The Moon Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans

by Raymond St. Elmo

  I supposed Howl could see in this mirk. Till he stumbled into an ancient stand of armor, set the thing tumbling for a hail of tin pots on stone floor. I felt a certain satisfaction to hear his curses. At least we walked equally blind. Through halls of a haunted castle, granted.

  “Damnation,” he declared. “We need light. Well, I smell a burning candle. To the side hall. Doe’s chamber, I think. Ah, you’d best wait here.”

  If he could see little better than I, he could still scent a path. I fingered my much-broken nose. What a gift, turning one’s face to wolf-muzzle as needed. To wander the night knowing a reality hidden to uninitiates. Adding wolf ears, one could hear each thing creeping and breathing, tiptoeing, lurking. Excellent talent in the forests of war.

  I reconsidered. The wolves in France had spied from hiding, hungry, wary and weary. Exactly as the soldiers running through the same forests and fields. No, life’s gifts offered no security but to live with one’s back to the wall, sword before one; waiting, watching.

  So I put my back against the wall, rapier ready, waiting, watching. Howl’s steps faded down a side-passage. I considered tiptoeing after him. But I bear more scars from friends in night-battle, than ever the enemy gave me. No, let the werewolf fetch light. I listened for the echo of music. I caught the faint sound of mice scrabbling. A muttering that might be wind, though I felt no motion of air.

  The wraiths in the courtyard outside; could they follow? Perhaps they had. I might stand now in a sea of unseen spirits. Equally possible any moment of my life. Perhaps every dull day we slog through a crowd of the things. Why should it matter? Well, because now I had seen those gasping mouths, the egg-shell eyes. My life became strange of late. Who knew marriage could so change a man’s world?

  I cursed the idiot whim that tempted me to extinguish the candles. Whim, wine, and the desire to impress Chatterton’s angel. Where had she gone? Had she led me to Howl for some divine purpose? To pull the boy from dark thoughts? But wings did not an angel make. Devils and sparrows had these appendages. Just as likely she’d sought to lure me into dark thoughts. If so, here I was. In the dark, thinking.

  “No light,” sighed Howl’s voice beside me. I did not leap in alarm, nor strike in panic. A lesser spadassin would have done both. I merely nodded impressed. The man had come upon me soundless as thought. His words did not surprise. Of course we were doomed to clatter in comedy about castle halls, no doubt passing through horrors to freeze the blood, could one see them.

  “Then we follow your nose to fire and mutton,” I sighed to the unseen. With further consideration and a lick to lips I added, “And that hell-brew of intoxication your sea-cousins bottle.”

  “Why, this way then” he replied, and stepped away. Feet now loud upon the stones. How helpful. I stifled a shiver and followed, tapping before me with rapier. And now I did feel wind; a faint chill wafting. We made turns that confounded memory. What a warren was my wedding-present castle. I’d need a week to learn it. Which required I survive the week.

  “I don’t remember these stairs,” I remarked, after some while.

  “Hmm,” replied my guide. He loped up steps as though four-footed. Likely enough he now so stood. I hurried after, disinclined to linger, sensing something wrong. Faint hairs brushed my face, I lashed out, grabbed sticky strands. Cobwebs.

  “We can’t have come this way,” I observed, drawing knife with my free hand.

  “No?” Howl replied, unconcerned.

  “And I don’t recall that smell,” I added. Yet I did, from years past. A familiar stench, the very essence of the corpse-well.

  “Smell?” The voice asked. Not really bothering to sound like Howl anymore. This tone came higher, lighter, all but breathless.

  “I don’t remember you being so taciturn, either.”

  “No?”

  “Rayne?” called a distant voice echoing down the halls. Howl, of course.

  It struck then. Pushing the rapier aside, wanting to grapple. But my left hand held knife ready; close and low. I stabbed upwards into something soft and wet as rotted fruit. We tumbled back, the thing falling upon me. A cold flabby creature with grappling hands of steel. But the fall drove the knife deeper. The thing gasped. I rolled, pushing it with both feet. The thing released my throat to gibber and thrash. I abandoned the knife, scrambled up, staggered away. It scrabbled after me. I heard no feet. It sounded to be wiggling. If I came to stairs I’d fall, break my neck. Preferable to re-encountering the creature. I crashed into a wall, put back to it, edged along the hall and away.

  The handle of a door. I tugged it open, darted in, slammed it shut, pressing body and soul to keep it shut. I studied the wood grain of the door. Thick, age-blackened oak. Excellent. Webs of scratches across the surface, as if a host of weak fingers had sought to scratch their way out. Not quite so excellent.

  I studied the scratches, realized I could see. The room behind must hold light. No sound beyond the door, nor within the room, save my panting breath. I readied myself to turn and face horrors. Well, I have faced horrors before. And overcome. Best get this new set faced and done.

  Yes, best get this done, I reminded myself. A few more times. Then turned.

  Behold a bedroom of faded silk. Heavy curtains, thick rugs, a great four-poster bed shrouded in hangings. All of it… pink. Bright light from a lamp on a tea-table glowed bright welcome. In a great pink chair sat a small pink child, clad in pink night-dress. She stared at me unblinking as a doll.

  “Flower?” I almost asked. It seemed a smaller version of the tangle-haired waif I’d known in Londonish. But no, here was only family resemblance.

  The doll-creature smiled, making a pleasant beginning. Still, I shivered. It disconcerted to encounter pink politeness in this castle of mad dark. No doubt she waited to catch me off guard. Then she’d exude tentacles, leap with razor teeth. I considered attacking first.

  She climbed down from the chair, adjusted her dress. Turned head to the side, staring at me. Then curtsied. I blinked, considered what she welcomed. A man bursting into her chamber with mad face, rapier in hand. Gore-splashed from whatever still bled and wiggled outside.

  Ah, well. She reminded so of Flower, we could not commence slaughterous. I sheathed sword, bowed to match the curtsy; and perhaps I caught a glance of surprise in the girl’s features. If it was a girl. Arms and legs might pass for a child’s. But the face seemed the flawless porcelain of a doll or statue. Excepting faint twitches to eyes and lips.

  Amenities satisfied, she sat upon the floor at the head of the low table. Patted at a place beside her, where waited a dusty plate, a dusty cup. Now she spoke. A high girl’s voice with neither hint nor shimmer of supernatural. For a moment I could not follow the words. Then understood.

  “Voulez-vous une tasse de thé?” she inquired, lifting a porcelain pot near big as her head.

  I listened for sound beyond the door. Nothing. I would confiscate the lamp, make my way back to the Great Hall. Back to fire and cheer, wine and mutton. If it hadn’t all been consumed. A horrible thought. And yet, letting the thing beyond the door bleed awhile seemed good strategy. Therefore did the Seraph sit himself to tea and dust.

  “Merci beaucoup,” I responded. Difficult to sit at a child’s table. Kneeling does not allow for sudden defense. Squatting is uncomfortable. I settled for tailor-fashion. Knees jutting out absurdly, compared to the compact form of the doll-child. An ancient wardrobe against the wall gave a view of my face in yellowed glass. Excellent, I could keep an eye behind as well.

  I held out the dusty cup. The doll-child nodded, tipped the tea-pot spout over the rim. She waited a bit, then satisfied that I had a proper amount of conceptual tea, put down the pot.

  Had I ever pretended so as a child? Not that I could recall; or believe. I’d gone from the woods of Maidenhead to the taverns of Londonish without attending a single play tea. I felt no loss. My childhood had been, in the main, glorious. I’d won all my fights, mastered Latin, charmed girls old as fourteen. Who ne
eded play tea-parties?

  The doll-child now proffered sugar-bowl and cream-pot. The bowl held tracery and lacery of cobweb within; centered with the mummy of some great Pharaoh of the Spiders. I tapped spoon to the web, emptied the fantasy sugar into my cup. But I declined the cream. It spoils the flavor of good tea.

  Next came an empty pastry plate. “Biscuit?” offered my hostess. I considered the imaginary assortment, deciding on a sugar-cookie rather than the chocolate pastry. Not that either existed. But in the spirit of things I pictured the choices, hesitated, then placed mine beside the cup. Ears caught faint whispering of wind; yet I could see no movement in drapings nor bed curtains.

  “Now let us enjoy pleasant conversation,” declared the child grandly. En Anglais, marked with accent more of time than place. “Clearly you have been at adventures.” The creature put china cup to porcelain lips, pretended to sip. “Do please share a bit of the tale.”

  I considered, taking a dusty sip. I knew from bitter experience: success at tea depends upon avoiding the faux pas of inappropriate topic. Nothing of politics or betrayals. Or beds. My sentencing to hang? Anti-climactic, I’d escaped. Perhaps the fight with pirate mummers upon a bridge? But no, the Harlequins were probably cousins to this waif. Avoid family quarrels.

  I wondered if Lalena had yet noted my absence from her family clatter of clan-politics. By now she must have reached for my hand, touched emptiness instead of love. She’d look about in alarm. Ha. Served her right.

  “I find myself recently married,” I declared. “A strange adventure, that. Can you imagine beginning to learn to know someone only after you have pledged them all your life and heart?”

  The doll-child considered this question, taking a bite of her imagined pastry. Shook pale doll locks, as if the business threw her. As it should, she being child. I wiped a bit of imaginary crumb from my lip.

  “She and I are two nations deciding our borders. Just preparing for bed takes compromise and diplomacy. We have entirely different sleeping habits. Lalena’s vampiric, I’m a spadassin. She always slept by day, I always slept sword at hand. But doing so now would seem I lack faith that she will not bite my throat away. As she so loves me, she struggles to sleep by night, while I lay me down weaponless.” I shook my head. “We both toss and turn.”

  Granted, that was not all we did in bed. Definitely an inappropriate topic at tea. I reached for another sugar-cookie. Was that rude? They were imaginary, surely then, enough for all. While the doll-child considered my words. At length she leaned close, whispered her thoughts. “You are a rather unusual visitor,” she confided.

  I sighed. I never sail the tempest of tea without foundering upon some reef of polite conversation. Aldermen’s wives, majesters’ mothers, the occasional duchess and such. They raise and lower eyebrows in semaphore signals: barbarian on the couch. Probably I’d violated order and rules again. The business always confounded my colonial soul. This pastry only, with that delicacy only, in this sequence only. Bah.

  No doubt sitting to tea while spattered with the blood of a night-haunt counted for another faux pas. I checked the mirror. The wardrobe glass shone yellow as parchment from long years loyally serving light. It seemed to ripple, water-like. No, like a pond surface beneath which fish-schools swarm. I studied it, pretending to munch another sugar cookie.

  Ghost faces pressed against the glass. Well, that made little surprise. Only these wraiths hammered shadow-fists impotently, sealed safe behind reflection. They stared at me mouthing shouts, moans and warnings. I continued to munch the sugar cookie. It’d leave a white snow frosting on my mustache.

  “Moi, I have never married,” lamented my hostess. A child’s imitation of adult ennui. So similar to Flower’s grandiose declarations. She stirred the dust of her tea-cup with a blackened moon-sliver of silver spoon. “But I have my gentlemen courtiers. Those that enter from time to time. Quite different from you. So dull! They never want to talk of life and art. They just demand to be let out.”

  A cut-glass vase centered the table. From it poked a skeleton of a stem. I reached to it, fingered the thorn. It fell to dust. A long time past, that blossom’s spring. Time to leave myself. I finished my sugar cookie, drained the tea cup, feeling refreshed. I stood.

  “They sound total bores,” I sympathized. “But I promise to visit again.” I followed that with a bow. “I shall regale you with tales of marriage to curdle the blood and open wide your porcelain eyes. But now I must be off.”

  The doll-child smiled, sipped tea, shook head. She did not bother to rise. “Oh no, monsieur. You cannot leave. We have hours and days and weeks to finish our tea.”

  The creatures in the mirror covered faces with hands, hiding their eyes but not their despair. I turned towards the door, expecting to find it gone. There would be blank wall, as in a dream just edging into nightmare. But no, the door remained.

  “It will not open, monsieur,” the pink-child assured me. “This is my chamber, you are my guest. Only the master of the castle may dispute my right, and the last long departed to dust and roses. You shall stay, as all my visitors do. But you must go into the mirror only when you grow wearisome. More tea?”

  I strode to the door, reached, pulled. Against all expectation of nightmare premonition, the door opened as any door. Neither locked, nor magically sealed. I turned to the girl, showing a politely quizzical look. Inwardly I rejoiced. The doll-girl swore, not at all lady-like. Her turn to make a faux pas.

  “Mierde. How?” She jumped up. Her movement fast, fluid, yet failing full humanity. She was a puppet-creature, animated by something else. Just as well, not to know what.

  How indeed? I wondered. A thought occurred. At my belt hung the ring of iron keys, gift from out the sea. The answer, obviously. “I find myself the master of the castle,” I explained, jangling these tokens. “A wedding present. Not the usual silverware set.”

  She crossed arms, stamped foot. Turned away. The faces in the mirror pressed to the glass astonished. I backed towards the door, ready to flee this pink damnation. Gave a last look at the doll-child, lest she follow.

  But no, she stood forlorn, arms hanging down, hair hanging down. Gaze to the dusty tea table. She looked so like Lalena, and also Flower. Family for sure. Creatures apart, incomprehensible in their sorrows and joys and mysteries; yet not unappreciable. What a lonely child’s mind was this pink cell. I felt for the rose in the tuck of my collar. I stepped to the tea table, placed the stem in the cut crystal vase. There it glowed red as Lalena’s lips.

  The doll-creature stared wide-eyed; at it, at me, at it. “Oh,” she said at last, holding a hand over the bloom to feel its scarlet fire. I gave a final nod. She hesitated, looked to me; then curtsied again. I returned to the dark hall, rapier ready.

  Chapter 11

  The World is Made of Faces

  The door slammed shut behind. Was not me that closed it, I needed the light. Now I stood dark-drowning again. I tugged the handle. Pointless formality, naught budged. It might have been a door painted onto stone. Perhaps it was. And the mad pink bed-chamber beyond? Mere delirium. This castle was the demesne of people who walked in dream as much as life. Who knew which door opened to what reality? Not I.

  Doubtless the castle held stairways to airy voids where dreams completed the architecture. Those of the family danced on faery floor, while my heavier race plummeted screaming to the familiar dirt. Yes, and there would be hallways ending at blank walls, confounding dullards to pass. The true-blooded would march into bright chambers, chatting with kindred ghosts and shadows. Here and there would be frames of window my mortal eye judged blank brick. But the Folk would stare beyond, beholding forest and field where fox cubs and unicorns gamboled.

  I had rushed my mortal clay from the right, leaving behind a monster half-gutted. Thus the left way now appealed, whether it led to dream, void or brick wall. Go left, then, man. Else wait here for dawn. I felt drafts. A window must be hereabouts… But no. Linger here and morning light would reveal a white
-haired creature huddled into a ball, gibbering of horrors, tea and walls.

  I went left, tapping with the blade. Once I struck something that rang a silvery chime; one spine-shivering, eerie note. A great glass gong, I imagined. Or a shield all of crystal, part of a set of magic armor. The sword would be an icicle wonder. I did not investigate. Next I tapped something that snarled, ran with claws skittering stone and wood. It cursed at me in chitters.

  At some turn of hall I began to suspect someone walked beside me. I wondered, doubted, at last reached conclusion. Yes. Someone walked beside me. Not the conclusion I wished. But the admission made the presence obvious. As if acknowledging ‘you exist’ thereby summoned them from the night-sea of possibilities. Now I felt a flow of air, heard a sigh of breath, the faint click of heel on stone. One more companion on the dark road.

  “In all truth,” I sighed to my mysterious companion, “either this castle is vast as the Great Cathedral or I wander in circles.”

  The unseen personage sniffed, then spoke.

  “Truth?” he intoned. “Nowadays, one declares truths. We carry them in our mouths as squirrels with nuts. Else we print them. A clatter of paper and ink, and behold! A captured Truth. Matters naught whether hard truth or simple fact. The paper weighs the same. A boy waves the boulder ‘Life is hard’ above his head. While a grown man struggles to lift the sand-grain fact that his mirror shows a fool.”

  Ah, I knew this voice, this academic declamation. Lalena’s uncle, the Birdman. The very patriarch who gifted us this castle. No doubt he held thumbs behind lapels of his frock coat now, instructing dust and dark to their edification. I shuddered. I knew that next he would inform of how things were done right, in his day.