacal strength?
I circled ’round until I was in its path.
“Stop,” said I. “You have done all the damage you can.”
I wasn’t expecting a response. To my horror, there came one. It was Lily, shouting at the top of her voice from back at the caravan.
“You’ll dance in your guts for this, lubber!” she cried. But it wasn’t her voice. It was another, hoarse and powerful, the cry of a woman accustomed to command. As she shouted, the arm at my feet shook its fist, then pointed straight at my head.
I’d had enough of this. I raised my boot-heel and brought it down upon the looking glass. It shattered to pieces, and the arm did the same, bursting apart in a spray of bright shards. The fragments themselves broke apart, until there was nothing. For the first time in my recent adventures, I was profoundly grateful for those fine boots, red turndowns or not.
There came a lingering wail from Lily—first in the fierce accents that had delivered the threat, then trailing off until it was Lily’s own girlish voice. This cry echoed off the walls of the gorge for a very long time, and the quiet that came after it was as deep as a mountain lake.
Chapter 24
LILY’S DREAM
THE NEXT morning, both Lily and Morgana seemed perfectly well, despite their misadventure. I say perfectly well, but Morgana’s hair was chopped off in the roughest fashion at the top, her scalp visible in the midst of it. Lily had an enormous purple bruise at her temple, and both of them were bedizened with cuts and scratches. By mutual agreement the entire cast had spent the night outside the wagon, in case there was some further enchantment laid upon it. The curtain that had trapped Uncle Cornelius was pressed into duty as a tent. Morgana and Lily lay within, holding hands like sisters. The rest of us huddled beneath blankets and coats, except Fred.
This ape, the hero of the night, resumed his post atop the wagon. He was unperturbed by the events of the evening, and ate the entire pheasant raw. If he knew what he had accomplished, I could not tell. But it was to his valiant actions that we owed Morgana’s life.
* * *
Shortly after dawn we decamped, following a close inspection of the wagon by the feyín for any vestiges of enchantment upon it. They found none, so we swept out the debris and carried on our way. Morgana’s head was bound in her Gypsy kerchief, so none would observe the unusual cut of her hair. We broke our fast at a little inn, or rather, in the yard of the little inn, for they wouldn’t let us inside in our condition. It was no matter to us. We feasted on hot coffee and warm bread and felt the wholesome meal drive away the otherworldly chill that had visited us in the dreary gorge.
We didn’t discuss what had happened until we were on the road again with the sun well up and the birds singing their beaks off. The opportunity came when we halted briefly that Willum might scout the way ahead.
Uncle Cornelius set to making an inventory of damages, to be presented to the chieftain of the Tartars; he intended to demand compensation. The rest of us gathered at the back step.
“Are you telling me,” asked Lily, “that it’s Wednesday?”
“Indeed it is,” said I. You came over all peculiar some days ago, and since then a number of memorable incidents have occurred. You can’t recall anything of it?”
“Not I,” said Lily. The last I remember I was sittin’ at the looking glass—it might have been Saturday—inspecting of my complexion, as girls do. Then it’s a dream after that. I dreamt my reflection was a-speaking back to me, and we had a lovely chat. It was ever so flattering.”
“To be expected,” said Gruntle. “You’re a beautiful womanling.” Then he blushed so much his bottom lit up pink.
She curtsied to him, then continued her recollection. “’Ave you ever had one of them dreams that seems perfectly real, so that waking is all confusion, because you thought yourself awake already? This was the other way about. I thought it was all a dream, but seems it was happening. I begun to have regular chats with the looking glass, and it told me terrible things about you, Morgana, some what I didn’t understand about politics and royal obligations, and some what I understood only too well.”
Here, she looked at me from beneath her pale eyelashes, and it was her turn to blush. I was mystified as to what she meant, but decided it was probably best not to know.
“In this dream, me and the mirror were fast friends, and I came to understand a lady lived inside it, and only borrowed my reflection to speak through. We had ever so many chats about things, and I found I wasn’t much interested in poor suffering Morgana any longer. This seemed to upset the mirror-lady. She loved to talk about you. But she didn’t love you, that was clear. It pizened my thinkin’, it did.”
Here she shyly reached out to Morgana, and the princess took her hand with both of her own and smiled the sad half smile. Lily continued, addressing her friend: “I remember there was a bit in the dream about my tortoise comb, for I couldn’t find it, and the lady in the mirror thought she’d seen you take it. You know, from ’er side of the glass. But she must have been mistook, for it turned up soon enough. Then I don’t remember anything until last night.”
“You need not go on, if it distresses you,” said Morgana, when she saw tears spill down Lily’s scratched cheek.
“I’d take it as a favor to confess the whole dream,” said Lily, “if you can bear to hear it. Last night I remember sitting at the looking glass as I’d been do
ing, and this time, the lady reached through. Her arm was all of a mirror as I recall. A nightmare, tell the truth. But at the time she said such things as I thought was kindness itself. She said I ought to give dear Morgana my tortoise comb as an offering of friendship, and set her down before the glass to see how well it suited her lovely black hair. She took my hand in hers, as you done with mine.”
All of us were thrilled with horror at the idea of Lily’s slender fingers clasped in that hard, cold grip. Morgana let go of Lily, as if her own hands might turn to glass.
“Well, there it is. I took of ’er advice, called you inside, and bade you sit before the glass. Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do it before?”
“In truth,” said Morgana, “my appearance means nothing at all to me, for I am disguised.”
“That hexplains it, then,” said Lily. “Though I think I’d know you well enough without it. Anyroads, you know the rest. It weren’t a dream after all. When you sat down and looked into the glass and that arm come snaking out and caught you by the hair, I must have awoke, for I was all confusion. I recall a struggle, and Fred come rushing through the window, and then there was a tap on my nut and I suppose I dreamed proper, after that.”
So saying, Lily sat on the bottom step of the wagon, nearly crushing the admiring Gruntle.
“There you have it,” said I. “Nothing makes plain sense anymore, the world has gone mad, and I’m fair certain we are all asleep. There can be no other explanation.”
But Morgana began to pace, a few steps away and a few steps back, pinching her chin with her fingers. Then she addressed Lily.
“Didst thou—did you, that is—call Kit a lubber?”
“I don’t recall,” said Lily.
“She did,” said I. “And correctly, for I’ve never been to sea.”
“All is clear,” Morgana cried. “Few can conjure with such power, and only one speaks like a sailor. Lily, you were possessed by the One-Eyed Duchess. That you survived the experience speaks well of your spirit and everyone else’s quick actions.
“We call such enchanted objects ‘phantolorums,’*” she went on. “They are used to communicate between the worlds. I should have thought of it myself. The looking glass was backed in silver, of course. The fey metal. It was like a porthole penetrating the cage of gold that kept us safe. She discovered it, and used it to attract your attention and enchant you, Lily. She would have preferred to lure me before it, but I had no reason to look into the glass, and so did not. She might not have had the same power over me in any case. So she gained a confederate, taking over your will.”
“That’s narsty,” Lily observed. “I owe her a clip on the bonce.”
“I daresay,” Morgana agreed. “So in amongst us was this phantolorum. The episode with the comb must have been some error on her part; she almost lost control of you. I suspect she intended to poison your mind against me, so that you would eagerly help her to pull me through, rather than resist the attempt.”
“Pull you through!” I cried. “You wouldn’t even fit through that glass! That crawling arm filled up the frame.”
“She didn’t require my entire body, Kit. What she wanted was only my soul.”
The implications of this made me ill. Had the Duchess succeeded, we would have rushed into the wagon and found Morgana lifeless, and Lily all battered and bloody upon the floor, and we would have assumed the worst—that Lily had slain her dear friend!
“You understand the implications of this,” Morgana said to me, and I had again that uneasy sense that she had read my mind. “When Lily misplaced her comb, the enmity with which the Duchess had divided us burst out outside the caravan, where she could make no use of it. But she is cunning. She was able to turn the incident to her advantage and use the selfsame comb to lure me before the looking glass, after all. The rest you know.”
“What a diabolical cow,” said I, and was immediately ashamed. Speak ill of one woman and you speak ill of them all, as Master Rattle had once observed. “That is, how cruel of her. How entirely wicked.”
“She hasn’t a soul of her own, you know,” Morgana said. I think she felt sympathy for the creature who had almost slain her. “You recall the Duchess is my great-great-great-great-aunt. That means our souls come from the same lode. She could take mine and be almost entirely restored … That’s why she wanted to capture me! Of course!”
“I don’t understand it,” said I.
“I don’t understand anything,” said Lily.
“When the Duchess sent her gryphons after us, she hoped to carry me back to Faerie through her agents, for she cannot cross over herself without a soul. This much we knew. Frustrated in the attempt, she changed tactics, and tried to lure me before the phantolorum and drag out my soul.
“Her purpose is clear to me now: Marriage unites the souls of the betrothed. She needs mine before the wedding takes place, or it’s of little use to her, stuck to another. So it’s become a race between my father and the Duchess to capture my soul.”
“We’re in the race as well,” said I. “Where is Willum? We must away!”
* * *
The remainder of the day passed without event as far as our party was concerned, but things were happening abroad in the land. Morgana received a bee from a sympathizer some ten leagues behind us that said a mad English officer was scouring the countryside for a whistling highwayman matching my description. I was reminded that I had practiced my riding with Midnight in places where people could watch, and cursed myself for a fool. Still, thirty miles of poor roads and winding lanes was a safe distance, in those days. As long as we didn’t tarry, we could be well away across the sea ere he caught us up.
Later, she received another bee with the interesting intelligence that there had been a fight between two parties of goblings. The combatants had been wearing the crest of the Faerie king on one side, and the Duchess of the Red Seas on the other. So fierce was the combat that a manling had heard the noise and seen what transpired. The local feyín, thinking of the Eldritch Law, had confused his mind so that he thought he’d dreamed the whole thing. I wonder now how many of our dreams are thus produced.
During a brief pause in the middle of the day, Morgana asked to look at the enchanted map.
“It’s come true,” said she, examining the illustrations along the route. “There is Lily on the rope, but I think it meant she would perform a balancing act of a different kind. And the sketch after it with a face inside an oval is a looking glass, and now that things have come to pass, I can recognize Lily in the reflection. Look you—the road ahead winds along as ours does, and there is the portcullis gate. But were not the looking glass and the gate beside each other? Now there is another drawing between them.”
“I don’t like this map,” said I, glancing at the hanged man. “It laughs at us but doesn’t inform us.”
“We aren’t using it properly,” Morgana said. “Ordinarily they are studied by scryers and sages, who can find portents in every line. I don’t have that knowledge.”
“But if there is a new picture added in, does that not mean we have changed our fate in some way?”
“Or someone else has. It represents a complication.”
We put our heads together to look at the new picture. I could smell her hair, like rain. Which meant she could smell mine. I imagined my hair must smell like my hat, which object had endured the tortures of the damned. Without thinking, I leaned away a trifle, to avoid offending her nose.
“You smell like your horse,” she said. A dozen protests sprang to my lips, but I spake not.
She puzzled over the drawing awhile, and then held it before my eyes. “Does that not look like Magda?”
It did indeed. A hook-nosed, hook-chinned creature with a hump, weazened and bent.
“I’d like to see her again,” said I. “I have many questions to ask her, and I miss little Demon acutely. He’s a fine pup. You would like him.”
“I know him well,” Morgana said. “A fin
e pup, and a formidable one.” There must have been two dogs by that name, I thought. How could she know my Demon? Unless Magda had told her of him, of course. Still, formidable might be the very last word to describe Demon—or the second to last after tall.
* * *
Within pistol-shot of the town where we were to perform, Uncle Cornelius called a halt. He wished to go over our equipment and make all ready. This we did, and it was agreed that we would dine early, in case the show went so poorly that we felt obligated to flee town in the night.
Morgana was all nerves again. She didn’t eat any supper. Lily cajoled her and made light of our worries, even going so far as to offer Morgana the tortoise comb.
“It’s just a bit of cow horn, really,” Lily said. “I got it from a suitor, and only keeps it from sentimentalist value. But ’e’s in the past and your hair’s a mare’s nest, so you ’ave it. When it grows back in you can wear it proud.”
“When it grows back in?” Morgana said.
“Only yesterday it was shorn right down to the scalp on your crown, ’adn’t you noticed? Our Kit’s no barber.”
By way of response, Morgana untied the kerchief from around her brow, and a waterfall of dark, shining hair came down. It was completely restored, with no evidence of my hasty tonsuring. But I observed a narrow band of white among the black, sweeping back from her temple.
“I’ll be,” Lily exclaimed. “That’s magic, that is!”
“My magic,” said Willum, freshly returned from scouting the area around the town. He puffed out his chest and looked rather pleased. “Ordinarily I only use that comprimaunt to inflict mange on badgers, but do it backwards and you get some lovely tresses. I had to repeat it three times,” he added, giving me a dark look.
Still, even with the comb tucked into her piled-up hair for good luck, Morgana could not escape worrying. Eventually she sat by herself on an overturned butter-churn, and I thought it was my turn to attempt to improve her mood.
