by Ian Richards
He suddenly stopped dead, too frightened to even breathe.
There was someone behind him. He could hear footsteps drawing closer, one after the other, slow and methodical. They sounded like sarcastic applause.
‘Hello?’ His voice betrayed his fear. ‘Who’s there? What do you want?’
‘Martell? Martell, it’s me, Silvertongue.’
‘Silvertongue. Oh thank God. You have to untie me. Vanessa has been drugged. We have to stop him.’
Still the footsteps came closer, patient as a slow-ticking clock.
‘I know, Martell. I was the one who drugged her.’
‘You?! But I don’t understand, why would you—?’
‘Come, come, Black Magician. You’re the genius. Take a wild guess.’
His voice was changing now: becoming slightly deeper, slightly rougher.
Slightly more familiar.
Martell felt his blood freeze.
‘Oh no,’ he murmured.
‘Oh yes.’
‘It can’t be.’
‘But it is.’
And Thomas Lott laughed with a manic delight that would have put Firefox to shame.
‘Hello, brother-in-law,’ he smiled. ‘I think it’s time we had a little chat, don’t you?’
37 - Thomas Silvertongue
Thirteen years ago, when Thomas Lott walked out on his wife and child, Martell had spent a lot of time thinking about what he would say to him if their paths crossed again. He had always liked Thomas before those final few months. He had been a pale, troubled sort of man—the kind who seemed to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders and took every setback as a personal failing. But he had also been decent and kind, and the years he had spent with Emily had been some of the happiest of her woefully short life. Martell had always found these contradictions in Thomas’ character hard to balance up. He often told himself that if Emily had never fallen sick then Thomas would never have left. The poor man was in shock when he ran off, his head was all over the place. Why else would he do such a terrible thing? But seeing him now he didn’t know how to react. Thomas Silvertongue was Thomas Lott all along? He thought back to the late-night conversation they had shared and felt the sting of betrayal. It had all been a lie. All of it. But why? For what?
Thomas walked up to the altar at the front of the room and inspected the gold rings that Firefox had left there, set out neatly on a plump velvet cushion. The transformation was astonishing. The red-haired, green-eyed old gentleman he had grown so fond of had disappeared completely. In Silvertongue’s place stood Thomas Lott, somehow still looking exactly the same as he had all those years ago. With his choppy brown hair and modest clothes the resemblance to Tony was uncanny.
‘Do you know, Martell, there was a moment when I thought you’d figured it out. Back when you spotted my wedding ring. How you believed me when I said it was a gift from Firefox is something I’ll never know. And that story about me being an old bachelor who lived in Hastings? It was all so flimsy, Martell. You’ve grown soft in your old age.’
‘Thomas, I don’t understand—You’re working for a madman.’
‘I know.’ He spoke in such an offhand manner that Martell recoiled in shock. ‘Though in truth, old friend, I’m not so much working for Firefox as manipulating him. The creature is a lunatic, I’m sure you’ve realized that by now. He’s been locked up here for so long his mind has given out completely. It’s been easy for me to pull the strings. Who do you think decided that the famous Black Magician of Dover Street might be able to solve the riddle? Who do you think Mr. Krook and Mr. Kepler have been working for? Firefox thinks he’s running the show, but in truth, he’s just a puppet. He has been ever since I came here.’
Martell listened to this in astonishment. This incarnation of Thomas Lott seemed so cold—so calculating. Though he looked and sounded the same—the mannerisms were identical—it was impossible to believe that this could be the same man he had once known.
‘Why hasn’t the house changed you? It changed everybody else.’
‘Martell, please. I’m not the nervous wretch you used to talk down to in your rotten little shop. Do you honestly think I would let myself be turned into a fairy? You’ve seen the others here, they’re imbeciles. The magic of the house has rotted away their ability to reason and think.’
‘But how are you able to—?’
‘I’m getting to that, Martell. Be patient.’ Thomas put the rings back on the altar and looked up at the ceiling. Through the glass the night sky shone brightly: a plump, pregnant moon, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of stars. Smiling to himself, he walked towards Martell and sat in the chair next to him.
‘Once upon a time,’ Thomas said, ‘there was an ordinary little man who lived with his lovely wife and her annoying brother in an antiques shop in London. Now, this ordinary little man, he never had much going for him, you see. He had bad luck holding down jobs. He was constantly struggling to live up to expectations. And then one day his dimwit brother-in-law let it slip that he was somewhat involved in dealings with the occult. Now, you can imagine how our ordinary little man felt when he heard that. ‘The occult? Why that means magic, and witchcraft, and all sorts of devilish things that can make me so much more powerful. I don’t have to be a failure any more.’ He had found his calling in life. And finally, after a lifetime of inadequacy, our poor, hopeless, impotent little man found the means to make himself a god.’
‘Thomas, what do you mean you never had much going for you? You had Emily. You were happy together.’
‘Past tense, old friend. I had Emily. Then she got sick. I saw her dying right in front of me and I threw myself into magic with everything I had. I started reading books, attending séances, meeting with characters who specialized in the dark arts. It became like a drug to me—the only thing to keep me going. Poor Emily was rotting away a little more every day, but I was on the verge of achieving greatness. One night Krook and Kepler—old friends, don’t you know?—told me that they had recently robbed an old professor who was something of an expert on fairies. For a small fee I was allowed to look through some of the items they had stolen from him—books, journals, personal papers, things like that. And low and behold, what did I find? The location of the last remaining gateway to Faerie.
‘I began to make regular trips into the Shadowlands. Of course, being in Faerie for any length of time can be hazardous for one’s health, as I found out to my cost. Piece by piece my humanity left me. I became colder, less emotional, a little wilder. Then I heard of Marshwood, a magical house that held the power of the universe itself. I was told that the owner was an ancient, half-crazed creature. He was held prisoner by a riddle and only when that riddle was solved would the house be restored to its former glories. Naturally I decided to take on the challenge. To protect myself from the house’s charms I bought a potion from a fairy apothecary. He charged a very reasonable price, I thought. It only cost me a handful of memories, a sprinkling of decency, and an ever-so-tiny piece of my soul.’
‘Thomas, listen to yourself—’
‘And now Martell, dearest brother-in-law, we have reached the point where it all becomes worthwhile. Once Firefox weds that little Cypriot tart then the house will open itself up and Marshwood will be mine.’
‘So what?’
‘So what? So what? Martell don’t you have any idea what this means? I’ll have the entire universe at my fingertips. I’ll be the most powerful man alive. I can go anywhere. I can do anything. I can even bring Emily back.’
Martell shook his head in despair. Thomas was insane, he saw that now. He might have been able to preserve his human form but his mind was just as rotten as Firefox’s.
‘Thomas, you can’t bring Emily back, she’s dead.’
‘Not if I open a door to the afterlife. That was what got me interested in magic in the first place, you see—the thought of rescuing her.’
‘She can’t be rescued. You have to accept things. You have to move on.’ He
tried pleading with him. ‘You have a son, Thomas. A wonderful, brilliant son. Why don’t you try thinking of him for once instead of yourself?’
‘A son …?’ Thomas Lott considered the matter thoughtfully, a finger pressed against his bottom lip. ‘Oh, you mean him. What do I care for him, Martell? Some grubby little urchin who would have condemned me to years of nappies and sleepless nights. I never wanted him in the first place.’
‘That’s a lie, you were happy, I remember—’
‘Compare that boring, meaningless existence with everything I’ve done since. I’m the first human to cross into Faerie in generations. I’m moments away from ruling all of Marshwood. Can you imagine what that’s going to be like? I’ll be able to walk on the surface of the stars. I’ll be able to dive into the past as if it were a lagoon, rewriting history as I wish. All of existence will become my personal playground. Are you seriously telling me that I should have given all of that up for a child? A mewling infant? Be reasonable, Martell.’
If Martell wasn’t tied up, he would have swung for him. This wasn’t Thomas Lott at all, he saw that now. It was a soulless, shallow facsimile. An addiction to magic had burned away his humanity to the point where he was almost unrecognizable.
‘Thomas, you have to stop this. I know it hurt you when Emily died. But this isn’t the answer.’
‘This son of mine,’ Thomas mused. ‘I wonder if he takes after his old man at all?’
‘He doesn’t,’ Martell snapped.
‘No? How disappointing.’
‘Tony is a better human being than you’ll ever be.’
Thomas Lott grinned. ‘Yes, but that’s where your lack of ambition lets you down, Martell. Who wants to be human when you can be a god?’
He glanced up suddenly. Footsteps. Someone was coming.
Using a glamour he transformed himself back into Silvertongue—weak and bookish, but now, as Martell saw, sharper than anyone else in the house realized. With a sly wink, Silvertongue produced a handkerchief from his pocket and tied a gag around Martell’s mouth.
‘Not long to go now, old friend. Sit back and enjoy the show. It promises to be quite spectacular.’
As the door opened and Firefox marched in, carrying Vanessa over his shoulder, Silvertongue smiled and went to assist him.
38 - The Wedding
Tony staggered through the halls of Marshwood in a daze. It was all going wrong. He had to find Vanessa. He had to save her from Firefox’s madness. But where to look? Where to even start? The house was a labyrinth. Every corridor he hurried down offered more twists and turns, spinning him around so much he soon lost all sense of direction. Somehow he had ended up back in the land of the locked doors—those dark, ominous slabs of wood that wouldn’t budge no matter how much he struggled with them. In desperation he called out Vanessa’s name, hoping for an answer but finding only an echo. He pushed on, refusing to give up. He had lost the genie and he had lost Sir Roderick, but as long as he was alive he would hunt his father down and stop him once and for all.
His father. He still couldn’t believe that the sneering creature that had kidnapped Martell and Vanessa was really Thomas Lott. It didn’t make sense. He had imagined his father to be the same solemn figure he had seen in old family photographs—a spectacled, studious man, with an air of melancholy about him. To find instead a shrieking lunatic—a fairy, no less—threw everything he thought he knew back in his face.
And yet there was something about it that didn’t sit right with him. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
He rounded another corner and collided with a heavyset figure coming the other way.
‘Sir Roderick!’ His heart leapt with joy— he had made it, he was all right. And yet when he saw the state Krook and Kepler had left his friend in, this happiness soon fell away. Sir Roderick had been beaten terribly. His arms hung limp and broken at his side. His nose had been reduced to a mushy pulp of blood and cartilage. Simply from the glazed look in his eyes Tony could sense the pain coursing through him.
‘Hello again, boy.’ Sir Roderick’s breaths were short and ragged. ‘Managed to give them the slip … tried to buy you some time … Did my best, but that bloody dwarf … he’s so quick … so vicious …’
He dropped to his knees, and for the first time Tony saw the knife sticking out of his back.
‘Sir Roderick!’ He was at his side in an instant, easing him down to the floor and trying desperately to staunch the flow of blood from his wounds. Sir Roderick’s back had been stabbed at least seven or eight times. Each gash looked cruel and deep, as if the knife had been driven in as far as it would go.
‘What did they do to you?’ Tony cried. ‘What did they do?’
‘This? Oh, it’s nothing, my boy … I’ve had worse …’ He tried to smile, but the effort proved too much. His mouth snapped back into a wince. ‘Wish I had some bloody booze on me, though…’
Tony felt for a pulse: it was there, weak and watery, but definitely there. Defiantly there. Sir Roderick was hanging on.
‘I’ve got to get the lamp,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘I can save you.’
‘No,’ Kepler hissed, ‘you can’t.’ He pounced immediately, seizing Tony from behind and trapping him in a choke-hold. ‘So you don’t have your lamp any longer? Well, that evens the odds a little, doesn’t it, Mr. Krook?’
‘I should say it does, Mr. Kepler.’
Mr. Krook ambled over to Sir Roderick and wriggled his knife free from the fallen man’s back. Sir Roderick screamed in pain, but neither Mr. Krook or Mr. Kepler paid any attention to him. Their interest lay with Tony now. The boy who refused to die.
‘What do you think?’ Mr. Krook said, positioning the point of the still-bloody blade against Tony’s heart. He held it in place as his other hand formed a fist and mimed striking the handle. ‘Who shall we do first, the kid or the walrus?’
Tony kicked out and sent the dwarf flying. The knife shot out of his hand and spun across the floor, eventually coming to a stop next to Sir Roderick’s outstretched hand. Though Tony tried to struggle free, Kepler’s grip remained locked in.
‘You little brat,’ Krook spat, brushing himself down. ‘Looks like you answered my question for me.’
‘No,’ Kepler yelled, tightening his grip around Tony’s throat. ‘Think of all the trouble this child has caused us, Mr. Krook. I think we should take our time with him. I think we should make him watch as our plan comes to fruition.’ He leant in closer then: Tony could smell the sour taste of his breath. ‘We’re going to kill them all, you see. Daddy dearest. The Black Magician. The girl. Mr. Krook is going to cut them down one by one and we’re going to take this miserable old house for ourselves.’
‘Don’t believe us?’ Mr. Krook grinned, coming round to the idea now. He picked up his knife and wiped the blade clean on the arm of his coat. ‘Consider this a starter.’
And as Kepler dragged him away, Tony watched in horror as Mr. Krook crouched down next to Sir Roderick, lifted his neck, and slit his throat from side to side. There was an awful glugging noise—a spasm. And then the great beast of a man lay still.
‘No!’
‘Yes!’ Kepler hissed. ‘And this is only the beginning. There are plenty more still to fall, and we’re going to make you watch every one. Come on, boy. It’s time for the family reunion to get underway.’
They left then, followed by Mr. Krook and his dripping knife.
Sir Roderick’s body lay motionless on the floor behind them, sad and lonely, watching them depart with eyes that no longer blinked. Tony looked back at his fallen friend with great sadness. Ebenezer. Sir Roderick. Where would it end? How could he stop the madness?
‘I’ll get you for this,’ he whispered as Kepler dragged him away. ‘I swear, I’m going to kill you for what you did to him.’
But if Mr. Krook or Mr. Kepler heard him they didn’t respond. They pressed on through the darkened hallways of Marshwood, on towards the wedding.
On towards
their destiny.
*
Vanessa stood motionless at the altar, her arms hanging like deadweights at her sides. She felt funny. Unnatural. It was difficult to explain. Sometimes her thought process felt slow and gluey. She couldn’t think, couldn’t penetrate the sludgy miasma that now passed for her consciousness. And yet at other times it was as if the other extreme were true. Her mind opened out into serene, expansive plains; a great nothingness into which thoughts disappeared like wisps of circus snatched away by the wind. These seesawing states of consciousness left her tired and confused. She couldn’t speak—couldn’t think. She could only stand there, head bowed, a lifeless mannequin girl dressed in a gown the color of old bones.
Firefox was busy making the final preparations for the ceremony. He stood hunched over the altar, flicking through the pages of an old grimoire with a devilish excitement.
Where am I? Vanessa wondered. Who are these strange creatures?
For now she turned to take in the full spread of her surroundings. The atrium held the moonlight like a lantern. The glass walls offered swirling mist, and within their confines an assembly of fairies had gathered, a congregation of well-wishers, all of whom had dull, vacant expressions that suggested they had no idea where they were or what was happening. Something about this troubled her, but what this might be she couldn’t possibly say. It was only when she saw the old man in the front row that her senses momentarily returned to her. Martell! She felt the deep shock of recognition—a burst of clarity that struck her senses like a thunderclap.
But it lasted for a fraction of a second at most. Almost at once the fog came rolling back in and she couldn’t remember what she had been thinking about, nor why this strange figure trussed up in the front row should be staring at her so desperately. It was almost as if he wanted something from her. But what? Pity? Compassion? She tried to tell Firefox that none of this made any sense—why is that old man tied up? —but the words came out slurred. Instead of answering her, the fairy simply tutted and wiped the drool from the corners of her mouth. ‘Honestly, darling,’ he sighed. ‘At least try to control yourself.’