“I see her!” Malingo yelled.
The glyph responded instantly to their thoughts. It swooped out of the clouds toward the roof of the Dead Man’s House.
“We’re not going to make it!” John Slop yelled. “She’s going to fall!”
“I can’t look,” said John Drowze. “Mischief! Cover my eyes!”
“Down!” Finnegan willed the descending vehicle. “Down!”
The glyph immediately did as it was instructed, but dropped with such suddenness that it slipped past Candy.
“Up! Up!” Finnegan was now yelling. He beat his fist against the roof of the cabin. “Damn machine!”
The glyph rose again, reeling. The travelers were buffeted around, knocked from one side of the glyph to the other, but nobody complained, not even John Serpent. Everyone was concentrating on the sight now coming into view: Candy clinging by her fingertips to the pipe on the roof.
Finnegan opened up the top of the vehicle so as to be ready to catch hold of Candy as soon as she was in reach. Deaux-Deaux went one step further and actually clambered past Finnegan and stood on the roof. He was unconcerned by the glyph’s motion. He was a Sea-Skipper, after all; he was used to walking on the sides of waves. He balanced on the rolling glyph like a surfer on a tilting board.
“Candy!” he yelled.
She chanced a quick look over her shoulder. Even managed a smile.
“You’re going to have to let go, lady!” Finnegan said.
“I’ll fall!”
“We’ll be here to catch you!”
“Trust us!” the John brothers yelled.
Candy looked up at Carrion one last time. Whatever happens next, she thought, I hope I never see his face again.
Then she let go of the pipe.
“Catch me!” Deaux-Deaux yelled to Finnegan, then threw himself forward, catching hold of her hand. It was an act of pure trust. If Finnegan hadn’t been fast enough to grab hold of Deaux-Deaux’s foot and arm, both Candy and the Sea-Skipper would have fallen to their deaths. For a few perilous moments, they clung to one another while the glyph tipped and rolled.
Meanwhile, up on the roof, Carrion was pointing toward the glyph, muttering something. Malingo let out a low moan, but nobody really heard him in the confusion of the moment.
“Lend a hand here!” the Captain yelled to Tom, and together they hauled Finnegan back into the glyph, while Geneva helped Deaux-Deaux and Candy. There were a few gasping moments of laughter and relief. Then Malingo moaned again, his hands going up to his face, and a heartbeat later, the glyph went crazy, pitching itself from side to side with incredible violence.
“Close the roof!” McBean yelled. “Before somebody falls out!”
Finnegan slammed the roof closed, and just in time. The glyph flipped over, and over again; and again, reducing everybody inside to sickened and bruised confusion.
“What’s happening?” Mischief yelled to Malingo. “Can’t you stop this?” He managed to keep the geshrat in view long enough to see the cause of the problem. “Malingo looks really sick,” he yelled.
Geneva caught hold of Malingo’s arm. He was rigid, his eyes glazed.
“It’s Carrion,” Tria said. “He’s got Malingo under his control.”
Malingo was obviously attempting to fight Carrion’s hold on him, but it was causing him pain to do so. His teeth were clenched, and a dribble of blood ran from each nostril.
The glyph now began a series of suicidal maneuvers, pitching and spinning and flipping like a plate in the hands of a mad juggler. Inside, everyone held on as best they could as the craft moved away from the house, shearing off branches as it sped through the trees. On the roof below, Carrion followed its chaotic path with hands outstretched. Clearly he still had possession of the glyph. Nor was there any doubt of his intentions. He steadily lifted his hands, instructing the glyph to climb and climb, until it was perhaps two hundred feet above the ground. There, for a few tormenting seconds, he let it hang, giving everyone inside time to fear the worst.
Then it happened. Carrion dropped his hands, and the glyph obeyed his instruction. It fell out of the sky like a stone.
“Oh, dear . . .” John Mischief remarked.
As they fell, Candy slipped her arms around the geshrat from behind and clung to him.
“Malingo,” she said. “It’s me.”
She couldn’t see his face from her present position, but Geneva could, and her look was grim.
“You have to fight him,” Candy said.
She glanced at Geneva, who shook her head. “Fight him, please,” she said. “For me. For all of us!”
Finally Malingo seemed to hear her. His head swung lazily around.
“Candy . . . ?” he said.
“Yes!” she said, and smiled at him. At that instant the glyph struck the top of the branches and pitched sideways, its descent slowed by the impact. There was no time for anyone to redirect it. The vehicle hit the ground, smashing into a drift of snow, and sped on for another thirty or forty yards. With each yard its speed slowed, and it finally came to a juddering halt with its nose lodged between the sprawling roots of a tree.
Several seconds passed filled only with gasps and grunts and groans. Finally all the John brothers spoke at the same time: “Is everyone alive?”
There was a chorus of affirmation from all corners.
“Candy?” said Mischief.
“Yes. I’m alive!”
Her reply was followed by an outburst of joyful welcome from Mischief and his brothers, even John Serpent.
“Alive! Alive! Candy’s alive!”
“Hug us!”
“Tighter!”
“Tighter!”
“Oh, we’ve missed you!”
“I’ve missed you! All of you! Thank you so much, everyone, for getting me out of there!” She turned her attention to Malingo, who was still in the pilot’s chair. “How are you doing?”
The leathery fans on either side of his head were spread wide and shaking. “I’m okay . . .” he said, “. . . I think. I’m sorry, everyone. He got control of me, and I couldn’t shake him off.”
“He was in your head?” Geneva said.
“Yes,” Malingo replied. “It was horrible.”
Why, Candy wondered, had Carrion not tried to do the same thing to her? It would certainly have brought a quick halt to their chase if he’d simply ordered her to give up. But then perhaps he’d tried, and failed. Perhaps her human mind presented a different kind of challenge to him than that of the geshrat.
“Uh-oh,” said John Fillet. “Carrion’s not finished with us.”
Candy looked up.
“There,” said Geneva.
She pointed through the cracked window at the back of the glyph. The elaborately carved front door of the Dead Man’s House stood open, and out over the threshold strode the Lord of Midnight. He had put on an enormous black coat of sleek fur. The mummified heads of the animals that had supplied their skins for this garment were arranged in a collar (all gazing up at him in sightless adoration). In his left hand he carried a staff that was fully half as big again as he was, and on top of it squatted the skeletal remains of a huge winged toad. Light burned in its eye sockets and shed a demonic glow into the snow-filled air.
“Here comes a man with murder on his mind,” said Finnegan very quietly.
“Who’s the brat in the uniform behind him?” said Mischief.
“His name’s Letheo,” Candy said.
The last time she’d seen Letheo, he’d been knocked through a window by his furious master. But he had apparently been forgiven his trespasses against Carrion, because he was back in Midnight’s shadow.
“You know him?” said Tom.
“He’s the one who brought me here. Carrion’s got him under his thumb.”
“Well, Carrion looks as if he’s spoiling for a fight,” said Finnegan, taking his short sword out of its sheath. “So let’s give him one.”
“He means to kill us, Finnegan,” said Geneva
.
“He can try.”
“This isn’t the time or the place.”
“She’s right,” Candy said.
“Well, what do you suggest?” Finnegan said, turning on Candy with rage in his eyes. “We run away? No. I’m not afraid of him.”
“Nor am I,” Two-Toed Tom said, rolling up his sleeves as though he was planning a round of bare-fisted boxing.
“Nor me,” said Deaux-Deaux. “Just because he’s the King of the Dark Hours or whatever he calls himself these days.” He shoved open the door and started to clamber out of the craft. “You want a fight?” he yelled to Carrion.
Candy caught hold of him.
“Don’t,” she cried.
“It’s time somebody stood up to him.”
“Deaux-Deaux, please,” Candy begged. “Diamanda was already killed here, right in front of me. I don’t want to be responsible for anybody else getting hurt.”
“Candy’s right,” said Tria. “This place smells of death, Deaux-Deaux. We don’t want to be here.”
“We don’t have any other choice,” Finnegan said. “What are we going to do? Lock ourselves in the glyph and hope Carrion goes away? He’s not going to do that.”
“I can get the glyph moving,” Malingo said, wiping the blood from his nose with the back of his hand.
“Then do it!” said Mischief. “But be quick about it.”
In fact, Carrion wasn’t in any great hurry. He seemed to believe—why would he not?—that he had them all trapped, and he could take his time to deliver the killing blow. But Candy, who had been so close to the enemy min-utes before, could already feel his proximity. The air in the glyph had a bitter tang to it.
“He’s ten strides away,” Candy murmured.
“Don’t worry,” Malingo said. “We’re going. Pull the Sea-Skipper back inside.”
“Finnegan!” Candy said. “Will you get Deaux-Deaux down from there?”
Finnegan threw Candy a look of frustration. He obviously wanted to face Carrion now, whatever the dangers or consequences. But he also realized that the weight of opinion was against him and put up no further protest. Instead he reached out and grabbed Deaux-Deaux around the waist, saying:
“Another time, Skipper! We’re leaving!”
He’d no sooner spoken than a surge of energy passed through the glyph, though it was by no means as smooth as it had been before the crash. The engine sounded more guttural now, and the luminescence that passed through the craft flickered like a lamp that was on the verge of failing.
Candy kept her eye on Carrion. She knew he’d respond the moment he saw Deaux-Deaux get pulled back into the glyph, and she was right. He instantly picked up his pace, yelling something back to Letheo as he did so. The beast-boy began to run, producing a long-bladed knife as he did so.
Malingo reached out and caught hold of Candy’s hand.
“Help me do this!” he said. She put her arm around him. “We need to put our thoughts together,” he said. “And get this thing flying.” He leaned close to her, so as to speak to her more confidentially. “He muddled all my thoughts up and now I can’t quite think straight.”
“Don’t worry, I’m here with you.”
He smiled at her. “I know.”
“Let’s get this thing flying. Everybody hold on!”
Again Candy glanced back at Carrion. He was four, five strides from the glyph, muttering something as he came. A spell, was it? A few words to undo by magic a thing that had been made by magic?
“Are you ready?” Malingo said to Candy.
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Rise,” Malingo murmured.
She saw the word in her mind’s eye.
“Rise,” she said.
Nothing happened.
“Why isn’t it moving?” Tria said. “Candy. Make it fly!”
The Lord of Midnight was almost upon them, his hand extended toward the craft as though he intended to simply hold it in its place, while in his other hand he lifted his staff in preparation for striking the glyph like an egg—
“We have to do this together,” Malingo said.
“Yes,” she said. “One breath—”
They inhaled together, and let the word out in the same breath.
E.”
S
I
“R
This time the glyph obeyed, lifting into the air with surprising smoothness despite its wounded condition. Carrion struck it with his staff, but he was too late. The glyph was already ascending. The travelers were given a jolt, but the glyph was unfazed. It rose up beyond Carrion’s reach, cracking the branches as it cleared the trees.
The moon was waiting for them. The blizzard had moved off northward, and the sky was wide and bright.
“I can’t believe it,” Candy said, her voice raw.
“What, the moon?” said John Mischief.
“No. Being alive. I’m alive! Thank you, thank you; thank you all: I’m alive! We’re all alive!”
Chapter 44
The Prince and the Beast-Boy
CARRION RETURNED TO THE Dead Man’s House in a blind fury.
“Letheo!” Carrion yelled. “Come here! NOW!”
Letheo had seen the Prince of Midnight’s temper tantrums before. They were unpleasant in the extreme. But he couldn’t run away. For one thing, there was nowhere to run, and for another, he felt sick and weak. The sickness in his blood had taken a powerful hold on him now; and his only hope of a cure, however temporary, was the medicine that Carrion possessed. Without it, Letheo would be reduced to a blood-hungry, reptilian thing.
He had no choice, therefore, but to answer his Lord and master’s summons. He found Carrion climbing the stairs, trailing his great coat of candlemas skins. His staff was smoking, giving off an acrid stench that filled the hallway. Sensing that his servant boy had appeared at the bottom of the stairs, Carrion glanced back over his shoulder.
“This is a conspiracy,” he growled. “How did they know she was here? Who told them? And who were they anyway, besides Finnegan?” He bared his teeth as he spoke the man’s name. “Did you see him striking poses? Always the perfect Prince. So handsome, so brave. No doubt she thinks he’s flawless.”
“You mean Candy?”
“Yes, Candy. Who else?”
Exhausted and trembling, Letheo leaned against the wall.
“Just forget her,” he said. “She’s nothing.”
“Nothing?”
Carrion slammed his staff on the stairs. The flames in all the lamps guttered, and for a moment Letheo was afraid that they would all be extinguished and he’d be left with only his master’s nightmares for light. But the moment passed. The flames brightened again. “Don’t be so stupid. That girl can be our undoing. I see that now. The Hag was right. There’s something powerful in the girl.”
“What, Lord?”
“I don’t know what it is, and I don’t care to know. I just want her dead. I must have her dead, Letheo, before I can sleep again.”
“Yes, Prince.”
“I know what you’re thinking, beast-boy.”
“Do you, Prince?”
“You’re thinking she can somehow save you—”
“No—”
“Shut up!” Carrion said. “I saw the look in your eyes when you came back from the Twilight Palace. You thought you’d seen your salvation. You’d heard the stories about how she’d saved Wolfswinkel’s little geshrat, and you thought maybe you’d be the next soul marked for liberty. But I have my eye on you, beast-boy. The change is upon you again, isn’t it?” Reluctantly, Letheo nodded. “Soon you’ll be a monster, with a monster’s appetites.”
“Please, Lord, I don’t want this in me.”
“No, I daresay you don’t,” said Carrion, slowly descending the stairs. “You want this, instead.” He dug in the deep recesses of his robes and brought forth a vial of the medicine, called green thuaz, which would reverse the inevitable process of Letheo’s sickness. The youth’s breath quickened at
the sight of it. The sickly sweat of need bloomed on his brow and cheek and chest. “Well, say it,” Carrion instructed him. “Tell me this is what you want.”
“It is, Lord. You know it is.”
“And what if I gave it to you, Letheo. What if your bestiality retreated for a time? What would you dream of then, boy?”
“Of serving you, Prince.”
Carrion descended the rest of the flight in two strides and struck the beast-boy on the shoulder with his staff.
“Liar!”
Letheo slid down the wall.
“Why does everybody lie to me? Everybody turns their hearts away! Even that girl. I tried to show her some sights her narrow little head could not have conceived of, but she fled from me. Fled! From! Me!” Again the staff came slamming down, this time an inch or two from Letheo’s nose. “You will not let her escape again, will you?”
“No, Prince,” said Letheo. “She is to be yours and yours alone.” His voice had become raw and ugly in the space of this brief exchange. There was less and less of the dark-eyed boy left in Letheo’s scrawny face, and more of the monster. “Now, Prince, may I have—”
“This?” Carrion said, twisting off the tip of the vial of green thuaz with his thumb.
“Please. Please.”
“A drop, only,” Carrion said. “Just enough to keep you capable of rational thought.”
“But it hurts me.”
“Well, you’ll have more when the Quackenbush girl is dead. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Lord. When the girl is—is dead . . .” Letheo’s voice was barely comprehensible now.
“Roll, boy.”
Letheo obediently rolled onto his back.
“Open wide.”
Letheo put his hand to his mouth and opened it. Carrion carefully allowed a drop of the thick fluid to fall from the bottle onto the youth’s tongue. Letheo’s response was instantaneous. He curled up into a little ball, gasping, sobbing.
“Gratitude, gratitude,” Carrion said.
“Th . . . th . . . thank you. Lord.”
“Better.”
The spasm finally passed, and Letheo lay still.
“Now listen to me, boy,” Carrion said.
Letheo made a soft, pained sound, which was almost yes.