The Devil's Looking-Glass

Chapter THIRTY-THREE





BLACK CLOUDS LOPED across the sky, devouring the stars and the moon. Branches thrashed in the claws of the wind raking through the trees on the hillside. The torches roared and spat as the frightened men of the Tempest’s shore party forced their way through the rising gale towards the tower where Dee and Meg had taken shelter. With the storm, they could sense something darker coming too, long fingers of shadow reaching across the tropical island to snuff out their lives as easily as the lights that guided their way. When the howl of the Mooncalf rolled out near at hand, they jumped and cursed. Death lay everywhere.

‘What is that thing?’ Will asked, his shirt damp against his hot skin.

‘Dee’s watchdog,’ Meg replied. She lifted the hem of her grey skirt as she climbed the overgrown stone steps of the narrow path. Occasionally she would flash glances at her companion that ended with a puzzled smile as if she still could not believe he was there. ‘The alchemist made it . . . made it out of . . .’ She paused, looking away into the dark under the trees. ‘No matter.’

Will still hadn’t decided whether her suffering on Dee’s haunted ship and in the wreck on the reef had driven her mad. Her ship had been at best only two weeks ahead of the Tempest. How then could she believe she had been upon that island for twelve years? He had not yet broached the subject for fear the questioning would unbalance her further, but he needed answers if he were to snatch a victory from the coming conflict.

Strangewayes strode up behind them from the rear of the column. ‘How long before the sun comes up?’ he snapped. ‘I have had my fill of this night.’

‘Put aside any hopes of feeling the sun on your face,’ the Irish spy responded. ‘That will not occur until Dee decrees it.’

‘The doctor holds the sun at bay?’ Will said with incredulity. He had seen the alchemist at play with charts of the stars and potions and incantations, but never had the old man displayed the kind of power that could shake the heavens.

‘Dee has gone quite mad,’ she said, ‘and in his madness he has found a way to tap into forces that should never be conjured by mortals. This island too is a special place, where strange and troubling things occur, and whatever qualities it possesses only seem to serve to add to the old man’s magics.’

‘But holding back the sun,’ Strangewayes gasped. ‘Why, that is the remit of God alone.’

‘Then god he is.’ Meg looked up as the first fat drops of rain began to fall. ‘When he senses threat, he brings the night to confound his enemies, or calls storms to dash ships upon the rocks. And,’ she added, ‘the Mooncalf hunts better at night.’

Will heard the unseen creature snuffling and snorting in the undergrowth, breaking branches as it kept pace with them. It terrified the men with every step. But whatever it was, it seemed to obey the woman’s every word, so they were safe for now. ‘Men are not as easy to control as the Unseelie Court believe,’ he said. ‘They think they can run us like rats, but Dee has confounded them.’

‘How so?’ Strangewayes asked. ‘In posing as the angels he believed he contacted, he was lured away from the path of light, and eventually, when they were ready, they sent him spinning off into the dark. He took with him our last hope to repair our defences against them. And in their hands—’

‘But he is not in their hands. In Liverpool, the Enemy thought they could spirit him away as easily as they steal babes from their cribs. But they have been forced to chase him across half a world, right to their very doorstep. ’Twould seem to me that Dee had long since prepared his own defences, anticipating that the Fay would one day attempt to take him. And when they did try to exert their control, he unleashed his moon-side, which still holds sway.’ Will wiped the raindrops from his eyes, enjoying the cooling touch on his skin. ‘In his madness, he is unpredictable and uncontrollable, and, he would hope, beyond their reach.’

‘Then why come so close to their home?’ the other man asked. ‘Surely he would flee away from them.’

‘Dee is cunning. If he is here, there is a reason for it.’

The path wound round the hillside as it rose towards the tower. Emerging from the thickest part of the woods, they saw lightning crackling along the horizon and bands of heavier rain marching across the treetops towards them. In one white flash, Will found Meg staring at him and asked what troubled her.

‘You still look as young as that last day I saw you, so long ago, in Liverpool,’ she replied. ‘How can this be?’

‘And you have not altered one whit.’ He watched her face, ready to change the subject if she became distressed.

‘No,’ she said with a shake of her head, rubbing her fingers over her smooth cheeks.

‘’Tis true. Can you not see it?’

‘Dee allows me sight of no mirrors ’pon this island. The windows of the Unseelie Court, he calls them.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘You say the years have not taken their toll ’pon me?’

‘There have been no years, Meg,’ Will said gently. ‘For us, only ten weeks have passed since Liverpool.’

The Irish woman bowed her head, struggling to comprehend what she had heard. ‘This cannot be. My memory is filled with so many things happening here . . . so much struggle and misery, such loneliness that at times I thought I could not bear it. Coping with the old man’s caresses while my stomach turned, and listening to his ramblings about magic and philosophy and history. And yet . . . He told me once that in the home of the Fay, time did not march as you and I know it. It hovered or folded back upon itself. Oft-times the sands did not run at all. That is why, he said, the Fay never aged, and why their schemes run over years, and centuries, even. Perhaps this island has similar qualities.’

‘Perhaps so. If not the home of the Fay, mayhap it sits upon the borderlands in the shadow of that place.’ Will felt his heart go out to her as he saw her troubles laid bare in her face. ‘The other members of your crew?’

‘Those who survived the wreck died over time. The Mooncalf has a taste for human flesh, and in those early days, soon after he was created, Dee struggled to control him. He kept one mirror in those first months on the island and taunted his enemies through it. One Fay of fierce beauty, a witch by any other name, attempted to seduce him with her charms. Her name was Malantha, one of the High Family, and she and Dee battled wits for long weeks while the Mooncalf stalked the island, killing men. Dee’s weakness was always the pleasures of the flesh, and the Unseelie Court see every man’s weakness clearly. Malantha spun a web around him with her seduction, and only when the old man appeared on the brink of revealing the location of this place did he break free of her spell and shatter the mirror.’

‘This island was hidden to the Unseelie Court? That is why Dee settled here?’ Will brooded for a moment. As he thought he played the Fay, had they in turn played him, pretending to try to stop him reaching Dee while in truth following him to the prize? He silently cursed himself for his overconfidence. Where the Unseelie Court were concerned, nothing could be taken for granted; he should have learned that long ago.

Thunder cracked overhead and rain sheeted down, forcing the sailors to move under the canopy of leaves to prevent the torches from being extinguished. Meg seemed oblivious of the downpour. ‘After these twelve long years, I am weary,’ she admitted. ‘I yearn to be free of this business, to walk once more across Ireland’s green meadows and hear the songs of my people.’

‘Twelve years on an island with only Dr Dee for company might have seemed like an eternity, Mistress Meg, but the world still waits for you, just as it always was. Nothing has been lost.’ Will understood well her doubts and sorrows – they were too much alike, the two of them. ‘That is a second chance few people get.’

For a moment longer, she kept her head down. But when she looked back at him with a seductive grin and the fire alight in her eyes once more, he saw the Meg he knew. ‘Then let us waste no more time on miserable thoughts. The sooner we can overpower the mad magician, the sooner we can return home. And then we can dance and make merry and . . . perhaps . . .’

He smiled at the promise in her eyes. Before he could reply, calls and the sound of running feet echoed from the path ahead. As the sailors drew their knives and rapiers, two men careered out of the gloom and the wall of rain. Will recoiled, fearing he was seeing ghosts. Hair plastered to their heads and clothes sodden, Carpenter and Launceston skidded to a halt. Will stared for a moment, stunned.

‘At last,’ Carpenter said, breathless. ‘I could not bear to run another mile.’

‘John!’ Will exclaimed, grasping the other man’s shoulders. He beamed, barely believing his own eyes. ‘Robert! You survived.’

‘The Unseelie Court took us aboard their ship,’ the Earl replied, his whispery voice almost lost beneath the pounding of the rain. ‘But we escaped them.’

Will laughed, relief flooding him. His conscience had been stained by many things, but here was one that would no longer haunt him. ‘Fortune indeed smiles on us. Grace has recovered, and Meg here and the two of you have wriggled out of death’s grasp. Only a day ago, I never would have believed it possible.’

‘Pfft. We have survived worse,’ Launceston sniffed, wiping the rain from his face.

‘Let us save our tales for another time,’ Carpenter insisted, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Lansing marches towards the tower to seize Dee, with the pirate le Gris and his dead crew alongside him. We have little time – they know a short cut.’

Will felt on fire. His spirits had been low, but now it seemed as if no obstacle was too great. ‘Come, then, lads. Now we are reunited, let nothing stand in our way. For England!’

Even as the other men gave full voice to his cheer, another oath seared through his mind: For Jenny. Soon now, he thought. Soon he would have answers, and then revenge.