The Accidental Highwayman (30 page)

As I was pulling on my boots for the performance, Uncle Cornelius sat down beside me with his pipe. “Have you a brimstone match?” he asked. I was certain I did, and felt in my weskit pockets. But instead of a match, I found something long and sharp.

I drew the object out: it was that accursed tooth of Magda's! With a gasp, I flung the bit of bone away from me.

“You can't light a pipe with that,” Uncle Cornelius said. “Do you take snuff
*
, Li-Chang?”

I confessed that I did not. Uncle Cornelius told me I was mistaken, for he'd seen me take it only the previous day when we performed at Vienna. Then I recalled I did have my master's snuffbox still, in one of the saddlebags, and so was able to meet his request.

The old man thrust a generous pinch of the stuff up his nostril with an almighty snort. His rheumy old eyes rolled up into his head, his bristling white brows flew halfway over the top of his gleaming skull, and then he bent his mouth into a shape expressive of horror and delight at once. Thus composed, he hung in that position for several seconds as a ball, thrown straight up, seems to hang at the very apex of its flight before beginning its descent.

Then the suspense was shattered by a colossal explosion: He sneezed with such violence that his head shot down where his knees should have been, and his knees shot up to fill the void left by his head. Once all of his parts had returned to their customary positions by a process of subsidence, a matter of about half a minute, he wiped his eyes with his handkerchief, said, “Bless my Turkish slippers,” and took another pinch.

Then rush torches and lanterns were lit around the square. It was time for the show to begin.

 

Chapter 30

THE FINAL PERFORMANCE

C
ORNELIUS ANNOUNCED
us as vigorously as ever, and Lily and Fred did their comic turn; for the discerning members of the gathered crowd, there was a hint of
tristesse
or sadness that loaned the comedy sweetness and made it all the more charming. Willum and Gruntle were across the square, where they could perform their puppet show and watch the city gate at the same time, and Morgana was fortune-telling at the stoop of the wagon, watching the other side of the square, where there were several outlets.

Midnight acquitted himself well; my own thoughts were in such a jumble I hardly knew what I was doing, but if my performance lacked precision, at least I didn't fall to the cobblestones. Then Uncle Cornelius delivered his monologue, and I discovered we had left one consideration entirely out of our plans: the possibility that the old gentleman might describe something accurately.

Until that moment, he had betrayed nothing of his unusual companions, nor spoken of the strange things he'd seen the last couple of weeks. We had ceased to guard against it. But this night, halfway through his rambling speech, he began to tell all.

“—As the Dauphin will attest, my merry company and I were rolling along the road between Paris and Versailles in this selfsame little dogcart. We had paused for a pinch of snuff, when what should appear from out of the sky but ugly warlike creatures astride the backs of giant winged serpents—may Jupiter anoint my collar with mustard if I tell a single word untrue!”

The crowd thought it was all in good fun, and most folks laughed fit to burst their buttons. We fellow players were less amused. I motioned to Morgana to cease her reading of fortunes. She joined me beside Midnight for a whispered convocation while Lily made desperate throat-cutting gestures to her uncle from the foot of the bank upon which he stood.

Uncle Cornelius ignored her, and went on. “So these creatures—they might have been gryphons, or basilisks, I know not what—spake most haughtily to me, and demanded to know where my companions were. I told them not a word! Not a word, lest they trouble the ladies present. Well, my friends, off they went, and I didn't see them again. They think I travel alone, or rather, alone except for Fred the baboon. He's the one that drove them off, you see, with his stern countenance. Show them your countenance, Fred.”

With impeccable comedic timing, Fred, who was seated at one end of the boards, happened to yawn. He showed his tremendous teeth and the laughter was tumultuous. Meanwhile, Lily was ascending to her tightrope prematurely, in hope of cutting her uncle's monologue short.

“I'm told there are pixies about, as well,” Uncle Cornelius went on, “and that my fortune-teller is really a Faerie princess! Some people call me mad, but I'm the only sane person here.”

He might have gone on in this vein, except that Lily began to sing from atop the rope, as loud as she was able, a popular local ditty. Uncle Cornelius was outraged—he'd been upstaged for the first time in three decades. But he had scarcely begun to complain when a flickering green glow lit up the rooftops and the low clouds. Then a dread horn rang out. There was a rumble of thunder, or the voices of giants; it was hard to tell which. A brief silence commanded the crowd. Then we heard the scream of a gryphon.

The scene that followed was pandemonium, and I can only claim to have witnessed it in glimpses, as a fellow falling through a glass window might catch glimpses of the scene around him reflected in the broken shards. But I will attempt to reconstruct what happened.

After that first supernatural wail, there was a hissing in the air, and a kind of smoke seemed to arch up over the rooftops, and then come down; by the time it reached the crowd, it was not a vapor at all, but a hail of pixie arrows. In a trice the spectators all about were screaming. The tiny darts were not capable of much injury to human beings, but they stung like wasp's tails, as I well knew, and enough of them would drive a victim 'round the bend.

Everyone was at once running for their lives and clawing at the places where they had been stuck with the missiles. People snatched up children, horses bolted, and Uncle Cornelius's stage was overturned, with him aboard. Torches were struck down and fires leapt up around the margins of the square. Giant shadows leapt over the walls. Then a strike of gryphons wheeled into view and descended upon the square.

These creatures were caparisoned in silver and green, with the Faerie King's crest upon their flanks. Their claws smote sparks from the cobblestones and their beaks snapped like meat-axes, menacing any who remained in the square. The goblings upon them wore bright armor, with helmets fashioned into grimacing faces even more fearsome than their own. The officer at their fore spied Morgana in a trice, and pointed his great spear at her. She pressed herself into my side.

“There's the royal whelp! Take her, and slay any manling gets between!”

Could I but get Morgana into the wagon, she might yet escape, for the goblings could not seize her. So the manling between would be me, if it came to that.

“Come with me, quick as you can,” I said. But she held me back.

“Something else approaches,” she cried.

It was true: a cold fog came pouring in a tide through the city gates and over the rooftops. It extinguished the heat of the world and crawled across the ground like a living thing. I recognized it: The same fog had swallowed up the Duchess's gryphons.

But flying upon the tide of vapor came something worse than gryphons. Half man, half eagle, and neither half any credit to its origins, they stooped down upon the fleeing crowd with deep, roaring voices. Twice man-size, their heads were bald and red, with yellow eyes and hooked, beaklike noses so large that they possessed no upper lip. They had no legs, but powerful humanlike arms with long, scaly talons outstretched before them; vast shining wings feathered like a vulture's bore them up. Six of the apparitions there were. They snapped and shrieked as their wings beat the air, and whosoever had not panicked before was panicking now.

This new arrival had thrown the King's goblings into confusion. I caught up Morgana's hand and ran with her through a litter of abandoned hats and spilled market baskets; the crowd was pressed up all around the egresses from the square, struggling in the icy vapor, and we were caught out in the open.

“Mantigorns,” Morgana cried. “Only the Duchess could command their like. We are caught between fearsome enemies, Kit.”

The mantigorns came to ground opposite the king's gryphons, each upon one of their hands, the elbows tucked against their bodies, so that they could claw and snatch at terrified humans with the other. But they weren't interested in the masses. They were looking for someone.

“There!” the largest of the mantigorns bellowed, and pointed at us, who stood between the two dreadful forces. A moment later they had drawn weapons from quivers between their wings, and javelins rattled to the stones about our feet by way of a warning. We were but halfway to the wagon. I saw Lily in the background near the wagon, hanging from the tightrope, one leg and one hand hooked around it so she could pull the cruel pixie arrows from her exposed flesh.

In the next moment the swarm of pixies arrived, and there was no opportunity to look to the others. These creatures were in such a warlike frenzy they were manifested only as streaks of greenish light and shrill, fierce cries.

A mêlée broke out: The mantigorns were beset by the fearless pixies, which gave the gryphons courage to attack. The two grotesque forces came together with a crash and the roar of a hundred lions. Gryphons slashed with claw and beak. Mantigorns tore with their hook-nailed hands and stabbed at their foes with javelins. The goblings thrust with their lances. The entire scene was lit red with leaping flame and ringed about with terrified, screaming people.

I pulled Morgana along, skirting the combat. The stones beneath our feet shook with the violence of the struggling monsters. We reached the wagon—but too late.

One of the gryphon-riders had been unseated, and saw us in our flight across the square. Now he leapt between us and the caravan door, brandishing an ugly sword with teeth cut into the blade.

“You dies and she comes along,” said the gobling.

I caught up a sword that stood against the wagon. “I'll distract him—you get within,” I whispered to Morgana. Then I cried, “Have at you,” and raised my blade.

Our blades met, and it might have been the shortest duel in the entire history of the world. For the weapon in my hand was not my own, but Uncle Cornelius's, which you will recall was made of wood. It broke off at the hilt and flew away. I'd have died at the very next sword stroke, except the gobling was so overcome with mirth that he couldn't swing again. I suppose that sort of thing is funny to goblings. In the brief delay, I plunged my hand into my pocket, scooping up a fistful of gold coins. I flung them directly into the braying gobling's mouth. The unfortunate creature's head exploded.

[   
The Dread Mantigorn
   ]

I spun about to get Morgana safely inside the wagon, but she wasn't there. Instead, she stood upon one of the barrels that had recently supported the stage. I rushed to her side and reached up to hand her down; she took my fingers in hers, and shook her head. Then she turned to the enraged creatures tearing each other to pieces in the square.

“My people,” said Morgana, to some other world. A strange wind was tossing her hair and skirts about; her eyes were like silver mirrors set with green jewels. I saw she was illuminated from within, as I'd first seen her. “We have forgotten our way. This is man's way.”

She rose up to her full height, or more, as it seemed to me, and I released her hand. She thrust her arms out to her sides, and the light about her formed glowing serpents and phantoms; great iridescent wings of light appeared at her shoulders, and the entire square burned with the brightness of her. Long shadows were cast behind the mantigorns and gryphons. They cowered in the brilliant glow, but their blood was up; they turned on her again.

“That's but a parlor trick!” the leader of the goblings roared. “By order of King Elgeron of the Middle Kingdom, Liege of the Faerie Realm, you shall come away or
all
shall perish!”

Then a great dark shape obscured my sight, an enormous claw grasped my waist, and I was flung through the air. I crashed across the top of the wagon, knocked half senseless, but with wits enough to see there were three of the mantigorns advancing toward Morgana, striding upon their taloned hands.

“Curse your King,” the largest mantigorn bellowed. “In the name of the Duchess, she is mine!”

Both sides rushed at Morgana now. She stood there like a burning beacon, her face fierce and proud, and then the creatures were upon her.

Her brilliant light went out, all at once. I was beset by pixies at the same moment, who now stabbed at me with tiny knives made of fox teeth so that I was struggling wildly; then I fell from the caravan roof and was briefly free of them. I cried Morgana's name, and despite all the chaos and noise, I think she heard me across the square; for she looked for me, and our eyes were joined again.
My love,
I thought.
Good-bye.
There would be no more buttered toast for us.