The Devil's Looking-Glass

Chapter TWENTY-NINE





THE LANTERN GLIMMERED deep in the gloom at the far end of the orlop deck. Carpenter felt little comfort from the tiny speck of light in the stifling heat and stale air of the dark space. The cargo hold throbbed with the rhythm of the waves pounding against the creaking hull, and sometimes, when the din diminished a little, he could hear the scrabbling of rats in the bilge beneath him. He grimaced as he sucked in a breath heavy with the stink of rot and worked at the greasy ropes binding his aching wrists behind his back.

Here, on this ship of the dead, the spy fought back his fear. He had been in many tight spots in his life, but few as desperate as this. His plunge from the Tempest into the violent sea had smashed the breath from him. Brine had flooded his nose and mouth, the undercurrent sucking him into the black water below. Swept back up to the surface, he had seized a fleeting chance to gulp one last gasp of air, and as he did so he glimpsed the white face of the foul thing he had dragged into the seething cauldron. If Lansing of the High Family had been swept to an agonizing death at the bottom, his own passing would have been worth it. The last thing he remembered was feeling arms close around him as Launceston attempted to keep him afloat. He marvelled: Launceston, who had no feelings for any living thing, who slaughtered innocent and guilty alike with the dispassion of a butcher preparing meat for the table.

Carpenter screwed his eyes shut. For some reason, the hated Enemy had saved him and stowed him away here in the filthy, stinking hold. Why did they not kill him and be done with it? He was no use to them; he knew nothing. Perhaps his suffering was simple sport, or revenge against a man who had been a thorn in their side for years, however ineffective.

‘Do you miss your friends? Your family?’

He flinched at the voice and almost cried out. His senses had told him that the hold was empty, but he should have known better; the Unseelie Court were like ghosts. The voice was that of Lansing. He was disappointed that the hated Fay had survived too, but he should have expected it.

The Fay asked his question again, his voice measured.

‘I have no family,’ Carpenter spat, ‘and no friends either. I have nothing in my life except the work I do, so do not think you can torture me with false hopes.’

‘We are not the monsters here.’

The spy laughed long and hard.

Footsteps echoed as Lansing drew closer. Carpenter tensed, expecting to feel a blow or the prick of a dagger, but instead he heard the Fay’s passionless voice at a lower level as if he were crouching to look his prisoner in the eye. ‘There is great beauty in our world. Music that can move men to tears. Art. Philosophy. The joy that comes from being at the centre of life and all the wonders it offers. You think us demons, but we are not so different, our two people.’

‘And yet you have treated men like cattle, ready for the slaughter, since the beginning of time,’ Carpenter sneered. ‘Stolen our children for sport, or our youth or our lives. Turned women to stone, destroyed families and whole villages, blighted lives for amusement or because we did not bow and scrape before you.’

‘And men are so different? We do not hurt our own kind. Can the same be said of your privateers in Africa, or in the New World? Of your own Queen, in her own homeland? So much misery inflicted on those who worship by another creed – and yet pray to the same God!’ An incredulous laugh rolled out from the dark. ‘Since man walked tall, the world has been awash with blood. Not one race, not one country, has never raised a weapon in anger against another. Those who have suffered at your own hands far exceed the number we have tormented. And we are the monsters?’

‘You twist things to seduce me with words,’ Carpenter said. He let his shoulders sag.

‘Nothing is as simple as it is made out to be by men of power. They always twist things to achieve the outcome they require. But I do not have power. I am just a warrior, like you, in this ceaseless shadow-conflict those greater than us have carved out.’

‘Like me? I think not. For all my flaws, I have honour.’

‘Then you have not had your fill of this battle, as I have? You do not wish to see it end and return to your home and your life? If this war were over, I would go in an instant and hold no hatred in my heart for any man. That is my most fervent wish.’

The spy did not reply at once. The Fay’s words struck a note deep within him. He had been left for dead, scarred, betrayed, deceived; had seen the woman he loved murdered and been denied the opportunity to walk away from the business of spying. Cecil would never let him leave. All the secrets he knew were too valuable, he accepted with bitterness. ‘I have heard of your plans,’ he said at last, giving no sign of his true thoughts. He pushed his head up in defiance. ‘You would wash us all away in a tide of blood. You want to win this war by leaving no trace of men upon the earth—’

‘We want only one thing,’ Lansing interrupted in a soothing voice, ‘the return of our Queen, my sister, taken from us in an act of grand betrayal when all we wished to do was make peace.’

‘Do you think I can trust a word you say? Your very existence is based upon deceit and lies.’

Carpenter felt icy breath on his ear and recoiled in revulsion. He smelled strange spices. ‘One more time,’ Lansing whispered. ‘We are the same.’

The spy wanted to feel anger, but the Fay’s calm words seemed to have sapped his rage. He sagged back against the damp boards, dreaming of a home that had not existed for many years.

‘Do you ever feel lost?’ Lansing continued. His soles scraped on the boards as he began to circle his prisoner. ‘If that word chimes with you ever, then you know my people. We are lost, all of us. Wanderers who travelled from four distant cities, Gorias, Murias, Finias and Falias, four places of such wonder and enchantment they could bring any who laid eyes upon them to tears of joy. But our way was lost, and we could never find our way home, and for as long as we have known we have been yearning for those magical, fabled cities. No peace in our days, no contentment, only endless searching. Our sadness eats into our hearts and turns our thoughts grey. But one day, we believe, we will finally find our way back and then, and only then, will we find peace.’

Carpenter felt a dismal mood descend upon him. He closed his eyes, letting his thoughts float back through the years and across the miles, to his father, in his cups and laughing by the hearth, and to his mother, wearing her best mustard skirts and white apron as she trudged through the snow to church on Christmas Eve. What uncomplicated lives they led. If only he had recognized that before he had left in search of coin in the Queen’s employ. Other scenes marched through his thoughts: the fields around his home where he knew every bird’s nest, how every shadow fell in the autumn twilight; the sound of the men singing as they drank their apple-beer after a hard day bringing in the harvest. He bowed his head. Lost, he thought, with such poignant regret it made him wince. ‘Did Launceston survive?’ he croaked.

‘Your friend is safe.’ Lansing’s footsteps retreated a few paces. Carpenter wondered if the Fay was drawing his blade for the first of many cuts and realized he cared little. ‘You may see him again soon,’ the Fay continued. ‘If only there would come a time when this war no longer tore friends apart.’

The spy read what his opponent was saying. ‘I will never betray my Queen,’ he muttered.

‘Nor would I expect you to. You are an honourable man, as am I. But there are steps we foot soldiers can take which could free us all from daily suffering, steps perhaps unseen by our masters caught up in their grand visions.’

Carpenter allowed himself a moment to imagine what life would be like without that struggle. He did not hear Lansing approach again.

‘We need no grand betrayal to end this war,’ the Fay was saying. ‘Only one thing, one small thing. The sorcerer, Dee.’

The spy snorted. ‘Without Dee, England falls. You will be able to do whatever you want with us.’

‘As I said before, all we want is our Queen returned. When she is seated once again upon the Golden Throne, there will no longer be need for struggle. We are no different, you and I. We want the same things.’ Lansing repeated the sentiment in a honeyed voice, the words almost dreamlike as they wove among Carpenter’s thoughts. The spy felt himself falling under their spell. We are the same. We want the same things. Lost. ‘Dee’s hands are drenched in blood. You know as well as I that few would call him a good man. He has no honour. What a small sacrifice he would be to achieve such a great end.’

And on Lansing spoke, the steady beat of his quiet words an enchantment that swept Carpenter’s wits away. Little of what followed did the spy recall, only the great swell of his yearning as he thought of fleeing his blood-drenched work for a simpler life.

And then he heard Lansing say, ‘Will you help end this war?’

And he replied, ‘I will.’

Though it was dark, he was sure the Fay was smiling. ‘We would join you with us, so we can whisper our secrets. Guide you. Comfort you.’

‘Why do you need me?’ he murmured. ‘You can raise the dead to do your bidding. You have your Scar-Crow Men. I am but one man, and a lowly one at that.’

‘One man who gives himself freely can achieve greater things than an army of mere flesh devoid of thought.’ Lansing’s footsteps drew closer once again. ‘Do you give yourself freely?’

‘If it will bring an end to this war and this suffering. If we can have peace once more, and lives without strife.’

The Fay lord knelt beside him and struck a flint. Carpenter screwed up his eyes as the white light blazed in the gloom. Once a candle had been lit, he saw that Lansing held a silver casket in the palm of one hand. ‘This path must be chosen,’ the Fay said. ‘We can no more enforce it than we can turn back the wind.’

Carpenter shook his head, trying to dispel his hazy stupor. An insistent voice echoed deep inside him, but it was too faint to comprehend the words.

Lansing flicked open the casket lid to reveal a silver egg lying upon folds of purple velvet. ‘It is a Caraprix,’ he said with an odd hint of fondness. ‘So simple in appearance, yet containing such great power.’

‘It lives?’ the spy asked.

Lansing’s lips twitched. ‘Yes, it lives. It will be your most trusted companion, should you let it. Oh, the things it will whisper to you, the wonders it will unfold.’

‘And it will help me achieve the ends we both want so fervently?’

‘It will.’

‘Then free my hands, and let me hide it in my pouch. I would be away from here and bring an end to this madness sooner rather than later.’

‘You do not need your hands,’ the Fay said in a calm voice which Carpenter found inexplicably troubling. Before he could probe further, Lansing delicately lifted the silver egg out of the casket and balanced it on his palm in front of the spy’s eyes. The unblemished surface gleamed in the candlelight.

‘We will become one,’ Lansing said with a cold grin.

Legs sprang out of the Caraprix’s side. Like a beetle, it scurried across the Fay’s palm and leapt on to Carpenter’s face. He cried out in shock as the sharp tips of those legs bit into his flesh and held fast. It crawled down, and though he clamped his mouth shut the spindly shanks wormed their way in between his teeth and forced his jaw apart. As it wriggled past his lips, he felt its smooth surface as warm and yielding as flesh. Sickened, he tried to yell, but only a strangled cry came out.

The Caraprix forced itself further into his mouth, towards his throat, filling up every space until he choked. Darkness closed around his gaze. As Lansing’s emotionless face filled his vision, he could only think how weak he had been, and what terrible things were now to come.