Brown River Queen

by Frank Tuttle

  “You’ve all got things to do,” I said. “What’s done is done. Let’s get back to work.”

  I slipped the tortoise shell back into my pocket.

  Well played, said Stitches in her secret whisper. I knew you would find a use for it.

  I didn’t reply.

  The last time I’d walked with the huldra, I’d become a giant, my eyes far above the rooftops and the spires and the smoke-belching stacks of the crematoriums and the foundries. As I’d walked, the huldra had whispered things to me, things I could only now recall as vague, dreamlike memories.

  I’d been offered power. Been shown dark wonders. I’d been able to see into the spaces between shadow and light, and the secret things I’d seen within had allowed me to not just work magic, but bend it to my will.

  As I let go of the fake huldra, a small greedy part of me wished for that power again, if only for an instant, and the hair on the back of my neck rose at the faint memory of having such a thing in my grasp.

  Mama cussed and rose to her feet, her cleaver appearing in her hand.

  Evis dropped his rifle.

  I turned. Darla caught my elbow, real tears forming in her eyes.

  Walking down the grand staircase, her movements jerky and halting, came Gertriss.

  Her stare was vacant. Her mouth moved, but no words came out.

  Buttercup skipped along beside her, a doll in each hand, holding them up to Gertriss, waving them about her, trying to make her play.

  Gertriss reached the bottom of the stairs and made for the rest of the dancers.

  “Oh hell no,” said Mama, starting off after her. “Not my kin.”

  There is nothing you can do for her, save keep working.

  Evis charged after, unarmed.

  Three halfdead responded to Evis and his orders to keep Gertriss from joining the dance. Two took an arm each. The third tried to wrap his arms around her knees and hold her still.

  She dragged them all, one halting step at a time.

  Darla put her head on my chest.

  “Buttercup,” I called. Instantly, the tiny banshee appeared before me, her face somber, her dolls hanging still at her side.

  I pushed Buttercup into Darla’s arms. “Tend the child,” I said. Darla looked up at me, hurt.

  He must pretend to be falling under the huldra’s influence, said Stitches. It must seem real.

  Darla pulled away.

  I thought back to the times I’d actually held a huldra, to the power I’d felt rushing through my soul.

  “I shall make me a manikin of this Elf’s skin and bones,” I said aloud. “I shall take a bite of his heart before it is stilled.”

  Mama caught up to Gertriss and had no more luck than the vampires. Gertriss joined the expanding ring of dancers, spinning in slow circles to Lady Rondalee’s nameless song.

  Angels above, bear me down this here river,

  Bear me safe over snag and shoal,

  Angels above, from heartache deliver,

  Angels bear me safe and Angels spare my soul

  Mama let go of Gertriss and screamed as she danced away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It took five halfdead to wrestle Evis away from Gertriss.

  One of them wound up with a broken arm. Evis had a swollen nose and a black right eye. I don’t think he felt either injury.

  Mama wasn’t faring much better. She’d gone after the music box again, this time favoring a rifle she’d snatched from the floor. Mama had no idea how to fire it but she put the butt to good use, smashing away at the music box until the stock broke. She then proceeded to use the steel barrel as a club. Neither of the tiny mechanical dancers suffered in the least.

  In the end, Mama exhausted herself and returned to her pile of herbs, where she burst into great hooting sobs of crying.

  Buttercup dashed to her side, hugging her wordlessly, rocking with her until she fell silent. All the while, the banshee looked up at me expectantly.

  I stirred the damned useless stew-pot and seethed.

  The ranks of skeletons waiting for the barrier to fall now numbered eighteen deep. Evis absently ordered his men to cut them down. They did, this time with assistance from the rotating rapid-fire horrors that shot out through the shield earlier. Spent cartridges rolled across the casino floor. Bone-men fell. More rattled up to take their places.

  “Sixty-two,” whispered Darla, not looking at me. “Dancers, that is.”

  Fourteen dance in their locked rooms, added Stitches.

  “That is not entirely helpful,” I noted. I rose. Huldra or no, Elf or no, I’d had enough sitting there stirring the world’s worst soup while my junior partner danced to a cursed trinket’s tune and my best friend died a second time from sheer grief.

  Darla’s breath caught in her chest and she moved away from me. I looked around, saw Buttercup running, laying the rope I’d finally untangled out in a circle around us.

  It was a game Mama had taught her when we first took Buttercup in. Run and lay string on the floor, in this door and out another. We’d reel it in, her screeching and giggling, until we caught her up in a hug.

  Hey, it kept her from jumping through walls.

  “Buttercup!” I bellowed. “Stop that.”

  The banshee laughed and scampered on. I caught up the end of the rope and tugged, halting Buttercup long enough for Darla to scoop her up.

  “Honey,” said Darla, her eyes wary as I gathered up the banshee-hair rope. “What are you planning to do?”

  “I’m calling off the dance.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait for Stitches to try and get the Regent’s lady friend to help?”

  “I’m tired of waiting for the Regent to pry himself away from his game of whist. I’m going to see if I can tie this rope around the music box and pull it close to the shadow. We’ll see how the bone-men like dancing. Evis, will you keep everyone back?”

  He just nodded.

  I stomped away while Darla had her hands full. Mama looked up as I passed.

  “It ain’t a half-bad idea, boy,” she said. “You ought to let me do it, though. I’m protected from all manner of hex-craft.”

  “Not this time, Mama, but thanks for the offer.”

  The halfdead parted to let me through, and I zigged and zagged between sweat-soaked dancers. Gertriss saw me as she passed, and her eyes went instantly wide, though she could not bring herself to speak. The Lady Rondalee kept singing, her voice showing no signs of strain.

  Gertriss spun away.

  “If you’ve got any river magic to spare, I’m about to need it,” I shouted to the stage.

  The Lady smiled and started a new song.

  Mean ol’ love, she broke my heart,

  though I was always true,

  Mean ol’ love, she broke my heart,

  and now she’s comin’ for you…

  I kicked a chair out of my way and put a small loop in the end of the rope. My intention was to slide the rope over and around the music box and hope some magical quality in Buttercup’s banshee hair would allow the rope to take hold. Then I’d drag the damned thing close enough to chuck it as far back in the shadow-realm as I could throw.

  The miniature dancers circled the lid, bowing and spinning. I could barely hear the tinkling of the music box as it played.

  “This isn’t your world,” I said, holding the rope just above the box and adjusting the diameter of the loop. “You don’t belong here and these people don’t belong to you. Now let go, damn you.”

  I dropped the rope and yanked it tight.

  Damned if the box didn’t jerk halfway off the table.

  I pulled. The box moved. Its apparent weight was far in excess of what it should have been, as though it were twice its size and full of lead, but it moved.

  The halfdead scattered about me and began to shout. I turned and barely dodged a blow from a man dressed in the male toy dancer’s elaborate costume.

  A trio of shots rang out. Puffs of lace and velvet blew off the man
’s waistcoat. Another fusillade of rifle fire sounded, bullets whizzing a hand’s breadth from my face, and I managed to step away from a slashing blade just as the female dancer, now full-size and furious, charged at my back.

  If she was struck, she didn’t show it. Neither did her partner, who also failed to bleed or fall.

  Halfdead flew past, converging on the dancers, swords flashing, rifle butts rising and falling. Both dancers went down flailing, but down they went.

  More halfdead arrived. The dancers never made a sound. As they lost clothes to the struggle I saw complicated metal workings appear—gears and cogs and levers turning uselessly against the ferocity of two dozen determined halfdead.

  I gave the rope a mighty heave and the music box, still playing, crashed to the deck.

  The tiny dancers still danced, although the automatons lay smashed and still on the floor.

  I heaved and struggled. The box slid across the carpet, leaving gashes in its wake. The thin rope cut into my palms, and I marveled at its strength.

  Evis appeared at my side, took hold of the banshee-hair rope, and dragged the cursed box easily. I matched his pace until we reached the ranks of grinning skeletons, who clacked their dry teeth and smacked their long swords against their hip-bones in greeting.

  “Cut them down,” shouted Evis. He smiled for the first time all night. “Cut them down and keep firing. We’re going in.”

  The guns erupted with smoke and thunder. Halfdead closed ranks around us, adding rifle fire to the noise. Darla came to my side and emptied her gun into the dark.

  The last of the bone-men fell.

  Stitches strode up, hood thrown back, her ruined eyes aimed right at the shadow. She produced a handful of what looked like dust and pitched it out over the shattered heaps of bones.

  Nothing happened, but she seemed to be waiting. A pair of fresh skeletons stepped out of the shadow and were brought down before they took another step.

  Evis bent, took the music box in both hands, and lifted it.

  I’d never seen a halfdead strain with exertion before. Evis clenched his jaw and his lips curled back and I could hear vampire joints popping and creaking against the effort.

  But he picked the thing up, and held it aloft, and took a pair of steps forward.

  Bones crunched beneath his boots. I followed, Toadsticker at the ready.

  Hurry, said Stitches. They are massing beyond the dark.

  “Dance, you bastards,” growled Evis. He bent his knees and bunched and threw the box forward right into the heart of the shadow.

  The shadow exploded, bursting with harsh white light.

  In that instant, I saw through the shadow and the Queen’s hull. Saw through to somewhere else—somewhere blasted and ruined and savaged. Nightmares roamed there, by the tens of thousands, by the hundreds of thousands. The ranks of the bone-men were the least of them.

  Before the intensity of the light blinded me, I saw great vast, oily bulks writhing and shuffling, all making their way toward us. Some crawled. Some walked on legs that towered up far and away into the sky. Some oozed and slithered and rolled.

  But all were bearing down on us, waiting for the darkness to take root and admit them.

  I reached out, grabbed what I hoped was Evis, and yanked him back. I heard Darla shouting as from a great distance. Something out in the dark bellowed and something answered with a roar, and then hands fell upon me and hauled me out of the shadow.

  I blinked, stumbling, bones crunching with every step. Darla was shouting at me, but my ears were ringing and I couldn’t make out her words.

  Someone pushed a chair under me. I sat, rubbing my eyes, waiting for the bell in my ears to stop its damned pealing.

  When I could see faces through the after-images left by the light, I knew we’d failed.

  Darla was fighting back tears. Mama was muttering cuss words and laying into her blunted cleaver with a whetstone. Evis sat, head bowed, unmoving.

  I could just make out the shapes of the ensorcelled dancers, still spinning and bowing. One went limp as I watched, but could not fall. Instead his body bumped and swayed, as though held upright by a rope around his neck.

  “Maybe it just takes time,” I said, barely able to hear my own words.

  You may have had some effect. The number of constructs emerging is reduced. The rate of expansion is slowed.

  I glanced that way. Ranks of bone-men grinned back. If their numbers were reduced I couldn’t see it.

  Evis raised his face.

  “You have a huldra,” he said to me. “Why didn’t you use it?”

  “Evis. You know I can’t control it.”

  His face fell.

  “It isn’t real, is it? Damn you, Markhat. That was our only hope.”

  “We’re not done yet.” I looked around. No one but Darla and Mama and Stitches was close enough to hear. “Not yet.”

  He had no reply.

  “Stitches. Did you see anything in the shadow that might help?”

  I believe it was a vast cavern, location unknown. Probably under the control of Hag Mary. A number of those creatures were quite ancient.

  “Fascinating. Evis, how much ammunition do we have for those rapid-firing guns?”

  But Evis was gone, vampire-quick and vampire-quiet.

  He was halfway to the dancers before any of us could even stand.

  I shouted. The halfdead ringing the dancers looked my way, but Evis waved them aside. I ran, knowing I’d never catch up.

  They let me through. I found Evis sprinting beside Gertriss, the banshee-hair rope in his hands.

  I backed off.

  “Good idea,” I said. Evis nodded, put himself in front of her, and tossed a loop of rope around her.

  She danced on, unslowed.

  Evis let the rope drop from his hands. I caught up with him and stood beside him as we watched her go.

  The first dancer to die flopped past. All the dancers were drooping. Lady Rondalee’s voice was hoarse and beginning to falter.

  “You have the key,” said Evis. “Take Mama and Darla and Buttercup. There’s room for Stitches too, if you can convince her to go.”

  “We’re not dead yet.”

  “I am. I’ve been dead for years. I was just beginning to live again. Now I’ve got no reason. Fare thee well, Markhat. We had some good times, didn’t we?”

  And before I could stop him, he darted away.

  Before I could take even a pair of useless steps, he’d found Gertriss.

  Before I could shout, he put his hands in hers and fell into step with her.

  His dead white eyes didn’t glaze, didn’t close, but I saw them lose their focus.

  And then they danced away.

  Mama snuffled and mopped at her face. I hadn’t seen her come up.

  “Reckon I might have been wrong about that one,” she said, gathering up her useless rope. “Might be a heart left in there after all.”

  Gertriss rested her head on his shoulder.

  “He give up, boy. You an’ me, we ain’t got that luxury.”

  “He didn’t give up, Mama.” I looked away. “He chose how he wanted to die.”

  “Same damned thing. Now unless you are figurin’ on takin’ up dancin’, we still got people on this boat. You comin’?”

  I followed. There didn’t seem to be anything else left to do.

  Darla and Stitches met us, Darla with hugs and Stitches with a cursory nod from behind her makeshift tower of bubbling vessels and sparking rods.

  I am nearly done.

  Darla let go of me reluctantly. I took a deep breath.

  “Right. Mama, get ready to shake your birds. Stitches, I’m going to hold the huldra in one hand and Toadsticker in the other, and when I give you the sign, we light this thing up. Shortly after that we’ll know who’s Elf and who is not. Got it?”

  Understood.

  Buttercup scampered past, laying down her rope in a circle around us. Mama was busy tending her flock of dead birds.
Darla was reloading. Stitches was putting the finishing touches on a complex device we both knew was a fraud and a lie.

  “Not the time for games, honey,” I said. “Come back here.”

  Buttercup giggled and scampered off.

  Dutson appeared, a tray laden with beer bottles in his hand. I’d caught a glimpse of him in the fray with the construct dancers. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead and his dinner jacket was torn, but his bearing suggested we were all merely enjoying another fine meal on another fine evening.

  He nodded at me and gave me his customary ghost of a smile.

  And then he stepped over Buttercup’s rope.

  It wasn’t much. Just a shimmer, if you will. The barest flickering, the hint of a blur, as though Dutson stepped in front of hot air rising over a road. His features distorted—for a fraction of a heartbeat—showing as something with the basic shape and features of a man in late middle age that wasn’t a man at all.

  Buttercup appeared at my side, slipped her tiny hand in mine, and began to howl.

  Dutson dropped his tray. I brought my gun to bear. Buttercup’s howl rose up and filled the Queen, and before Dutson could move, Buttercup raised her free hand, pointing at him.

  I fired. I didn’t miss. He turned and fled. I stuck Buttercup’s hand in Darla’s and charged after the Elf.

  I caught a glimpse of Mama leaping to her feet, cleaver in hand. Rifles cracked, though who or what they were shooting at I couldn’t tell.

  Buttercup’s banshee howl redoubled in volume. Glass began to shatter—here and there, beside and above. A tinkling rain of shards fell.

  I caught a glimpse of Dutson’s white collar and made for him, yelling for help as I went. I didn’t look back to see if any of Evis’s people were on my heels.

  The swinging doors to the kitchens still swung, as though someone just pushed through them. I put my back to the wall and pushed the right door open with Toadsticker.

  Something struck the door hard enough to send it flying from its hinges. I stuck my gun inside and fired blind—twice—and entered the kitchen in a crouch.

  Iron skillets swayed on their hooks. A forgotten pot boiled over on a stove. I heard the crackle and hiss of a cook-stove fire.