The Accidental Highwayman (35 page)

“We have had adventures, haven't we,” Morgana said, once we'd caught our breath.

“We have,” said I. “Adventures enough for even a lifetime such as yours.”

“They have only just begun,” she said, with regret.

“So what I meant to tell you before—”

“There is so much to tell you, Kit. So much I was afraid to share with you. I didn't know how you felt, nor how
I
felt, and with all this turmoil in my own world—”

“It's much the same with me.”

“I have never felt so close to anyone as you, but I don't know why. We've little in common.”

“Scarcely anything.”

“And I might live a hundred ages yet, and you not a hundred years.”

“An obstacle I have dwelt upon.”

“And yet nothing seems impossible with you beside me.”

“We are astride a flying horse, with the clouds below us.”

“But I am a princess, by birth if not by title any longer, and you—”

“You scarcely need to point out that my parents are unknown, and me an unemployed servant with a considerable criminal record.”

“Have we lost our senses?”

“If I don't kiss you, I shall perish.”

“Look there!” she cried, startling me so much I nearly toppled off Midnight.

She pointed below us. I spied a disturbance in the clouds, far beneath Midnight's hooves, the smooth upper surface in one place bubbling and steaming like a mud geyser a little distance ahead of us.

Then came the mantigorns.

They could fly at terrific speed. The six of them appeared below us and beat their foul wings until they were abreast of us, and above and below, always coming closer. They were no longer considerate of Morgana's safety, but hurled their javelins at us, and Midnight swooped and dipped his wings to avoid them. One of the lances passed through his feathers and left a smoking hole. Within a minute the mantigorns had come close enough to snatch at us with their long, hooked fingers. I had the sword, but I didn't see what good it could do us now.

How had they found us? “Morgana,” I cried. “Are you still wearing Lily's comb?”

“It's right under your nose. I wear it to remember her by.”

The mantigorns had retreated a little way, so I took the opportunity to run my fingers through her plaits of hair, and found the tortoise comb. It had been concealed beneath her tresses. I flung the thing away into the empty air.

“Kit! How could you!”

“It's a sigilantum. That's how that blasted Duchess keeps finding us!”

There wasn't time to explain. A keening cry pierced the air from somewhere above. The mantigorns slipped away, moving farther apart from us. I looked up and saw a solitary cloud that churned with some inward energy—it seemed to be streaking through the sky at the same speed we were. Then a white gryphon dropped out of it—an enormous creature, bigger than any of the others we had seen. As it plummeted toward us, I saw there was a rider upon its back.

And then I saw the flaming red hair that leapt up from the green face, and the patch across one eye. I'd seen that face before—in the looking glass.

“Morgana,” said I. But she had already seen.

“The Duchess,” she whispered. “She is here.”

It seemed we had about thirty seconds left.

“That thing I meant to tell you—”

“Oh, Kit—”

“I'm not going to die without having said the words. Dash it, Morgana, I love you.”

Morgana was silent a moment. Then she put her hand upon my cheek and said, “If I fall, they'll leave you be,” and tried to slip from Midnight's back. I wasn't having that, and clung to her fiercely; as she struggled, the nearest of the mantigorns almost succeeded in catching me in its claws by dropping down from behind my right shoulder. I flung up my arm and the sword saved us—there was a bright concussion when the monster touched the golden hilt, and the creature's talons were flung back. It was hurled senseless down into the void with my sword spiraling after it. But I nearly lost my grip on Morgana. She hung across Midnight's ribs, her feet flailing in the empty air.

In the confusion, I had lost sight of the white gryphon. Now it appeared close to our port side, and there was the Duchess of the Red Seas, as near as two wing-spans. She wore a breastplate of shining black scales, a dark green cape that snapped and ruffled like a ship's pennant, thigh boots, and—to my eye, a shocking thing—trousers. She was at once regal, handsome, and menacing. I felt as a mouse must feel in the presence of a cat that knows its prey is cornered.

“Here it ends, hearties,” said she, shouting to be heard over the roar of the wind. “Fight and die, or drop the girl and go where ye will.”

“I'm of no value to you now,” Morgana cried defiantly. “My father hath disowned me and curst us as well.”

“Just so!” The pirate laughed. “I said drop the girl. I want nothing more from thee than a corpse!”

The remaining mantigorns drew back a little farther. This was parley, and they would wait for the Duchess's command.

“What about your blasted soul?” I shouted. “Don't tell me you found it behind the cushions!”

The Duchess was enjoying herself, I realized. If I could keep her talking, there might be some hope of … something. Not much, but hope endures.

“A wedding gift from that dwarf of a king,” the Duchess said, and laughed again, a crowing, harsh sound.

At last, I had Morgana firmly on Midnight's back.

She spoke in my ear that our one-eyed foe should not hear: “It was never my father's to give. No Faerie can trade in souls. Whatever brought her here, it is false.” Then she added, “I love you, too.”

Of all the times to be flattered, this was the worst. I needed to concentrate my thoughts on the crisis at hand. But my bosom was filled with light and hope and joy, and at the same time a despair and fury that circumstance should conspire to sunder two creatures who might be so happy together as we. These emotions were perfectly matched and precisely opposed. It felt like madness.

“The King couldn't give you back your soul,” I shouted. “He hasn't got it.”

“Here I am, lubber! Alive and in thine wretched world!”

She snapped the white gryphon's reins and the beast dove straight at us. Midnight folded his wings and dropped below its claws, but in so doing, nearly collided with a mantigorn directly beneath us. It tore a couple of feathers from Midnight's wing before he had gained height enough to escape its reach. The Duchess howled with laughter again. She certainly seemed alive to me.

“Look at her,” Morgana said. “She's wrong.”

I saw it. As the wind battered the Duchess, fragments of her seemed to be flaking off and whirling away in the turbulent air behind her. Her cape was becoming ragged. She didn't seem to have noticed yet.

“Drop the girl and live, boy. I'll forgive thee for nearly cuttin' off me arm in that mirror. I want to hear her scream, all the way down.”

“Can't you do a ruckins?” I whispered to Morgana.

“If I do, I'll only fall to my death in Faerie, instead of here.”

The Duchess, meanwhile, had drawn a pistol from her belt. She trained it at me, her sleeve shuddering in the blast of wind that roared around her. Fragments of the sleeve flew away.

“You're coming to bits,” I shouted.

I thought she must shoot and kill me. Or worse, slay Midnight. But a large scrap of her arm—not just her sleeve—flew away, and she saw it. She looked behind her and saw the particles swirling behind her like paper-ash up a chimney.

“Never trust a king,” she snarled. “Never thee mind, shark-pups. If I can't have my soul, I'll have yours.”

She guided the gryphon close. I could see every line in her fury-contorted face. Her ears came to points like Morgana's, I saw. One of these came off. Several scales of her armor flew away. An inspiration came to me—and my friend and foe, hope, sprang to new life.

“There is another way,” said I. “Spare the Princess and I'll make it my quest to return what was taken from you!”

We were so close I could see a confusion pass over the Duchess. She swayed in the saddle and shook her head in a daze. The gryphon, without her will to guide it, dropped away, and the mantigorns, who had been flying in formation like ships of the line about us, also spread apart. But then the confusion passed, and was replaced by rage; when she regained her senses, she came swooping back with sharp teeth bared and her lone eye burning. There was a steady stream of matter flying away from her now, like sooty smoke. It left a trail in the sky behind her.

“On three,” she shouted, and again the pistol came up.

“Does everyone in Faerie count when they're threatening people?” I said.

“Let me fall,” Morgana begged me. “Her hatred is for me.”

“One!”

“I suppose this is an opportune time to ask one last favor?” said I to Morgana.

“Two!”

“Say it!” my princess breathed.

“Kiss me?”

Morgana did not reply; she seemed paralyzed by indecision. I had a plan, now. There wasn't any more time for her to make up her mind. I drew my legs up so that I was crouching upon Midnight's back, using my trick-rider's balance to keep from pitching off.

“Duchess!” I cried, to forestall the final count. “I say again: Spare the Princess and I promise I'll see you reunited with what you have lost!”

The Duchess' face was a mask of ice. A slab of her scalp flew away, and part of her nose. She was coming to pieces. She spoke in low tones, but by some magic it was as if she whispered in my ear: “I've wasted a millennium on that quest, manling. You haven't got the time.”

She twisted the reins and the white gryphon lunged at us. The Duchess couldn't have been ten feet away, the pistol-bore swaying in a narrow circuit somewhere around my heart. The mantigorns loosed their war cries and buffeted their wings to get within claw's strike. Midnight made a desperate evasion and we nearly fell off his back. Yet I got my feet under me again, and gathered for the spring.

“I wish,” cried I, in frustration and despair, my eyes on the cruel Duchess, “you'd go to blazes.”

And so saying, I leapt into the air, straight at her mount.

*   *   *

I only made it halfway.

As soon as I spoke the words, there was a great roar, the sky split open, and a bolt of lightning seared all around us. It forked and forked again like the branches of some burning tree, and smote each of the mantigorns at the same instant. They burst to pieces or plunged in flames from the sky, howling as they tumbled into the clouds below. A flotsam of huge, blazing feathers whirled down after them. The white gryphon lit up like a paper lantern and exploded, and the Duchess, unmounted, screamed an unearthly wail and shattered into a million dirty fragments. These particles themselves burned up, until there was nothing left.

I saw this very clearly, for the white gryphon ceased to exist when I was halfway through my leap, so even if I had reached it, there was nothing there to reach. Of consequence I was following an identical course to the mantigorns, landward, face down, with a superb view of the entire tableau.

A second after the lightning bolt, there was a detonation in my weskit pocket, and a puff of green smoke flew up behind me. As there was nothing else to do but fall to my death, I had the leisure to reach into the pocket to see what had exploded within. I withdrew none other than Magda's tooth! It was black from end to end. Then it turned to dust in my fingers and blew away.

There wasn't anything further to do, so I watched the clouds grow closer. It was terribly cold and the wind battered mercilessly; my downward speed was increasing. By now the last of the mantigorns had dropped through the clouds. I was next, and beneath the clouds I'd see where my final resting place would be. A field would suffice, thought I. Perhaps a field of radishes, for remembrance.

Then there was a great roar of air and a mighty black shape came up beneath me, stooping like a giant hawk. It was Midnight! His wings spread out and I fell heavily across his shoulders, nearly unhorsing Morgana, who reached out to secure me as I came down. For several long, sickening moments I hung by Midnight's mane, dangling over the abyss, and the fear that had left me when I was falling in the open air now returned tenfold, because there was hope.

Then I was astride him again, and clinging to horse and princess with legs and arms respectively and in equal measure.

“You made a wish!” Morgana cried. There was joy in her face.

“Are you unharmed?” I said, desperate for reassurances of any kind.

“Very well,” said she. “Never better, as I have you alive. Are you hurt?”

“A bit chilly,” I confessed. “But unmarked, except that Magda's tooth exploded and singed my weskit.”

“It's a wishing tooth!” Morgana exclaimed. “Why did you not use it before?”