My blood ran cold as I listened to her words. I glanced at the blank faces of the puppets, seemingly unaware of what was taking place before them. ‘But you killed them!’ I said, the only words I could bring myself to speak.
‘I had no choice,’ Claribel repeated, her voice rising slightly with annoyance at my lack of agreement. ‘’Tis not the means I would have chosen, but it was justified. ‘Tis not as though I didn’t give them the chance to assist me. I went to the Bookish Magician first and pleaded for his help. He refused, so I bound him and searched for the book of puppetry myself. ’Twas not something I relished, but sometimes we must take difficult actions for the greater good. In this very forest Queen Blanche took the greatest action in the history of magic to prevent its destruction. She foresaw a war of magic would occur if she didn’t act. Now I must do the same, and you can help me.’
She gestured for one of the puppets to step forward, and I realised with horror that I recognised him.
‘Professor Goldwick!’ I cried.
‘You made a puppet of your own father! Oh for shame! What monster are you that would do such a thing?!’ cried Eliza.
‘I loved my father dearly, but he made his choice. I was not going to let him stand in my way,’ Claribel replied flatly.
She took a step towards Professor Goldwick and pulled back the velvet cloth covering the object clasped between his hands. At first glance it looked much like an ordinary sand timer, except for the clock cogs and springs at its side which were turning slowly as the sand trickled into the bottom chamber.
‘Do you recognise this?’ Claribel asked.
Eliza and I shook our heads.
‘This is Anna Perenna,’ she continued, ‘the Watchmaker’s masterpiece, a creation I’m sure you’ll agree it would be a travesty to lose to the unrelenting scourge of science. Do you recall the message on the headstone, and the weathervane directing you to St. Bride’s churchyard, Tom? I’m sure you truly believed they came from Ambrose Ruddle. They did not. Anna Perenna created them to draw you to Emerson, then to Jack and finally to me. Do you see this cog here? It winds down to any predetermined event envisaged by her keeper. In Anna Perenna’s glass I see everything that passes until the sand in the top chamber has emptied into the bottom and the event comes to pass. I’m afraid you haven’t much time left.’
‘Until what?’ I murmured weakly.
‘Until Emerson walks into this clearing and I make puppets of you both,’ Claribel replied. ‘And then, with the puppets of the tournament, I will have the powers of every great magician in Europe for my army.’
She spoke proudly, as one who had already achieved a great victory, but then suddenly her face softened, and her voice fell. ‘You ought not resist, Tom,’ she said. ‘Whatever darkness was within you before William Devere branded you has been magnified tenfold. How many times have you wished yourself dead just to escape the nightmares and the grief and fury you feel? I can save you from that which you fear the most. I can make you fear nothing and feel nothing. Let me make a puppet of you.’
‘Never,’ I whispered.
Claribel sighed and stepped towards me, but her presence wasn’t threatening, and she extended her hand in a gesture of friendship. Her eyes were filled with sadness and pity. ‘Your mind is not your own anymore, Tom,’ she said. ‘Everything you see and feel is controlled by William Devere’s spirit. Even your unconscious actions are subject to his control. Don’t you remember what you did to poor Jack Fletcher?’
‘What are you talking about?’ I whispered.
‘You killed him, Tom,’ said Claribel quietly. ‘I saw it all in Anna Perenna. Oh, I know you didn’t choose to, but Devere’s spirit is wicked and hungry for vengeance. It is possessing you through the branding in order to destroy you. You strangled Jack in his sleep and hid his body. Come and see.’
With trembling legs I took a slow step towards Claribel and Mabson and gazed into the upper chamber of Anna Perenna, now almost completely empty. As the remaining sand trickled away, I saw myself in the glass: dead-eyed, my face expressionless, standing over Jack as he slept. I watched in disbelief as I knelt beside him and wrapped my hands about his neck while he struggled and gasped for air. After a minute he lay still. I turned away, unable to bear watching myself drag his lifeless body away into the trees.
‘I’m a monster,’ I whispered, tears trickling down my cheeks.
‘No, Tom,’ said Claribel gently. ‘’Tis Devere’s spirit that is making a monster of you. Let me release you! You can defeat Devere if you let me help you.’
I looked from Claribel to Mabson to the blank faces of the puppets. There was no hope of escape. I turned to Eliza, her face wet with tears. My foolishness had delivered us right into the hands of a murderer. I deserved whatever awful fate awaited me, but not Eliza.
‘At least let Eliza go,’ I said weakly. ‘You have me. Let her go.’
‘No, Tom!’ Eliza screamed.
Chapter 32
Mabson stepped forward and opened the music box. At once the slow eerie chanting I recognised from the churchyard began to play. Instinctively I clamped my hands to my ears, but the chanting seemed to permeate even the very air of the forest, creeping into every crack and crevice. I felt my heart beat slow, my limbs stiffen and my mind deadened and dulled at the monotonous rise and fall of the chanting voice. A force, like strong arms dragging me towards a darkness I did not want to meet, wrestled with me for control of my mind. I struggled with it but it was too strong. There was nothing for it but to yield.
As the incantation overtook me, I was vaguely aware of the dull metallic shine of a knife blade flash past my line of sight, followed quickly by another. They struck Mabson and Claribel, and immediately they slumped to the ground, one knife lodged in Mabson’s neck while Claribel writhed in agony, clutching her side where she had been struck by the other.
‘Take this and keep winding it. And stay back!’ I heard Emerson say to Tabatha as he thrust his music box into her hands.
Before my mind succumbed to the growing darkness, I saw Emerson scramble up the beech tree on the other side of the clearing. In my shock at finding Claribel, Mabson and all the puppets waiting for us, I hadn’t noticed the silver bee hive shimmering amongst its leaves.
As Emerson climbed, he began to chant in a strange language, his voice rising above the words emanating from the music box. I wanted to stop my ears, but I had no control over my muscles. The two chants reverberated in my mind and seemed to battle with one another, one lulling me into submission, the other cutting through me like a blade, sending a burning sensation shooting through every nerve in my body. Something gripped me inside and compressed my chest so that I could barely breathe. Every muscle felt as though it was stretched to breaking point, and my limbs contorted into unnatural shapes by a force other than my own will. I wished it would end. I wanted only to be free of the torment.
At last, when I thought the pain and pressure in my chest would finally kill me, a scream rent the air and the pain subsided. For several moments the sound echoed around the clearing, drowning out even the chanting. The last corner of my mind which was still my own recognised the voice of William Devere and realised to my horror that it came from my own mouth.
Everywhere was still now, and quiet descended upon me like the moments before death. The chanting from the music box continued, but it was distant and no longer filled me with dread. If my mind had been my own at that moment I would have realised that I was almost entirely overcome and just moments away from being transformed into Claribel’s puppet. Instead, I was suspended in a hellish nightmare as the incantation worked its power over me. I stood in the centre of a maze of high hedges with avenues opening out on all sides. Though I could not see them, I sensed Devere and Claribel moving towards me, racing against one another to come and claim me. There was nowhere to run, and no hope of escape. I turned about wildly looking for a place to hide, certain that in a matter of moments one or other of them would catch me.
From out of the darkness a sound reached me unlike anything I had ever heard before. If heaven had a voice, it must surely sound like that; it seemed to pour into my heart and fill me with peace and contentment, and slowly the darkness in my mind lifted. The stiffness in my limbs eased until it disappeared altogether and I was able to raise myself up on my elbow to see across the clearing.
The hive lay on the ground at the foot of the beech tree and a cloud of silver bees swarmed around something beside it. Beside me, Eliza blinked and looked around like one who has woken up in an unfamiliar place, though the scene before her must have seemed at odds with the sweet and gentle music which filled the clearing. Mabson lay dead, killed outright by Tabatha’s knife, but Claribel, revived by the hum of the bees, staggered to her feet and grabbed the music box. I stood up and found that my limbs felt stronger than the fogginess of my mind suggested. I moved to chase after her but was halted by a sickening scream.
‘Emerson!’ Tabatha cried.
I turned to see that the swarm of bees had passed into the trees, and beside the empty hive Emerson lay still, every visible piece of his flesh covered in red wheals where he had been stung. Tabatha rushed towards him, swatting away the last of the bees yet to disperse. She cradled his head in her lap and urged him to wake, her pleas becoming gradually more desperate as they were met with silence. Then she collapsed beside him and began to weep uncontrollably.
My stomach churned and every thought and feeling seemed muddled. I glanced at Eliza. She was dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. I felt wretched; I had imagined Emerson’s death so many times, but now that it had come there was no joy or relief to be gleaned from it. Guilt at having suspected him, at having led him to his death, weighed down upon me, and though I would never have believed it before, I wished now that I could swap places with him.
At last Tabatha sat up and brushed the tears from her eyes. ‘He’s gone,’ she said with some effort, her voice hoarse from weeping. ‘We will come back for him, but we have a job to finish first.’
Caught up in my thoughts, I had quite forgotten about Claribel. She still had the music box, and every magician at the tournament was still unaware of the Puppeteer making her way towards them.
We followed the blood trail through the trees for what seemed like hours as the forest around us grew lighter. My heart raced at the thought of arriving too late, and images of George, Bridget and Eliza’s father with the same leather mask and lifeless expression as the puppets forced their way into my mind as I ran, then I wished the trees would just melt away and the tourney glade would open out before us.
In reality, dawn hadn’t long passed when the trees began to thin out and we stumbled suddenly out of the forest and into a huge meadow surrounded by trees, in the middle of which stood a grey stone castle. All around it, tents of many colours had been erected, their flags billowing softly in the breeze of midsummer morning. There was no sign of any one of the Guild or the other magicians, but on the far side of the glade Claribel stood with the music box in her hands.
I watched in horror as she began to open the lid. With the tents standing between us, there was no hope of stopping her before the chanting began. It seemed a miserable ending for everyone, with Jack and Emerson dead, and Tabatha, Eliza and every magician in the tourney glade to be turned into Claribel’s puppets. In a split second I wondered how different things might have been if I had trusted Emerson, then a wave of guilt swept over me. I already had his and Jack’s blood on my hands, now it looked like I would have Tabatha and Eliza’s too. There was little more I could do now but look on helplessly.
‘Take this and keep winding it,’ said Tabatha, thrusting Emerson’s music box into my hands.
Before I had chance to stop her, she was sprinting across the glade towards Claribel, Bandit leaping after her.
The slow, solemn chant of Claribel’s music box started to play, its droning melody breaching the silence of the forest like a relentless call to death for all who heard it. I held my nerve and wound the lever of the music box in my hands, though every instinct warned me to cover my ears and flee. To my amazement, the enchanting hum of the silver bees burst from the box, drowning out the dirge.
Tabatha had almost cleared the length of the glade. She was just feet away when Claribel drew a pistol from the folds of her dress and pointed it at her. Two gunshots rent the air, and for a few seconds I heard only the pounding of my heart in my chest.
As the smoke cleared, I saw Tabatha standing over Claribel’s lifeless body. The music box lay beside her, now little more than a pile of shattered wood and broken cogs.
From out of the tents, the magicians began to emerge to investigate the cause of the commotion.
‘Father!’ shouted Eliza as she spotted his among the puzzled and frightened faces turned towards us.
Amid the chaos, Tabatha stood with Bandit at her side, the pistol in her hand hanging limply as she stared down at Claribel. I ducked through the crowd milling around the tents and made my way towards her.
‘I’ve never killed a person before,’ she said as I stood beside her. The babble of the multitude of voices sounded faint and distant at this edge of the glade.
‘Nor had I,’ I replied.
Tabatha wiped her hand across her face and returned her pistol to its holster. ‘Well, ‘tis done now,’ she said. ‘Three lives to save dozens of others seems a fair price.’
I knew well enough that was just her bravado talking. ‘You couldn’t have done anything else,’ I said quietly. ‘Claribel and Mabson would have made puppets of us all. Come, let’s not linger here. We should find George. The dead ought to be buried at once.’
We turned back to the crowd that was making its way towards us. I scanned the faces for George and spotted him with Bridget, Eliza and her father. They were listening closely as Eliza relayed to them how we had come to be in the Forest of Paimpont. The colour drained from George’s face, but a look of relief passed over him as he saw me and Tabatha approaching.
‘Tom, Tabatha! Thank goodness!’
‘He’s gone, George,’ said Tabatha, her voice cracking as she tried to suppress her tears. ‘Emerson is dead.’
George blanched, and for a few moments he stood fixed to the spot as though waiting for some reprieve that wouldn’t come, then he turned his back to us and began to sob silently. I looked away, feeling thoroughly wretched. After a few minutes he drew a breath to compose himself and wiped his hand across his face, then he spoke with an effort, his voice hoarse from weeping.
‘How did it happen?’ he said.
‘He died saving us,’ said Eliza.
‘This is not the place to hear a tale of grief,’ said Bridget, looking about at the watching crowd and ushering us into her tent. ‘Come inside. Tom and Eliza are hurt. All will be told in good time.’
Chapter 33
The following hours passed in a blur of activity. Our cuts and bruises were tended to, and after hearing the full tale, from our visit to Professor Goldwick to reaching the tourney glade, George sent the Venatorian to find Jack’s body while he, Tabatha and the rest of the Guild set about the solemn process of burying Emerson, Mabson, Claribel and her puppets. In my determination to stop Claribel, I had quite forgotten about Professor Goldwick, the Watchmaker and all her other victims.
‘What will happen to them now that the Puppeteer is dead? I mean, are they really dead now?’ I asked Bridget, who had stayed behind with me and Eliza.
‘I am afraid they died as soon as they heard that accursed incantation,’ Bridget replied. ‘’Twas only magic that had re-animated them. Now they are puppets set down by their puppeteer just waiting for another to take up their strings, but George will see to it that they are laid to rest and not disturbed again.’
As she spoke, two magicians from the Hungarian guild approached and asked to shake my hand and Eliza’s and congratulate us on our heroic actions. Word had spread around the glade of all that had happened, and Eliza and I quickly became the toast
of the tournament. Not that I felt much like a hero or worthy of celebration as I sat outside Bridget’s tent, watching the other magicians prepare for the final duel that was to take place that night. Any other time I would have been delighted to watch them, but my thoughts were occupied with Jack and the black hole in my memory that was preventing me from remembering what I had done.
‘No one blames you for what happened to Jack,’ said Eliza.
I looked up and realised she had been watching me for a while. My face must have revealed more than I said.
‘Of course not,’ said Bridget. ‘’Twas a wicked spell to have worked against you. Poor Cuthbert Goldwick spent his life studying monsters yet couldn’t see the one he had raised.’
I shook my head. ‘I do not believe Claribel was a monster.’
‘Nor I,’ said Eliza. ‘She thought of herself as a second Queen Blanche. She wanted to protect magic, but she followed a crooked path and has paid the price for it.’
‘I wish we had heeded your omen, Bridget,’ I said. ‘We didn’t, and now it has come to pass.’
Bridget smiled. ‘How so?’ she replied. ‘Don’t you remember how the water washed away George’s image? My premonition warned me that he would be killed, or even the entire Guild. That has not come to pass. You, Eliza and Tabatha prevented it from happening. We are alive now because of you.’
‘I suppose I hadn’t thought of it in that way,’ I replied.
At that moment, George, Tabatha and the rest of the Guild appeared, having returned from their solemn task. George and Tabatha both looked grim, and their eyes were swollen and tear-stained.
The Puppeteer: Book II of The Guild of Gatekeepers Page 16