The Darker Carnival (The Markhat Files)

by Frank Tuttle

I didn’t amble far. I slipped a pair of grenades into my trouser pockets. Withdrew Buttercup’s whispering skull from the bag and hid its cloth-wrapped bulk in my jacket pocket. My right hand went down in my bag, and I held my revolver at the ready, in case I needed to fire through the burlap.

  I meandered back to the tent. As soon as I moved to stand directly in front of the flap, the darkness closed in tight about me. The sounds of the crowds and the music and the crying barkers vanished. The lights from the bobbing lanterns overhead were extinguished. Even the smells of the snack-carts faded away, leaving me all alone in my own tiny pocket of silent night.

  I stepped inside the black tent, the Troll’s final words ringing in my ears.

  Die well.

  Chapter Nine

  I fell.

  Not far. I landed on my feet, went into a crouch, damned near emptied my revolver at the sudden movement that confronted me from every side.

  There was light, from seemingly infinite ranks of candles. The movements I saw were my own, reflected over and over by rows and ranks of tall wide mirrors. The mirrors, like the candles, seemed to stretch off into the infinite.

  I looked about. The turning of my head was multiplied a thousand times. I tried to make sense of the space, to pick out any interruption in the repeated ranks of glass where I knew the tent walls had to be. I saw only countless returns of my frown, separated by a million perfectly spaced slices of impenetrable darkness.

  I took a single step to my right. Blocking the entrance to a place you have no business being is likely to spark conversations with strangers you’d rather not meet. I turned my head, knowing the opening couldn’t be more than a single step behind me, and saw nothing but mirrors and candles and my own perplexed expression.

  I closed my eyes, put my arm back.

  Closed my fingers on empty air. There was no cloth. No tent flap. No tent wall, no means of escape.

  For one awful moment, I fought the urge to run.

  But I’ve been lost in the dark before. Deep in the dark, down with the Trolls, in the tunnels they favored toward the end of the War.

  “Take more than this to scare me,” I whispered. “Been in the dark before.”

  I closed my eyes.

  The room was silent. Not merely quiet, but devoid of sound in that peculiar fashion of caves and deep dark places. Not a sound from the carnival crossed the dark—not a barker’s shout, not a fiddle’s note.

  I felt myself grin.

  “Just like the old days.”

  I stuck the pistol through my belt. Unwrapped Buttercup’s favorite skull. The old bone was silent until I thumped it on its cranium.

  “Maybe you can understand this,” I said. “Maybe you can’t. Buttercup is in here somewhere. If you can see her, make some noise. Deal?”

  The skull made incomprehensible hissing noises.

  I stuck it in the bag and dragged my revolver out of my pants.

  Then I just started walking.

  I don’t know how long I marched. I never found a wall. Just rows and columns of frameless full-length mirrors, hanging unsupported in neat ranks. At first, the mirrors were empty, save for my handsome if somewhat soiled visage.

  I came to one, though, which housed a reflection not my own.

  A woman stood within, tall and pale, with big blue eyes and hair the color of deep frost and no clothes to bother laundering. She stood within the glass, her long white hair stirring in a wind I couldn’t feel. Her ample chest rose and fell. Her eyes glistened and blinked. She looked out at me, her right hand lifting as if to take hold of mine.

  I came close enough to see, but not quite close enough to grab or be grabbed.

  “Hello, Miss,” I said, acutely aware of the earthy mixture of soil and manure with which I’d disguised myself. “I seem to have lost my way.”

  She smiled, keeping her wet red lips closed. She turned her pale palm up, and beckoned to me with one long red-nailed finger.

  “I’m a married man, Miss, and you’re the tiniest bit naked. Now, if you’ve got a night-gown in there somewhere—”

  She rushed the glass, pressing up against it, clawing at it.

  She opened her mouth.

  I’ve heard stories of the man-eating fish that trouble those who dare the Sea. The stories always take perverse glee in describing the wide jaws and savage teeth of the man-eaters.

  I’d never sit yawning through one of those stories again. Not after seeing that lovely creature do its damnedest to chew through whatever invisible magic kept her inside that mirror.

  I cussed, sighted my barrel right between her soft blue eyes. I was careful not to touch the glass. She clawed and chewed, but came no closer.

  Finally, I walked away.

  There were others. I found the Man of Bones, throwing himself repeatedly and without effect against his glass. There was no flesh on him, no skin. But there was fresh blood dripping from his bare ribs and pooling around his bony feet. A man’s leather shoe lay in the blood, and I surmised the shoe never belonged to the Man of Bones, although he had recently made the acquaintance of the shoe’s former owner.

  Vallata the swamp witch sat rocking on a stool inside her glass. She forced a hirsute stump of an arm down her throat, starting at the bloody elbow and pushing it slowly down. She looked at me as the wrist began to pass her lips, and she winked and she waved.

  I tried to take a candle as I left the witch, only to have my fingers close around empty air. I could feel the heat from the flame, but couldn’t touch the candle itself.

  There was no apparent rhyme or reason to the placement of the occupied mirrors. I didn’t stop to consult my pocket-watch, but I guessed the better part of two hours passed while I hiked through a space that should have taken me maybe ten minutes to traverse.

  I stopped to catch my breath, turned to my right, and there she was.

  The Living Dead Girl. Her face was buried in her hands, and her body was turned nearly away from me, but something about her shoulders and the way she held herself as she sobbed was achingly familiar.

  Her father, I realized, cried just that same way.

  I put down my sack. Took off that wretched hat. Found a rag and did what I could to remove the soil from my face.

  I watched her while I swabbed.

  She was small, like her mother. Before she’d turned as bloodless and pale as a halfdead, I imagined she’d been pretty. Her waist was narrow, and her legs were long, and her raven-black hair must have been remarkable.

  Now, her skin hung loose and was splotched with gray. Dark purple veins showed here and there. Her hair was limp and greasy and her scalp peeked through it where great clumps had fallen away.

  Worst were her feet. Blood settles in the bodies of the dead. Her ankles were black, her feet swollen, her skin bulging, ready to burst.

  I dropped my rag, took a step, tapped on her glass with the barrel of my revolver.

  She whirled. Her eyes were milk-white with tiny black pupils. Her black lips parted in a cry I couldn’t hear.

  She rose and backed as far as she could move away from me. The space within the glass was tiny, smaller than Darla’s tiny hat closet, putting her within easy reach.

  I lowered my revolver. Stuck it in my belt. I doubted she could hear me any more than I could hear her, but I didn’t know that and I hoped she could read my lips.

  “I’m not here to hurt you. Your folks hired me to find you. Are you Alfreda Ordwald?”

  Her dead eyes didn’t widen. But she cocked her head, as if she’d understood.

  “Alfreda Ordwald,” I said. “Is that your name?”

  She closed her mouth. Tears the color of fresh-brewed tea ran down her mottled cheeks.

  She nodded yes.

  “I’m Markhat,” I said. “Can you step out here, with me?”

  She nodded no. Afte
r a moment, she pushed away from the wall at her back, and timidly approached the glass.

  I didn’t reach for my revolver. I wanted to. I wanted to pull them both and keep them trained on that dead face. I remembered the toothy naked thing, the Man of Bones and the cast-off bloody shoe.

  But I watched her put her hand against the inside of the glass, and shake her head sadly.

  I moved before I thought too much about it. I put my hand on the glass and pushed and the cold glass just stopped being and my hand met hers.

  She wrapped her fingers around mine. She was cold and thin but her grip was strong.

  In an instant, she was out.

  If she’d been all teeth and claws, Darla would have turned a widow then and there. She was on me before I reacted, hugging me tight, pushing my revolver flat between us.

  She didn’t bite. Didn’t claw. She clung to me and made wet gurgling sounds and soaked the front of my filthy shirt with syrupy brown years.

  She stank. The odor of decay was faint, but unmistakable. I managed not to gag.

  I let her cry for a bit. Even the dead, I suppose, can’t be rushed.

  “I don’t mean to sound rude, Miss Ordwald, but we need to get moving,” I said. “Do you think you can do that? Walk, I mean?”

  I felt her nod against my chest. Her sobbing and shaking began to subside. Finally she let go of me, put her hands to her face, and turned away.

  “Do you know the way out?” I asked.

  She shook her head no.

  “No matter. I’ll find a way. Listen. There’s someone else I came for. A little blonde girl, about waist high. Have you seen her?”

  Again, a slow nod for no.

  “That’s all right. We’re going to start walking now. This is a tricky place. Take my hand, and no matter what happens, don’t let go. Will you do that? Please?”

  For a moment, I wasn’t sure she understood. Then she moved to stand close, still keeping her face downcast and turned away, and she slipped her cold right hand into my left.

  “Let’s go.”

  We went. We wandered. I listened to the skull’s whispers, and had begun to despair when the whispers grew loud and urgent.

  I held the bag aloft, turned in a circle, walked in the direction of the skull’s loudest words. It didn’t take long to find Buttercup’s mirror, once the skull caught her scent.

  I gently let go of Alfreda’s hand. “Stay put,” I said. “Got to get her out.”

  The dead girl nodded, still keeping her face turned away from mine.

  Buttercup’s space inside the glass was tiny, like Alfreda’s had been. There was a crude bed, a stool, and a bucket.

  Buttercup lay sleeping on the bed, entangled with a doll nearly her size.

  I tapped on the glass, held the skull close to it, let it speak.

  Buttercup stirred.

  I tapped harder. “Buttercup,” I said. “It’s me, Uncle Markhat.”

  She sat up, facing the glass. The doll moved with her, its long blonde hair covering most of Buttercup’s face.

  I touched the glass with my bare skin. It was cool but not cold. I tried but couldn’t push my hand through the barrier.

  “We need to hurry, sweetie,” I said.

  She swung her feet off the bed, began to jerk and thrash. It took me a moment to realize Buttercup wasn’t holding the doll.

  The doll was holding Buttercup.

  No sound issued from the glass. But I watched the doll’s boneless arms wrap around Buttercup, saw its legs wrap around her waist. The doll’s long golden hair moved, wrapping itself around Buttercup’s neck, even filling her mouth when the banshee opened it to scream.

  I brought the butt of my revolver down hard on the glass. It should have shattered.

  It didn’t.

  “Cover your ears, Miss Ordwald,” I said. I took a step back, aimed for the lower right corner of the mirror, and put two slugs in it.

  The glass cracked, yes, but the cracks vanished as quickly as they’d appeared.

  The doll had Buttercup pinned to the bed. Buttercup thrashed and punched, but the doll wrapped itself around her, tightening its grip each time Buttercup struggled.

  Soon, Buttercup’s movements stopped altogether.

  The dead girl tugged at my sleeve. She gurgled at me, but I couldn’t make out the words.

  The skull’s dry teeth clattered as it spit out an angry stream of gibberish. I swung it like a hammer, and lost my grip when the bone passed through the glass as if encountering empty air.

  The skull bounced inside and rolled under the crude bed.

  Only then did I hear the footsteps.

  Boots, specifically, accompanied by an occasional thump I recognized as the landing of the tip of a cane upon the glassy black floor.

  “Hell with it,” I said, and I emptied my revolver into the glass.

  I might as well have buffed the mirror gently with soft cotton. A single crack appeared, faded, and was gone before my last spent brass cartridge stopped bouncing on the ground.

  Alfreda fell silent. Her face turned down, and she sank to her knees at my side.

  “Magic doesn’t work here,” said a voice in the dark. The speaker was maybe fifty feet away, but I had no idea in what direction. “Well, save for mine.”

  Thorkel. I recognized the voice. And the thump-thump of that damned gaudy cane.

  I reloaded. The footfalls grew closer with each step, heading directly for me.

  “You should run now,” he said. “But which way?”

  Buttercup lay still, inside the glass. The doll’s grip was unyielding. I feared if I so much as turned away I’d never find her glass again.

  “I’m a fair man,” said Thorkel. I tried to aim at his voice, but his words spun about me as though he rode a whirlwind. “I’ll even give you a sporting chance. I’ll count to ten. If you find a way out before I end my count, you can go free. No harm will come to you. You have my word.”

  The dead girl began to sob, holding her face in her hands.

  I waited until the footfalls were near.

  “I’m not leaving until I have who I came for,” I said. “As long as we’re offering deals, here’s one for you. Let the girl in this glass go, and I won’t level this damned place and bury you in the rubble.”

  He laughed. The footfalls stopped. Every hair on the back of my neck rose, because from the sound he was in arm’s reach—I just didn’t know which arm, or what direction.

  “I warned you not to lie to me, Mr. Bustman. If indeed that is your name.”

  “It isn’t. Now I’m warning you. That little girl leaves with me, now, or I take this place apart.”

  “I could kill you where you stand.”

  I forced a wide grin. “So why hide?” I asked. “I did my ten in the Army. Hated every sorcerer that passed our way. Cowards or bullies, the lot of them. Even so, I never saw one of them hide.”

  Thorkel stepped out of a fold in the dark, one long stride away.

  He was dressed in his carnival master finery, top hat and tailed officer’s coat and brass buttons and silk. His cane twirled in his right hand, only now the head of it glowed the dull red of an ember.

  The dead girl clutched my leg.

  “That,” I said, “Is the silliest damned hat I have ever seen.”

  “So. You came to steal,” he said, indicating the dead girl with a flick of his cane. “You could simply have asked for her. She is past being of any use. I suppose I should have a grave dug.”

  “Her name is Alfreda,” I said. “I’m taking her home.”

  “Shame about her father,” said Thorkel. His smile was wide and his teeth gleamed white. “He died badly, you know. Twitching like an insect.”

  Her wet sobs came heavier.

  “He died a braver man than you’ll ever be,”
I said. “The little girl. Out of this glass. Before I lose my legendary composure.”

  “You are no more a sorcerer than you are a newspaper man,” he said. His smile grew. “I sense no power whatsoever about you.”

  “Shows what you know.”

  He regarded Buttercup’s glass. “That is no little girl,” he said. “You may be of some service before you die. Tell me what you know of this creature.”

  “She’s a forty-year-old bartender named One-Eyed Eddie,” I said. “He dresses up like that every All Soul’s Day.” I raised my revolver and aimed it right at Thorkel’s smirk. “I’m done talking. Let her go.”

  “Your magic won’t work here,” he said, through that same smug grin.

  I realized the man had never seen a gun.

  The top of his cane began to glow brighter, pulsing like a slow heartbeat.

  “You might be right about magic not working,” I said. “Good thing I didn’t bring any.”

  I pulled the trigger. My revolver barked thunder and spat yellow lightning.

  Thorkel fell backward, ass over elbows, fancy boots showing me their heels. I shot him again, and again, and then a final time while he was still rolling and thrashing.

  While I switched pistols, Alfreda snarled and leaped.

  Thorkel grappled with her. She flailed and bit and made an ugly gurgling sound that ended with a wet pop and a hoarse scream.

  Thorkel rose to his knees and threw her aside.

  There was blood on his face. His left eye was gone. His coat bore three dark spots.

  But the bastard stood up and raised his cane and opened his mouth to say something I was sure I’d regret hearing.

  I lunged. Alfreda caught him in a bear hug about his knees. I shoved my revolver in his mouth before he could pronounce any magic words.

  He bit down on the barrel. I got my left arm around his head and I fired again in his mouth.

  His remaining eye glazed over. He went limp.

  I let him drop. Alfreda was on him as he fell, clawing at his ruined face with her paper-white fingers.

  I snatched up his cane. It still throbbed a deep blood red. On a whim, I touched it to Buttercup’s mirror.

  Nothing happened. Buttercup managed to turn her face toward the glass, and I saw her bright blue eye peek out at me through the doll’s moving hair.