“Resurrection men,” decided Stephano. “Body-stealers defiling the dead.”
I studied the scene, less sure. Four figures dressed so dark one could scarce see form, but that they wore moon-bright gloves, faces painted white as Elizabethan lords. They worked furiously to dig… but I saw no shovels. I perceived the motions, could all but hear the turned earth, hear shovel edge scrape stones and bones. But their hands held air and moonshine. Harlequins acting out lunatic tableau. I recalled the attack on the bridge. The creatures performed mad nonsense with sane purpose: to distract.
I whirled. On the coach-roof behind crept a black-clad figure holding very real knife. I fired, he fell with a cry. I grabbed the knife in time to cut another clambering up the side. Stephano struck at dark forms below him. He goaded the horses, but white hands slashed the traces, leaving the reigns slack.
Stephano cursed, stood. Raised a pistol, fired at me. No, at another creeping along the coach roof. The figure fell, white face expressing mock astonishment. The horses shied in fear, the coach rocked, unable to move forward. If the attackers had shouted or screamed, the scene would have been less frightful. But they kept to eerie silence.
Till another gun spoke, Stephano gasped, fell. I leaped down beside him, found myself grabbed by a crowd of white-gloved hands. Knife to throat. I was pushed to my knees before a figure in pale dress, black diamond-patterned. Harlequin tartan. Behold the fox-faced musician at the ball, who’d tossed me a rose, a smile. With her stood others dressed in the same pattern. Their dark-clad servants milled about, capering mute, shadows of a dancing lamp.
“You killed my lord, clay-man,” declared the fox-girl. I felt tempted to explain tonight had been a blood-bath. It required she name any particular corpse. But of course she meant the Harlequin Pierrot. It explained this angry ambush. Foolish to believe I could just exit stage, unpursued by bears or widows or severed heads. One cannot escape the family. They will await you on the path, for all your panicked turns and twists.
“Well, he stole my face,” I pointed out. “And plotted my murder, among others.” I stared at the body of Stephano beside me. He breathed in rough gasps. “One kills one man to avenge another, then family rise up to balance accounts. I begin to see a pattern of idiot dance, with the devil playing oboe.”
She bent down, eyes near as mad as Lalena’s, lips near as red. I felt an urge to kiss the resemblance, but refrained. She hissed. “I thought you him. How blind I was.”
“More blind than you think, sister,” said someone from the dark.
Now the Harlequin servants found voice, in cries of pain, surprise, fear. The weak moon shown down on a surrounding circle of glowing eyes. Fascinating creatures, these newcomers.
I watched a bull-headed man lift a Harlequin servant, toss him over the carriage. A wolf leaped upon another, bearing him to dirt. A doe-headed girl of slender form set about with a great spear, flailing the Harlequin like rugs needing dusting. Still, this was less violence than they might have shown. Tooth, claw and spear sent them tumbling and flying, but not to death. The Tiger-man only waved sword, did not strike.
I pushed the knife from my throat, threw myself back, drew rapier. But all fighting had ended. Two sides of family stood glaring. Beast men against Harlequins, if you wish. Or Mac Tier against Decoursey. Cousins who glared, daring each to cross this line, defy that line, say this to that face.
There stood Vixen Mac Tier in Moon Tartan colors turned gray by moon’s light. She faced the woman in Harlequin pattern, bright against the black-clad servants. “Sionnach Mac Tier. You join with the Decoursey madmen?” asked Vixen.
“I was driven out my house,” replied her sister. For surely that was who she must be. “You as well. The other clans spat I carried the death-madness. They shut door to me, blood of their blood, heart to their heart. Only the Pierrot offered me place by the hearth.”
“Our father is passed,” declared Vixen. “Howl is now Laird of the Moon Tartan. And the man you waylay has the favor of Mac Tier and Sanglair. And Fulgurous himself perhaps. It were not well to cross such.”
Sionnach put hands to hips, threw head back, proud as five queens and a bishop. “So the gossip says. But I stand here widowed tonight, sister, and only a week married.”
Vixen looked to the fallen Stephano. “A life for a life, cousins. Let that suffice. And so return with us, your brothers and sisters. Together we can heal the harms of our father’s madness.”
Sionnach turned to the gathered Harlequins. They kept silent, arms crossed in stubborn disinterest. Decide as you will, their stance said. At last she turned back to Vixen, shook head. “You believe I will leave my dead lord’s people, run back to my childhood bed? You think so little of me?”
Vixen considered. “No,” she said. “I can’t think so.” And suddenly she burst into tears. Sionnach stared, then did the same. They lifted faces to the moon and wept silver moon-streams. Then rushed forwards as to battle, and embraced. All stared, Mac Tier and Harlequin. Then wolf held out hand to fallen mummer, and bull-headed Bellow set a Harlequin servant upright, dusted him gentle as shepherd to lamb. Both clans stood as one, watching the sisters weep by moon’s light, and wept with them.
I remained dry-eyed. I scrabbled about in the dirt, found a knife. Dark-painted, as the Harlequins preferred. I went to Stephano, who lay forgotten in the road. I knelt down beside him, examined his wound. Close to the heart, enough to run a strong fountain till the spring ran dry.
I considered the man. What a devil’s face. A devil who’d done me great harm; more than any other in a life of war and blood. He looked up at me. “That’s done it,” he whispered. “Friends of yours come?”
I nodded, eyeing the assemblage enacting their idiot ritual of feud and affection. Behold: family. I returned gaze to the man who’d ended what I’d considered my family. I squeezed knife-handle till knuckles cracked. Stephano stared out his devil’s face, content smile to lips.
“All well then,” he whispered. “I never thanked you for forgiving me. Those were kind words you said, sir. I’ve not forgot ‘em. Nor how you asked me to forgive you in return.”
“I did what?” I asked.
He laughed, choking. “Aye, you did. And I found it hard to forgive, as be forgiven. I’ve been a beast most my life. But I’ll be a man at the end. So I forgive you, Master Rayne.”
Theatre. I turned and looked at the cousinry. Some watched us, wondering if this promised equal entertainment as the weeping fox-girls. No, not weeping. Vixen and Sionnach had returned to arguing, stamping feet, crossing arms, flouncing locks.
I turned from that nonsense back to reality. My reality. It was not too late to whisper to this dying man ‘I never forgave you. I never shall. Burn in Hell’. Then slice his throat so he shipped to Satan a full minute ahead of schedule. Instead I sighed, dropped knife, clasped his hand as he’d clasped El’s.
“I think marriage is starting to change me,” I said to him. He grinned in understanding at my complaint, as one man will do for another.
* * *
We sat by a fireside in the moonlit church-yard, trees sharing solemn secrets with the wind. Owls and night jars discussed our presence, making wise observations. The horses kept solemn watch by the carriage, refusing to judge. A few grave-stone angels observed, faces turning soft or stern, joyous or sad, as fire-shine and moon-shadow chose to cast expression. Standard setting for a family gathering.
I held hands to the fire-flames, watching them tremble. The hands, I mean, not the flames. Flames tremble not. They only dance. Flames fear not, and no fire ever shook in horror at visions of ashes. I’d slain more men tonight than when I infiltrated the French command. Some I’d known full years. I didn’t feel a triumphant soldier. I felt a blood-spattered beast.
Beasts… I turned to consider the Mac Tier warming themselves by the same flames. Doe, Bellow, and Vixen. The tiger-man, Bram. A fellow with wolf-head, not the new Laird Mac Tier. They chatted, exchanging family gossip. Casting kind-but-worr
ied glances at me, the drawn sword I kept at hand. Every time I sheathed it, I heard shots, saw Dealer’s head roll towards the fire, the Pierrot laugh, a nameless guard gasp... and held sword unsheathed again. Hands and soul found it difficult to simply declare ‘all done with death’. The cemetery setting didn’t help.
The Mac Tier said naught, as if they understood. Masters of multiple natures, perhaps they did understand. I eyed them astonished at my earlier ignorance. Beast-men? No. These sat human as I. More so. They faced the same risk all men do, of losing their humanity. Greater risk for the wisdom they sought in dream-natures. Yet clearly they triumphed. They lived and loved wise in life. They dared commit their hearts to a vast nation of family, whether in feud or love. All I dared love was one other heart, one other face. And I’d walked away from her, to seek out those I hated.
I’d returned to the city to kill a man. I was no longer sure who. Alderman Black? Dealer? Magister Green? Stephano? Perhaps Rayne Grayish. Or, why not, even Rayne Gray himself. ‘Can a man challenge his own reflection?’ asked Chatterton’s angel. She gifted me with wisdom of that sort on my wedding day. I’d have preferred new shirts.
“He who makes a beast of himself, escapes the pain of being a man,” she’d advised. I wept with laughter to think I’d taken the warning for the wise Mac Tier, and not my mirror.
On a sudden, Doe clapped hands, bored with grave-yard whispers. She reached into a bag, handed Bellow violin and bow. He sighed a bucolic puff, accepted, considered, hummed, tuned, and began to play. Doe reached hand to Vixen, and they stood, began a dance to match the grace of the firelight’s flame. The wolf-youth piped a flute. From beyond the fire’s light, the aberration began to hum his strange purring song. The Tiger-man… what was his name? Bram. He began to sing, soft and solemn:
“The moon-shadow folk, joying together, standing alone.
Choosing what faces we show, sharing hearts by star’s light.
The fire-shaped people, the candle-shadow company.
We run laughing all night, chasing the call of heart’s delight.
I looked down the moon-lit road. Why not run all night with the moon, northwards seeking my heart’s delight? If she would have me back. And if she said nay, why I’d sit outside her door, offer her bags of jewels, boxes of gold. If such still lay hid in the carriage. I hadn’t checked. I jumped up, laughing for joy of the decision to run to Scotland this instant. What excellent advice one finds in song.
But on a sudden I felt too weary to take a step, near tumbling into the fire. Vixen and Doe caught my arms. I sat again. Bellow brought me an unpoisoned cup. The aberration came close, shared purr and warmth. Beast-forms with human hearts, they did their best to comfort me as fellow man, if not proper family. Pats to back, whispers of assurance: all will be well. I collected myself presently, as a Seraph will do.
“Home tomorrow,” I promised the fire, myself and the moon, and then dared finally rest.
End of Book 2
About the author:
Raymond St. Elmo wandered into a degree in Spanish Literature, which gave no job, just a love of Magic Realism. Moving on to a degree in programming gave him a job and an interest in virtual reality and artificial intelligence, which lead him back into the world of magic realism. Author of several books (all first-person literary fictions, possibly comic). Quest of Five Clans is his first fantasy series.
Quest of the Five Clans shall continue in these exciting sequels:
The Harlequin Tartan
The Clockwork Tartan
The Scaled Tartan
The Moon Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 20