The Accidental Highwayman

by Ben Tripp

  I charged.

  The effect must have been rather less impressive to the crowd of men at the door than it was to me. I shouted for all I was worth as I came around the corner, but my voice hadn’t much volume since the hanging. And my muddy boots slipped terribly on the highly polished floor. Still, I gamely attacked, sword raised high. All eyes were upon me, and I think the only question hanging in the air was who should kill me.

  This surprise mixed with indifference got me as far as the nearest footman, who drew his sword. I swung at him for form’s sake, being useless at offensive fighting. He parried and sprang after me, and so my defensive training came into use. Then there were a dozen of them coming at me, all with swords, and a good deal of shouting, and I knocked over a suit of armor while escaping the many points flashing my way. Had there not been so many of them pressing the attack, I’d have been cut to laces in the first dozen seconds of the pursuit; as it was, they kept foiling one another’s thrusts.

  At the height of the fracas there was a tremendous boom, and the doors of the wedding-chamber burst open. A blast of green flame gusted out, like a diabolical bedsheet flapping in a high wind. A silver-gilt chair tumbled into the mass of guards, the tapestries blew off the walls, chandeliers fell and burst into sparkling fragments upon the floor, and every window in the gallery shattered at the same moment. Not a man was left on his feet.

  A roiling pall of smoke issued through the broken doorway, flickering with green witchfire. The outline of a figure appeared within. For an instant I feared the One-Eyed Duchess had found some means to come to finish me off. But then Morgana emerged from the reek, her eyes flashing emerald as she surveyed the scene before her. In her white and silver gown, with flowers in her hair, she looked a paragon of beauty—but the bared teeth and blazing eyes gave her the aspect of a pagan queen, such as Boadicea, who led the ancient Britons against Rome.

  “Morgana,” I croaked, trying to extricate myself from a tapestry. My mask had turned around backwards and I could only see out the bottom.

  “I’m getting better at magic,” she said, and ran to my side while the guards all around us were still trying to get to their knees.

  “Morgana,” I said again, for there was nothing else in my head but her.

  “Dear Kit,” said she. “Are you badly hurt?”

  “No. Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Good. There’s something I’d like to tell you.”

  She looked about us; the guards were finding their swords. “Now?”

  “Perhaps it can wait a minute or two,” I conceded. Just then a new voice intruded into the scene.

  “Grandpapa, are you injured?” I heard a fellow say, and a moment later, Georges II and soon-to-be III, king and prince, respectively, emerged from the wedding chamber, coughing and waving the smoke away. The old English king was unmistakable, the subject of innumerable portraits, and his pop-eyed grandson could scarcely be anyone else.

  “Neffer better,” King George said with his thick German accent, and irritably slapped the wig off his grandson’s head.

  Just then, the most extraordinary figure in this tale appeared out of the smoke from the wedding chamber, parting the two Georges. He was as tall as my knee, as wide as my waist, and wore a wig of curls nearly twice his height, piled up in the fashion of the previous century—except his was on fire. There were silver hoops in his earlobes, which hung nearly to his waist, and he wore a tiny cavalier’s uniform with silver breast- and backplate. A human-size sword dragged along behind him. His wizened face bore the exaggerated features of the feyín, but enlarged.

  It was the Faerie King Elgeron.

  “The poor child has got wedding nerves, that’s all,” he said. “Pray let us continue.”

  “Nerffs?” cried George II. “Mein Gott, sir, your daughter’s a hellcat. Young George here couldn’t handle her. We vill have to come up mit some less dangerous liaison.” The senior George shot most unkind looks at his goggling grandson.

  Elgeron tried wheedling next. “Daughter, come back here this moment and kiss your groom and all is forgiven.”

  Morgana had been at my side the while, clenching her fists and trembling with fury. The white streak in her hair had come loose of its pins, and hung in her eyes. We were properly surrounded by swordsmen again. Now she faced the brace of Georges.

  “My father hath made a bargain with the Duchess of the Red Seas to bring me here. What was his price? Your kingdom laid to waste? Your navy sunk to the bottom that she might pillage the world? What else hath he to offer, that she could not as easily take?”

  “Her soul, thou wretched child,” Elgeron said. “Only her soul!”

  This set Morgana back a bit, I think. I imagined the Faerie King must have it in a jar somewhere, or wrapped in paper and string—however one stores disembodied souls.

  “I shall count to three,” said Elgeron.

  But Morgana wasn’t having any of it. “Count the number of the stars. I shall never return, father. I denounce you.”

  “Wait a minute,” said the tiny king, noticing me for the first time. “Who is that cretin with the mask?”

  “A better man than you.”

  With eyes of fire to match his daughter’s, Elgeron looked first at Morgana, and then at me, and cried, “Then by the Splinter of Time, I curse you both!”

  There was a flash of light as he waved his hands, and the wall behind us burst apart. Morgana had raised her own defense, and the invisible shield diverted the impact around us, as a stone in the stream diverts the water.

  The guards and attendants had been closing in, but this display of magic sent them to the floor again—or to the ceiling, in the case of those nearest us.

  “This way,” said I, and Morgana took my hand and we ran through the wreckage and up the stairs I’d taken down before.

  Another blast of energy from King Elgeron shivered the stone steps behind us, nearly knocking off my boot-heels.

  “Seize them,” I heard the Faerie King bellow, and then there were footfalls on the half-ruined stairs at our backs. We raced up the spiral steps, and then down the servants’ hall, which was filled with smoke and frightened servants. They screamed as we made our way to the far end. I chanced to look over my shoulder and saw the guards emerging into the hall, probably as eager to get away from the wee raging king downstairs as they were to come after us.

  Moments later, we were upon the balcony from which I had entered, and I whistled fairly enough on the first try. Midnight soared around the parapets, swept his bright black wings out wide, and alighted beside us. I put Morgana between his wings; with my hands still about her slim waist, she bent down and turned my face up to hers.

  “I would kiss you if I could,” said she, and I sprang onto Midnight’s back as the first of our pursuers made the balcony. We flew into the air and were a thousand yards above the palace before I had even settled in my seat.

  I would kiss you if I could. Why couldn’t she?

  It was the best news I’d ever had in my life—except for that.

  Chapter 35

  MIDNIGHT’S FLIGHT

  OUR ESCAPE was not assured. As we streaked through the sky, Midnight pumping his wings, a teeming green cloud whirled up at us. It was pixies. I wrapped my black coat around the princess to shield her from them. The pixies couldn’t fly at a fraction of Midnight’s speed, but bedeviled our way, firing arrows. Midnight ascended to a terrific height, even above the overcast, and we soon left them behind, the little creatures piping insults as we rose beyond their reach. The air was cold and thin.

  “We have had adventures, haven’t we,” Morgana said, once we’d caught our breath.

  “We have,” said I. “Adventures enough for even a lifetime such as yours.”

  “They have only just begun,” she said, with regret.

  “So what I meant to tell you before—”

  “There is so much to tell you, Kit. So much I was afraid to share with you. I didn’t know how you f
elt, nor how I felt, and with all this turmoil in my own world—”

  “It’s much the same with me.”

  “I have never felt so close to anyone as you, but I don’t know why. We’ve little in common.”

  “Scarcely anything.”

  “And I might live a hundred ages yet, and you not a hundred years.”

  “An obstacle I have dwelt upon.”

  “And yet nothing seems impossible with you beside me.”

  “We are astride a flying horse, with the clouds below us.”

  “But I am a princess, by birth if not by title any longer, and you—”

  “You scarcely need to point out that my parents are unknown, and me an unemployed servant with a considerable criminal record.”

  “Have we lost our senses?”

  “If I don’t kiss you, I shall perish.”

  “Look there!” she cried, startling me so much I nearly toppled off Midnight.

  She pointed below us. I spied a disturbance in the clouds, far beneath Midnight’s hooves, the smooth upper surface in one place bubbling and steaming like a mud geyser a little distance ahead of us.

  Then came the mantigorns.

  They could fly at terrific speed. The six of them appeared below us and beat their foul wings until they were abreast of us, and above and below, always coming closer. They were no longer considerate of Morgana’s safety, but hurled their javelins at us, and Midnight swooped and dipped his wings to avoid them. One of the lances passed through his feathers and left a smoking hole. Within a minute the mantigorns had come close enough to snatch at us with their long, hooked fingers. I had the sword, but I didn’t see what good it could do us now.

  How had they found us? “Morgana,” I cried. “Are you still wearing Lily’s comb?”

  “It’s right under your nose. I wear it to remember her by.”

  The mantigorns had retreated a little way, so I took the opportunity to run my fingers through her plaits of hair, and found the tortoise comb. It had been concealed beneath her tresses. I flung the thing away into the empty air.

  “Kit! How could you!”

  “It’s a sigilantum. That’s how that blasted Duchess keeps finding us!”

  There wasn’t time to explain. A keening cry pierced the air from somewhere above. The mantigorns slipped away, moving farther apart from us. I looked up and saw a solitary cloud that churned with some inward energy—it seemed to be streaking through the sky at the same speed we were. Then a white gryphon dropped out of it—an enormous creature, bigger than any of the others we had seen. As it plummeted toward us, I saw there was a rider upon its back.

  And then I saw the flaming red hair that leapt up from the green face, and the patch across one eye. I’d seen that face before—in the looking glass.

  “Morgana,” said I. But she had already seen.

  “The Duchess,” she whispered. “She is here.”

  It seemed we had about thirty seconds left.

  “That thing I meant to tell you—”

  “Oh, Kit—”

  “I’m not going to die without having said the words. Dash it, Morgana, I love you.”

  Morgana was silent a moment. Then she put her hand upon my cheek and said, “If I fall, they’ll leave you be,” and tried to slip from Midnight’s back. I wasn’t having that, and clung to her fiercely; as she struggled, the nearest of the mantigorns almost succeeded in catching me in its claws by dropping down from behind my right shoulder. I flung up my arm and the sword saved us—there was a bright concussion when the monster touched the golden hilt, and the creature’s talons were flung back. It was hurled senseless down into the void with my sword spiraling after it. But I nearly lost my grip on Morgana. She hung across Midnight’s ribs, her feet flailing in the empty air.

  In the confusion, I had lost sight of the white gryphon. Now it appeared close to our port side, and there was the Duchess of the Red Seas, as near as two wing-spans. She wore a breastplate of shining black scales, a dark green cape that snapped and ruffled like a ship’s pennant, thigh boots, and—to my eye, a shocking thing—trousers. She was at once regal, handsome, and menacing. I felt as a mouse must feel in the presence of a cat that knows its prey is cornered.

  “Here it ends, hearties,” said she, shouting to be heard over the roar of the wind. “Fight and die, or drop the girl and go where ye will.”

  “I’m of no value to you now,” Morgana cried defiantly. “My father hath disowned me and curst us as well.”

  “Just so!” The pirate laughed. “I said drop the girl. I want nothing more from thee than a corpse!”

  The remaining mantigorns drew back a little farther. This was parley, and they would wait for the Duchess’s command.

  “What about your blasted soul?” I shouted. “Don’t tell me you found it behind the cushions!”

  The Duchess was enjoying herself, I realized. If I could keep her talking, there might be some hope of … something. Not much, but hope endures.

  “A wedding gift from that dwarf of a king,” the Duchess said, and laughed again, a crowing, harsh sound.

  At last, I had Morgana firmly on Midnight’s back.

  She spoke in my ear that our one-eyed foe should not hear: “It was never my father’s to give. No Faerie can trade in souls. Whatever brought her here, it is false.” Then she added, “I love you, too.”

  Of all the times to be flattered, this was the worst. I needed to concentrate my thoughts on the crisis at hand. But my bosom was filled with light and hope and joy, and at the same time a despair and fury that circumstance should conspire to sunder two creatures who might be so happy together as we. These emotions were perfectly matched and precisely opposed. It felt like madness.

  “The King couldn’t give you back your soul,” I shouted. “He hasn’t got it.”

  “Here I am, lubber! Alive and in thine wretched world!”

  She snapped the white gryphon’s reins and the beast dove straight at us. Midnight folded his wings and dropped below its claws, but in so doing, nearly collided with a mantigorn directly beneath us. It tore a couple of feathers from Midnight’s wing before he had gained height enough to escape its reach. The Duchess howled with laughter again. She certainly seemed alive to me.

  “Look at her,” Morgana said. “She’s wrong.”

  I saw it. As the wind battered the Duchess, fragments of her seemed to be flaking off and whirling away in the turbulent air behind her. Her cape was becoming ragged. She didn’t seem to have noticed yet.

  “Drop the girl and live, boy. I’ll forgive thee for nearly cuttin’ off me arm in that mirror. I want to hear her scream, all the way down.”

  “Can’t you do a ruckins?” I whispered to Morgana.

  “If I do, I’ll only fall to my death in Faerie, instead of here.”

  The Duchess, meanwhile, had drawn a pistol from her belt. She trained it at me, her sleeve shuddering in the blast of wind that roared around her. Fragments of the sleeve flew away.

  “You’re coming to bits,” I shouted.

  I thought she must shoot and kill me. Or worse, slay Midnight. But a large scrap of her arm—not just her sleeve—flew away, and she saw it. She looked behind her and saw the particles swirling behind her like paper-ash up a chimney.

  “Never trust a king,” she snarled. “Never thee mind, shark-pups. If I can’t have my soul, I’ll have yours.”

  She guided the gryphon close. I could see every line in her fury-contorted face. Her ears came to points like Morgana’s, I saw. One of these came off. Several scales of her armor flew away. An inspiration came to me—and my friend and foe, hope, sprang to new life.

  “There is another way,” said I. “Spare the Princess and I’ll make it my quest to return what was taken from you!”

  We were so close I could see a confusion pass over the Duchess. She swayed in the saddle and shook her head in a daze. The gryphon, without her will to guide it, dropped away, and the mantigorns, who had been flying in formation like ships of the
line about us, also spread apart. But then the confusion passed, and was replaced by rage; when she regained her senses, she came swooping back with sharp teeth bared and her lone eye burning. There was a steady stream of matter flying away from her now, like sooty smoke. It left a trail in the sky behind her.

  “On three,” she shouted, and again the pistol came up.

  “Does everyone in Faerie count when they’re threatening people?” I said.

  “Let me fall,” Morgana begged me. “Her hatred is for me.”

  “One!”

  “I suppose this is an opportune time to ask one last favor?” said I to Morgana.

  “Two!”

  “Say it!” my princess breathed.

  “Kiss me?”

  Morgana did not reply; she seemed paralyzed by indecision. I had a plan, now. There wasn’t any more time for her to make up her mind. I drew my legs up so that I was crouching upon Midnight’s back, using my trick-rider’s balance to keep from pitching off.

  “Duchess!” I cried, to forestall the final count. “I say again: Spare the Princess and I promise I’ll see you reunited with what you have lost!”

  The Duchess’ face was a mask of ice. A slab of her scalp flew away, and part of her nose. She was coming to pieces. She spoke in low tones, but by some magic it was as if she whispered in my ear: “I’ve wasted a millennium on that quest, manling. You haven’t got the time.”

  She twisted the reins and the white gryphon lunged at us. The Duchess couldn’t have been ten feet away, the pistol-bore swaying in a narrow circuit somewhere around my heart. The mantigorns loosed their war cries and buffeted their wings to get within claw’s strike. Midnight made a desperate evasion and we nearly fell off his back. Yet I got my feet under me again, and gathered for the spring.

  “I wish,” cried I, in frustration and despair, my eyes on the cruel Duchess, “you’d go to blazes.”

  And so saying, I leapt into the air, straight at her mount.

  * * *

  I only made it halfway.

  As soon as I spoke the words, there was a great roar, the sky split open, and a bolt of lightning seared all around us. It forked and forked again like the branches of some burning tree, and smote each of the mantigorns at the same instant. They burst to pieces or plunged in flames from the sky, howling as they tumbled into the clouds below. A flotsam of huge, blazing feathers whirled down after them. The white gryphon lit up like a paper lantern and exploded, and the Duchess, unmounted, screamed an unearthly wail and shattered into a million dirty fragments. These particles themselves burned up, until there was nothing left.