I don’t know which dog. Day’s white head, or Knight’s dark? I lay in fever, could recall nothing. Not what I met in the cave, nor what killed my dogs, nor how I found the way home. Nothing after that taunt to the dogs’ courage.
The bloody head on the scarecrow’s body must have made a macabre sight. I never saw it. I sometimes dream it. But why tell this unfinished tale? It only makes a story fragment. Without cause or proper end. The magic remains uncompleted. I mention it now because it was the first thing that came to mind when I heard the voice of a dead man behind me. In the dark of the basement of the Hall of Wonders, I thought: I’m in the Goat’s Cave. Not a pleasant thought.
* * *
Alderman Jeremiah Black chuckled in my ear. A surprise, that laugh. I’d killed him months past. Same night as my friend Dealer. On cue, a round object rolled out from shadows. Dealer’s head. It grinned for our reunion, offering sly wink.
“As I said last night under your dining room table,” declaimed Dealer, “the significance of a line in theatre, a stroke of paint on canvas, the chip of a chisel in stone, can only be decided by the complete play, the total painting, the final statue revealed. Mere parts will always misdirect.”
A sheet fell from an exhibit across from us. Behind waited the stark lines of a stage prop house. Like to a doll’s house, with front removed to reveal each room. A vast puzzle-house where wooden figures moved in jerking rhythm, up steps and down halls, sitting and standing. Some made insect buzzes and clicks as springs unwound. Others glided smoothly, strings guiding the step of foot, the wave of hand. The rooms glowed with soft light, indeterminate as mist.
Dealer’s head smiled a moment, savoring this stage, his role as interlocutor. He always did just so, when his tongue tasted words of special delight to his artist’s palate. Of a sudden I missed him. He’d been a friend. Now he was this horrid grinning rolling thing.
“There was once a great house,” declared Dealer. “Home of an ancient family. Rich they were in all that love requires. Free they lived, caring naught for things the world desires.” In tune to the words, the puppet figures exchanged mechanical embraces, clockwork kisses.
I shifted weight, testing the grasp upon me. Black tightened grip, pressed knife deeper into my throat. He laughed, breath a wind of grave rot. Well, he was still dead then. A relief in one way. Horrifying in another. Dealer frowned at us both, continued.
“Though they numbered as spring flowers, as winter stars, the house held room for all. Each dawn the walls echoed with laughter and song, with words of wonder and love, with shouts of joy and moments of silence, and then to laughter again. In solemn dance or mad chase they pursued one another up stairs and out windows, tumbling upon the lawn, rushing through gardens. Delighting in the joy of belonging and owning, wanting and being wanted. Sunset found the family gathered by the fireside, eyes sharing flame-shine. While the eldest standing upon the roof, hands reaching up to welcome stars they called brother, they called sister.”
“Seriously?” asked Black. “They sound mad as two bedlams, five hatters and a royal family.”
“You always interrupt,” I said. “Must everything be about you?”
“So asks the Seraph,” sniffed Black. “Eternally seizing the stage.” He gave the knife a jab for emphasis. Blood trickled down my neck. I considered a backwards kick to his knee, an elbow thrust to his ribs. But he was dead. The air in my face was rot from a corpse, not breath from a man. The arm about my throat held strong as iron, but shivered with vermin crawling beneath the skin. What blows shall a dead man fear?
Dealer sighed, looked to Black and me in reproof.
“Apologies,” I said.
“Continue, man,” said Black.
Dealer took a breath of patience into his nonexistent lungs, continued.
“Proud they were, each for each, and each for all. Jealous for love, for the eyes and hearts of all the house. Ambition set them to mastery of craft and song, music and hammer, and all the delights of hand and mind, so to stir the wonder of their kin.” The puppet figures waved hammers and violins, paint brushes and chisels in a fury of creation.
“With ambition came rivalry. With rivalry came division. Resentments sparked feud; quarrels spread between floor and hall, chamber against chamber. Rooms fell silent, doors slammed shut.”
The thumping from the Magic Cabinet increased, as though what waited locked within grew desperate. From farther away came a clanking, as though a cart full of pans approached. Dealer took no notice of either sound. Perhaps only I heard them. But if some mad incident caught Black unaware, it might give me chance. I must watch for his distraction, and not Dealer’s idiot play.
“Contention turned to open war. The house shook. Fire and fear filled halls, shouts and screams, followed with grey smoke and silence.” The stage-set house shivered in flickers of orange and red. Doll figures fell dead to the floor. “Many fled the house. Others opened doors to strangers, seeking allies not of the family. Those remaining kept to far chambers, wary of faces they still cherished, but now feared.”
“Get to the end,” ordered Black. Again a twist of knife, another trickle of blood. It occurred to me that this play and my life were scripted to end together. I set my feet. I would throw my weight backwards when something distracted Black. Perhaps the play would grow interesting. The clanking sound grew louder. So also the knocking from the box. Did no one else hear?
“One brave band stood against destruction,” Dealer informed the audience. Audience? Yes. Others had joined. I now spied figures in the dark, perching on shelf, squatting upon floor, focused on the theatrical house. “The Harlequin folk, masters of thought.” Claps from the darkness, whistles. In the stage house, doll figures in yellow and black Harlequin diamonds pranced about, eyes masked, beating at flames and monsters with comic paddles.
“And then the mad interloper appeared.” A bear-like person slouched into the scene, waving sword, knocking into walls. The audience booed, hissed, stamping feet. And a few scattered cheers. Always some in the crowd to side with the villain. “Invited within by a red wanton of tooth and tit.” A figure stood revealed in stage fire light; womanly, naked, wooden breasts and thighs red-shining with painted blood. Long hair straight as yellow wires… Silence at that entrance. This last puppet frightened the audience.
“You’re changing the script,” complained Black.
“Invited in,” repeated Dealer’s head. “But to her regret, and the regret of all the house.” The woman puppet opened arms wide to welcome the bear man. Hand in hand they raced up and down the doll world, a mad dancing couple sending other puppets into retreat, plunging the house into further disorder.
The couple stopped their dancing to embrace. The Harlequin puppets popped from corners, tiptoed upon the bear man and bloody lady. Circled round and round, slow at first, then fast and faster. Made me dizzy to see. I felt an urge to cry out warning, as a child will watching a pantomime.
Dealer: “The clever Harlequins made him forget her. Then led her to forget him. Alas for their love.”
“Be silent!” shouted Black. He trembled with fury. Dealer had departed from script? Excellent, my hoped-for distraction. I threw my weight backwards, crushing Black against a wall of crates. His knife cut, but not well. I broke his hold, whirled to plunge my own blade in his chest.
We both considered the result. The knife sunk to hilt, but no red fount resulted. Mere scattering of dust. Black sighed for the drought within himself. Then struck a blow that sent me flying. I bounced against shelves, lay stunned on the floor beside Dealer’s head. He gave me a wink I did not return.
The basement hall now echoed with clanging and banging. Hammers on chains, maybe, or bells and pots in furious fight. Else the pulse in my pounding head. The doll house stage collapsed, revealing a dread beast whose entrance sent puppets flying. A clattering monster of fire-red eyes, mouth a hungry forge of fire. Fulgor the Mechanical Dragon, of course. On its back perched Professor Zeit-Teufel, comic clock-hat
a jaunty tilted tower.
The room whirled in a mad dance of black-clad figures retreating before the clanking monster. Why didn’t they speak? Each tumbled or capered as a puppet might; not in confusion but a pantomime of confusion. Yet I saw knives drawn, readied. They were not the madcap clowns they seemed.
The dragon’s once dead eyes now blazed with life. Bright red as stained glass for depicting martyr’s blood. The wings flapped enthusiastic, if to no purpose. Fire roared out the bronze mouth. The dark-clad figures leaped away. Black howled, caught in the flame-burst. He rushed about beating at his flaming funeral cape. Dealer’s head and I laughed together.
“Open the cabinet door,” whispered his head. “Quick, Rayne.”
Without my own head whirling, I’d have rejected the advice. Overmuch blood had flowed beneath the bridge since friendship’s end. Dealer’s blood, not mine. And yet… we had been friends. Perhaps it was the invocation of my name. I struggled to rise.
New figures entered the hall, countering the dark-clad prancers. They wore hats like to Teufel’s, and the tinted glasses. Two angry sides, daring each to first draw knife. Not yet in open battle, but shoving and pushing, kicking and shouting. I stood, leaned against the cabinet door. The knocking came ragged and determined as heartbeat of a man running for his life. I tugged the handle with all my strength.
Of course it opened easy. I tumbled backwards again. While out stepped someone small, a dainty creature of sticks. I assumed it would attack, that being my reality. I reached for knife. Alas, still waggling in Black’s dusty heart. I fumbled to draw rapier; a difficult maneuver lying down. The newcomer ignored me, stepped past and booted Dealer’s head for a child’s ball. I stared amazed. Why hadn’t I done that weeks past?
The kick sent Dealer bouncing among the feet of the others. Inevitably they kicked him this way and that, till their near battle became a near ballgame. The bronze dragon booted the head hard against Black, still stamping upon his flaming cloak.
“Ouch,” complained Dealer. “Dammit. Careful. Ow!”
The creature from the cabinet reached down, grabbed my hand, pulled me up. I helped as I could. “Out of here,” it hissed, and tugged me forwards.
Wonderful, I thought. An exit to this madhouse. The newcomer rushed me forwards. Behind us a door closed with a satisfying ‘click’. I immediately crashed into a wall. We stood shut within a closet. No, a box. The magic box, of course.
Chapter 9
He who Trains the Horse to War
Horses are not loyal, as dogs knows loyalty. A horse’s service is one of obedience. A steed charges into battle because it knows its duty. And though it may love its rider, it will not race into smoke and horror save it is first taught to bear the sight, the sound, the smell. But if I do not recall what passed in the Goat’s Cave, I know that Day and Knight leaped to my aid from what they themselves did not know, yet feared. I believe they did save me. I did not come out that darkness on strength of boy’s legs or boy’s soul.
Years later, I wandered a field in France. The day after my first battle. I could see these had been green fields a month before, set pretty within stands of woods. But the harvest now was bone and flesh, mud, ash and battle trash. The trees stood so splintered you could press a hand within their shattered trunks. Here and there a voice still called for help, en francais oft as not. Attendants shouted ‘where are you?’ unwilling to dig within the larger piles of mud and corpses. Yesterday’s blue sheets of acrid smoke had turned to the stench of wet burned things. Touched by the first wafts of a meaty rot. Parts of men, fly-bedecked, lay casual as cast clothes on a bedroom floor. More solid corpses displayed just as they fell, yet no longer like men. They’d begun to swell and stiffen, limbs become ill suited for human clothes. Faces turned wax copies that could never have held a man’s expression. I wandered trying to recall yesterday’s running, screaming, peeing, bleeding, waiting, firing, running. I remembered a figure charging me with a saber, his eyes wide with fright. I looked for where he lay, but he could have been any corpse in a French uniform.
It was not broken parts of men that made me retch. It was the still living horses. Here and there they’d lay, shaking and wheezing, screaming sometimes, attempting to rise on shattered legs, opened entrails. Attempting to return to service, to duty. Eyes rolling white, froth yellowing on their mouths. Most still in halters and reins, still bound to smoldering carts, to saddled corpses.
I drew knife and wandered from field to field, cutting the throat of each horse I found. Even those resting dead. Someone shook me eventually, told me to return to camp. I near slashed their throat for their trouble. I had no earthly idea what day it was, which direction camp lay. They had to lead me back with a motley collection of others who’d lost the way.
* * *
I walked through fog again. Penn holding my hand, not grasping my cloak. How had I come here from a box? Absurd question to ask of a magic cabinet. As well, I was out of my mind. I, who oft boasted he could never go mad. Protested overmuch, no doubt.
A phantom puppet boy had led me into the Fabled Box of the Orient and then out again. A theatre act deserving a round of claps from the audience. I supposed I held Penn’s real hand now, unless he’d borrowed again from his uncle’s exhibits. It felt warm. Real, if small. It pulled me through a muck of swirls and clouds.
I tried to think when a child last held my hand. I’ve never had much to do with the young. In war children were creatures trapped, fleeing from horror to comfort to horror, begging or hiding or standing disinterested on the roadside, separated from their minds by overlong exposure to death, rape, hunger, blood, fire, cannon-thunder and the general business of glorious war. In civilian life they stood safely outside a spadassin’s concerns.
Elspeth sometimes invited children into the kitchen, to gather warm by the oven while she’d cook or sew. Neighbors’ children, I suppose. Never thought to ask. The sight would set me laughing, Stephano to grin. As though she’d gathered a gaggle of goat kids into her lap. She’d have them singing in Irish like Dublin parrots, holding no meaning for the words, nor caring. But they’d go round-eyed and silent at me. Afraid of the Seraph. Not so for Stephano, though he had a face to petrify Medusa.
But why should any child fear me? Yes, I loom large and loud. Scarred and scary. I bear a reputation for violence, like unto a bear. But I can be kindly. I mean well to all that mean no ill to me. Do I reek of blood, as the returned Black stank of grave mold? I deny it. At least, I deny it as sign of cursed soul. Much of that blood is my own. I will not ask that a child admire such stain. But no child should fear me. I will not accept the sneer cursed from my mirror. I’d challenge any reflection that dared say it to my face. We’d duel at dawn, settle the issue with a shatter of glass.
I felt no fear in my guide’s grasp. No hesitation to walk beside me. It was a comfort, I admit. I studied my companion. The boy still wore the overlong coat, hem dragging at heels, old hat covering head. But the light shone bright about us, as though we approached some place of clarity.
Behold a face of delicate porcelain shaping, eyes of wide white crystal centered by purple circles. Long lashes, fine nose, lips red not with paint but fine touches of blush. Was it mask? The eyes glanced at my glancing, lips frowned in annoyance. Costume paint, perhaps.
The limbs beneath the coat, surely no thicker than sticks. The revealed wrists thin and delicate, sculpted rods of ivory and parchment that would snap if pressed. Behold a child constructed of wire and porcelain, carved ivory, hinges and watch gears. No doubt a ticking clock for heart. Yet the grip held strong.
“Best no dawdling,” said Penn, tugging me forwards. “They’re better at this than most.”
“Who is? At what? This where? Why not?” I asked. Questions that set a proper tone for dream fog. Like sea chanties onboard ship, or drinking songs in taverns. “Better at what?”
“At this,” he replied, as if the answer were so obvious it could not be contained in words. He could only mean the enti
re foggy existence. I asked nothing more. Best enjoy the dream as it came.
“Stop,” he whispered. “Sssshhh.” I obeyed, feeling a child myself. Playing tag in some farmer’s cornfield. We’d be whipped for trespass. If we were caught. I heard steps in the mist. A dark figure went running past. I could make nothing of face or dress, only a silhouette. But armed. It held sword, dashing forwards, slashing as it went. Mad thing to do. I put hand to my own blade. Penn shook his head. We waited. I thought I heard Black cursing in the distance. The running figure vanished. We continued on.
“Does your uncle let you ride his dragon?” I asked. A fine fog question, I point out.
Penn sighed. “Ah. He’s a bit of the ‘centric, is Uncle Z. Even for our clan. A good ‘un, but God’s truth he’s mad as the march hare that ate the moon cheese, and that’s an end. Ride his mechanical beast? No thank you sir. Safer to sit atop a gunpowder keg farting flames.”
I laughed at that. So did the boy. His laugh sounded quick and beautiful, a bird-trill to shiver the spine. For a moment the crystal eyes, carved mouth showed infinite joy in mad uncles and farting flames. Then turned solemn as old stone, brooding again.
“He’ll be clanking Fulgor about now, desperate to make him waltz. Stripping the gears, adding whistles. Forgetting us entirely. This way.”
We arrived in a garden. The mist pulsed and glowed a white fire, sun a throned glory just behind this curtain of fog. A glory that burned eyes, set brain to ache. I put hand to temple, felt dampness. The hand returned wet with blood. Well. That explained much. I’d taken some blow to the head. I wondered when. Not fresh red. This was the dark sticky flow that seeps from wounds taken weeks before. Must be a bad one. I’d always healed quick. It was the fellows to left and right who sickened, infection spreading as consuming fire, leaving at reveille a bit of man-ash and uniform to bury in ceremonial cleanliness. My turn now, I supposed.
The Harlequin Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 7