The Accidental Highwayman (24 page)

I was just finishing up the third hoof when the door of the wagon swung open, spilling light across the ground. Lily was in the doorway.

“Morgana,” said she. “My sweet Morgana. How I've missed your company. Come, I wish to give you a gift. To make up for my terrible behavior.”

Morgana turned from her whispering. She was as surprised as I.

“A gift? I desire only to enjoy your good opinion. That is gift enough,” she said, and delivered one last command to whomever was in the branches of the tree. She stepped into the tail of the light from the door, so that it seemed to form a glowing pathway between them.

“Oh please, dear,” Lily implored. “'Tis human to give presents as tokens of our love.”

“Only,” said Morgana, “if I may give you a present in return.”

Given Morgana's mood, it wouldn't have surprised me if she'd handed Lily a purse of plenty—and left her on a moor somewhere, wealthy and alone. I'd altogether forgotten about Midnight's feet, so interested was I in this turn of events.

“We shall exchange tokens of our affection, then. And you'll forgive me if you will, and as I pray,” Lily said. Morgana hesitated only a moment, then walked up the illuminated path to the door and mounted the steps. The door clapped shut behind her, the light was snipped off, and I stood there by the glow of my tallow wondering what on earth had come over Lily of late. She seemed to swing between extremes, like a pendulum.

I'd returned to Midnight's hooves, and was describing features of tomorrow's performance to him, when I heard a distinct
thump
from the wagon.

“The deuce!” cried Uncle Cornelius from within his compartment.

Then there was a scream of terror, and I ran like blazes for the door.

The latch was locked. I could not lift it. Inside the wagon there were sounds of a struggle, and the entire conveyance rocked on its frame.

“Morgana!” I cried, and “Lily!” for good measure.

Willum streaked around the corner of the wagon and clung to the nose of a carved sphinx aside the door, to which I was now applying my shoulder.

“Back door is sealed,” he panted. “None of my comprimaunts will open it!”

“Try the windows,” said I, for they were too small to admit me, but ample for him.

“Sealed as well. The entire boat's been hexed!”

“Gruntle?”

“He was with me. He's trying to find a way in from underneath.”

“We simply must get in,” I cried, for the sounds of struggle were renewed. I distinctly heard Morgana shouting in pain, and Lily's voice was unrecognizable, growling and cursing.

Just then, who should come hurtling out of the darkness but Fred, a pheasant in his jaws.

Without breaking his four-legged stride, he spat the bird out, flung himself into the air, and crashed through the side-window like a cliff-diver plunging into a puddle.

There was a tremendous noise within, a chorus of shrill screams, and a moment later the latch was lifted and I nearly tore the door from its hinges in my frenzy to gain entrance to the compartment.

Fred threw himself outside with as much haste as I threw myself inside, and in a trice I saw why. Evil had entered our snug refuge.

There was chaos within. Every article of furniture had been overturned and the floor was strewn with wreckage. Lily and Morgana were struggling desperately. Their clothes were torn and their hair awry. Lily was stretched across the floor, gripping Morgana's ankle, trying to pull her toward the door. Morgana was at the back of the cabin, struggling with her hip against the table and her hands pressed to the bulkhead, trying to push herself away, but some force was dragging her against it. In the opening of the bulkhead leading to Cornelius's compartment was the old gentleman himself, sprawled on the floor with the heavy curtain pulled down over him.

In the first instant I could not understand the meaning of the tableau. But then, as Morgana twisted and fought, I saw there was something between her and the wall.

It was a human arm.

The limb gleamed strangely, glittering in the light of the swaying lamps. It was a woman's arm, the fingers knotted in Morgana's hair. A strong woman, for I saw muscles flexing beneath its shining skin, dragging Morgana inexorably toward the looking glass.

It was this from which the arm had emerged, like a serpent slithering from a hole. I saw that the crown of Morgana's head was only a handsbreadth from the plane of the mirror, the disembodied arm drawing her into its depths. There wasn't an instant to lose.

I clambered over Lily's prostrate form and grabbed Morgana's hair, closer to her head than the mirror-surfaced hand. I felt the fingers of it, hard and cold. Like glass. With all my strength, I pulled. Morgana cried out, and it wrenched my heart to hear her pain. But the strength of that arm was incredible.

“Willum!” cried I. “Can you enter?”

“I cannot,” he shouted. “The caprizel still holds!”

There had to be another way. “Lily! Find the scissors, or my razor. We must cut off her hair!”

But Lily could do nothing, for she had knocked herself senseless against the corner of the stool. Morgana writhed like a speared fish, I strained against the apparition in the looking glass to no avail, and nothing seemed possible.

But then—it was a looking glass. Unless there was some mirrored creature on the other side of the bulkhead, reaching through, then the magical effect ended at the silver behind the glass. I dared free one hand from Morgana's hair and grasped the frame of the looking glass. It was perfectly free, attached only by a nail. I pulled it from the wall.

In a trice, the mighty strength in the arm was rendered useless; without the bulkhead to anchor it, it hung from Morgana's head uselessly. Still clinging to the frame of the glass, I carried the thing to the door, with Morgana in tow behind me. Now those uncanny fingers were crawling up through her hair, trying to reach her head—to crush it, or for what purpose, I knew not. Snatching up a fragment of porcelain from a broken teacup, I slashed at the princess's hair, chopping away at it in the very narrow space between scalp and mirrored fingers. I could see my own reflection in the hand, distorted and flung back in countless facets.

Then it was free. There was a painful popping sound as I tore the remaining strands from Morgana's head, and I had the looking glass in my hands with the arm projecting from it. Morgana fell back across Lily, clutching her injured scalp, her strength gone.

I dashed down the steps of the wagon. The shining hand was clutching at me now. For an instant, I looked into the glass and saw a green face glaring out from
behind
the arm. It was a woman's face, with flaming red hair that leapt up, and across one eye was strapped a patch of black leather. Such hatred I saw in the remaining eye! It froze my blood.

I flung the grotesque object into the darkness. It sparkled as it flew, the arm flailing, fingers outstretched. I saw black clumps of Morgana's hair fluttering along behind it.

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

T
HE 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?”