The dogs snarled upon the downed lamb. He screamed and flailed. The one with a fresh-cut throat put back against the wall, attempting to repair his death wound with trembling fingers. The remaining man kicked at the dogs, not daring to lower sword lest I strike. He gave that up and made a wonderful leap over them. I stood aside, grabbed his arm and continued his flight into the brick wall. He struck face first, the hammer sound reminiscent of my days in the slaughterhouse. I pulled him back, swung him again and again till those on the opposite side of the wall must wonder who knocked.
“Where the hell did Elspeth ever get a pistol?” I asked his remainders, letting them drop. “From Jeremiah Black? Damnation. And I’d been giving her books for presents? Maybe the French soap would have been wiser. Maybe Stephano had known her best.”
The two dogs retreated from their prey, who’d finished with screaming and breathing and all the labor of life. Fur raised in line along their spines, they panted, bloody and satisfied. I felt the trembling that comes after bloodshed, even to a spadassin. Sighed to the dead, said my sorries. Not much to sorrow here. Three men who’d hunted a gaggle of kids and elders down an alley, found a fight instead. And fought damned poorly. Anyways, from my calendar they’d died years past. God and Devil alike had forgot their names.
“Who did she think she shot?” I asked the dogs and corpses. The dogs licked red chops for all of answer. The dead said naught. No answers in this alley. Just questions. Another question came. “Who did she fear, so she need carry a pistol? A dangerous stranger? A familiar enemy?”
El had no enemies. She was loved. By all that I knew and witnessed. And yet… there must have been a morning a few years back when Stephano and I sat to table. And El brought breakfast, and we’d all chatted and laughed, and I’d not seen in her face that she’d shot a man the night before. Had it shown? I’d wouldn’t have looked to see.
“But not me,” I assured dogs and dead. “I’ll take that on faith. She didn’t think she shot me.”
I sighed, gave it up. Recalled this day two years past. A weary Rayne Gray would be finishing fencing with the attacker’s leader. He’d hurry down the alley expecting to find a slaughter of innocents. Instead he’d see three killers, fresh butchered. No exit, no innocents, and no explanation. It’d give him shivers. Sensible man. So it had passed before. But this time he’d find me.
And the Alley of Mystery would become the temple of Truth Revealed. I’d explain all. I’d reveal each secret as a prophet from Beyond the Veil. He’d be surprised. Suspicious, weary and hungry, sensing his world collapsing. I’d have to explain slowly, using anecdotes from our common childhood. When I told of clans of vampirics and shape-changers, dream dancers and time masters? He’d scoff. Quoting Lucretius and Hobbes, affirming the supremacy of the material world. I’d have to parry with Blake, speak of seeing by different metaphysics.
I leaned against the wall, reviewing the coming conversation. What to tell myself? What best to leave as mystery? Could he accept that Elspeth spied for Black? Poor man didn’t even know she was dead. Ha, wait till I described how she shot me. That was going to be awkward. Wait till I told him I’d married a vampiric madwoman…
Exactly how did I explain that last? And yet, it was key to all. A man can comprehend a burned house, treacherous friends, even a mistress with secrets. But Gray’s mind would be confounded by the ring upon my finger. Demanding to know why in hell I’d pledge my life to some creature met in the dark of a mad night. What did we possess in common? What could possibly lead a sensible man like us to ask a creature dangerous as Lalena to marry?
Why had I proposed? For that matter, why had she accepted? Questions I’d best ask my present self, before answering to my earlier mirror. Why? Because… beyond fire and blood, mad words and courtly banter, Lalena and I had seen at our first meeting exactly what we had in common. We’d stood on a burning roof patting one another’s backs, sharing comfort for broken hearts, lonely souls. With El’s death and Stephano’s betrayal, I’d needed to love. With Lalena’s cold life and fearsome nature, she longed to be loved. There. That must serve as answer to my earlier self. I’d needed to love; she needed to be loved. Exact that simple.
Would the approaching Gray understand? He lived with a friend who would betray him, a mistress who spied and bedded for his worst enemy. Gray never spoke of love to her, never spoke of brotherhood to him. Gray enjoyed the story of a family, never making it more than a thing of comfort like to whiskey on the bedside table. But Lalena and I had reached a night of despair when we’d clasped hands, stepping into marriage together as if we’d leaped off a burning roof with a stranger.
Oh, it helped that I charmed her. While she fascinated me. She was pretty. Beautiful, when she wished. And she laughed generous as summer rain. Wise as a council of Oxenford owls, else gormless as kitten first out from the basket, if that suited moment’s mood. Soul of iron one moment, soft homebody the next. Lalena possessed as many natures as a cloud in sky held shapes. Lithe as snake in bed. But when she kissed she closed eyes, pursing lips like a farm girl courting on a porch.
Steps approached. Here came my earlier self. I leaned nonchalant against the bricks. A disarming pose, affirming the material reality of this world’s walls. Aught else to tell the man? Better admonish him not to disregard a wife for the grand work of the Charter. Though perhaps he’d have to learn that on his own. Some truths must take you sudden, and not in words.
Of a sudden the cold brick wall at my back ceased. My pose became a tumble through a dark doorway. The dogs leaped after me, grinning to say they saw through walls, words and poses.
Chapter 21
The Passing of the Puppeteer
I struggled to rise, cursing all magic doors, brick walls and especially the two dogs standing atop me. Pushed them off, came to feet and ceased swearing to look about. Light had come to the Hall of Time. I stood again in its stone corridor, now appreciating regularly spaced lamps drawing a line to infinity. A civilizing improvement. I checked behind, hoping for the addition of a tavern. Of course not.
In that direction the lights did not extend far. At the edge of illumination a figure trundled a cart, rumbling, clattering. I watched this person stop. They worked to fix a lamp upon the wall. Continued on.
I looked to the two Lucys, wondering what they advised. The two consulted, exchanging sniffs. Then one barked, rushed down the left hand way. The other barked, trotted down the right. They knew their minds. They had plans, secret wisdom and grand strategies. I must settle for guessing the better of two dogs. I followed the Lucy that trotted towards the cart-puller. It’d be some mechanical man with razors for fingers, mindless and murderous. Better go meet it, than have it come up behind.
But closer approach revealed a woman in tartan kilt. Boyish figure, hair in bonnet. She trundled a two-wheeled barrow half filled with copper lamps. The dog caught up to her, gave happy woof of greeting. She stopped the cart to reach down, pat furry head. I spied no gun, no sword, no razor fingers. She gave me glance and wary nod of greeting. Then took up the cart handles, trundled on. The dog following, I following.
So we continued, silent excepting for the rumbling wheels, rattling lamps, the click, click of dog nails on stone. Every hundred paces the woman would stop, light a lamp, hang it upon a waiting hook. Extending the line of pale gold glow. What a peaceful act, for all the seeming pointlessness of lighting endless empty corridor. She was a lamplighter defying night’s rule. At the next stop I took the cart handles, readied to push it along. At that the woman tilted head to consider me. I did same.
She wore kilt of amber cloth stitched with patterns of clocks. Face pale as the Porcelain Doll, or Lalena’s. A lock of black hair poking from bonnet. She blinked eyes of wet crystal. Smiled shy, revealing teeth new-white, never used for aught but smile. Freed of the cart handles, she raised arms, made a long slow stretch in appreciation for a moment’s ease. The dog wiggled in joy, did its own long stretch of forelegs. The girl laughed, the dog laughed. Then
we went on, me pushing the cart, eyeing the girl.
She moved graceful, and yet each action seemed separate from the whole. A dance of parts, like to a masterful puppet-dance. Many of the Clockmaker clan gave this impression, that one beheld a creature constructed of sly replacements for tedious flesh, weary bone. Not Cousin Zee, not Phineas. But the Laird of the Clockmakers, the Glocken himself, seemed an ancient mechanism, worn gears near grinding to halt. And even young Penn Zeit-Teufel seemed a thing of clever artifice. Ivory for bones, crystal for eyes. Voice too musical to quite be flesh.
I recalled gossip upon the practice of the Clockmaker tribe to construct their offspring. If so, it stood for a greater madness and wonder than drinking blood, becoming beasts or stealing into another’s dreams. One could see it was craftsmanship, for all it was magical, unnatural and confounding. The older method of reproduction appealed to me more. Granted, Adam’s pain in that labor is far less than Eve’s.
The cart weighed heavy. Girl must have strength in her thin arms. That, or I was damned tired. And hungry. “Know a likely tavern abouts?” I asked.
She laughed. A flute chuckle of a laugh. Looked at me, then darted crystal eyes down. What a wonder of grace is a shy girl. No cold mad clockmaker ever constructed such.
“You’ll be weary and hungered,” she whispered. Northern burr to her voice, light as sea song in shell held to ear. “Running from hour to hour, there’s never chance for you travelers in Time to take bite nor rest. No proper bell to declare matins nor compline, tell a soul to sleep, to eat.”
When had I last eaten? No easy counting the hours when you step from night to day, year to year. For sure I skipped breakfast. A brief picnic lunch with my wife, long, long ago. Where the blast did she wander now?
“Do you know Lalena?” I asked. “Blond hair, Sanglair smile. Middling tall. Probably cursing her man in Gaelic.”
The girl darted those crystal orbs at me. Then turned down to Lucy. They exchanged looks. When at last she answered, she kept gaze down, speaking to the dog.
“I know of her, if not of that naming. Never have we met once, Master, not by revel nor dream nor crossing in time’s long hall.” She shook head to insist upon that point. “But she shall be a grand lady of a feared folk at the turning of the clans. At the end, she shall face the dragon himself. For love of her mate, they say.”
“Nothing so impressive,” I sighed. “She just grabbed me and ran.” Where was the grand thing now? And when we found ourselves again, would she stamp foot, insist I had been the one to run off? ‘Course she would.
Ahead I saw lights, figures. I considered readying sword, but that would mean surrendering the cart. Approaching as a worker made a decent disguise. Besides it was ungentlemanly. She showed no alarm, nor did the dog. I continued on.
We came up to several persons, gathered beside a horse cart. Ragamuffin Flower, her tatterdemalion companion Brick. The woman in dark veil. The old sailor Light. They greeted us with solemn nods. The dog Lucy went to each, gave sniff of greeting, received pat of welcome.
Solemn quiet reigned. Unusual for a folk who love to talk and gossip, embrace and sing. And quarrel. Now they stood quiet, gazing upon cart. Narrow at the front, almost a boat on wheels. Harnessed to the prow, an automaton horse of darkest iron. The head moved up, moved down in metronome grace. Within the boat lay a body. This was funeral, I realized. Came closer, suspecting whose.
Behold the old man aided from the alley. Shirt still bloody, hands now folded across chest. Familiar seeming. Wherefore not? The longer we live, the more we resemble all those from our same tribe of time. But I knew this man. The puppeteer who performed the Play of Lost Glory, my first glimpse into the strange inner world of the family. A sad, impoverished show. A sheet for curtain, rag socks and wooden dolls for puppets. Attended by a stray dog, an old sailor, a scattering of street beggars. And yet it had hinted of another world, of a love and sorrow deeper than I’d ever found in cathedral or battle field.
“We tumbled and tangled hearts and bodies, furious in our love. We feuded and laughed, each of us all the world to each. We leapt from high trees into deep waters, daring the next to follow. Raced across desert dunes, leaving mad poems in the sand. We stood alone on mountain tops singing to the wind, in honor of the next of our blood the wind should meet.”
Never saw the play’s end. Some fool tried to shoot me, sent the bullet through this old fellow. I hadn’t thought to ask what happened to him.
Flower and Brick ran to the iron horse, whispered into its iron ear. It raised a hoof, took a step. The mourners stepped aside. The steed moved forwards, pulling the cart down the lamp-lit hall. Clip, clop, tick, tock went the mechanical funeral beast. The passenger lay still, his face that of any weary sleeper. A low, slow song rose from the onlookers.
“The candle flame folk, shadows of passing clouds.
Wind’s children, carrying song, whirling dust, wandering on.
Too real for naming, too free for taming,
We are the seal cries, the wild geese laughter.
No beginning, no ending, safe in the heart of hereafter.”
I shivered. Some for the eerie voices of this motley choir. More for the vision of the funeral boat moving slowly down the infinite hall. Darkening and brightening as it passed between the islands of lamp light. At last the iron horse passed the last lamp, marched on into the dark. Gone.
The onlookers stirred. Exchanged long embraces, quiet words. Then walked away, together or alone. The Lamplighter curtsied to me, grasped her cart handles, wheeled on into the dark. Only the ragamuffin girl and tatterdemalion boy remained. They stared, eyes full moons gazing upon the mystery of… me. The boy cupped hands to the girl’s ear, whispered. She nodded, cupped hand to his ear, whispered. He nodded. She stepped forwards, broom at point.
“You,” said Flower. “You look the same sir that gave me shilling, paid for our show.” She scrutinized my present person. “Hmm, yet not so burned. How came you to our rescue?”
Ha. Of course. To her I was a mysterious stranger from time’s dark maze. She knew naught of me and the coming clan battles for mastery. At last, at last my chance to stand on stage with these urchins and seize the reins of the dramatic chariot.
“Hear me now,” I said, raising hands to the theoretical sky. “For time is short and the path long.” A mixed metaphor when the path is Time. No matter. My voice boomed against the stone walls. Demonstrating the wisdom of the family for catacombs and caves, church towers and tombs for their theatre. Places for finding these wonderful echoes. I pointed a sudden finger at Flower. She recoiled.
“In the coming times you shall be several persons,” I prophesied. “Flower, Demoiselle. The Demoiselle,” I corrected hurriedly. “Bandit Queen. Princess Riana Brianna something-something of Many Names. You shall travel beneath the earth, dance upon a wizard’s tomb, speak for the Knight of Dust and Light. Beware the midnight carriage! And if ever you wear a bejeweled castle of a dress, arms of green fire shall reach for you. See you can slip from out their grasp.”
The boy’s mouth widened till he could have swallowed a cathedral. The girl pursed lips, more skeptical. Not one to take cathedrals in a gulp. I pointed at the boy.
“I behold you months hence in the far north.” Covered my eyes with a hand, to regain the vision. “You sit upon a tombstone, reciting words of wonder in a night turned sudden unto day. While a great lady of pale face and blond hair tickles your ear with a dandelion.”
“Glory,” Brick whispered, near trembling. “Me?”
Flower cocked urchin eyebrow at me. “Ach,” she declared. “Easy for a body to mouth what shall come. So long as there’s no talk of when.” She crossed arms and grinned. “Do tell sir, what comes next to us that stand here and now?”
I put hand to eyes again. “I see… I see you leading me to a door… that takes me to the Magisterium a week before the king’s death.”
“Ha, and I could do exactly that, quick as wick,” exclaimed the boy. “’Tis a
wonder for sure.”
The girl bequeathed him a frown, then swept the floor a bit in thought. At last looked to me, eyes wide moons that doubted the night and my words.
“And why would we do such a thing for a stranger?”
I considered reminding I’d saved them from slaughter in the alley. The point seemed petty. I shook head. “It is foreseen. Destiny. Prophecy. Oracle. Who truly knows the ‘why’ of these things?”
The girl turned to the boy. They whispered. The dog joined in. The three stopped, studied me, returned to whispers. The dog’s tail wagged. A good sign, I thought. The dog took my side. At last decision was reached. The boy went to the wall, recovered a lamp. He lifted it high and set off down the hall. Dog following, click, click. The girl shook head, sighed for weak minds and dog tails easily wagged by head pats and humbug prophecy. I gave a last look to the lighted end of the hall. No sight of the funeral cart. Did it have a destination? Perhaps the mechanical horse would simply march on forever. A boat set to sail a sea without shore. The image gave me a shiver. I sighed, hurried after my guides. Caught up with the dog.
I considered the two ahead of us. A boy, a girl. The boy holding lamp high, the girl trailing the broom. Two street beggars, no older than when they’d showed me a cheap play in a dockside alley. To them, today. Yet no younger than when they’d interrupted the council of war in my dining room. To me, today. What of the years between?
Old ones, the family called them. Living by the customs of the first clan. Nameless, homeless, wandering free of the earth as shadows of clouds. All the later clans of shapeshifters and blood drinkers, dream masters and time travelers settled for a lesser magic, an easier wonder.
The Clockwork Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 15