Rapunzel laughed and began to climb back through the window.
‘We’ll never get her out,’ said Jenny despondently.
At that moment, the brownie appeared and gave Rapunzel a good kick in the back. Completely unprepared, she lost her balance and fell from the window, her nails scoring the bricks as she frantically tried to get a hold.
As she fell, the Witch and Jenny flew over her on Ellidra, faster than any swift or swallow, almost too fast to see. A sparkling powder fell from the Witch’s hand, and Rapunzel found herself landing on a great soft coil of hair, and she bounced high before landing on her back in the soft earth of a flower bed.
A second later, the Witch and Jenny landed. The cat leaped from the broom to sink her claws into Rapunzel’s chest and the dark shadow there that was trying to sink back below the girl’s skin and into her heart. The Witch, brandishing a set of silver scissors she’d made herself long before the Accord had brought peace to the witching world, cut the braid from Rapunzel, very close to the back of her head.
The braid twisted and writhed like a snake and even began to rear up, and the shadow on Rapunzel’s chest reached out to it. But Jenny’s claws held tight and the Witch’s scissors flashed, snipping the braid into shorter and shorter lengths. Finally, the hair moved no longer, and Jenny tore the shadow from the girl and flung it on the ground, where it withered in the sun.
Witch and cat stepped back and both took a breath. Rapunzel sat up and scratched the back of her head.
‘Go home,’ said the Witch.
Rapunzel stood on shaking legs and began to cry. Then she started to run, the thorn bushes arching to make a gate for her exit.
‘She’ll make the sheep-milking at that speed,’ said Jenny. ‘Now where are those mice?’
The Witch held out her cupped hands. Jenny sniffed at them, then retreated back several paces. The Witch breathed upon what she held and whispered a word. Then she bent down, opened her hands and three fully-sighted mice dashed away to a hole in the tower wall, with Jenny not quite close enough behind them.
‘Glass of milk?’ said a voice near the Witch’s foot.
The Witch looked down at the brownie and nodded.
‘I’ll pour you one,’ she said. ‘Then I think I might go into town.’
‘Town?’ asked Jenny, returning mouse-less from the hunt. ‘What for?’
‘I need a haircut,’ said the Witch, and she shook her head, scowling as her pigtails clashed together.
A Sidekick of Mars
I GUESS YOU, LIKE WHAT SEEMS to be most of the world these days, have read about John Carter, and his adventures and whatnot on the red planet we call Mars and the locals there call Barsoom. But I bet you’ve never read nothing about one Lamentation of Wordly Sin Jones, who was right there by J.C.’s side for more than a sixth of the time by my calculation but don’t get a mention at all in any of the write-ups. Not even under the name by which Carter knew me, which wasn’t the full moniker my god-fearin’ parents dished up but the shorter, easier to get your mouth around Lam Jones.
See? I bet you’re castin’ your mind back through all those books and not remembering any Lam Jones, which is a downright insult, being as I was there, as I said, some eighteen percent of the time, only to get left out when Carter got back to Earth and decided to tell his tales to that nephew of his.
Not that Carter told it all, oh no, he was right reticent on a couple of matters. He could be downright closemouthed when it suited him, and probably still is, since for all I know he’s living yet, me not having seen him for some considerable time due to him being back on Barsoom and me being back here on this green Earth. Where I hopes I will stay, though for how long that will be is anyone’s guess, there not being anyone alive who knows what in God’s name that buffalo hide scroll I took off the body of that Indian did to me, aside from wrestling me right out of my flesh and flinging me off to the fourth planet and back again like a damn hot chestnut juggled between two hands.
Let me tell you how I first met up with Captain John Carter … But I s’pose I’m getting ahead of myself. As I was saying, Lam Jones is what I been known by since I was going on fourteen, except for a period in the Union Army when I was called Private Jones and then Corporal Jones and finally Quartermaster-Sergeant Jones, but as soon as the war was done with I got back to being plain old Lam Jones again.
Me fighting for the North probably was the first thing that put Carter off me, him being a rebel and all. Or maybe like a lot of hot-blooded, rip-roaring cavalry types he just hated quartermasters. There must have been a dozen or more occasions when I had to face down some shouting colonel or major who wanted something that I either just didn’t have in the stores, or couldn’t give them without a paper signed by the appropriate officer, not just any jumped-up brigadier-general. Why, sometimes what they wanted had to be approved by General Meigs himself, and it was a marvel to me that those officers couldn’t understand a simple procedure and put their request through the proper channels in an approved fashion.
Now I’m getting behind. Suffice to say that at the end of the War, there I was, plain old Lam Jones again, left by the tide of battle (though not the sharp end of it) in a three-saloon town, with a meager bounty from a grateful government, that being I got to keep my Spencer carbine, a rusty old saber I’d never used, and $202 in back pay, most of it paper money which passed at a discount in favor of gold.
Gold! Like a lot of folks around then, I was mad for the yellow metal, and I’d set my sights on getting a whole lot more of it than the three Miss Liberty coins I had in my poke. That’s why I went west as soon as I could, and sure enough I struck it lucky right away in Arizona, when I met a fellow called Nine-Tenths Noah, an old-time miner, who reckoned he knew a prime spot for a strike, only he needed a partner and a stake on account of him being a vagrant drunk.
To cut a long story down to size, we did well in our gold-diggings. Despite Nine-Tenths Noah being a soak of the first degree, being pretty much permanently pickled (as the nine-tenths referred), he knew his business and he provided the brains of the operation, while I provided the stake and then the digging power. I guess I ain’t mentioned that short as I am from foot to crown, I am nearly as wide as tall, and all of it muscle. Some folks even tried calling me the Block, on account of my physique, back in the regiment, until I showed ’em I was against it.
That might well be another reason Carter misliked mentioning me in his stories. Sure, he was taller and had the looks and all, but I was stronger. He could jump farther, having the better balance, but when it came to grip and lift, I left him in the red dust. We had a thoat-lifting contest once (I ’spect you know a thoat is a Martian horse-thing) when we were both sozzled on the stuff that passes for whiskey on Mars. I lifted my thoat clear above my head, and he only got his to shoulder height. It kicked him when he threw it down, too. He was kind of upset about the whole thing the next day, and blamed me for it, though it had been his idea all along. He wasn’t a drinker, in a usual way, so maybe his wife, that Dejah Thoris, gave him a scold when he staggered back to the palace.
Anyways, that was much later. Back on Earth, old Noah’s nose had led us right, and I was digging out a lot of gold. All through the winter of 1866 we kept at it, and it was only when spring had started to come over and the snow melt begun that we realized that we were down to the final nasty-looking hunk of salt beef, there was but one sack of flour left, and Noah was having to dive headfirst into his puncheon of snakebite whiskey to dip his cup. We’d left it kind of late to resupply, which might surprise you what with me being a former quartermaster and all. It was the gold that did it. As long as more of it kept coming out of the mine, neither of us could bear to stop.
The nearest town was four days away, walking. I don’t hold much with riding, being as I said, more square than rectangular in shape. I had to shorten stirrups so high as to provoke ridicule, and there weren’t many horses that liked my weight none, either. So leading three mules, I left Noah behind to
guard the mine, on account of him being incapable of walking any considerable distance. There was even a chance he might sober up while I was gone. He couldn’t ever ration his drinking and there was only six gallons left.
Only I never did make it back in the nine days I’d reckoned, which was four to walk out, a day’s business, and four days back. In fact, I hardly got a mile from the mine.
It was Indians that done this, leastways one particular Indian. We hadn’t seen any Indians at all over the winter, though we knew we were on Apache land. The mine was in a narrow mountain canyon, with few trees or foliage, and no hunting to speak of, so I suppose it wasn’t worth a visit. I didn’t know much about the Apache myself, or Indians in general, having been raised in Pennsylvania and never being in the West before. Noah had taught me a few signs to get along, but I hoped I’d never get close enough to need ’em, nor my Sharps carbine or the Colt Army .44 I had stuck in my pants neither.
I wasn’t thinking about Indians, or much else neither, ’cept the slap-up meal I was going to have in town, when I just about tripped over the legs of a fellow, lying straight across the narrow path that was the only way out of the eastern end of the canyon. I jumped back into my lead mule, who protested at this kind of unexpected treatment. It let out a bray that echoed down the canyon walls and that didn’t help me none as I was scrabbling to get my Colt out, it having slipped down a piece and the hammer getting stuck under my waistband.
With the gun in my hand I steadied a little, maybe also because the fellow wasn’t moving at all. His bare legs were across the trail, but the top half of him were stuck in a little cave mouth I’d never noticed before, in the almost sheer canyon side. I called out to him, but he never moved. So I bent down and dragged him out, and had to jump back again as a huge snake come out with him, sounding its damn rattle as it lunged at me. I fired at once, and blasted it in half, the gunshot and the snake rattlin’ and writhing about making my lead mule decide to push past me and take off, with the others at its heels.
I was knocked back by the mules, and had a bad dance with the front half of that rattler, who still wasn’t done till I stomped on its head, put my full weight on it, and screwed my heel around a few times.
After I’d calmed down a piece, I turned the Indian over. He was naked, save for a breechclout, and his head was pretty swole, with six or mebbe seven snake-bites across his face and down his neck. I was a mite surprised that an Apache had stuck his head into that little cave, but I s’pose anyone can get caught out by a rattler if it’s sitting quiet.
The dead man had a roll of some kind of parchment, probably scraped buffalo hide, clutched in his hand. I muttered an apology to him, in case of ghosts, and made the sign that I thought meant It’s a pity things is the way they are but what can you do, and pulled the scroll out of his closed fingers, which took some doing, because he sure had a right death grip on it. Then I wandered on a few yards to get away from that hole and maybe more rattlers, and sat down on a boulder and put my back against the canyon wall. I knew the mules would be along all right, when they regained their senses, and I figured I’d take a look at that parchment while I waited.
I started to unroll it, and saw the beginnings of a picture. To this day I can’t say what it was a picture of, or what the colors were, or nothing like that. As soon as my eyes set on it, I felt mighty strange. I got cold and stiff all over, like I was becoming part of the rock I leaned against, and then I got awfully tired. I tried to look away from that cursed drawing, but my eyes wouldn’t move, and I couldn’t stop my eyelids drifting south.
When I woke up, I was standing ’bout ten yards farther along the path. I glanced back to where I’d been sitting and had the terrible shock of seeing myself a-sitting there, still as a statue!
I rushed over, and reached out to my own shoulder, thinking perhaps I could shake myself awake. But my hand was like a ghost’s, and for the first time in my life I couldn’t get a hold of anything.
Then I figured I must have gone and died without knowing it. Maybe another rattler had got me, quick and quiet, while I was setting down. Or my heart had give out, like what happened to Sergeant Ducas that day in the mess hall, raising his spoon one second and dead the next.
Only I didn’t feel dead and for sure I wasn’t in heaven, or hell, neither, as my parents always said I would end up. I felt fine, save for a kind of itchy yearning at the back of my neck that made me want to crick it back and look up. Which eventually I did, seeing there was no reason not to.
I looked up along the narrow walls of the canyon, up to the sky above, which was a lot darker than I expected, with the stars already coming out. It was already night, so I guess I’d slept the day away.
One star caught my eye. A red star that grew brighter and brighter still. With nary a thought from me, my arms reached up toward that star, as if I might somehow drag it down, or be lifted up toward it.
I remember thinking very clearly, This ain’t right, then everything went red, as if I was passing through a fire, a huge fire that filled up the world, but a cold fire, ’cause I never felt it burn.
The next thing I knows I was facedown in a tidy parcel of dust. I pushed myself up, noticing that once again I could feel the earth. I felt greatly relieved that I had been restored to my flesh, and now all would be well, that the strangeness would be over and done with.
Only I was mistaken about that. The first thing I saw when I stood up was the strangest figure of … a man, I guess … only he was some fifteen feet high, with two pairs of arms atop a pair of mighty legs, and an overall color reminiscent of a green tree frog, which is not exactly green but a kind of yellow greenness. He had a harness of leather and metal on his upper body and in each of his topmost hands he bore a long straight blade of some whitish metal. To top off this nightmarish aspect, his great head was riven by a mouth that bore enormous tusks, and his eyes were an evil red.
Naturally I reached for my weapons, only to discover that not only did I have neither Colt nor knife, I was barebuck naked into the bargain! The green warrior, correctly judging that motion of mine, raised both blades and swung them down. Seeking to dodge, I lunged forward, and was surprised to find myself projected into the midriff of the creature as if shot from a cannon! Despite his great size, my impact knocked him down and he did not immediately rise. I gripped his huge hand and twisted, planning simply to disarm him and take one of the blades to defend myself. But under my grip bones cracked and flesh tore, so I fair messed up that hand before I got hold of his sword.
The green man tried to rise and lift his other three blades. But before he could do so, I raised up the sword I had taken and plunged it deep into his chest. Again, my new strength surprised me, the blade driving through flesh and bone and into the ground beneath, so far that I could not easily withdraw it, particularly not when balanced upon a green giant undergoing the pangs and tremors of death.
But with a great exertion I did pull the blade free and jumped, only to find myself hurtling high through the air once more, to land not next to the man as I’d thought, but dozens of yards away!
Given a moment’s respite from fighting the big green fellow, I looked around and saw that while I was indeed in a canyon of sorts, it was not the canyon of my mine. It was shallower, and wider, and the rock wasn’t bare, but covered in some sort of moss or maybe lichen. The sun wasn’t right neither, being smaller and punier than it should have been.
But I only glanced at the strange, distant sun, because beyond the green man I had killed, only a few hundred yards along the canyon or valley, there was a whole damn regiment of those green four-armed men, only they was sittin’ atop those thoat things I mentioned, what were like horses but with eight legs.
Unlike John Carter, the first thought in my head when spotting a right army of huge green warriors is not to wander over and beat up on the general and maybe the staff as well, just to make sure of the matter. The thought that was jumping to attention in my brainbox was how I was going to get the hel
l out of there. Only no answer occurred as the green men lowered their spears and their eight-legged mounts began to charge toward me.
There was nowhere to hide, and nowhere to run, and the enemy was coming on at a rush. My head almost turned completely around on my neck as I tried to find some way out, but there was no way out. Within a minute or two, I would be ridden down, speared, and trampled to death.
Then I saw that between me and the green man I had killed, there was a perfectly round pattern in the dusty ground, like the hatch to a cellar, too regular to be natural. I jumped toward it and even though I’d held back on my full strength, I overshot my mark. Then, trying to run back, I kept bouncing up into the air, as if the very force of gravity that bound me to the earth had lessened – as it had, I would later confirm.
But I managed to get back to that circular depression and, using the green man’s sword, swept the red dust aside. There was a cellar hatch there, a round door of metal. But there was no handle, ring, or lever with which to open it. Reversing my blade, I banged on the strange door with the hilt, but there was no response, save the distant clang resulting from my blows.
Things was about as desprit as they get then, for the green cavalry was almost upon me. I turned to face them, a thousand thoughts of all the things left undone in my life racing through my mind, but chief among them was regrettin’ all that gold I’d never get to spend.
Then, as the thunder of the charging thoats filled the canyon, and the green giants and their spear-points were only yards away, I was suddenly lifted into the air from behind and yanked up into the sky like a fish jerked out of the water by a long-handled gaff.
Which ain’t poetical talk, but a true saying, save that I’m no fish, and it was a boat of the sky that had lifted me aboard, the hook employed being very skillfully thrust through the back of my makeshift kilt, so that I had only a quarter-inch-deep cut across one buttock to show for it and no more blood lost than a canteen might hold.