A Tribute to Queen Elizabeth II, Commemorative Edition: 1926-2022 The Life and Reign of Her Majesty
Author: Future Publishing Limited; Scott Reeves; Jon Wright; June Woolerton
Date: 2022-09-30 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Biography & Autobiography; Royalty
Description: The most complete collection of in-depth content regarding Queen Elizabeth II. With these pages, we remember a queen who devoted herself to her country and the people within it. In 1926, a princess was born in Mayfair, London. Named Elizabeth after her mother, she was third in line to the throne, but expected to be pushed further down the line of succession when her uncle had his own children. From the meeting and wedding of her parents in 1923 to her birth in 1926 and details of her childhood, upbringing, and education, read about the young princess who was originally third in line to the thr
Publisher: Fox Chapel Publishing

TITHE TO TARTARUS

The Third Book of the Dark Avenger’s Sidekick

A Tale of Moth and Cobweb

John C. Wright

Copyright

Tithe to Tartarus

John C. Wright

Castalia House

Kouvola, Finland
www.castaliahouse.com

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by Finnish copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental

Copyright © 2017 by John C. Wright

All rights reserved

Editor: Vox Day

Cover: Scott Vigil

Version: 001

Contents

1. Cover
2. Chapter One: The Mask of the Foxmaiden
3. Chapter Two: The Lair of the Vigilante
4. Chapter Three: The Face in the Glass
5. Chapter Four: In Darkest Night
6. Chapter Five: I Am a Sneaky Fox
7. Chapter Six: Hastilude
8. Chapter Seven: The Cauldron of Youth
9. Chapter Eight: The Treasure Room
10. Chapter Nine: Fire and Shadow
11. Chapter Ten: The Lass from Elfland
12. Chapter Eleven: The House of the Dead
13. Chapter Twelve: The Devil’s Own Door
14. Chapter Thirteen: The Gem of Memory

15. Chapter Fourteen: Who Speaks Words in Elfinland

16. Chapter Fifteen: Ne’er Sees More His Own Country

17. Awake in the Night Land
18. Young Man's War
19. Castalia House

‘O see ye not yon narrow road,
So thick beset with thorn and brier?
That is the Path of Righteousness,
Though of it few inquire.

‘And see ye not yon broad, broad road,
That lies across the lilied leven?
That is the Path of Wickedness,
And leads away from Heaven.

‘And see ye not yon bonny road
That winds about the ferny height?
That is the Road to fair Elfland,
Where we must go this night.

‘But, Thomas, ye shall hold your tongue,
Whatever ye may hear or see;
For who speaks word in Elflin-land,
Ne’er sees more his own country.’

—Traditional

Chapter One: The Mask of the Foxmaiden

1. Nightfall over the City

It was dusk in Manhattan, and Yumiko Ume Moth sat atop the Chrysler Building combing and braiding her shining hair of raven-black and brooding blackly on vengeance.

For now, at long last, out of the mists of amnesia, Yumiko finally knew the truth about her mother’s murder.

Yumiko knelt atop the spire. The crown was seven radiating arches mounted one atop the other, clad in stainless steel. Below her was the observation platform on the 61st floor of the Chrysler Building. Gliding weightless, she had followed a flock of pigeons riding a rising thermal to reach that height. Here, impressive Art Deco eagles glared out in all directions, facing Central Park, Times Square, Grand Central Station, and the East River. In the bay was the Statue of Liberty.

The sun in the west was smothered in clouds as orange as flame. The towers of the city were bright on one side, dark on the other, and threw long, horizontal shadows across the rectangular texture of lesser buildings. Windows running up the western sides of long-shadowed skyscrapers shined like upright swords whose mirrored blades reflected the pyres and burnings of conquered castles.

These lofty buildings were below her. Only the Empire State Building was taller. No workingmen had died in the construction of the Chrysler Building, and so Yumiko had no need to worry about ghosts.

She knelt atop an arch in her skintight gray supersuit, with black opera gloves and thigh-high boots. Snugly about her form was cinched her weapons harness with all its pouches, sheathes, and holsters. There was no wind; the air was still.

Yumiko did not know the elf-trick of having hair braid itself, and so it had been hanging down to the small of her back in a ponytail. The long ponytail was only a bit in the way of her quiver, only mildly likely to be snagged as she swung from rooftop to rooftop, and only partially inviting for an enemy to grab while wrestling to twist her head into a helpless posture.

She frowned and combed and brushed and frowned, wrestling with memories of sorrow and loss and trying to gather the scattered threads of clues and plans into a single braid.

One tiny fissure in the black wall of her amnesia had parted, and one glimpse alone had been shown her. She had recalled strange sights of ironclad airships flying the black flag of anarchy attacking a walled city in the clouds, Sarras, from which the sacred and ruby-red Grail by robbery was ripped. Yumiko’s mother Dandrenor, the Grail Queen, had died at her post.

Yumiko knew that Winged Vengeance, a survivor of Sarras, sought revenge against the Anarchists who had arranged that attack. She had been his sidekick and disciple before her memory loss. He alone truly knew who and what Yumiko was and had been. But now he mistrusted her and cursed her as a traitor.

Despite his mistrust, following a clue she provided to him, he had visited one of the secret strongholds of the Anarchists, the innocent-looking nightclub run by the magician Wilcolac Cobweb and called the Cobbler’s Club. She had seen him there, a man about town in top hat and tails, not a shadowy vigilante in his celestial flying robe of black.

The Supreme Council of Anarchists were seven men, or creatures, who took the days of the week as code names. Yumiko had discovered Lord Thursday to be Lucien Cobweb, the chief of a pack of werewolves, who were being smuggled into New York City by the hundreds. When the number reached one thousand, the wolves would emerge, immune to any weapon of man, and fall upon the city in slaughter and blood.

Two things opposed them: one was Winged Vengeance, who was hunting and slaying the Anarchists. The other was the Last Crusade, who were hunting and slaying the werewolves.

Lucien, the Lord of Wolves, working through the magician Wilcolac, had attempted to win the aid of the Last Crusade against Winged Vengeance. The Last Crusade consisted of Sir Gilberec Moth the Swan Knight, a young man whose tongue could speak with animals but could not speak untruths, and Matthias Moth, a Dominican novice and exorcist, whose eye could see ghosts.

Their third member, Tom Moth, an apprentice inventor, was missing.

And he was apparently Yumiko’s fiancé. Or something of that sort. She was in love with a young man of whom not the slightest memory remained in her mind. She had lost even the memory of her loss.

But Lucien had also hired Sir Garlot the Red, a knight of Elfland, possessor of the ancient and potent Cloak of Mists, to challenge and kill Sir Gilberec once he was of no more use to them. This same Sir Garlot had abducted and imprisoned Yumiko’s only friend and ally in this world, her scatterbrained cousin Elfine. Garlot was keeping the fairy girl in a bottle in his treasure chamber.

Yumiko had been working in the Cobbler’s Club in disguise as a waitress, dancer, and hat-check girl. This allowed her to place bugging devices in Wilcolac’s phone and tracking devices in the hatband of Winged Vengeance, the collar of Sir Gilberec’s dog, and the hem of the cloak of Sir Garlot.

Eventually her raven-black hair was braided and gathered into a snood, which was tucked, in turn, into her cowl. But by that point, her mood was lighter. Her next step was clear. She had placed the threads carefully. Now it was time to follow where they led.

“I must be a vain girl after all,” she muttered wryly, smiling for the first time. “Any reasonable adventuress wears a bob or pixie cut.”

Night had fallen. She donned her fox mask.

2. Electric Spoor

She took the time to check carefully each control in the mask, discovering features she had not noticed before or not remembered from her previous life, including how to turn on the airtight seal and the oxynitrogen supply.

To her delight, she found one of the settings of the eye lenses would superimpose a stereoptic gridwork and a dot of light on her view to give her the distance and direction to each tracer currently being tracked. A second feature opened an inset map. A third feature could allow status-alert lights from her electronics to appear in the corner of the her view and open status messages.

Yumiko summoned the inset map into the lenses of her goggles. The city spread below was overlaid with a grid of green lines. She confirmed that the tracer zero-five, the one she had hidden in the hem of the misty cloak of Garlot, was close at hand, in Central Park. Apparently, Malen’s brother had gone home to Is-Elfydd.

Rescuing Elfine might be a quick matter for a girl who could turn invisible. Yumiko spread her wings and launched herself into the night. Central Park was one long block away past Rockefeller Center and Carnegie Hall. The Chrysler Building was tall enough for her glider to carry her into the park, past the zoo and the meadow and the lake. She landed silently in the upper branches of a tree.

She twisted the ring to summon enough mist to render her invisible. Gliding and swinging from tree to tree, she came to the baseball diamonds of the Great Lawn.

Yumiko studied the little green numbers twinkling in her view as she peered down from her perch, wishing the suit had come with an instruction manual or that she could remember exactly how it worked.

Then she realized. One number was longitude. One was latitude. The third was elevation. It was a negative number. Yumiko had been maintaining the hope that perhaps Garlot’s treasure chamber was in a tower or treetop mansion. That thread of hope snapped. The tracer was below ground.

Yumiko twisted the ring back and forth, hoping against hope. When she twisted the ring until the band was shining black and the face in the intaglio that of a desiccated corpse, the tall hills crowded with monoliths rose above her, and the impossible mile-tall trees rose above that. The whole landscape seemed strange and out of proportion, as if objects both near and far were no longer obeying the normal geometric rules of perspective. But no gateway to the buried city was visible, and she could not recall under which hill it stood.

Before, when Malen had led her into this version of the scene, no watchmen had been seen. Now she saw what seemed to be corpses impaled atop sharpened posts of extraordinary length. The poles were gathered thick as reeds and spaced in a circle at the feet of the prodigious trees.

As one, all the bodies raised their heads. The empty eyes fixed on her. The pressure of their gaze smote her heart; a coldness like a flock of myriad needles tickled and pricked her limbs. The jaws of the empty mouths opened, and a cry of shrill misery, rising and falling, filled the air.

High above her, emerging from glass and jasper towers and stronghouses perched among the tall and thick branches of the impossible trees, now strode forth shining elfs in armor bright as silver, carrying bows and bright spears, and with the light of arctic stars gleaming in their eyes.

A silver trumpet sang: the note of music was so beautiful that it made her feel faint and elated, as if she had been injected with morphine. It was a soporific, benumbing. She twisted the ring to its pewter setting.

She could no longer see the trees, but the sound of the fair horn and the cold terror in her heart from the eyes of the dead still gripped her.

She retreated quickly. Her panicked heartbeat did not slow until she was perched atop the Chrysler Building once more.

Yumiko was surprised at the sensation of helpless anger. At first, she could not put it into words. It was not just that the trail led underground, where she could not follow. There was a touch of deep sadness, and of longing. She wanted strong arms about her, the arms of a protector she trusted, a man smart enough to outwit even the elfs in their ancient, ageless scheming and to surprise them.

Then the mingled thoughts and feeling came clear. Tom would have known what to do. Tom would have built or stolen a burrowing machine and simply dug down there, guns turrets blazing. That he was the type to put gun turrets on a burrowing machine, she had no doubt.

She cherished this thought. It was like finding a fragment of a page torn from a lost volume of a missing library. But the library containing all her thoughts, feelings, ideas, traits, triumphs, and losses was lost.

3. A Magic Shop

The next closest tracer was zero-six, the one she had placed on the top hat of the Japanese gentleman at the club, named Pooh-Bah. She suspected that this was not the real name of Winged Vengeance, who she knew to be of the Peaseblossom clan. It did not sound like a real Japanese name. Maybe it was Ainu?

In any case, she needed his help and now had more to tell him. How she would overcome his suspicions, she did not know.

She followed the signal to a spot between Lexington and Park Avenue. Here was a shop with three golden balls over the door. We Fix It! one gleaming neon sign declared. AL_ HOURS _PEN! flashed the red sign above the first, in blithe contradiction of the boast below.

Other hand-printed signs were thumbtacked to the door. Restorer of Reputations. Astrology. Palmistry. Love Philters. Checks Cashed. Souls Pawned.

Finally, there was a small brass plaque on the door. We Are Many, Proprietor.

When Yumiko peered through the smaller of the two windows, she saw what looked like a cluttered museum. Here were long-eared and spike-nosed goblin masks, skull-masks, and wolf-masks, and there were whips and chains and an iron maiden. An idol of Shiva, blue as a corpse and dancing on the back of a cowering dwarf, was on a pedestal midmost, and in each of her eight hands she held a weapon. There were mummified skulls hanging from the ceiling, inverted crosses and pentagrams, a stuffed alligator with a human head, and other things more grisly or disgusting.

The other window was larger. Here on display were a cabinet for holding a sleepwalker, a glass tank into which a wax dummy in a straitjacket was suspended by his feet, and a box on sawhorses for sawing a lady in half above a heavy grating meant to catch the blood. In the far corner of the window display was a wax dummy in a tuxedo, a wand in his hand. On his head was the top hat from which the tracer signal came.

From this second window, she could see the rear of the gloomy, unlit shop. There sat a shape dressed like a Franciscan friar. The hood hid the upper half of the mummified face. Its lips were sewn open into a wide clown-grin, displaying teeth of black iron. It sat on a seat shaped like a metal rib cage, with steel skulls adorning the arms. Behind this throne was an old-fashioned door of dark planks waxy with age with three huge hasps of wrought iron and a doorknob of blood-red cut crystal that glittered like ruby. It was as tall and wide as a gate.

Oddly, it was not the corpse of the friar that made Yumiko’s heart contract with fear and sent nightmarish, shapeless images of horror swimming behind her eyes. It was this tall door. What it meant—and where it went—she did not want to know.

She felt the evil gazes before she saw them. Fear like an ice-cold blade pierced her. The human-headed stuffed alligator was looking at her, as were the long-eared South Sea Island masks, the shrunken heads, and the statue of Shiva. The wax dummies had not moved, but now their painted eyes seemed alive, piercing her. The sleepwalker in the cabinet was not a wax dummy, for it had turned its head toward her without opening an eye, and held at a tilt as if listening.

And an intuition or a buried memory told her of the delight Winged Vengeance took in leading anyone seeking to follow him into traps and dead ends or into the arms of enemies worse than he. She knew that this was a place of power of some dark and malign entity. Whatever was inside this shop was worse than any elf of night.

This was a second dead end.

She twisted the ring on her finger, became weightless, and shot her wirepoon pistol overhead.

Perched on a flagpole many blocks away, she panted, doffed her mask, and mopped her brow. Did her old master think he could outsmart her? She may have forgotten her lessons, but her quality of character was surely the same.

Donning the mask once more, she tuned to zero-one, the tracer she had left in the octagonal room in the ruined church, where she had made contact with Winged Vengeance not long ago.

A warning light blinked amber, red, amber. Out of Range.

She had not known the tracers had a range.

4. A Vanishing Chamber

Twenty minutes and two miles later, she was down Fifth Avenue and past the Empire State Building, a block from Madison Square Park. Within an unlit area surrounded by cedar trees rose a square tower of red brick beneath a roof of tarnished copper. She landed on the roof between pale, weather-worn statues of saints and sought the window she had entered before.

She pulled the lopsided shutter open and saw nothing. She clicked from one lens setting to the next. Tossing her head to retract her mask, Yumiko drew and pointed the narrow, powerful beam of her flashlight within.

Vertigo touched her. She had been expecting to see a floor a foot or so below the sash, and on the floor, a table with a phone inside an eight-sided chamber. The table was not there. The floor was not there. The chamber was not there. Instead, she saw a dusty, empty space like a well, plunging down past the reach of her flashlight beam. The wheels and rafters from which church bells once hung were above her head, and the old chains, corroded with disuse, dropped down beyond sight.

She shone the light on the sides of the belltower. It was the wrong shape and too small. The eight-walled chamber she had seen here before could not have fit inside this space.

The sense of disorientation passed. She smiled wryly. Yumiko thought that a girl who carried more arrows, throwing stars, knives, boomerangs, and mini-grenades than would fit into a hope chest was the last girl with the right to complain when someone else used a similar trick to hide a secret room.

And the elfs hid towers in treetops and hills in ballparks. If Elfine were to be believed, there was a third hemisphere in addition to the two men know, where mountains and islands and whole continents were hidden. But how could a globe have three halves? In three dimensions, it could not.

Yumiko lit a flare and dropped it. Down and down into the dark it fell. It came to rest on a broken floor, where there were no pews, no baptismal font, no altar, merely empty niches. Yumiko donned her mask and inspected the barren interior with her magnifying lenses. Discolored bricks, brackets, and small square holes in the walls showed where fixtures had been torn out.

But as she leaned in the window, an alert light flickered in the corner of her gaze. A motion of her chin touched the control to bring the display to the center of her view.

The tracer zero-one was green.

Little numbers in green fire showed the distance and direction. Another touch of the chin-plate brought up the inset map. The source was off the edge of her map, but the signal was strong, and the bearing was clear. It was past Morningside Heights, somewhere in Upper Manhattan on the West Side.

Puzzled, she straightened. When her head was outside the window, the signal strength faded sharply. A step or two away, and the alert light turned amber. Signal lost.

5. Many Dimensions

Yumiko pondered. How could the inside of the window of a deserted church be within range to pick up the signal from a bug seven miles away but outside the window be out of range? How could farther be nearer than nearer?

In three dimensions, it was impossible.

Suppose a two-dimensional creature, like a living square, thought his universe were but a flat plane, but it actually occupied the surface of a sphere. To him, the third dimension would be as invisible and unimaginable as the realm of the elfs. If he ventured near an open shaft piercing through the core, he would hear sounds from the other hemisphere as closer and clearer than sounds traveling to him the long way around the curve of the equator.

Some side effect of the disappearing eight-sided room had left open a path or crack through which radio waves could pass. It was only a guess, but she had nothing better.

It was too far to travel by rooftop, and she was in haste. She slid down a wire into the deserted building, changed into her kimono, neatly vaulted out a broken upper window, rolled, came to her feet, and walked out of the shadows onto the brightly lit and crowded sidewalk. Seven minutes later, she was at the subway station.

A minute after that, she was seated in a crowded car, sitting between a bald girl wearing a large gold hoop as her nose ring and a man wearing a mohawk with Maori tattoos all over his face. Yumiko decided she would not look too out of place in a kimono, wearing a grinning black fox mask with gold ears, not among the night crowd of Manhattan.

It might have been swifter to travel north gliding and swinging along the rooftops rather than in this noisy machine with its frequent stops, but the leisure allowed her to study the other files recorded on the computer memory of her mask.

6. The Ears of the Vixen

The listening devices had settings for recording either on a continuous loop, at set times, or whenever sounds of certain volumes or types impinged on them. The feature, as best she could tell, contained a voice-recognition program, so the mike would turn itself on for certain voices but not for others. That seemed more magical than some of the magic she had seen, and a good deal more convenient.

Menus tracking the files of the recordings could appear in her lenses. The file for the bug labeled alpha showed a red light. Unit no response. Alpha was the one she had dropped in the lower vault of the Cobbler’s Club and which the Cheyenne had stepped on.

7. The Fangs of the Wolf

Beta was in the lamp on the desk of the invoice storeroom in the third vault. The mike came awake when what sounded like groups of workingmen entered the kennels, swearing and shouting and hauling heavy loads. There were bumps and thuds and the sounds of engines roaring and whining. After a pause, more sounds, this time of wild barking, howling, cursing.

Next came a hideous scream, “My arm! My arm!” She recognized the voice. It was Blud, the boy infatuated with her.

The boy’s cries were greeted with a roar of laughter and more curses. Then came the voice of Jarnik, the kennel master, cursing Blud for a fool. “No human meat for three days! Such is my order! Would you undo my work? Get him out of here! The scent of blood drives them to frenzy.”

“You want I should put a tourniquet on his stump? Blood is getting all over everything.” That was the voice of Svarog, the handyman.

She heard the creak of the chair and a footstep, a thud. Whoever was seated at the desk rose and slammed shut the door shut with an impatient bang. The noise level dropped below the mike threshold sensitivity, and the recording stopped.

The shipment of werewolves had arrived.

8. Four Calls

The final listening device was in the phone on Wilcolac’s desk.

The first file contained a recording of a call from his supplier protesting innocence over a missing shipment of aquavit while Wilcolac uttered increasingly dire threats in a voice of decreasing warmth and volume. She tapped the fast-forward control impatiently.

Next was someone named Svevid, evidently an accountant. He and Wilcolac discussed how to comply with new health coverage regulations for full-time and part-time workers, including Leshenka the seamstress, whose wages were paid in cabbages. Yumiko could not tell if this were slang, or a joke, or a custom of certain Twilight men.

The next call was from a police detective, asking about a missing person named Fred McDuffy. From the description, this was the same overweight man Yumiko had seen dying from a failed magical experiment. Wilcolac blandly denied any knowledge of the man.

The next file held an elderly female voice Yumiko did not recognize. “I am very worried about you. You know your time is near… when they are coming for you… the bargain you made…” said the voice broke off sobbing.

Wilcolac replied in soothing tones. “It will go as smoothly as it went seven years ago! I have made arrangements and can offer a choice morsel when the Dark Door opens. A true prize for them! Do not fret, please… All is well…”

Yumiko wondered who this might be. His mother? It seemed strange that he could have such a thing, some sort of normal life outside the orbit of his criminal career. His mother was alive to worry over him, when hers was not.

9. Captain and Magician

The next file held a voice she knew: the words were quick, the pitch was tenor, the tones light and mocking, the accent hovering between a lazy drawl and an angry snarl. A shiver of hatred traveled up her spine before she consciously recognized it as the voice of Lucien Cobweb, Lord of Wolves.

“Your letter came down my chimney just now and almost splashed in my soup!”

Wilcolac’s smooth baritone answered. “Dear master, I meant not to disturb. But events move quickly, and I know you want to keep apace.”

“Arthur is dead! You need worry your fat-cheeked, tiny, pointed head on that point no longer! This Gilberec is a charlatan!”

“Of course, dear master. I would not dare contradict you, even when the truth was obvious, and obviously not in your favor. How impolite it would be to warn you of the overwhelming danger you so heedlessly court!”

“You dare toy with me, palm-reader?”

“Sir, you came to me after the disaster of the Glass Tower. You were the military arm of the Anarchists but had no more troops to command. You yearn to regain the respect you have lost, lest they turn on you and rend you!”

“The conversation is as fresh as raw meat in my mind! I am still waiting for you to pull the promised rabbit out of the hat and saw the lady in half.”

“Have I not arranged for wolves to supply your want?”

“Wolves I had! Merely not where men could see. But speak. Say your say.”

“Master, Sir Gilberec Moth is a true knight of Arthur! The blood of victory touched his tongue. I heard his voice, and the enchantment of truth is in his word. It is an old spell, an ancient spell, but its like has been heard on earth before.”

“But a hypnotic charm that merely makes you think you hear the truth is not a lost spell, but a common one.”

Wilcolac’s voice grew cold. “If my master thinks I am so easily chant-caught by a Moth untrained in any Dark Art, let him tear out my living heart this very day, for I am worthless as your practitioner.”

“Well… Ah! The young friar might have cast a hex on you.”

“What? Does he perform the Black Mass before or after he goes to confession? I told you what happened to Jack-o’-Lantern. Or was I deceived by enchantment about that also? For Jack is yet shy a hand.”

Lucien snarled, but the noise turned into a barking sort of laugh. “Hoo-hah! So the boy sincerely believes Arthur lives and says so! And his magic tongue forbids he tell a lie! That merely means someone in a wax mask, or some ghost wearing a corpse like an old suit of clothing, has deceived the young fool. Arthur is dead! Merlin is dead! I was there when Nimue so said! There is no High King to bless such knights. Their power and pomp long ago burned away to ash, and treason cracked the Table Round. My hounds need fear no boy pretending to be of Arthur.”

“And if I am right? If Arthur lives? If he blessed the boy with victory? How many of the werewolves I so thoughtfully prepare for you have you spent against him? Is he even wounded? I saw no wounds on him. Have you killed his horse? I have seen a pack of your wolves outrun an armored car and rip it to bits. If he is just a fake, your creatures should have at least been able to kill his horse.”

The file ended there, but the next file was time-stamped within the same minute. Her mike had automatically shut down during Lucien’s long pause of angry silence, only to resume when he spoke again.

Lucien said, “No matter. Arrange the match.”

Wilcolac said, “Yes. Matthias Moth left an address where he could be reached. Sir Gilberec will not refuse. His sense of honor makes him blind. But, master, if I may: I am curious. What changed your mind?”

“The Foxmaiden was under my paw. Right under me! The Ring of Mists was on her person. I smelled the scent of darkest magic. But lightly she slipped away from me, and now the others take me lightly! Once, I had battalions to threaten them! What have I now? A few pookas and spooks. Some werewolves. Some owl women. A magician. Bah!”

“I don’t understand why that convinced you…”

“Saturday, that lying filth, told Sunday that I will not find the ring. I must prove him wrong.”

“How will this duel allow you to gain the ring?”

“It will not. But I will gain the cloak of Garlot.”

“Garlot is not likely to turn his cloak over to you, master. It is one of the Thirteen Treasures.”

“Not while he lives, no. The duel is merely meant to throw dust in the eyes of Malen.”

“Surely you do not mean to slay the brother of your mistress!”

“She must not see my hand is in this. He must die that same hour so that it will seem his wounds killed him. The profession of arms is fraught with peril.”

“No wound can kill him, master!” objected Wilcolac. “His is the Crystal Cauldron of Youth.”

Lucien’s laugh was a giddy chuckle. “Well, that is too many treasures for one man, is it not? Besides, I need the cloak and I want it. In a lawless world, what other reason do I need? I am a spontaneous spirit. Mine is a soul of fire! The cloak has the same powers as the ring, and so my promise to Sunday will be satisfied.”

“Not precisely the same, sir. I am not sure such a substitution would be welcome by the…”

“Yes, you see the brilliance!” interrupted Lucien. “I feel an inspiration tingling in my lower back! I will tell my assassin to wait until after Garlot kills Gilberec with sword and lance. Malen told me he bathes in his accursed crystal pot after every fight, whether he is wounded or not, and toys with his collection of tiny women. My assassin will sabotage the pot to make it deadly, slaying Garlot at the very apex of his celebration, when he thinks himself most safe! Within his very treasure room! The irony will be delicious. I am an artist. Do you not see? You perform your tricks on stage, but I perform mine on the stage of the world, with life itself as my masterwork! Art is death! Death is art!”

“As you say.”

“You think me mad. I sense your disdain.”

“Believe rather that it is envy, my master,” purred Wilcolac smoothly. “Your thoughts reach deep and unlit places far beyond my meager wit.”

“Your words are true, even though you mean them for mockery. But you only become so buttery in your flattery when you want something. Speak!”

“What of Tomorrow?”

“A perfect time for the duel! Make it noon, and I will have the assassin strike as soon as Garlot returns to Is-Elfydd.”

“No, sir. I meant the Moth. What of Tomorrow Moth?”

“He passed the Ring of Mists to the Foxmaiden. Your assurances about your abilities have proved windy, magician. Where is she? She was in the club, and you lost her.”

Yumiko smiled. Lucien must have heard of the time Yumiko let the bouncers spot her in costume before swinging away from rooftop to dark alley faster than they could follow. She allowed herself a moment of glee, knowing how cleverly she had returned to the club, disguised as herself, unobserved, unsuspected, to take up her job as a humble waitress.

Wilcolac said, “Let me play out the hand. I have more than one card up my sleeve. The Cheyenne will not fail me.”

“I want more magic ring, not more talk.”

“Tomorrow Moth must know her hiding place or how to reach her. Any man will break under torture.”

“Any man, yes. Any Moth? If we wake him from his enchanted sleep, he need only open his mouth and call on names which we cannot withstand. The fragment of the celestial cerulean dangles about his neck.”

“Ask a virgin to defile it. A human girl, able to touch holy things.”

“By what clever illusion or lie can we convince a pure maiden to willingly remove and mar the thing in such a way that the effort will not backfire? If she does it unknowingly, or unwillingly, the gem will not abandon him.”

“My master is wise. But if Tomorrow wakes?”

Yumiko was gritting her teeth. One thought ran through her brain, like a mantra, but a mantra whose repetition brings misery, not peace. Say where he is. Say where he is. Give me even the smallest hint!

Apparently, neither man was influenced by her unspoken wish. Lucien spoke in sarcastic tones. “Has he wife or lady who fills his drinking horn, or mother who girds him on his sword?”

“He has friends who seek him.”

“Necromancy is men’s magic. Women’s magic might undo it, yes. But the Swan Knight and the Ghostly Father’s novice? Do these boys command any art to break the spell and glamour laid on him? I doubt it. Even Arthur alive and hale, with Excalibur in his hand, could not battle the unseen, unfelt influences conjured by Sunday, Lord of Ghosts, and Monday, Lord of Vampires. All the powers of every outcast hated by the laws of Heaven is ours to command! What is Arthur to that? What are Arthur’s knights?”

“Yet no man has seen the Leader of the Last Crusade, the Man in the Black Room! Who is he?”

“Who cares? The Tithe to Tartarus will solve all of our problems with Tomorrow Moth, and with a satisfying finality. Once he is one with them, and they enter him, all he is will be theirs, and all he knows will be ours. The torments we could bring to flesh and nerve are nothing compared to that.”

“And if something goes wrong… We should be careful, master, and take all precaution…”

“I move as my inspiration demands! I have the heart of a poet, wild, mad, and free! Why do you think I can kill without remorse and drink blood like wine? Poetry breaks chains! Art shatters worlds!” Lucien laughed a weird, high, crazy laugh. And then, as if one personality had been switched off and another switched on, his voice was calm, soothing, rational. “You need not fear. The Lord of Wolves will not break faith with you. A wolf is loyal above all else! You will see Tomorrow Moth with your own eye, at the Tithing Ground, even if you do not see him. The whole cavalcade will escort him! You will be seated among them! I can arrange this with Erlkoenig, who thinks me no more than his hounds-keeper. And then, for you, peace of mind. For seven more years.”

The recording ended. Yumiko was rapt with delight for a moment to learn that Tom was still alive. Then fear, terrible fear, was like a nest of snakes in her stomach, or winding through her limbs from within. The echoes rang in her mind of strange phrases: the Tithe to Tartarus… the Tithing Ground… you will see him, even if you do not see him… once he is one with them… the torments we could bring… are nothing compared to that… and then, for you, peace…

Each thing, no matter how horrible, she feared these words meant, her imagination conjured another, even more horrible, a moment later.

How could she be so afraid for a boy whose face she could not recall, whose voice she could not remember? But her heart remembered, and she wept.

She gritted her teeth so that no sobs escaped her. She doffed her mask and wiped her wet cheeks, scowling angrily.

The girl with the huge gold nose ring patted her shoulder and said, “There, there, honey. It will be okay! Don’t let them stinkin’ rat finks get you down!”

Yumiko, bleary-eyed, stared at the stranger in confusion, wondering what she knew. “What rats?”

“Any of ’em! They’re all rats! Ya can’t give ’em the satisfaction!”

The man with the full-face tattoo silently offered Yumiko a tattered handkerchief.

Yumiko thanked him and daubed her eyes, and decided she liked the sons and daughters of the Daylit World far better than the beautiful and long-lived folk of the Night World.

Chapter Two: The Lair of the Vigilante

1. Abandoned Factory

On a high rooftop near the train station, she donned her dark suit and fox-mask and swung with simian grace along the skyline, a black shape flitting in the gloom above the street lamps. For the signal was now strong and clear.

About a mile later, she reached a run-down section of the city. Few were the lights in the windows, and few were the windows on the ground floors that were unbroken. It was quiet here. There were no cars moving on the streets, no people on the sidewalks.

The signal came from a windowless factory building of red brick. It had a slanting roof of black so that it was three stories tall on one side, four on the other. From the higher corner fronting the street a round chimney of red brick loomed, huge and tall, pointing at the black sky. Once letters had been painted on the chimney; they were now faded and inscrutable. The chimney seemed tilted, for the slant of the roof fooled the eye.

The front of the factory was a windowless, lopsided slab pierced by a large overhead door for trucks and a smaller door for people. Both were painted over with jagged, angry graffiti. The look of the weeds cracking the pavement before the two doors, and the tarnish gathered on the padlocks, showed that neither had been opened in years.

She landed and circled the factory on foot.

An abandoned lot was to one side, a place of cracked pavement, weeds, and more graffiti. In the lot, pushed up under the eaves of the slanted factory roof, were three dumpster bins filled, not with trash, but with nightsoil and mulch. Two of them had been undisturbed for so long weeds and little pale flowers were growing from an unhealthy greenish crust. The third sat under the mouth of a chute protruding like a rainspout from the factory.

The rear of the factory boasted a few sickly trees and a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, as torn and bedraggled as the trees.

The remaining side of the factory was flush against a flat-topped two-story structure of pale concrete. Its doorways had been boarded over, and the boards had been scrawled with graffiti and then kicked in, leaving rectangular gaps like missing teeth. A single broken window stared out of a pale concrete wall.

The factory on this side was twice as tall as its neighbor. For some reason, a metal door coated with peeling orange paint was planted in the midst of this otherwise blank brick wall that loomed over the flat roof of the pale building. This orange door had no landing, and no stairs led to it.

Yumiko was standing in the middle of the road, peering upward, when a traffic light dangling over the intersection nearby changed from red. The green glass was broken, so a sudden white light shone on her, startling her. She looked around the street warily.

It was eerie to see the streets so empty and to see so many buildings without lights. In the near distance she heard the muted roar of a single motorcyclist speeding down the barren streets, but when she swung herself high and landed on the broken traffic light and looked, the engine noise died away, and she saw no one.

From her perch, she looked again at the broken boards covering the doorway to the flat-topped building, and looked more closely at the single broken window. From this angle, she could see a ledge and a drainpipe which would have allowed any moderately athletic man to mount the flat roof with only modest effort.

Frowning beneath her grinning mask, she looked back and stared at the orange door. Why was it there? If there had once been stairs leading to the top of the flat building, no sign of them remained. If Winged Vengeance meant to have an airy opening only he could reach, this door was not high enough.

Then she saw an extending ladder, rusted and worn, lying on the gravel of the pale roof. If it had been sporting a pretty pink bow, the lure would not have been more obvious.

2. The Other Way In

Yumiko lowered her weight, unlimbered her telescoping bowstaff, and used it to vault herself up from the broken traffic pole. She sailed over the slanted black roof of the factory, shot her wirepoon to snag the lip of the huge, high chimney, and swung to the rim.

She looked into the dark depth. Why would a winged man use any door? The orange door was an obvious trap. On the other hand, using an obvious trap to lure the unwary into a subtler trap was not obvious. Perhaps this chimney was the real trap. Perhaps Winged Vengeance came and went by another way she had not yet seen.

She did not like the idea of lowering herself into a factory chimney, even one years dead. Ash or residual fumes might be lurking down the dark shaft. Or bad smells. She sealed her mask and turned on the oxynitrogen before fixing her grapnel securely into place and descending into the gloom.

Down she went. She lit no lights because the reflections escaping the chimney mouth above might be visible. There was no heat here, insufficient visible wavelengths to amplify, and no ultraviolet, so she was blind with all her lenses.

Her nerves jumped when a red light flickered in the corner of her vision. Toxic environment. A second message reported that her suit integrity was good.

Some residue from chemicals burned here long ago? She might have believed that, except that when she landed in an ash heap at the bottom of the shaft, something cracked under her foot. She left the wire in place to allow for a quick escape. Now she risked a light. In the ashes underfoot, she saw the smooth curve, the eyeholes, and the upper jaw of a human skull.

The burning chamber was punctured by a fuel vent leading in and a set of clogged slats underfoot originally meant to allow ash to fall out. To one side was a large metal hatch for introducing the material to be burned.

In the flashlight beam, she saw that the fuel vent had particles of ash dancing before it. She holstered the flashlight and clicked her lenses to infrared. The gas entering through the fuel vent was slightly warmer than the bricks behind it, so she could see colored plumes like ghostly smoke pouring silently in.

There was no lock to pick on this side of the hatch, nor any hinges. And she had not seen a hacksaw anywhere among the many useful tools in her belt, or a crowbar. However, her kunai-blade could serve. The ring in the knife butt could be rotated, and the bowstaff tip fitted to it like a bayonet. (Yumiko was once again impressed with the modular cleverness of her weapons.) The point of the stubby throwing blade she wedged into the hatch jamb. Then, she braced her bowstaff against the far wall of the chimney. The powerful force of the telescoping bowstaff expanding drove the knifepoint hard enough into the crack between jamb and frame to create a gap. The blade of her kodachi was narrow enough to slide through. Eventually, she found and dislodged the bolt holding the hatch shut.

She put her shoulder to the hatch. The rusted hinges groaned and refused to move. She dismounted the knife, braced the tip of the staff against the stubborn hatch, and expanded it. Under this battering ram, the hinges screamed, and the hatch banged open with a strident clang.

Yumiko sighed, wondering if there were any passersby on the street or in nearby rooms who had not noticed. Next time, she would just ring the doorbell and present a calling card to the butler: The Foxmaiden will do you the honor of furtively and surreptitiously breaking into your secret base after sunset. Please take no notice.

There was no help for it. She retracted her grapnel, cutting herself off from a quick exit, and slid out nimbly through the hatch.

Outside, her flashlight beam showed the crawling clouds of poison slithering out of the hatch with her. The clouds did not rise, but poured like water, clinging to the ground. She oiled the hinges with oil from her sword cleaning kit, put her back to the hatch, braced both of her feet against the brick floor, straightened her legs, and silently forced the hatch shut. Then, she threw the bolt. The seal was tight, and no more poison escaped.

3. Aside from the Poison

An open grillwork of supports upheld the slanted roof. She shot her grapnel into one of them, rose up, and twined her legs around a brace. Her flashlight beam could not reach the floor. She shut it off. It was dark as a tomb. Saying farewell to all hope of stealth, Yumiko ignited her second and last flare.

Below was a wide, empty factory floor, ankle-deep in poison gas. Protruding pipes, metal braces, and empty holes showed that whatever equipment had once been here was long since gone.

She drew one of her folding boomerangs and affixed the flare to a clear clamp that apparently had been designed just for this purpose. She threw.

The spinning boomerang cast brilliant light across the scene, and the shadows looped and spun in answer. One lopsided wall was pierced with the larger overhead door. This was the street side, the front wall. Nearby loomed a set of wooden platforms like giant shelves, evidently a warehouse storage area. It was adjacent to a roofless walled-off area one-story tall. From her high perch, she could see office spaces bare of furnishings, a short hallway, and the smaller door from the street.

The factory space was wide enough for the boomerang to fly in a circle and return. She swung out on her wire to catch it and to hurl it in the opposite direction.

The rear wall of the factory was broken into little bays and inlets. Whatever utility rooms, motors, plumbing, lockers, or other fixtures which had been there were also gone.

A second time the boomerang returned to her hand. Now she threw it to one side. In the spinning glare of light, she saw a catwalk clinging to the taller of the two long side walls. This catwalk was twenty feet off the floor and ran the whole length of the factory. It reached from the brick chimney at one end to an enclosed loft at the other. The loft clung to the slanted ceiling like some bulky, square version of a swallow’s nest.

The boomerang passed over the catwalk and became embedded with a clang. The light was now motionless over the wide empty place.

Yumiko looked up and down. Aside from the spreading cloud of poison, nothing in the surroundings seemed unusual for an abandoned building.

Or almost nothing. The boomerang was sticking into the side of what looked like an elevator car. This block-shaped feature stood at the midpoint of the catwalk. She estimated this was the spot where the orange metal door pierced the wall. In the brilliant light from the flare, this elevator car seemed rust free, the paint fresh. It was more recent than its surroundings. The catwalk passed before it. But there was no elevator shaft above or below. From the floor of the elevator car, a large, long, square, sloping metal shaft ran parallel to the slanted ceiling. This shaft ran to the point in the shorter wall where, from outside, she had seen a rainspout pouting over the dumpster bin of liquid filth. Perhaps it was part of the ventilation system. It looked like a laundry chute.

With the flare motionless, she saw details previously missed. Where the catwalk met the brick chimney, twenty feet off the ground, a second hatch penetrated it. This second hatch was directly above the one she had broken open. It had new hinges and showed marks of recent use. There was a wheel to turn instead of a latch.

Yumiko groaned with understanding. Anyone able to fly down the shaft who knew where the upper hatch was, instead of dropping into a well of heavier-than-air poisonous gas, could simply turn the wheel, exit the chimney shaft, and walk on the catwalk.

There were no stairs from the catwalk to the factory floor. Not that a winged man needed them. The catwalk ran to only one spot. Yumiko swung through the roof supports toward the loft. Once, large windows had been here, overlooking the factory floor, but now all were boarded up with plywood. That was not the strangest sight.

Where the catwalk touched the loft, the metal walkway ended in an old-fashioned door with a large doorknob of blue glass. It gleamed like a vast sapphire. The wood was held by large metal hasps, and the door and doorframe came to a peaked arch at the top.

Before the door was a brown mat, sitting on the iron grillwork of the catwalk.

Yumiko was unwilling to step onto the catwalk because she could not see why a winged man would use one to reach a door four stories in the air. Instead, she swung gracefully in and used her glider wings to break her speed just enough that she could drive two knives, one in each hand, into the plywood boards covering the windows. Weighing less than a pound, she could hang from one hand or flip herself up and balance on her boot toes on the knife hilts. The dizzying drop to the empty factory floor was below her. The railing was next to her, as was the odd, archaic door.

She had seen such a door in the magic shop where Winged Vengeance left his tuxedo. It was similar in shape, but it was not the same wood, the same size, or clasped with the same ornate hinges. The knob was sapphire, not ruby. But it was clearly a brother to that other door.

She looked down. The brown mat had letters on it. They spelled out GO AWAY.

4. The Inner Sanctum

Yumiko put on boot on the catwalk handrail and reached out with her hand.

The glass doorknob turned. The door was unlocked.

A thrill of suspicion trickled up her spine to her neck. What sort of vigilante left the secret door to his hidden sanctum unlocked?

Warily, Yumiko drove another knife into the plywood further away and perched on it. With her back to the plywood, she expanded her bowstaff, extended to twice its normal length, and used the far tip to prod the door open.

She waited warily for an explosion or an attack by poisonous asps. Neither came.

Closer she crept again, clinging weightlessly to the plywood, and peered around the doorjamb.

At that moment, the flare was exhausted. The light fluttered and failed.

Darkness closed in. Yumiko drew her flashlight. In its beam she saw the eight-sided chamber beyond the strange door, paneled in dark wood, dark beneath a high, octagonal dome.

Weightlessly, she swooped into the chamber, landing in a crouch with no more noise than a falling cherry blossom petal. Here on a table in the middle of the carpet was the same phone on the same table she had seen before.

She waited, wondering whether it would ring.

The phone remained silent. She sent the flashlight beam left and right to inspect the eight walls.

Last time, the arched door had opened, not onto a catwalk inside a deserted factory uptown, but onto a brick wall. Last time, the arched door had been opposite three windows in three walls looking out on the churchyard of a deserted church downtown. The three walls were there, but now two of them were pierced by narrow doors. The wall between them was a niche holding a photographic portrait draped in black. To either side of the photograph were flowers in vases and twigs of incense in holders.

Yumiko shined her beam on the picture. Her sob caught in the throat, heavy with emotion, before her brain consciously recognized the clear features, green eyes, raven-black hair. It was her mother.

Stepping nearer, she saw that these smaller doors both sported brass handles, but neither knob nor lock. Behind each was a blank brick wall.

Next, she looked at one of the cabinets. It was also unlocked, but, as before, it also opened up on a blank wall. She pushed back the top of the rolltop desk. Empty.

She walked a circle, slowly inspecting the eight walls. Then, she turned her flashlight up. A wooden dome made of eight curving panels was above. As when last she stood here, the chamber was like a stage setting, not a real room. What was she overlooking?

She directed her beam downward, seeing how obvious were the trail of triangular prints her boot toes made in the thick dust and the tiny, sharp imprints of her heel. Her brow creased. Did Winged Vengeance never sweep the carpet? Perhaps that had been her job. But where were his boot prints?

Kneeling, Yumiko ran a finger along the fibers. She inspected the dust on her fingertip. It was a white powder. The alert light in the corner of her vision flashed. Toxic environment.

Yumiko shivered, remembered that her supersuit had clamped shut, airtight, the last time she had entered this chamber. At that time, she had not known how to turn on the warning messages from the suit’s hidden instruments. Despite this, the suit, or whatever thoughtful paranoiac had designed it, had saved her life.

But she also remembered taking off her mask during her last visit. Why had the toxin coating the carpet not acted on her then? She tried to remember the exact order of events. Yumiko stood, stepped over to the pole lamp, and switched it on.

In the bright light, the dust stain on her fingertip looked dull gray. The warning light in her lenses winked out. The air registered as safe to breathe. She turned the pole lamp off again. The dust turned from gray to white. The warning flashed. Toxic environment.

What kind of material could change its properties when struck by light and turn from lethal to harmless instantly? Whether it was elfin alchemy or human super-science, it was astounding.

And astoundingly stupid to use. How did Winged Vengeance make sure, when he left the room and stepped into a dark place, a closet, unlit corridor, or out into a moonless night, he had no small gray stain overlooked on his elbow, or boot sole, or clinging to the hem of his cape which would instantly suddenly turn white and lethal again? In fact, how had she left this room of death safely?

She could not remember. But surely she had twisted the ring to render herself weightless before exiting since there was no other exit but the window. Could the mist of the elfs disperse the dusty poison?

Yumiko twisted the ring twice widdershins.

5. Hanged Men

The mist thickened about her, rendering her unseen to human eyes. Immediately, her hands began to tremble. Her fingers were cold. She bit on the switch inside her mask to increase the oxygen flow, but she still seemed unable to breathe. Yumiko turned the flashlight left and right, wildly, looked for the source of the threat. No one was here.

Then, she switched the flashlight off. There was a man hanging by his neck from a rope descending from the shadows of the eight-sided dome. An arrow pinned a note, written in blood, to his chest, and protruded from his back. His eyes were terrible pits of emptiness opening into a universe larger and darker than the universe of stars the Earth’s tiny globe spun through. A second man, eyeless, bound, and hanged, was next to the first, also impaled by an arrow. A third man, hanging by the neck, arrow-stabbed, had his wrists tied behind him by his bootlaces. A fourth hung head downward.

She looked over her shoulder. There were more behind her and more to either side, like grisly fruit hanging from a rich tree. One looked as if he had been run over by a truck before being hanged and impaled. Another, as if he had been burned. Yet another had huge bites torn out of his bound arms and legs, as if he had been lowered into a pit of savage animals before dying.

With a creak of ropes, the corpses now all rotated so that their bloated, blackened, torn, and desiccated faces all faced her.

Yumiko screamed in shock and terror. She had let go of the flashlight and covered her mask with her gloves. Gritting her teeth, she forced her cold fingers to move. She grabbed and twisted the ring. Once, twice, thrice, and once more again.

Her longbow and short sword snapped out to their full length, and her cape unfolded into glider wings, knocking the phone off the table. Bolo and boomerang and dozens of knives, barbed and throwing stars jumped out of their belt pouches and fell to the carpet.

The metallic clamor of the dropped weapons rang in her ears. The echo hung in her ears a moment, and silence came.

Fear vanished.

The ghosts of the slain were gone.

A light as clear and subtle as starlight was streaming from the ring in all directions, glinting like Procyon on a clear winter night.

Yumiko stared at the ring in awe, but this time, it was the awe of wonder, not of terror. The woman’s face in the intaglio of the ring had changed again, and now her features were those of a stern and bright-eyed angel crowned with rays.

Chapter Three: The Face in the Glass

1. Starlight

She stood. The chamber now seemed airy and clean. The dust on the carpet had also vanished. The suit indicated no toxins were in the air. Yumiko unsealed and opened her mask. The air seemed fresh and clear.

She had to undo the harnesses of her wings. Cutting blades were now visible at the toes of her boots and running along her forearms from wrist to elbow. An elbow pad and two kneepads made her motions less limber.

But she did not twist the ring to banish the starlight yet. It seemed to have banished the mist that had been in this chamber, unseen and unsuspected, and to reveal yet another level of hidden things.

She stepped over the rolltop desk. It was no longer empty. One of the pigeonholes contained a radio apparatus; another held the five-sided element charts and astrological calendars for a type of divination called onmyodo; the tools of a chemistry set occupied others and a compact but thorough forensics lab; the drawers held groups of notebooks. She opened one; the page was blank. She held it near her nose and sniffed. There was a faint odor from the page, as if ink were present, but unseen. She closed her mask and went through the various settings of her lenses and flashlight, hoping the ink was visible in the ultraviolet or infrared. It was not.

She opened other notebooks at random. All were blank. Here was the desk of her master, crammed with his secrets, years of journals and diaries, and she could see none of it.

2. Celestial Collection

Next, she opened the cabinet door on one of the walls. This time, bathed in the silver light of her ring, instead of a blank wall, the cabinet held a large and obvious handle. It must have been invisible before, hidden in the mist. She pulled it.

On the other side of the chamber, the blank wall behind the rolltop desk sighed and slid open. Beyond was a walk-in closet. Three walls of the closet contained a set of glass shelves behind smoked glass panels. The shelves held what seemed at first to be a collection of gems that blazed with white fire. A dial could adjust the polarization of the panel to darken them and to make the blindingly bright shapes visible.

A touch of the finger moved the glass panels to bring more into view from below and to hide those above. The rear of each shelf was mirrored so that the things displayed could be seen from front and rear.

But the materials glittering in the collection were not gemstones. One or two she recognized, such as an awl or fork, an inkwell or arrowhead. Other objects were curved or pointed or hollow, like fishhooks or drinking bowls or sets of linked rings; but not quite of the right size and shape for any of these things. Here was a sets of cubes and prisms forming a hollow pyramid; there a group of what looked like miniature sundials or crystal toadstools; and the next shelf held what might have been spiral horns of fabled beasts, except that they were crystalline and transparent.

Some held liquids but were not shaped like bottles. Some emitted light but were not shaped like lamps.

All were as beautiful as works of art but looked like nothing in nature, and so they might have been decorations of pleasing shape. All were made of a crystal that seemed to fool the eye. One moment the object seemed smaller and nearer to the eye than the cabinet around it, and the next, it seemed larger and farther. Most of the objects burned solemn blue or pristine white, but there were, now and then, gem-like gleams as red as Antares, as blue as Bellatrix, as golden orange as Capella.

Looking closer, she saw that nearly all were chipped, marred, or asymmetrical as if bits were missing.

Then, she gasped, for she recognized one of the artifacts: it was a silver scarf-pin shaped like a fish, with azure chips for scales, and the light of Arcturus for eyes. Yumiko had seen her mother wearing it, holding the folds of her wimple at her throat. Yumiko’s eyes, in her younger days, must have been different from her eyes on Earth, for she had not remembered the ornament as so beautiful, so bright.

When she turned the dark glass entirely transparent, Yumiko found her naked eye could not look upon her mother’s pin. Yumiko saw no way to open the case to touch the pin. Nor was she sure the touch would not burn her.

She turned the dial and darkened the glass once more. Now Yumiko understood what this was: litter recovered from the rubble of Sarras, the fallen city of the stars.

Silently, she closed the cabinet door.

3. Armory

A second wall of the eight-sided chamber also contained a cabinet, in which was a switch previously invisible. Pulling it open made the blank wall opposite the desk slide open. A second hidden closet was directly opposite the first.

This second closet contained weapons. Two weapon racks faced each other, one filling each closet wall. The first held black blades and dark weapons, massive and heavy, and quivers of red arrows cut too long for her bow. The other held weapons of silver-white, slender and more graceful blades, shorter arrows. Gratefully, Yumiko re-supplied the arrows and throwing blades she had lost.

Between the weapon racks was a chest of glass drawers holding other supplies. The upper drawers held arrowheads of different shapes: leaf shaped or trefoil, broadhead or bodkin-point.

One drawer held flint-napped arrows of stone. A label read: For nephilim. The next higher drawer held arrowheads of fire-hardened ash for vampires and, above that, silver arrowheads for werewolves, all neatly labeled. The uppermost drawer held red metal arrowheads. These were labeled: Meteoric Iron from Sarras. For elfs.

There was also a single arrowhead made of a black substance that seemed to be neither metal, stone, nor wood and was bitterly cold to the touch. For the Dragon. She wondered about that label.

From the lower drawers she replenished her missing miniature grenades, flares, and so on. There was even a cubbyhole holding a pad of metallic cloth to replace the one a wolf had torn from her elbow three weeks ago.

She found a small box containing a hacksaw, needle-nosed pliers, and other useful tools her utility belt had been lacking.

Yumiko twisted the ring and banished the starlight. The eight-walled chamber seemed smaller than it had a moment ago, and the air hot and close. Like her other gear, this toolkit was a mermaid pouch. With the starlight gone, she could flatten the toolkit to an impossibly small size. Nonetheless, she had to remove and leave behind the pouch of weapons from her utility belt to make room. Evidently, her previous self had thought carrying an extra dozen throwing daggers, a trifork spearhead, and a brace of climbing claws was a better use of space.

4. Locked Doors

Next, she went to one of the two interior doors and opened it. With the ring no longer shedding starlight, the brick wall was still there—or seemed to be. But now she was sure that the brick wall was merely a trick, a thing of colored shadows. There was a switch or lock hidden in the mist, invisible. She reached toward her ring but then hesitated.

Winged Vengeance did not have the Ring of Mists to command the mists to draw back. How did he open his door? He no doubt went through the rooms of his lair many times a day, including while burdened with laundry bags. Or, more likely, body bags.

She pushed on various bricks at hand level or eye level, but nothing moved. The bricks felt solid.

Perhaps he used a key or a remote control. But, if so, it would be something he carried on him at all times. Wings? She flapped the hem of her own cape against the wall. It was a celestial flying robe, at least, of a sort.

The bricks remained bricks.

Or rather, the elfin illusion of a wall of bricks remained. What would Winged Vengeance carry on his person at all times which was proof against elf magic?

Then, she laughed, reached over her shoulder, drew out a red arrow whose head was made of meteoric iron from Sarras, and touched it to the so-called brick. As suddenly as if waking from a dream, she realized she had been staring at a door that was merely coated with red wallpaper printed with a repeating pattern of rectangles. She rapped on it with a knuckle and heard a hollow, wooden echo. The doorknob was plain to see. She opened it.

Beyond was a barren cell, such as a hermit might use. There was a sleeping mat on the hard floor, a lamp, a trunk that contained a man’s clothing, a chamber pot, and a wash basin. Winged Vengeance certainly did not coddle himself.

There was only one decoration in the hermit cell: a standing screen of black rice paper. It was a triptych of three panels. Calligraphy was painted on the screen in energetic but controlled strokes of red ink. One panel read: Those who flee the light adore the dark.

In the center, it read: Let me be in the dark and bring my terrors, and dark they will no more adore, for it is become their foe.

The final panel was two bold ideograms, which meant: In the darkest night, there must be vengeance.

There were two archways on the far side of the cell opposite the rice screen. These opened into even smaller chambers. One was paneled in mirrors and held a stationary bike, weightlifting equipment, and a wooden practice dummy called a wing-chun. The other was paneled in cork and held a chair, a music stand, and a violin in a climate-controlled glass case. The sight of the violin stung her eyes with tears and troubled her heart, but no memory surfaced to tell her why.

She returned to the main chamber and opened the other door. This one also seemed to have a brick wall behind it until she touched an arrowhead to it.

The door now opened into a room with white walls and floral wall screens. Midmost was a pink bedspread. At the walls were a chair, a desk, and a wardrobe.

In she walked, arms spread, and she spun in a circle, smiling. A stuffed white teddy bear with a bow about its neck sat cheerfully on the pillow. She picked it up and hugged it without knowing why.

Beyond the fluffy pink bed were two archways. One led to a miniature kitchenette. The other held a door, behind which was a luxurious bathroom where an old-fashioned tub crouched on claws clutching glass marbles beneath a gas-powered brass water heater.

She bounced on the bed, leaped up, spun on her toes again, and flung the wardrobe door open. She knew without trying anything on that it would all fit. She plucked up her favorite wide-brimmed straw hat, doffed her mask, and pushed back her cowl so that she could wear it. Yumiko smiled at herself in the mirror above the vanity bureau and tilted the straw hat at a rakish angle. She turned again and looked at herself in the mirror over her shoulder, striking a pose.

There were two photographs tucked into the frame of the mirror. One was a slightly blurred black and white photo of a dark-haired woman with two children. It had the stiff quality of a photograph taken with a box camera long ago.

The children were a young girl and an older boy. The little girl was tall and seemed almost too old for her mother to hold in her lap. The young man sat to one side and behind the mother. He had dark, intent eyes. All three had the black hair, ivory skin, and epicanthic eyefold of the Far East.

The other photograph was in color. It showed a clean-shaven freckle-cheeked redheaded youth in an aviator’s leather jacket. Goggles were pushed high on his forehead, making his orange forelocks stand up at wild angles. On his back was some sort of metal backpack with wings, only part of which could be seen protruding from behind his shoulders. In one hand was what looked like an electric crossbow. It had ruby lenses at the tip of each arm and thick electrical cables running to the stock. His other hand was raised in a thumb’s-up salute.

His eyes were as blue as cornflowers.

An emotion too large for words possessed her. She drew the color photograph out of the frame and stared at the boy’s face intently. This must be the one. It was he. Tomorrow Moth, the young inventor. Her fiancé, supposedly.

It was the first time she had seen his face.

She looked up and saw herself staring at her. She said to the image of herself in the mirror, “This must be my room!”

The image in the mirror said back, “It is. Welcome home.”

5. Riddles

Yumiko hesitated for a moment between puzzlement and fear, wondering whether she had finally gone mad. For she had spoken to herself several times in the mirror, whenever she was troubled. It had never answered back before.

Yumiko, embarrassed, removed her straw hat. The image in the mirror remained wearing hers.

“I beg your pardon? Can you talk?” Yumiko asked. “Are you real?”

Her face in the mirror tilted her head to one side. “Does anyone ever answer that question by saying no?”

“What is your name, please?”

“Yumiko Ume Moth,” said her face.

Yumiko scowled, and her face scowled at the same time, imitating her. “That is my name!”

Her face said, “No, your name is the Foxmaiden. Your name is vengeance.”

Yumiko shook her head, but this time, her face did not imitate her. Instead, it nodded slowly, insistently, staring her deeply in the eye with a knowing look.

Yumiko said, “Who are you, really?”

“Your shadow in the glass.”

“Are you a spirit? A ghost?”

“The ghost of a living girl?” her face asked impishly. “As Tom would say, That would be a slick trick.”

“Then how can you talk? What are you?”

“I am a diary, if you please.” The other smiled. “Your diary.”

“What? I mean, I beg your pardon?”

“I can talk because you needed someone to confide in.”

Yumiko’s heart leaped. “Then you know all my past! Tell me! Please!”

“That would be my pleasure,” said the diary. But then she said, “Who danced for joy on the day of darkness, when all the spirits of Heaven wept before the stone that blocked the cave where light died?”

Yumiko scowled, and her shoulders slumped. The talking mirror was asking her for her password. Of course a girl would keep her diary locked.

6. Family Photo

Yumiko’s eyes fell on the black and white photo. She drew it out of the frame and brought it close. The lady wore a dress of a style Yumiko did not recognize, a fair garment of many silken pleats falling in smooth lines.

It was her mother. Which meant…

The diary said, “Who stepped forth when none other would go to confront the dreadful spirit that stood upon the eight-forked bridge binding Earth to Heaven and opened the way?”

Yumiko inspected the two children carefully. They were dressed in summer kimonos called yukata. Hers was decorated with a pattern of moths; his with ravens.

Even as a little girl, Yumiko had possessed something of the rangy limbs of an athlete, the narrow features and high cheeks of Akita Prefecture.

She stared narrowly at the youth. The man into which he would grow was clear in his features. It was the face of Pooh-Bah of Titipu, the tall and impressive Japanese gentleman she had seen so briefly at the Cobbler’s Club.

Why was a youthful Winged Vengeance with Yumiko and Dandrenor in a family photo?

The diary said, “Who stood watch before the sacred grail of Sarras, from whose rim the last sacrifice at the last feast drank the last of the wine?”

Yumiko jerked her eyes up from the photo and stared at her reflection’s eyes in the glass. “I know that one. Dandrenor. Dandrenor is the Grail Queen.” She turned the black and white photo and showed it to the mirror. “Now I have a question for you: Who is this little boy?”

The diary’s eyes narrowed. “You do not recognize your own half-brother? That is rather odd. You answered the riddle right, but Nyctalope warned me not to trust anyone wearing your shape.”

“Nyctalope? Is that his name?”

“He said you fell into the hands of the Anarchists and so might be a clone grown from the cells of the real you, or possessed by a ghost, or just a dead body animated by an electronic brain. They do things like that.”

Yumiko grimaced. “Please! How do I prove I am the real me?”

The diary bowed slightly. “I am sorry, but you prove yourself by answering the riddle correctly and by knowing who your own brother is, or so I would say. You’ve done one of those, so it may be permitted that I recite you the final entry I was given. But the other entries must stay locked, I’m afraid.”

“Wait! That is not fair! I am the real me!”

“How do you know?”

And Yumiko had no answer for that.

The diary shook her head. “If you were the real you, and not just some shadow or reflection like I am, you would not want me to take the chance and tell someone who might be a stranger or enemy about your private thoughts and feelings, would you? If you were the reflection of me, rather than me of you, would you not do the same?”

7. The Final Entry

The reflection in the mirror was now seated and no longer wearing a straw hat, but she was dressed in her skintight black supersuit, with the cowl pushed back. Over her shoulders was flung a long, sleek, black trench coat with padded shoulders and a pinched waist.

But the expression was different from her normal reflection. There was a bitter look in the narrowed eye, a harsh set to the jaw, a frowning coldness in the crease of her brow and tilt of her pretty head.

“Personal log. Day 1,441 since her death. She is still unavenged.”

Her voice was like the voice of a stranger, stern of tone, joyless, fierce. It seemed like something from another life.

“Komobo questioned me again about the nature of the mists of Everness…”

Komo meant red-haired person. Bo was a diminutive to show affection, like using a baby name for your boyfriend.

“…but then he insisted on doing test after test, trying to find how it affects kinetic energy. I told him the reason why pistol bullets do not work in the mist but sling bullets do is that guns are not things of the world beneath the mist. Why doesn’t he listen to me? For some reason, he thinks his laser pistol will still operate. He says there is light in the Otherworld, so it has to work. I told him it is a realm of darkness.”

A sigh of exasperation sounded in the glass.

“So pigheaded! It is the same argument we had when I told him any disguise would deceive anyone from the Daylight and all but the greatest of the Twilight. He thinks my mask will not fool anyone. Even though he practically made it! All that new gear he put in! I don’t have to carry that stupid huge radio around in my hand any more.

“He said that I am the same height and have the same voice and the same walk when I dress up. He says people will recognize my bottom when I walk. In the suit, everyone can see my bottom perfectly well. I think he was saying that to tease me. He is so mean sometimes!

“I told him! Even a tiny little mask around the eyes is enough. A pair of glasses is enough. It is one of the conventions of the Black Spell. He worries about me too much!

“He exposed a group of white rats to the mists in higher and higher concentrations. The rats lost visibility, growing less visible to light and more visible to darkness. After that, they lost gravity, solidity, location, and then memory.

“I saw his rats floating in their cages and others walking right through the walls.

“I could hear the squealing of the one that had no location. It sounded scared until it suddenly fell silent. After a while, the mangled body rematerialized.

“The one with no memory never recovered. It could not go through the maze it had been trained to run through. It did not recognize its littermates or its mate. The effect does not wear off.

“So he is convinced the Ring of Mists is not just a story but would act the same way. He says he knows why Saturday wants it. But he would not tell me. He just grinned at me.

“Obviously, Saturday already has a way to sneak past the guardians, enter the Third Hemisphere without permission, and smuggle creatures out. He has been doing it for months. So that is not why Saturday wants the ring.

“We had the same argument again. I said I have to kill Saturday, so he has to show me where the hidden dockyard is. Komobo told me that the prince of giants killed my mother. How was I going to fight a giant who has a charmed life? He says his cousin will kill the giant. With a magic sword. It is what knights do. And that Saturday has to stay alive long enough to finish work on his machine.

“I asked him what his friends thought of all this. He has not told them his plan. The squire would not let him steal the ring if he knew because theft is dishonorable. The novice would not let him because theft is a sin.

“I don’t know what to do!

“I cannot tell Nyctalope. Nicky-chan would not understand. I am loyal to him! I am loyal to Mother! But I love Komobo! I love him! I think he is about to propose. He has that look.”

Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes were bright. The bitterness was, for a moment, gone.

“I will go with him.” Now her voice was solemn. It sounded to Yumiko’s ear like her own voice, not the voice of a stranger now. “When he steals the machine, I will go with him. He does not know how to sneak and steal. I do.

“I will go. Whatever you believe with your whole heart, even if it means your death, cannot be wrong!”

And with those words, the reflection was her own real reflection once again.

The diary would not speak again. Nothing else Yumiko said elicited any reply.

She saw an ornate clock on her desk. It was now after midnight. Her cousin, Gilberec, was due to be assassinated today at noon. Today she had to rescue Elfine, by hook or crook, before Garlot was assassinated in turn. Tomorrow the wolves currently hidden under the Cobbler’s Club would be shipped to the City of Corpses, where Tom was hidden, and she had to be back there for that to follow them and to find him.

There were other secrets in the lair of Winged Vengeance, but she had no time.

8. Farewell Note

Wishing for some garb less conspicuous on modern streets than a black supersuit or a kimono adorned with a Moth family crest, she took a moment to peer through her clothing in the wardrobe. There, she found the black trench coat she had just seen herself wearing in her diary: she folded it neatly into the pocket of her cape next to the kimono.

Her emotions were disturbed as she rose to depart. Should she take that stuffed bear? Or the music box? These things were hers, but if she left, she might never see them again. If she did take her belongings, where could she put them? A rented bus locker? There was a figurine of a ballerina poised on one toe next to her calligraphy set. Had it once had some special meaning to her? The memories hovered just beyond her reach.

With a sigh, she closed the door on her old room and its forgotten treasures. “I am an exile,” shee whispered. “I have no mother, no home.”

Taking a paper and pen from the rolltop desk and a bottle of blue ink she found there, she wrote: Dear brother, Euhemerus Cobweb is of the Supreme Council of Anarchists. He has wispy fingers. Rotwang is also and has a prosthetic. Zahack has something instead of hands. The final shipment of werewolves leaves the Cobbler’s Club for the City of Corpses on Friday, March 20th.

By way of signature, she drew a little cartoon of a grinning fox face.

After a moment, the ink faded from view, and the paper seemed blank again. She thought that was a good sign. She pinned the note to the center of the desk with a knife so that he would notice it.

Carefully avoiding laying a foot on the catwalk, she departed the loft and used the upper hatch to enter the tall brick chimney above the poison layer. Weightlessly, she soared up and out into the night.

Chapter Four: In Darkest Night

1. Below Street Level

When the train she wanted began pulling away from the platform, lightly, Yumiko dropped to the metal roof of the car. She figured that, having purchased a ticket like a proper human being of the Daylight World, she could ride whichever part of the train suited her.

Whenever a low tunnel roof threatened, she slipped over the back of the caboose. This was an older car, and there was a metal step or hitch protruding from the rear where she could perch while remaining below the level of the caboose windows, and the track would speed by, a blur of ties and a sinuous stream of rails, mere inches below the heels of her boots.

The signal for tracer zero-four, which she had planted on the collar of Gilberec’s dog, was downtown near Grand Central Station. The signal was emanating from below street level.

Yumiko thought it might be dangerous to mingle with the crowd while invisible, so she clung to the ceiling of the train platform at Grand Central Station, weightless, and passed from the lit areas to unlit ones while trying to find some buried hall or service stairway leading to the point from which the signal came.

Down she went, and further down, to dark corridors and tunnels where no one was. She drew her flashlight from her belt and tuned it and her goggles to ultraviolet. The sensation of cold might have come merely from being in a cold, empty, unlit tunnel, but then again, it might not. In the pitch darkness, there was no point in being invisible. She twisted her ring to silver to escape the gaze of ghosts.

Eventually, she found a utility door whose padlock she could pick, leading to a narrow metal stair leading down to a metal balcony.

On this balcony was a diesel engine with a chain belt running to a wheel of iron affixed to a yard-wide pipe that murmured and thrummed with flowing water. The engine was throbbing and warm to the touch, idling. Here also was a spotlight on a pivot, switched off the moment, and other levers and clutches for other chain-drums connected to the engine. Down from the platform reached a ladder that could be lowered by turning a drum. She pulled the clutch, engaging the engine, and the chain played out, lowering the ladder. The hum of the engine and the clanging rattle of the ladder segments unfolding echoed loudly from the spaces below.

Down she went and found herself in a dim but empty tunnel. It looked like a dry sewer line. In the near distance, she saw a brick archway sloping down from the main tunnel. It was lit with a carbide lamp hanging from a rusted hook.

Closer, she could see this arch led down into a sluice or spillway. The far end was round and covered with a set of louvers, like giant metal Venetian blinds, that could be opened or shut. The louvers were open at the moment, allowing the coal-red glow of the clouds above the skyline to enter, along with a dark glimpse of the East River and cold, clear air.

On the floor of the spillway, the beam from the hanging lantern caught something small, square, and white and made it shine like a ghost. The stone arch leading to this spillway had a sluice gate that could be lowered on chains. She did not like the look of that, but she was curious about the white gleam.

She took a few steps down the slope. The concrete surface was slick and wet underfoot. Lying on a square stone in the middle of the mud of the tunnel floor was a white envelope, with a fragment of brick lying, as a paperweight, atop. The beeping of the tracer was loud in her ears. She clicked on the tracking grid and saw a dot of light resting on the envelope. The tracer signal came from there.

She did not touch it. This was a trap. She started to back away.

A rattling, sliding metallic clamor came from overhead. The trap was closing.

2. Spotlight

Yumiko cartwheeled backward up the slope. She landed on her feet before the archway, in time to see a barred gate fall down over the mouth of the spillway and the louvers at the far end downslope grind heavily shut. Had she been a hair slower, she would have been trapped in the slanted spillway.

The ladder leading up to the balcony was rising.

Yumiko leaped lightly to a point just beneath the balcony, where the ladder no longer was. She landed silently and crouched down. At the same moment, the spotlight on the platform came on, brilliant, blinding. The beam of light stabbed down and shined through the bars of the grate into the spillway. No one was trapped there. The spotlight swung in a puzzled fashion left and right, peering curiously down the dry tunnel.

However, the balcony floor was a metallic mesh, not solid planks, and would not form a shadow, should the spotlight pivot straight down. She shot her wirepoon to snag the railing of the platform and triggered the retraction spool motor so that she was jerked upward rapidly.

The spotlight did not swing toward her but instead shut off. It was pitch black. Her infrared lenses showed a heat source on the balcony, but it was too small to be a man and too low to the ground. Perhaps that was the residual heat from the engine. She somersaulted over the railing. She clicked her lenses and flashlight to ultraviolet. There was no one here but a dog, lying down with its head on its forepaws as if half asleep. She could not see its coloration by ultraviolet, but it was a collie. Someone had put an archer’s cap atop the dog’s head and had left a pair of gloves on the floor of the platform next to the dog.

She turned the flashlight left and right. There was no one here. She saw a small round hatch she had not seen before, covering a crawlway. She knelt down and shone the flashlight in. She saw cables and wires strung, but no one on hands and knees was crawling rapidly away.

That left the narrow metal stairs leading back up to the utility door. She scampered up the stairs. Even under her light footfalls, they clanged and rattled. The utility door was open, unlocked, just as she had left it. She switched her flashlight to visible light and examined the threshold and the floor beyond the door, which she, clinging to the ceiling, had not touched. The dust here was thick and undisturbed.

Like a silent explosion, the brilliant light from the spotlight on the platform now lit up. The beam caught her and threw her shadow across the ceiling. Startled, she turned, but instinctively raised her elbow to block her eyes.

“Freeze! Hands up! Hands up!” came a gruff voice from below. Bewildered, Yumiko obeyed, squinting against the blinding light and raising her hands.

She was caught.

3. Cornered

“Drop it! Drop it!”

She opened her fingers. The flashlight dropped away and clanged against the metal balcony before toppling to the tunnel floor. She wondered at the voice. It did not sound quite right. It was too deep for a child’s voice but very gruff and scratchy.

“Ha ha! Thought you’d sneak up on me, did ya? Did ya? Yup! Yup! But now who’s sneaked who? I sneaked! I sneaked! I am the sneaky one. Yes, I am. Yup! Yup!” This was followed by a breathy noise like an animal panting, as if the man, or the boy, had trouble breathing.

Slowly, Yumiko lowered one hand to let the shadow of her forearm fall across her eyes. She squinted. The scene was washed out by the brilliant spotlight. She could see nothing.

“I liked your other uniform better,” said the gruff voice.

She squinted down at the light. “What other uniform?”

“Can’t hear you.”

“I said, what other uniform? When did you see me before this, please?”

“With the top hat. You were almost naked. I liked it.”

“You mean the Peach Cobbler suit? You saw me in the club?”

“Can’t hear. Take off the mask! Not very realistic. Couldn’t fool me. Nope! Nope! For one thing, those eyes don’t blink. I am very smart.”

This was more puzzling. Yumiko tossed her head, and the fox mask slid up. The chin hung over her eyes like a visor. There was no point in hiding a face he had already seen.

The voice was saying. “You bet! You bet! Can’t fool me. Nope. Gil did not know you, and Matt did not know you, but I knew. Because your arms and legs were bare.”

That was puzzling. “You recognized my arms?”

“Armpits. And your bottom. I sniff bottoms. I always know bottoms.”

Sniff what? Then Yumiko’s confusion abruptly transformed into astonishment. “You are the dog! The dog that was with the Swan Knight!”

“Yup, yup, that’s me. That’s me. Swan Knight’s Dog.”

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Ruff. Like in Ruffle, but with no L. Rhymes with tough, and gruff, and takes no guff.”

She scowled. “It also rhymes with bluff. You have no gun trained on me, have you?”

“What? What? Gun? Course not! Guns don’t like shooting elfs. They try to miss. You must know that. ’S why you carry weird old weapons. Right?”

She slid down the stairway and landed at the bottom. The reflected light from the upturned spotlight showed the dog. He was sitting on his haunches, a green archer’s cap perched on his head, a white owl’s feather in the brim. His forepaws, which were covered in green gloves, now looked like the forearms and hands of a human. His was scratching his furry belly thoughtfully with his human fingers.

His tongue hung out one side of his grinning jaws.

4. Carabas Gloves

Seeing the direction of her gaze, he raised his hand, waved, and said, “Look what I can do.” He proceeded to interlace his fingers, raise both index fingers, and twitch his thumbs while chanting, “Here is the church, and here is the steeple. Open the doors, and see all the people! Wait. I did it wrong. Fingers go inside. Lemme try again. Oh, that is no good. Here. Want to see me hitchhike? Look! Look! Aha!” He made a fist and extended his thumb. “See?”

“Most impressive. How can you talk?”

“How can you turn invisible?”

“Magic. I have a magic ring.”

“Hah! Thought so. Me, I wear a magic hat. Also, I am a pooka.”

“I don’t know that word.”

“Pooka are friendly yokai. Except for the unfriendly ones. Not them. My old name is Sgeolan, but I serve a new master now. I am a Dog of the Table Round. And a member of Super Action Team Swan.”

“Who am I?”

“Why ask me? You forget?”

“Yes.”

“Oh! Well, you are the girl who vanished when Tom vanished. The Winged Vengeance’s Sidekick, Foxmaiden. You go around shooting Cobwebs to death with arrows, and then shoot their ghosts. Kinda scary, actually. I saw you throw a boomerang once. It came back to your hand. Right back! That looked like fun. I wanted to chase it. I have one, too, but I cannot throw it so good. In my spy kit. Oh! Oh! And I saw you fighting werewolves in New Jersey. You were outnumbered. Your name is not Sorry. That is a silly name.”

“Do you know my name?”

“Of course. Tom would not shut up about it. Yummy Cutie.”

“Yumiko.”

“Nope, you’re saying it wrong.”

“But it is Yumiko.”

“Nope. Tom said Yummy Cutie. He said it a lot. A whole lot. Ah… Where is he, by the way?”

“What does he look like?”

The dog tilted his head to one side. One ear stood up, and the other flopped over. “You don’t know what he looks like?”

“No. I saw a photo I hope is his. I want to hear if your description matches it.”

“His pelt is red, but it only grows in patches. The rest of his skin is naked. Kind of freckled, like a strawberry. So he wears clothes. A long white coat. Or a flight jacket.”

“Patches?”

“Top of his head, armpits, like that, you know? Maybe a little bit around his lips when he has been working in the lab and going without food and sleep for days, but I think he usually scrapes it off.”

“What color are his eyes?”

“I dunno. Dogs don’t see color.”

“How did you know his hair color then?”

“It smells red.”

“There are many red-haired men. How will I know him?”

“He is the only one I’ve ever met who eats liver, onion, and peanut butter sandwiches. Ugh. I wouldn’t touch that! And I eat from garbage pails. So you can smell it on his breath.”

“I cannot smell that well.”

“Hah! I knew it! Dog noses are better than Fox! Dogs are number one!”

“No, I am not really a fox.”

The dog tilted his head the other way and perked up the other ear. “Yes, you are.”

“How will I recognize him?”

“Tom? He wears goggles. And a labcoat. And a jetpack. Carries a laser pistol.”

Her heart was pounding in her chest. Her cheeks felt warm. “So he has a rocket pack? And a spaceship? Is there really any boy who can build such things?” Tom had been wearing a square metal bulk on his back in the photo, but only now did she realize that this must have been part of a jetpack peeking over his shoulders.

“Wrecks them, too. You should see the mess left over when he tried to pull an Immelmann with his dirigible. He was dogfighting a Roc over the ruins of Nan Matal. There were not any dogs involved. I don’t know why they call it that. No dogs.”

Strange feelings, but with no memories, no images, attached to them, came and went in her brain.

Yumiko did not hear Ruff’s next remark. He repeated himself.

5. The Boy with the Rocket Pack

“So… Why are you here, Fox? You were trying to sneak up on me. Why?”

“Please! I want you to take me to the Swan Knight. There is a plot against him.”

The dog seemed unimpressed. He yawned. “Someone trying to kill Gil? Must be Tuesday.”

“You mean Thursday. He is involved. Malen Ruddgochren, the Red Lady, is ultimately behind it. She brought Garlot here from Elfland. Sir Garlot the Red Knight. He has the Mantle of Mists, and this allows him to strike down valiant knights unseen.”

The dog said, “No, I did not mean Tuesday the Anarchist. I mean it must be Tuesday because it happens all the time. It is like a phrase. I picked it up from Matt. But before we talk about Gil, let’s talk about Tom.”

“Ah, yes. If you say so. I’d love to hear all about him!”

“Do you… ah… have anything to say?”

“What do you mean?”

“Anything to say about his location? Where did you take him to? Where is he?”

For a moment, she did not understand the question. “Where is who?”

“Tom. Tom Moth. You must know who I am talking about. He is your second cousin three times removed on his father’s side and your third cousin once removed on his mother’s side.”

“A hob in a bottle told me he is at the City of Corpses. I don’t know where that is. I want to find him. Do all the elfs remember their family trees this way? In so much detail?”

“If you hang out with Moths like I have, you’ll pick up the habit. I did not know what a third cousin was until I was following Gil.”

“And do you know my family?”

“Not really. I know your Dad is the grandson of Susa-no-O, which is why he kicks so much butt in such a major way and why he can fight giant centipedes and stuff. And everyone knows your Mom. But I don’t know you, and you were the last person to see Tom alive. So why are you saying you don’t know where he is?”

“Because I don’t.” The implication of what Ruff the dog had said sunk in. “Wait a moment! You cannot believe I had anything to do with his disappearance!”

“Nope? I think I can. Why can’t I?”

She stuttered but had no answer. She pressed her lips together.

He said, “I mean, he vanished without a note. So did you.”

“When was this?”

“We were keeping an eye on Saturday of the Supreme Anarchists’ Council, and he vanished at the same time. Next I heard from my old friends in elf court that you led a bunch of Anarchists to attack the Tower of Glass and rob the place. And you have the Ring of Mists. You just said so.”

“I did not lead the Anarchists there to the Glass Tower. I mean, I led them there, but I was not leading them.” She pouted. “That was not worded in the best way. I was tricked. I think.”

“You think? Uh? That slips your mind also?”

“I am an amnesiac.”

“An amnesiac? Is that like an Anarchist?” There was a hint of a suspicious growl in his voice.

“No. Nothing like.”

“They sound a lot alike.”

“An amnesiac means I cannot remember. I have forgotten everything.”

“How come you can speak English without an accent?”

“I cannot remember how. I must have learned it.”

“So you don’t work for the Anarchists?”

“No!”

“But—now wait a minute. If you don’t remember, maybe you do work for the Anarchists, and you don’t remember working for them? Because you don’t remember. How ’bout that?”

“I would never betray Tommy-chan.”

“How do you know? Maybe you did betray him, and—see if you can follow where I am going with this—and you don’t remember betraying him! Because you don’t remember. See? How would you know? That is a pretty clever question, you know, right?”

“I know!”

“Yeah, I know, right?”

She sighed. “No, I mean, I know I would never betray him. I do not know how I know, but I know. There are some things the heart knows even if the mind is covered in fog.”

“Like what?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Like, tell me something a heart knows when your brain is fogged.”

“Will you ever betray your master? At any time in the future?”

The dog bristled.

She said, “See? But you cannot see the future any more than I can see the past. But we know. You know right from wrong. You know fair from foul. You know what is natural and what is corruption. You know that life with all its snares and glamour is false and cannot be all there is. We all know these things, but none of us can say when we learned them.”

6. Kind of Sneaky

“That is a good speech.”

“So you believe me?”

“Nope. Nope. Not a bit,” he said happily. “I am a dog who does not believe you, not one bit.”

“Why not? It’s the truth!”

“You strike me as being kind of sneaky. Yup! Yup! Sneaky! Sneeee-keeee…” He said this with a growl. “You did not knock when you came in, and you did not like it when I shined a light on you, and you slipped a bug on me when you were petting me. That took advantage of my good nature.”

“But I did that because I needed to! Not because I wanted to!”

“So? So? Maybe you are telling me this cock-and-bull story now because you need to, not because you want to.”

“But why would I work for the Anarchists?”

“Dunno. Maybe you were sick of that crazed loner who kills people and hangs them on trees, and you wanted to get in with a whole group of crazed loners who kill people. Foxes are really sneaky.”

“I am not a fox! This is a mask! A mask!”

“So if you are not sneaky, why wear a mask? Why go around shooting people from the shadows?”

“Well… I have enemies.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Hey, listen, ponder this one. Maybe you have enemies because you wear a mask and go around shooting people from the shadows!”

“But I hate the Anarchists! They killed my mother!”

“The Grail Queen?”

“Yes!”

“Sarras was destroyed by the giant Ysbadden.”

“The Anarchists helped him.”

“How did they help him? What did they do?”

“I– I am not exactly sure about that. They had troops. They brought them on airships.”

“Let’s see. You hate the Anarchists because they helped the giant destroy the high city of Sarras, and so they were indirectly involved in your mother’s death. Because they had airships. But you do not actually remember your mother, or her death. Am I right? Or how they helped? So why do you hate anyone?”

“No, I remember my mother’s last words and the attack on the city. I saw that. Part of it.”

“I thought you said you forgot everything.”

“I forgot that also, but it came back. I hated the Anarchists before I lost my memory.”

“But you don’t hate them now?”

“I am pretty sure I do. They seem like horrible people.”

“But not as horrible as a man who dresses up like a crow, and crouches on rooftops at midnight, and puts a lariat through the window of a guy in bed, and then pulls him out of bed by the neck and out the window, and everyone on the street sees the guy strangled to death in midair, kicking his legs in the light of the moon, and everything. Not horrible like that, eh?”

Yumiko was surprised. “Did Winged Vengeance do that?”

“Last Thursday.”

“He did that last week?”

“No, it was months back, but it was Orgoglio Cobweb, who was the Thursday member of the Supreme Council of Anarchists. That was before the new guy got the job. The last Thursday before him.”

“That does sound pretty horrible. But maybe the man deserved it.”

“Sure. Maybe. Maybe not. But it was not like there was any trial, or the guy got to have his say, or even say a prayer and get shrived before he died, so who knows? Willy Cobweb is a necromancer, and he could summon up the last Thursday’s shade and talk to him and find out, but you shot the ghost. You shot the ghost of Orgoglio Cobweb with your magic bow. You kill dead people. That is your job. Kind of a freaky job if you think about it.”

Yumiko said, “I am an enemy of the Anarchists. They are hunting me to kill me.”

“Really? Then how come Wilcolac has you working in his club? And dancing? Aren’t you his servant girl? He really kind of talked down to you. I was there. I heard. And you stood in a corner and did not say anything.”

“I am spying on him. In disguise.”

“No, no. That’s just dumb.”

“Dumb? Why?”

“Because it is! Don’t you know who that guy is?”

“Wilcolac? No, not really.”

“He is famous. He is a magician, a master of tricks and traps and sneaks and slippery cons! If I can figure you out, he can.”

Yumiko frowned, remembering her own clear intuition from earlier that morning, before he sent her out with Malen, that Wilcolac had indeed penetrated her disguise. Malen had done so easily enough, and so had Sly Jack Crookshank.

“Don’t you think his wolves can smell as well as me?” Ruff said, snorting. “The werewolves of Thursday, his whole pack, their scent was all over that place. It was coming from the basement, but that green-haired tree sprite, Boggy Cobweb, would not take us down there. I think she was trying to get rid of us. And here is a second question—how come you were with the Red Lady all afternoon? Carrying her packages? If you hate the Anarchists so much? Don’t you know who she is?”

“She is Lucien Cobweb’s lover.”

“That is kind of like saying Arthur is Sir Kay’s younger brother. She has lots of lovers, and they all hate each other.”

“Ah. I don’t know who she is.”

“She is the Red War Queen. Moth’s second wife. Moth, your ancestor. The ancestor of the whole Moth family. She is the mother of Phanes, who married Merlin the Magician’s sister, Yglais, who bore Pellehan.”

“I see. And who is this?”

“Pellehan is the father of Pellinore, who is the father of Dandrenor, who is your mother. So you spent the whole afternoon with one of the three wives of Moth, who is your own great-great-great-grandmother. Unless I missed a great. And she did not know you?”

“She did. She deduced my secret identity.”

“And—?”

“And then she let me go.”

“Why did she do that?”

Yumiko said slowly, “The magician told her not to hurt me.”

“Why did he do that?”

She frowned in thought but had no answer.

He said, “Think this through. Willy could hire or buy a girl to replace you. Malen is one of the Elders. Like Vivian, like Nimue, like Maeve. Even great lords and barons are careful around them. We call them Antediluvians. They remember the world before the Flood, and their parents remember Eden, and remember helping Eve tend the flowers and Adam dress the vines. If Willy wanted you alive, why put you in danger by sending you to her? And if he did not want you alive, why tell her to spare you?”

“I think he wanted me out of the place. A shipment came in today.”

“Which means he knows you are spying on him. He knows.”

She had nothing to say.

“So you see why I don’t really believe your story. You sure look like you are working for the Anarchists. Or you are a chump, and Wilcolac is conning you. If Wilcolac let you into his house and out of it again, it is because he has someone following you, and he wants you to lead him somewhere.”

“Where?”

“At a guess? To your master, Winged Vengeance. That is what Willy was trying to get my master and Matt to do, when they went to visit your club.”

“Is there anything I could say to make you trust me?”

“Sure. Just get Winged Vengeance to come by and tell me you are on a mission for him, infiltrating the Anarchists and only pretending to dance and carry packages for them. I understand all about that. I used to be in the intelligence-gathering business myself. I was in bark-ops.”

“Black-ops?”

His ears drooped, disappointed. “That was a joke! Tom always laughed at it.”

“Winged Vengeance does not trust me.”

“Oo-kay-yy… Why do you want me to trust you, again, please? I mean, I don’t know you.”

“How did Tom meet me?”

“I’m not sure. Winged Vengeance and you would sometimes show up in the same places we were.”

“We?”

“The Last Crusade. We are hunting for the same people, but not for the same reason, so your boss and my boss would get in each other’s way. The first time, it was kind of friendly, sort of a rivalry; and the second time, it was less friendly because Gil tossed your crow-man out through a plate glass window for something he said; and the last time, it was not friendly at all because you put an arrow in a guy that Gil had promised safe conduct, and he was talking him into defecting. Left us with no leads. He was pretty pissed about that.”

“How many people are in this Last Crusade?”

“Fox-girl, are you out of your cottin-pickin’ mind? I am not giving you any free intel.”

“I would really like you to trust me.”

“Well, fine. Give me the Ring of Mists, I’ll give it to Gil, and he can swap it to Willy in return for getting Tom back.”

“I don’t think that is wise.”

“Thought so. If you really wanted Tom back, you would have swapped the ring for him the moment Willy made us the offer. So you going to give me the ring?”

“I think I better keep it.”

“Okay. Let me ask you one more question. I may just be a dog, but I see things, you know? I keep my nose to the fewmets, as they say.”

“Who says that?”

“Dogs. We sniff fewmets. It is a dog thing.”

“I will answer your question.”

“Remember when we visited your club?”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t the question. That was just set up. This is the question: Ready?”

“I am ready!”

“That wasn’t the question either. That was me asking if you were ready for the question. Here it is: Why did Willy call you into the room with me and Matt and Gil? Just to stand there?”

“You ordered drinks. He did not order me to leave.”

“Why not?”

“He overlooked me.” A slight smile touched her lips.

“You think you outsmarted him? Him?”

The smile left her face. “No?”

“No. He does not overlook things. He is not an overlooker. He wanted to see if you would show some sign of recognition to Gilberec, who is your cousin. Your first cousin because his mom is your aunt.”

“But I don’t have any memory!”

“Or if Gil would recognize you.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“Dunno. Maybe ’cause he was raised alone. Because you lived in the clouds, where no one who does not have wings can go. Because you wear a mask and hide in the shadows. Why do you do that, by the way? Why not fight fair and square, out in the bright sun where everyone can see, honorably?”

She remembered the wall screen in the hermit cell where Winged Vengeance slept. Yumiko repeated it, but changed the last word. “Those who flee the light adore the dark. Let me be in the dark and bring my terrors, and dark they will no more adore, for it is become their foe. Even in the darkest night, there must be justice.”

Chapter Five: I Am a Sneaky Fox

1. Good Faith

The dog scratched himself behind the ear, first with one gloved forepaw and then with his hindpaw. “Heh. Not sure what to make of that. But let us say we did trust you. What do you want us to do for you?”

“If Gilberec fights him, Garlot plans to cheat and use his Cloak of Mists to strike down Gilberec from behind. So I want you to call off the duel. Call it off.”

The dog made a snorting noise that might have been a laugh. “He’s a guy. He is more of a guy than most guys. He’s Gil. Call it off? That’s not going to happen.”

A shiver of frustration ran through her. A half-buried memory of a thing she recalled having once said surfaced: that her father had lived on the haunted peaks of Shinzan and Honzan, venturing to hunt the namahage with bow and spear by night. Into such a life he commanded his wife should descend from the solemn peace of the celestial city to join him. Yumiko wondered what defect in the masculine spirit prevented men from understanding that danger and bloodshed were undesirable states of affair.

Yumiko said, “Then he has got to throw the fight or back out after making an excuse. Garlot must remain alive.”

“Heh. Heh. You are pretty funny. You want Gil to take a dive? To tell a fib? That is not going to happen. So you want Garlot to survive the duel to the death, do you? What? You put a wager on him or something? You don’t want Malen, the lady whose packages you tote on shopping trips, to be sad when her brother gets killed? What is it?”

“A friend of mine was kidnapped by Garlot. I need him alive to find her.”

“But if you forget everything, how come you remember your friends? And who is this friend?”

But then Yumiko remembered Elfine confessing to being a smuggler and how the little blonde had been wary of the police. From what little she had seen of the young Swan Knight, he was not the type who would wink at violations of the law. Yumiko’s intuition was to trust and talk, but her sense of caution told her not to spill secrets whose repercussions she could not guess.

Instead, she said, “Something bad will happen if the two of them fight. When Wilcolac calls, tell me where the duel will be.”

“He did not call. He wrote. A challenge letter.”

“Please tell Gil not to accept!”

“Too late. He wrote back straight away.”

“Garlot will kill him!”

“Nope! Garlot is going to lose and lose in a bad way!”

“Garlot will cheat!”

“Then he will fight in a bad way and lose in a bad way.”

“Tell me where the match will be.”

The dog wrinkled his muzzle skeptically. “I am not sure you are cleared to know.”

“Please tell me! It’s important!”

“Why? What are you planning?” He made a snorting noise in his nose.

And when she did not answer, he said, “So how does this work? I am supposed to trust you and answer your questions, but not the other way around?”

She said, “What if I told you something you want to know? As a sign of good faith?”

The dog said, “Faith is good. That is what Matt says. Good faith must be even better. So what do I want to know?”

Yumiko said, “Well, what do you want to know?”

“Tell me what you are planning?”

“Not that. Something else.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know!”

The dog yawned, gaping his jaws and curling his red tongue. “And I do? You’re the one making the offer. Go ahead and offer. Offer away! Offer your mouth off.”

“Tom is alive and going to be at the Tithing Ground.”

The dog’s head jerked erect, and his ears stood up. “When?”

“I don’t know when. Wilcolac will be there also. And a whole cavalcade will escort him. He will see Tom but will not see him. It will give Wilcolac peace of mind for seven years.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I don’t know. These are some things I overheard. Tom is in an enchanted sleep. Lucien Cobweb is not willing to wake Tom and torture him because he is afraid Tom will open his mouth and call on names which they cannot withstand. Tom has a fragment of something called the celestial cerulean around his neck, but Wilcolac does not know how to get a virgin to defile it. How am I doing? Is this something you wanted to know?”

“You are doing good, Fox. This is all good stuff.”

“What is the celestial cerulean?”

“You know how mermaids sometimes collect treasures from sunken ships?”

“Ah. I’m sorry, no.”

“The sea-dwellers don’t have fires, so they don’t smelt ore or blow glass, and the only time they see things like gold coins, steel swords, or green bottles is from shipwrecks. Well, the fall of Sarras was like a shipwreck. Cerulean is to land-dwellers like gold or glass is to a mermaid. The word just means any sort of trinket that falls out of a castle in the clouds—any sort of stuff the wind-dwellers make.”

“Do you know where the Tithing Ground is?”

The dog cocked his head so that one ear stood up. “I do not know where the Tithing Ground is. I know what it is. It is the boundary between the Night World and the World Which is Darker Than Night. It only appears once each seven years.”

“I was hoping you knew. It would have been easier.”

“You are going to go back to the Cobbler’s Club, aren’t you? And put on your other costume? Even though I told you not to? You think you are so super sneaky, you can sneak after the Magician when he leaves to go see Tom? Or not see him. Whatever.”

The dog’s tone was accusatory. Yumiko felt her pride prick her. She snapped, “So! Is Gil going to fight the Red Knight even though I told him not to? He thinks he is so super knightly that he can win even if Garlot uses magic and cheats?”

The dog’s ear drooped. “Gil is not as interested in winning as you would think. There is this guy he wants to impress, a guy he has never seen. If he lives, if he dies, that does not matter as long as he lives and dies just like this guy wants him to.”

“A guy he has never met? You mean King Arthur?”

“Nope. Some other guy. Your Mom kept his cup.”

2. Betting A Limb

“Will Gil kill the Red Knight?”

“Sure! He is really good with a lance. Were you thinking of betting a limb? I think you humans should have tails. That way you can have something to wag when you are happy. You bare your teeth when you are happy, and that just looks weird. And I saw you dancing in the club. You were trying to wiggle your tail, but it did not look right.”

Yumiko felt her cheeks growing red, and so she pulled down her mask to hide her face. The dog was apparently getting the better of her in this conversation.

“Are you covering your face because you are embarrassed? I can smell embarrassment, so there is no point in covering your face.”

The dog was very definitely getting the better of her in this conversation.

She said, “I am not sure what else I can offer. Let me ask. If I were a trusted member of Super Action Team Swan, what would you have me do?”

“You told me who Thursday was. That was helpful.”

“When did I do that?”

“In front of that warehouse near the river that smelled like canned broccoli and carrots. The one Thursday blew up.” The warehouse opposite Catoblepas Shipping in Weehawken had been called Mr. Vegetable. It seemed that Ruff remembered the smell but forgot the name on the sign. “You blurted out his name in front of everyone. I laughed about it later because I bet it hurt his feelings. I bet. I bet. But not my tail. I am not betting my tail, no. Gambling is stupid!”

She said, “I know other names. Euhemerus Cobweb is Sunday, Lord of Ghosts, for it is in his name that the shadow of the Hunter King, named Le Maudit in life, was summoned. A man named Zahack is one of the Anarchist Lords. He has twisted snakes instead of hands. Another one is Rotwang.”

The dogs ears perked up. “Rotwang Cobweb? You know him?”

“Yes. He is the one who built the Iron Mole Machine that Tom and I rode to break into the Tower of Glass. Tom stole it from him. He has a prosthetic for a hand. Is that the one?”

The dog shook his head. “Tom is apprenticed to Rotwang. For years, Rotwang has been teaching Tom how to be a mad scientist and to use both unnatural magic and dangerous technology together, mixing the two in order to meddle with nature is ways man was never meant to venture, combining them into an abomination of awesomeness!”

“Did you say abomination of… awesomeness?”

“That is how Tom described it. Did you know he made his own crater on the moon? Sort of by accident. A big one. He said he named it after you.”

“That is so sweet!” She clasped her hands together before her bosom, wondering at the pounding of her heart. “He named it after me?”

“Sure did!” the dog nodded. “Yummy Cutie Crater.”

“Is it normal for an amnesiac girl to want to kill her boyfriend she does not remember?”

The dog said, “If it is Tom, then, yeah, I think it is. It really is. Anyway, don’t go around telling people that Rotwang is an Anarchist. That is pretty top secret stuff.”

“But he is an Anarchist. He is the one who hid the moon-door aboard the Iron Mole. Wilcolac told you so!”

The dog scratched. “And Gil says Willy was telling the truth. That let you off the hook.”

“Off the hook? You think I smuggled the armies of Anarchists into the Glass Tower?”

“Yup. Or we used to. You were the obvious suspect.”

“But—but that’s insane! Winged Vengeance is the one who closed the moon-door and cut off their retreat so that the elfs would kill them all. Why would I have smuggled an Anarchist army into the Glass Tower if I am the disciple and sidekick of Winged Vengeance?”

“What do you mean? Why would you be sneaky, and trick Tom into taking you along, and be sneaky, and trick the Anarchists into following you, and be sneaky again, and trick the Anarchists into a spot where they would be cut off from all escape, and die? You really don’t remember what you and the vigilante are like, do you?”

Underneath her mask, she scowled. “I seem not to have been very admirable.”

“It’s because you are a fox. They are mean and sneaky.”

“I am a girl.”

“You don’t act much like one.”

“What does that mean?”

“Crawling around in the dark killing people from behind! It is ugly when girls fight. Turns them mean and sneaky, like foxes. It is almost as if you don’t like it. Now, Gil, he likes fighting. Got him kicked out of school and everything! You should get a man to do your fighting for you.”

“I am trying to find mine. I wish you would help me. Where is this duel taking place?”

3. Choosing a Side

“Well, well. I should not tell you, but I will. Atop the Brooklyn Bridge. Noon tomorrow. Which is today, I guess, since it is after midnight.”

“The Brooklyn Bridge? You’re kidding me.”

“I am dogging you. Only goats kid.”

“What?”

“They have to pick a famous spot because the Black Spell is weaker there. The Anarchists are expecting Garlot to win, and they want the rumor that no one can beat them to be spread far and wide across the Twilight World in story and song.”

“What about the traffic? All the Daylight folk?”

“They will remember some other event, like a bomb scare or something. And if the Anarchists cannot arrange for the city of New York to close a bridge, they should give up being secretly in control of the world.”

“I thought the elfs were secretly in control of the world.”

“Well, the elfs are kind of like evil cowboys herding mankind into the slaughterhouse door, and the Anarchists are kind of like evil foxes preying on the livestock, trying to start a stampede.”

“What about the half-and-halves? People like me?”

“The Mustardseeds are on the side of Alberec, the Cobwebs are on the side of Erlkoenig, the Peaseblossoms are not allowed to leave the Third Hemisphere, and the Moths are not allowed to enter. The Anarchists are mostly Cobwebs, but not all of them, and they are not on anyone’s side.”

“Who is on the side of mankind?”

“Gil. Me. Matthias. Tom, if we can find him. Whose side are you on?”

“Tom,” she said. “I want to be at his side.” She pushed back her mask and wiped her cheeks with the palm of her glove.

“Are you crying? You did not used to do that. I mean, I only saw you three or four times, but I am a good judge of character. You are not the type who cries.”

“What type am I?”

“The type who shoots people from cowardly ambush, watches them die without offering them a drink or a mercy killing, then leaves the body to rot without so much as a polite note to the widow. Pretty cold, really. You are not a nice person. Are you different? What happened to you?”

“I died. I was dead.”

“What? For real? Or is this like a figure of speech?”

“Yes. Both. Maybe. I am not sure.”

The dog rose to all fours, shook himself, and said, “Brr! Well, at least I know now what Tom sees in you.”

A giddy sensation passed through her. “Really? What? Tell me!”

“Same reason he likes atomic piles, and walking on the moon, and strapping a rocket to his back. He likes everything weird and dangerous.”

4. What He Sees in You

She scowled. “He likes me because I am weird and dangerous?”

“And you are nubile, fertile, and fecund as well as being youthful, virginal, voluptuous, and luscious. I am sure the skintight black suit helps, too. Next best thing to having black fur. Also, you have bright eyes and white teeth. That is a sign of health.”

She rubbed her temples, angry at the sensation of warmth rising in her cheeks. “I really have no memory of why I liked this guy. Are you sure he liked me? Aside from my teeth.”

“And your hair!” said the dog cheerfully. “A shiny pelt is also a sign of health. He talked about your hair a lot. Because it is long. Men do not have hair like dogs do, and so you miss it. Human psychological problems are related to you being bald all over. That’s my theory. Also, he is in heat. He is a boy. Boys are always in heat year round. It means your litters come at all seasons, which I frankly think is a mistake. What if you have whelps in the winter, when food is low? I betcha never thought about that; I betcha. Huhn! Did you ever think about that?”

“No, I honestly can say I have no memory of ever contemplating that particular aspect of human reproductive tactics. Thank you. Did he say anything else about me?”

“I was going to be the best man.”

“Wait—so he did ask me to marry him?” She began breathing hard, clutching her throat. “What did I say? Did I say yes?” And then she blurted out, “I knew it! I knew it!”

“Uh. Uh. What was the question again?”

“Am I married? Am I engaged? What happened?”

“Gee, I dunno. He was going to ask you, but then he disappeared. But he was serious about it. He drew up plans for your honeymoon cottage. He never told anyone but me. I was sworn to secrecy.”

“Where is this honeymoon cottage?”

“On the drawing board.”

“What did it look like? Did it have roses?”

“Nope. No roses. It was round. Round like a ball. But it did have had graviton-powered mass drivers evenly spaced around the hull. Each one could both produce thrust and act as orbit-to-surface megaton-strength kinetic bombardment weapon. It was sweet!”

“Pardon me? Did you say hull?”

“You cannot have a honeymoon on the moon without a space-traveling bathysphere. It’s got to be airtight. There is no air there. On the moon. The hull keeps the air in.”

Yumiko gritted her teeth. “I have to find him. Just to prove that he is real. No one could do what he does.”

“Funny. He said the same about you when you two first met.”

“How did we meet?”

“I was not there. I only heard about it. You crashed in through the upper window of a restaurant on top of a skyscraper and shot a bunch of gangland crimelords with arrows, and you stuck knives into a few more. And there was a lot of tear gas, but Tom keeps a breathing apparatus in his fountain pen. He was handcuffed to a chair but cut his way free with the rotary hacksaw hidden in his wristwatch. I don’t know the details, but you and he got trapped in the kitchen from the gunfire coming from the military helicopter gunship circling the skyscraper, and he made an explosive out of kitchen cleaning chemicals and blew open the locked elevator door, but you went up the shaft to the roof, and he went down using his magnetic shoes, and he was kind of mad at you for not thanking him for saving your life. At least, that is how he told it.”

“Why was I killing gangsters?”

“I dunno. It’s kind of a thing you do.”

“Why was Tom handcuffed to a chair in the same room with them?”

“He thought they were supplying the Anarchists with contraband, so he went in to go talk with them without telling anybody where he was going. He’s crazy like that.”

A sense of impatience seized her. This amazing man, her fiancé, was missing, and she did not know if Wilcolac was going to the Tithing Ground later, sooner, or now. There were more questions she had for the dog, many more, but they would have to wait.

Yumiko asked how to find him again without being led into an underground trap. “Do you have a phone?”

“You mean like a dog phone in my doghouse? No. Elfs don’t trust phones because it is too easy to fake voices, but on parchment you can write protective runes to prevent forgeries. There is a walled graveyard behind Saint Jean Baptiste Church on Third Avenue. Leave a note in the stone pot atop the grave of Dominic Amorth 1898-1961. He’ll see that Matthias gets it. Do you know ciphers?”

“None that I remember.”

“This one is pretty easy. Write your message in Morse code. The first ten consonants in the alphabet are dots; the second ten are dashes; one vowel is a space between letters; two vowels together is a space between words; and the letter Y is the end of a sentence. Spaces and punctuation, just put where you’d like. Takes four times as long to say anything, but good luck trying to use frequency analysis to break it. So to say, ‘I am a very sneaky fox,’ you would write down something like, ‘Claim tons! I act eel chrum act dot! Mr. Touch Latham of to shreth! Treach the Strathcray!’ Got how it works?”

“You enciphered that in your head just now?”

“You kidding? I worked on that for hours before you showed up. Anyway, nice talking to you. I gotta go. Don’t do anything stupid, okay? Don’t get me in trouble for talking to you.”

The animal exited through the small round hatch and into the crawlway beyond, where nothing as tall and bipedal as she could follow. Yumiko worked the engine to raise the grate and open the louvers of the spillway leading out. She expanded her glider wings, swooped down through the dry tunnel, and dexterously darted through the metal louvers, and then she was out over the river. The starless cloud-glare of a city night was above her.

5. Sleepless

It seemed wiser not to return to the Cobbler’s Club. Yumiko’s delight at having money to spend among the Daylight Men turned sour after the third hotel she attempted turned her away because she could produce no credit card, driver’s license, or identification. Telling the desk clerk that her number was forty-nine, as Elfine once had instructed, did not mend matters.

She found a hotel that charged by the hour. To judge by the décor and the furtive aspect of its patrons, it was used only by adulterers and their paramours. She doffed her mask. Her snug black leather catsuit attracted stares from the clerk, but not puzzlement, for she was one of the more modestly dressed women in the lobby. She did not like the looks of the place, but at least it seemed safer than sleeping in a bus station.

Chapter Six: Hastilude

1. Heraldry

By noon, all approaches to the Brooklyn Bridge were blocked by cars. Apparently, it was commonplace in New York City these days for traffic jams to turn into mob scenes since the riot police were out in force, wearing heavy gear and lugging large shields. Police barricades occupied all the ramps near the Manhattan entrance to the bridge, and more barricades were placed along South Street, FDR Drive, and even the East River bike path. A line of police boats prevented river traffic from passing under the bridge.

Yumiko, since dawn, had been perched, invisible and motionless, atop the Manhattan-side bridge tower. Hours passed. She was as patient as a cat watching a mousehole.

Below her, in the middle of the elevated pedestrian walkway in the middle of the empty bridge, now rose two brightly colored tents or pavilions, roughly two hundred feet apart.

One was blue and white and displayed the pennant of a swan. The other was red and black. The device on this pennant was a fish with tusks and dorsal spines of gold. A throng of men surrounded one tent, and a pair of figures was at the other.

When these pavilions were being set up, Yumiko nimbly made her way down one of the suspension cables for a closer view. The wooden fence meant to separate footpath from the bike path had been draped over with colored fabrics. The warhorses were positioned on opposite sides of the opposite ends of this fence. Yumiko knew they were the warhorses because they were taller and larger than the geldings or mules gathered behind each pavilion. The warhorses were armored and caparisoned, one in blue and silver, the other in black and red, adorned and splendid and terrible to the eye. Both horses had cloven hooves like those of a deer, the lashing tail was like a lion’s tail, sinuous and long with a puff of hair only at the end. These were steeds from fairyland. Both were roans. They were as alike in build and height as brothers. Small wonder Yumiko had once confused them.

Neither knight had mounted as yet.

Sir Garlot stood by his steed, and his shield and spear and helm were yet in the hands of his squire.

The shield was black with a blood-red emblem of a tusked sea-monster bent and diving. The upper part of the shield was adorned with a crescent poised with its points upward. Images of this fanged fish were also on his surcoat and steed. A gilded statuette of the same figure peered from the crest of his dark helm, goggle eyes low and staring, tail held high.

Half-transparent, ghostlike, and baffling to the eye, his wide fog-hued cloak streamed from his broad shoulders, sometimes lifted by the whispering winds of earth and sometimes by silent winds from other realms.

Yumiko recognized from the Cobbler’s Club the vassals of Garlot standing behind him. The first was a burly dwarfish creature in a black coat and rimless metal cap, armed with a warhammer. The second was a man-at-arms whose coat was gemstones and whose tongue was as bright as a coal of fire. Smoke rose from between his teeth. The third was a ten-foot-tall six-fingered warrior with scarlet hair. He was clad in mail and bore a two-handed sword great enough to hew a horse in twain. She cursed them in her heart as bad tippers.

Yumiko saw no men at Sir Gilberec’s tent, but she did see dogs. At least two dozen mutts and strays of various stages of unkempt savagery were seated in a semicircle on their hunches behind him. None was small. None wore collars.

In addition, strange sounds from his tent hinted that living things were swarming there, but from above, she could not glimpse them.

Sir Gilberec himself was standing at the lists. He was in blue and white, and his helm was adorned with swan wings. His cloak was blue. The sign of the swan was on his shield, surcoat, and crest. His armor was silver, and adorned with diamonds, and was like white fire were the sun touched it.

He had no retinue, save for one figure with him no taller than a child. This one was dressed like a pageboy in a tabard adorned with the device of a white swan. His throat was hidden by a wide ruffed collar. In one hand was a trumpet. His gloves and boots were green, and a wide-brimmed cavalier’s hat with a white plume hid his face from Yumiko, who was above him. But when he raised his voice, she recognized the scratchy, growling voice of Ruff the dog. How he contrived to stand on his hind legs or carry a trumpet, Yumiko was not sure.

“…and do you also swear to use no unknightly ploy nor devising, nor spell, chant, charm, trick, or unworthy sleight to gain any advantage? That you allow the fallen opponent gentle right to rise again and if he be unhorsed, also to dismount and continue the melee afoot?”

“In no wise,” called Garlot. Yumiko heard him clearly. His voice was like deep music, and the magic of the elfs was in it. “I denounce yon fool as a half-breed, a Moth, common and a sure dastard, born of nothing: his titles and dignities are lies. No knight he! Neither gentleness nor courtesy use I. I will slaughter him as I would a swine or a slave, by fair means or foul as please me. Here is mine oath!” and he spat on the deck of the walkway.

Gil was armed, with shield and spear in hand, and his head was hidden in his helm. This helmet was sleek and strange to see, not like the heavy helm with a pointed visor the squire of Garlot held. Gil’s voice seemed harsh and commonplace after the eerie baritone of Garlot. But his words were dignified: “Wise not to speak false oaths in my ear, Sir Knight. I will offer you the gentle courtesies you denounce, that my victory be more worshipful.”

“Swagger and preen, my cockahoop!” sneered Garlot. “Is your half-mortal strength fit to fight an immortal? What is Twilight? Dying Dusk surrenders ever to Night!”

“As does Night to Dawn,” said Gil. “Weary my ears with no more boasts. Arms, not words, shall decide.”

And he used his spear like a pole to vaunt into the high-backed saddle in a strong and fluid leap, without releasing spear or shield from hand, as lightly as if he did not bear forty or fifty pounds of war harness on his frame. The great red horse reared and curveted, and Sir Gilberec flourished his lance on high. Sir Garlot’s men murmured their applause until Sir Garlot turned and scowled at them with dark brows.

Yumiko did not fully understand why Sir Gilberec’s effortless leap into the saddle was so impressive until she saw Sir Garlot mount up, his motion ponderous in his heavy armor. In his hands he took up the reins and also a stout cord to tie himself in the saddle. Only after he was ahorse did he don his helm and then take up the lance and shield.

The two men moved as if on parade, horses stepping with high gait and slow dignity down the lists. The two saluted as they passed each other by lifting their lances. Then, at the far end, each man near the tent of his foe, they turned. The horses stomped and fretted, snorting. In the distance, honking horns from the endless traffic jams clearing the great bridge had caused were like the voices of geese far away.

2. Tilt

Ruff stood near a rack on which several lances were propped. He lifted his trumpet, and so did the lizard-eyed Eft. A braying note that split the air issued from the bell of Ruff’s trumpet; a louder note and a gush of flame came from the other.

The warsteeds were like arrows seen flying from the bow before the singing of the string is heard. Like falcons in flight was their swiftness. Their skirts rippled like white-capped sea-waves in a gale, snapping in the wind of their speed, and the barding clanged and rang.

The hooves of the red steed of Gil cast up divots of wood out of the walkway, and the detonation of noise was a jackhammer. The uproar of clatter from the steed of Garlot was no less, but as his steed flew, the cloak of Garlot left a trail of fog in the air behind him and spread left and right like the wings of a storm spreading.

Both men, at first, rested the butt of the lance on thigh, and the small pennants near the sharpened blade fluttered gaily. Closer they thundered. Each was in precise control of his steed; each man’s kneecap was only an inch away from the wood of the fence separating the steeds. Both now raised their shields, one blue as heaven with a shining swan midmost, the other black with a blood-red sea-monster writhing on its surface. Closer yet, and as one their spears dipped gracefully and ominously, tips weaving and ducking lightly like the tips of fencing epees, but with force of man and horse in full career behind the threatening blow.

Each held the heavy spear in his prone palm, resting the weight on forearm and clamping the shaft against body with elbow. Garlot held his dark shield high, as if to protect his head; and Gilberec held his bright shield low, as if to protect his thigh. Both leaned forward in the saddle, stiffening their legs and clamping knees firmly to the heaving sides of their mounts.

Just before the shock, each knight lifted the lance from beneath his arm and brought the tip up. The mist from his cloak exploded silently from the shoulders of Garlot, and he was hidden from view.

The shock of the crash was deafening.

Yumiko could still see Garlot. He had taken on the strange wrongness of perspective ghosts displayed. He and his horse were monochromatic, like a black and white photo. The spears shattered into flinders as they passed, and each man now held merely the truncheon in his hand. Both were reeling in their high saddles like stunned drunks.

It had happened almost too quickly to see. Garlot had driven his invisible lance blade directly toward the helm of the Swan Knight, who, even though blind to his foe, raised his shield and parried the blow.

Meanwhile, Gil, without seeing his target, had raised his lance in a feint toward Garlot’s eyes, who straightened in the saddle. This brought the eyeslit of Garlot’s heavy jousting helm up out of harm’s way but also blocked his vision. He raised his shield as well. But Gil in the same motion dropped the tip again, struck his foe glancingly along the leg, and drove the spearhead under the rim of the shield and into Garlot’s midriff. The blow was of such force that the spear shaft bent in a half circle before exploding into fragments.

Garlot’s steed ran on. Garlot was slumped in the saddle. Now Yumiko saw Garlot was stained with a black fluid coming from his side. She realized that this was blood but that the mist had robbed it of the appearance of color.

Gilberec’s steed galloped past, headed toward the far end of the lists. Although the Swan Knight was still far off, Ruff was holding up a fresh spear, proffering it butt-first toward Gilberec.

Yumiko noted that the squire of Garlot was not making any move to hand his master a new spear. At first, she thought the reason was that the squire could not see the unseen man. But then she saw a wonder. The broken lance of Sir Garlot was burning with many tiny sparks. It was healing, growing, mending itself. Yumiko wondered if this were the same magic Malen had once used to mend a torn robe, something from a dream world were lifetimes could pass in an earthly hour.

Gilberec was also swaying, jarred by the shock, but he kept his saddle. Garlot recovered himself first, straightened in the saddle, and now turned his horse sharply. Like a steeplechaser, Garlot leaped over the cloth and wood barrier separating the horses, and charged toward Gilberec, whose back was to him. Gilberec had only the broken fragment of a spear in hand.

All of a sudden, the two dozen dogs sitting in a semicircle at the blue and white tent now began barking. A black cloud issued from the tent flap. It was a flock of bats, strange to see by day, flapping and chattering.

Gilberec stirred himself at the clamor. He did not turn but called out, “Steed from Erlkoenig, sired of Arion, your master disgraces you! Throw him!”

The horse of Sir Garlot must have heard and understood, for the beast now reared and bucked. More black blood spread across the belly and legs of Garlot. The Red Knight drove his spurs into his steed and sang a strange, loud, deep note, as a song from the roots of the world heard echoing in a dry well. His voice brought his beast back under control.

The bats were circling Garlot’s position, and their chirping and shrieking became a shrill frenzy.

Meanwhile, the feral dogs ran down the lists. Some had their noses to the deck; others had their muzzled raised, baying. But the dogs by scent closed in toward the unseen Sir Garlot.

Sir Gilberec did not continue toward the end of the lists where Ruff was barking excitedly and waving the spear butt in the air. Instead, he cast the broken shard of spear from him and drew his sword. Angular letters in a language unknown to Yumiko blazed in the blade, and pale fire, half-invisible in the sun, radiated from the edges and tip. Gilberec stood in his stirrups, elbow high, sword outstretched before him, and he charged toward a foe he could not see: a foe who had a whole spear in hand and could slay any swordsman before ever he would be close enough to strike.

Either he did not know his enemy was armed, or else Gilberec was insane.

Yumiko raised her bow and shot three arrows in rapid succession into Sir Garlot. These were not her red arrows, whose iron heads were poisonous to elfs. These were bodkin heads, meant to pierce armor. None did; all glanced off without penetrating. Her fourth arrow was one of the red ones. It struck Sir Garlot in the thigh, penetrated the metal cuisse, flesh and blood, and pinned his leg to the saddle.

Sir Garlot’s men, when they saw Gilberec releasing hounds onto the field, ran to their riding horses to mount up, all except the Eft. The dragon-eyed Eft tossed his helmet aside, ran forward, and breathed out an arching gout of fire of prodigious length. This reached many yards down the lists, falling among the dogs, and causing Sir Gilberec’s horse to rear up and whinny in anger. Yumiko shot the Eft in the open mouth, and the arrow head emerged from this back of his skull in a spray of blood that caught fire when it touched air.

The Eft crumpled and fell, and the fire from his wounds spread as a pool spreads.

Sir Garlot cried out in a loud voice. His squire blew a trumpet blast. Sir Garlot and his men turned and fled the field. He had had enough.

Garlot threw his enchanted lance aside. He cut the straps of his heavy shield with a misericorde, and this let him clench his forearm to his belly to block the bleeding wound with his forearm.

Yumiko shot her wirepoon grapnel into the deck and slid down it, using her bowstaff to hang from it. She mounted up on the riding horse of the Eft, which was startled by the weight of an unseen rider. This horse, seeing all its fellows fleeing and scenting their panic, whinnied and chased after them.

A great wall of fog erupted from the shoulders of the Red Knight as he swirled his cloak and cast it over his men. They faded from view and lost all colors. The pack horses and mules followed after Garlot as he ran.

So did the horse to whose neck Yumiko clung.

3. Flight and Fog

Down the bridge they galloped, with Sir Gilberec, alone, in pursuit, one youth chasing three armed men and a squire.

But Sir Gilberec shouted, calling on the horses to halt. The riding mounts of Garlot’s men became ungovernable, rearing and plunging. The two dozen dogs and more entered the foggy cloud hiding the invisible Sir Garlot and his unseen retinue, sniffing and baying, coming closer.

Through the fog, clinging to the neck of her rearing horse, Yumiko could see the bright silhouette of Sir Gilberec on his strong, swift steed, calling out the names of King Arthur and Saint Michael the Archangel. The light from his flaming sword made a rainbow in the foggy mists around him.

Yumiko realized that Gilberec was not insane, but had a clear advantage over any mounted foe if the mount could hear and understand the word of the Son of Adam and know them to be true.

But it did not serve her purposes that Sir Garlot be slain this day.

With a swift motion of her hand, she fitted half a dozen microgrenades into the slot on one of her folding boomerangs and threw it. The whirling metal weapon became visible when it left the cloud of fog, spinning toward Sir Gilberec. He raised his shield and deflected it into the deck, where it skipped along like a lopsided wheel, exploding into stabbing flashes of light, tear gas, and dense clouds.

The second boomerang he did not see until it rebounded from his helmet, which rang like a gong. Both boomerangs looked like miniature crop-dusting planes doing tailspins, putting out smoke to blind his eyes, pepper spray to pain the noses of his dogs. The delay of even a moment allowed Garlot and his vassals to open a lead.

4. Into the Night World

Over the police cars barricading the bridge entrance, the elf-steeds of Garlot and his men leaped as lightly as deer. For about a hundred yards, no more than that, the horses picked their way among the motionless and honking cars gridlocked about the entrance ramp. Garlot raised his hand and sang. A flurry of sparks flew up from his fingers and spread like ripples in a pond. All the humans on the street slowly sank down and slept, the car engines sputtered and died, and the lights of traffic signals went out. The silent cavalcade raced on. Yumiko did not see whether they trampled any slumbering men, women, or children trapped in their spell, for the fugitives were fleeing with all haste, and the calls of Gilberec were behind them as they fled, and all four winced and cursed when he said the name of Christ.

Yumiko was fearful that Sir Garlot would be able to see her as easily as she saw him. But it proved to be not so. Garlot’s frog-mouth-shaped jousting helm was not a battle helm, and the eyeslits were placed too high for him to see around him, except when he leaned forward in the posture of a lancer ready to strike. Whether he was awake or had fainted in his armor, Yumiko could not say, for he lolled and swayed alarmingly in the high saddle, and only the rope binding him in place prevented his fall.

The squire lad came alongside the Eft’s horse to which Yumiko clung. Without slowing his gallop, he dexterously snared the trailing reins with his spearhaft, took them up, and tied them to his saddle pommel. It was neatly done. On the two horses ran. Neither he nor any other saw her.

In the second hundred yards, they turned and went down a slope. The change was gradual, and the horses were galloping, so Yumiko did not see and did not after clearly recall how it had been done, but suddenly they were among buildings that looked like the buildings of New York, but were not. These had no glass in the windows, and their facades were overgrown and draped with grapevines and ivy, and plants filled all the sidewalks in wild profusion: deadly nightshade, henbane, mandrake, datura, felonwort, and various bright mushrooms gleaming with fungoid light.

The road under their hooves was not macadam nor concrete, but a crystal that gleamed in the shadows.

There were no people here, no street signs, no automobiles. Between the skyscrapers in the harbor, she saw a colossal statue of a stern and kingly bat-winged being, crowned in rays, holding aloft a mace to smite, not a torch to illume.

The sound of Sir Gilberec and the gleam from his sword were lost behind them, for the pursuer could not see nor scent them. Yumiko did not see any bats flying after.

Sir Garlot reined his steed and gathered all the fogs of his cloak to himself. With the help of his squire, he broke the arrow shaft from his thigh and mounted a palfrey. This let his warsteed gallop after with no other burden but the horse’s barding. But the red arrowhead must have penetrated the great steed’s side and must have pained him, for the footfalls were not as strong as they should have been.

The squire said, “Sir, let us have the harness off you that I might bind up your hurt.”

But Garlot kicked the palfrey into a trot, not pausing to undo his helm or heavy armor. He said, “The Cauldron of Youth awaits in Is-Elfydd. If but one blood drop or strand of hair of mine yet lives, all life will be restored to me.”

The horses were swift and not allowed to rest. Quickly, they arrived at a place that was not Central Park. Yumiko had seen this landscape before. Here was the palatial fortress in the place of Belvedere Castle; this time she clearly saw the fair-featured and cold-faced elfs with silver spears and black silk surcoats standing watch, their eyes as bright and regal as the eyes of falcons.

Past the jousting grounds at the Great Lawn’s outdoor theater Garlot and his men galloped. Bloodstains were all along the side and flank of the palfrey Garlot rode. Here, three other elfin knights riding strange split-hoofed steeds with a horse’s head and tails of a lioness came riding alongside, calling out and asking the news.

The Nephilim cried back, “Woe and treachery! Sir Garlot was struck unmannerly a blow most dolorous! Make way! Open the gate! Open wide the gate!” And these three other knights raised ram horns to their lips, and blew a blast, and added their clear and penetrating voices to his.

Other riders came running alongside or went before. Now they approached the tall hills, crowned with stone tables and standing stones, looming in the shadows of vast trees up from whose branches villages and towers of bright glass, transparent stones, and shining ceramic rose.

Soon a brightly colored cavalry was all about them as an escort, and two gold-eyed young maidens in cloaks of owl feathers soared along just above their heads, calling out blessings, healing chants, and kind words. And still no one saw Yumiko.

The ground opened, and a corridor as broad as a tunnel dove into the ground. The air was bright and dancing with a myriad of colored lamps, scented with soft spring winds, and haunted by soft echoes of a silvery music that had no name.

Her horse trotted on the heels of Garlot’s squire’s. Into the underground realm she passed, and nothing hindered her. The cave mouth closed behind her, leaving the surface realm behind.

Chapter Seven: The Cauldron of Youth

1. Unwatchful Guards

The lamps grew brighter as the underground ramp passed through three gates, one faced with carven slabs of copper, one of bronze, one of a reddish metal Yumiko did not know. Archer’s slits like squinting eyes peered from the walls, and murder holes shaped like gargoyles with dangling tongues glared down from the roof.

The inner panels of the gates, which had been flung open to receive him, were coated with polished silver. As the cavalcade passed through, she saw many knights and squires, Elfs and Efts, Nephilim and Nibelung, all with plumes and cloaks and banners and torches crowding around Garlot and his retinue in the reflection. She also caught a glimpse of a slender white figure with a white fox-face visible in the reflection. It was her image in the mirrored gate, but the glimpse was lost in the crowd of superhuman and semi-human faces, bodies, steeds, stags, leopards, and feathered riding beasts.

Only one officer attempt to halt the rush, a tall elf in a black surcoat wearing a wreathe of mandragora and amaranth. He stood in the path, calling that all must be inspected lest a shape-taker or evil ghost smuggle itself in. But the six-fingered Nephilim riding at Garlot’s shoulder, without slowing his galloping steed, shouted, “Garlot is the son of Phanes! Whose son are you, under-creature?” and he flourished his mace at the officer, whose head was turned instantly into the head of a frog and was thus rendered unable to answer.

Thereafter, no one barred the way.

2. The Stable

Past the third gate, the corridor opened into a vast cavern. In the middle of the air were three great lamps like moons of crystal holding silver fire. The cavern floor was a valley shaped like a bowl. Gardens, grape arbors, and groves of cedar trees were here along with groves of giant mushrooms and gleaming fungi with puffballs of phosphorous; all were watered by small, bright, rippling streams that led to a central pond of water clear as air.

Ignoring all the winding pathways, Garlot and the cavalcade raced directly down the slope, trampling or leaping over rosebushes, fungi beds, short hedges, or garden walls whose bricks were mother of pearl, green smaragds, or black onyx. Yumiko saw no huts or houses in this underground garden, but the booming hooves of their horses ran over doors and windows set in the ground like trapdoors and skylights.

They came to the central pond and dove in, horses and all, without slowing. The water was around them, but it felt neither cold nor wet. Down they drifted, and a blood cloud rose up from the stomach of Garlot like a plume. The lakebed of the water gave way beneath them, as insubstantial as an illusion, and the horses passed without pause below and were in midair, with a vast well dropping underfoot and the waters like a roof above. Yumiko felt dry, and the coat of her horse was not wet.

A bridge made of gossamer film, writhing like a live thing, swiftly and gently reached from the balcony at the side of the vast central well gaping beneath them, and the many horses found its crystal surface under their hooves. Without pause the cavalcade continued to run. Down the slope of the gossamer bridge they ran.

The beams of the colored moons above came through the rippling lake as if through a lens.

The horse Yumiko rode landed on a balcony whose wide and pointed archways facing inward looked upon the vast shaft of air. There were ranks of archways, each beneath the next, reaching downward as far as the eye could see.

Flitting like motes through this shaft were winged servants, bug sized or doll sized or child sized, toting mops or yokes of buckets or baskets of laundry, going from lower balconies to higher or back again.

Yumiko craned her neck. It was all one balcony, winding down like the groove in the horn of a unicorn. The beam of silver from the lake overhead reached down like a finger of moonlight. From far below, she heard the sound of thousands of hammer blows on anvils: an army of smiths busily at work.

They passed gates and doorways opening into arsenals, barracks, and underground stalls or kennels or mews where steeds and hounds and hawks were kept, or creatures odder yet, smilodons and woolly mammoths, Tasmanian tigers, Irish elk, shining hippogriffs.

They came to a stall where Garlot dismounted. The floor was straw. He said, “Batraal son of Barkayal! Into your hands I place my destrier, brave Tachebrun. He is of the blood of Arion, steed of the wind. See to his wound!”

The six-fingered man was apparently named Batraal, for he answered, “Sir! This is the work of Winged Vengeance. For see! The red arrow is his sign.”

But the stout, squat creature in the black coat said, “Let the elfs stand back! Nibelung hands can touch the iron unharmed. This work is Vig’s. Ither! Hale you the master to his cauldron.”

Ither was the elfin squire. He came forward, and only now did he undo and remove the awkward helm and heavy breastplate of his master. Sir Garlot had made no complaint before; but now he screamed and swore terrible blasphemies as the pain of motion when his habergeon was pulled over his head tore at him, and the sticky red undercoat of linen cut away. Red blood now ran freely down Garlot’s legs and splashed on Ither. The cloak of fogs took on a pink hue as particles of blood floated in the airy fabric.

Garlot said, “Ither! Your shoulder to me. Batraal! To my treasure house. Let none else come.”

Ither said, “Sir! A surgeon of skilled hands is nigh. Let us pull the spearhead from your wound before it gets worse.”

Garlot spat blood and uttered a proud laugh. “The Cauldron of Youth is at hand. What matter if the wound is better or worse?” And he yanked the lance head roughly from his own guts. Now blood and more doubtful fluids gushed in earnest from the wound, and he fainted away as one dead.

At the same time, two bald grooms with faces like monkeys came and led the horse Yumiko rode to a stall. She nimbly jumped up into the rafters and clung to a roofbeam.

The grooms undid the saddle and furnishings of the dead man’s mount and began brushing it. From her high angle, she could see into the next stall. The wounded warhorse of Garlot had been freed of barding and saddle and was lying on his side. Its belly rose and fell as it panted. A veterinarian in white, wearing a wreathe of healing herbs on his head, stood peering over the head of Vig the Nibelung, who was drawing the arrow, telling him how to do it. They were preoccupied and did not see what Yumiko saw. A gush of black water came from the throat of the coughing warhorse and spread across the straw.

Two black mice came out of the steed’s mouth with the water. Their motions seemed stiff, unnatural, unliving but quick, like toys whose mainsprings were tightly wound. Their whiskers did not twitch, and their eyes did not blink. The two black mice scampered into the straw, along the baseboard, and through a knothole in the wood.

3. The Great Balcony

As Garlot swayed, Ither caught him in his arms. The squire spoke in a loud voice, ordering the throng of well-wishers and onlookers out of the way. He then called for linen. Batraal the Nephilim came and helped Ither bind their master’s midriff. Batraal insisted they tie the cloak of mists about their master. He was not willing to have any other touch so rare a treasure nor to bear it himself.

Then, the two each lifted Garlot in their arms and ran quickly out the archway and down the balcony with him. Yumiko followed, running along the tops of the walls of the stalls to reach the door without brushing into anyone in the throng.

Batraal and Ither were already moving quickly down the spiral ramp of the great balcony, but the heads of all the crowd of elfs gathered before the stable door blocked Yumiko’s way. She shot her grapnel to snag one of the countless pillars lining the balcony rail and swung across the dizzying emptiness. She struck no flying servants but overtook the running pair as they circled the balcony.

She joined them, running silently behind the two. Down the vast spiral they ran. The doors opening up onto the spiral balcony here were narrow and mean, unadorned. But as they descended, they ran past finer doors, adorned with carvings, hung with painted signs. Farther down, larger doors of finer make were surrounded and supported with statues, bas-relief work, tapestries, and banners. Farther yet were wide gates leading into presence halls and ballrooms lit by gems or miniature moons. Past nicely appointed chambers they went as well as past arched gates revealing indoor lakes of strange fluids beyond, or museums, libraries, shrines, ballrooms, and other chambers whose purposes could not be guessed. At various gates stood sentries, who presented their pikes in salute of Garlot.

At last they came to a courtyard like a semicircle cut out of the wall and golden doors supported by tall statues of the fanged sea monster with tusks and dorsal fins of gold like unto the crest of Garlot. Elfs and Nephilim in black-and-red livery stood guard.

4. The Hall of the Red Knight

Rumor must have flown ahead. Worried scowls sat on the brows of Garlot’s houseguards, but no surprise. The doors were open, and eft linkboys with glowing eyes or burning tongues lined the passage to light the way. At the door stood a squat, round-bellied, and black-skinned Nibelung in a fur-lined cap. His luxurious white beard reached past his belt, and his rich white curls past his shoulders. His coat was red and trimmed with black mink. Yumiko thought he looked like a miniature and sinister Santa Claus. A chain of office was around his shoulders and a key ring at his gem-studded belt.

Batraal the Nephilim called, “Althjof! Is all ready?”

The whitebeard answered, “The wood is lit; the elixir is boiling. I have the amber key in hand.” And he turned. He trotted briskly on his stubby legs to keep ahead of the long and rapid strides of the elf squire and longer but slower gait of the tall Nephilim.

They passed through a wide entrance hall, where tusked fish of flesh and blood sported in a fountain of black marble above a floor of blood-red jasper. Above was a dome of aventurine, carnelian, and red agate held on the tailfins of fanged and frog-mouthed sea-beasts made of stone and standing on their heads. Into a narrow corridor they went.

Whatever marvels or riches filled the apartments of Sir Garlot were not seen since this narrow corridor had each door shut, and each archway was either covered with a curtain of hissing snakes or a curtain of flames, hotter than a fireplace. Such fires were the only light. No servants were here.

The way was blocked by three doors. The first was a cedar door adorned with pearls and painted runes. The second was a door of black iron which Ither, the elfin squire, was warned not to touch. The third was a door of solid fire whose latch and hinges were made of living snakes, unconsumed, petrified, and held in place, agony in their eyes. They held the door shut by biting each others’ tails.

Althjof opened the first with a touch on the correct rune, the second with a key, the third with a word whispered to the burning serpents, who released each others’ tails from their fangs and hissed. Each time, he held the door for the pair bearing Garlot, and, each time, Yumiko had to slide or somersault nimbly by him and then cling to the carven roofbeam when he trotted swiftly past her underfoot to overtake the others.

Beyond the door of fire, the walls to either side fell away, and the roof rose beyond sight. The floor of the corridor continued three more paces, as a tongue extending to nowhere, and ended at a brink. Underfoot was black abyss. At the far side of the chasm, a bowshot away, was a wall of cyclopean blocks of black marble. Each block was two yards on a side. In the middle of this wall was an oval door made of amber planks bound with hasps and hinges of silver.

Althjof put one of the keys of his keyring to his mouth and blew. A shrill whistle issued from the metal. At this noise, a gossamer scarf, thin enough for light to pass through, unfolded from the threshold of the amber door. It reached across the abyss as lightly as a spider’s thread might reach, to touch the brink of the tongue of floor.

5. The Gossamer Span

Althjof went first across the filmy bridge, trotting swiftly, and he took out a key whose wards and shank and bow were carved all of one piece of yellow amber. Ither went next, carrying the wounded Garlot on his back. Batraal came third, his hand on his master’s back, helping to steady the burden. Yumiko came after.

The flimsy gossamer trembled and swayed under their footfalls. Althjof reached the far end before the others. “Light!” he called. “I must have light to work the lock!”

Two thin, high cries of pain echoed in the air, and suddenly two glass vessels, no larger than wine bottles, one hanging on either side of the amber door, lit up with bright light. Inside were miniature women sporting butterfly wings. They were clad in short tunics that left their limbs bare, and the hues and patterns matched their wings. The light was shining from their hair and skin.

In that light, Yumiko saw two small and swift shapes dart by underfoot. It was a pair of black mice, clinging to the underside of the gossamer bridge, visible only because the surface was so thin. She saw their paws and bellies, their motionless eyes, as they scampered by, quick as birds in flight.

Yumiko stopped on the gossamer bridge long enough to draw her baton, unfold it into a bowstaff, and string the bow. The others were drawing away. She ran to catch up.

There came a chime of noise like a ringing bell when the bolt of the amber door was drawn. The door opened by parting in the middle and sliding aside. Within was a blaze of light. Yumiko saw in the middle of the chamber beyond a crystal orb, larger in diameter than a man is tall, hovering above a fire blazing in an open hearth of veined red marble. There was no smoke. A nest of snakes were living in the burning wood and consuming the smoke in their mouths as the wood burned. A fluid clearer than water was in the orb, roiling and boiling.

The chamber walls were umber, auburn, fulvous, citrine, and translucent. To every side were panels, panes, niches, and walls of amber, reaching from roof to floor, every hue of yellow from goldenrod to lemon. The amber walls were carved into nooks and shelves and arabesques. Bound chests and caskets made of glass or amber stood there, the coins and bars of gold, rare wood, bolts of cloth, or phials of essence visible through the smoky yellow. Also on the shelves, or dangling from each arm of the chandelier, a glowing, miniature winged girl in a bottle was weeping.

Yumiko redoubled her pace, hoping to see Elfine. Ither stepped forward to enter the treasure chamber, but Batraal slowed his steps so that Ither was ahead.

Batraal whirled and drew his greatsword. Batraal was coated for a moment with many small sparks of light. Yumiko had seen such lights gather around Elfine just before the girl dwindled to miniature size. But the Nephilim did not shrink. He grew. First, he was ten, then fifteen, then twenty feet tall. His brigantine and broadsword grew with him as he grew. The light from the open door behind him cast his black shadow across the gossamer bridge.

Yumiko, caught by surprise, coming too quickly, skidded to a halt and stepped back a step. The gossamer trembled under her footstep, and she realized how she had been discovered.

The Nephilim cried, “Your arrows I know! That you have the Ring of Mists I know! Your weakness I know!”

Batraal lifted his sword in both hands overhead and then raised his head and stared into the blade. Yumiko could see his ice blue eyes reflected in the mirror-bright blade. She saw them focus on her.

The gigantic warrior called. “I see you!”

6. Shooting and Plummeting

Behind Batraal, she saw Althjof and Ither had unbound the Cloak of Mists from Garlot and were hurrying to put their unconscious master into the fluid boiling in the crystal orb, which she realized must be the Crystal Cauldron of Youth.

A ladder of three oversized amber steps rose next to the cauldron, and the youth and the dwarf were wrestling the limp, heavy body up them. They pulled him up the first step.

But she saw something no one else was in position to see: a black mouse was in the treasure chamber, just under the amber steps. Streams of black smoke were issuing from its tiny mouth. The thin thread of black mist was rising up, looking like a rip in the tapestry of the universe.

Through that rip a pale king with empty eyesockets protruded an arm and a leg, as if he were stepping out from the curtain severing seen from unseen. She knew him: about his neck hung a hunting horn, and his surcoat showed the sign of a pale winter tree.

Ither and Althjof pulled their master up the second step.

And the pale king was putting his hand into and through the crystal side of the cauldron. The hand and arm passed through the substance as easily as a beam of moonlight through glass, without touching it. Scars at his wrist, such as suicides are wont to wear, now parted, and a fluid blacker than night entered the bright fluid boiling in the cauldron.

All this she saw in the moment it took the Nephilim to grow in size, to raise his great blade, to peer into its reflection, and to see her.

“Wait!” she cried. “The cauldron is poisoned! Garlot is in danger!”

Ither and Althjof pulled Garlot up the third step. She drew an arrow and nocked it.

“Throw down your bow!” roared the Nephilim. “I am Batraal son of Barkayal, who taught man how to observe the stars, and a daughter of Cain. I am of the elder line of Adam and by rights should rule. Throw down your bow, Winged Vengeance, or die!”

All the shrill voices of the girls in the bottles rose up in a clamor when the name of Winged Vengeance was spoken, crying and shrieking. Ither and Althjof, hearing the commotion, did not look up, but redoubled their efforts, hastening to plunge Garlot into the boiling fluid.

Yumiko realized that no one there could see the ghost. Perhaps they could not see the dark and ghostly blood he was shedding into the liquid boiling in the cauldron.

She called out, “I am not Winged Vengeance! Your master is about to die!” But the first three words of what she said was lost in the uproar, and, unfortunately, the last six were clearly heard.

But at the same time, she drew two arrows from her quiver and in one motion knelt and nocked and shot the first, turned the bow sidewise, went prone, and shot the second.

Both shafts passed between the legs of the twenty-foot-tall giant and went through the open door to the treasure chamber.

The first struck arrow Althjof, the dwarf, in the leg and passed through it. He stumbled and fell into the cauldron with a splash. Ither, unbalanced and scalded by flying water, lost his footing, but he fell backward down the amber stepladder, bringing Garlot’s bleeding body with him. This first arrow was not red, but had a bodkin head.

The huge blade of Batraal swung. He missed her head, perhaps because she moved, or perhaps because he had no other mirror to use to keep her in his sight. Or perhaps he was not aiming for her at all. The blade cleaved neatly through the gossamer surface, and it parted. The half on which he stood remained rigid and supported his weight. The half under her feet collapsed and disintegrated, suddenly no more solid than a puffy cloud.

The second arrow flew swift and sure a mere inch above the floor and struck the black mouse through. The mouse was struck, but it was the shadow figure of the dead king who fell back, a shaft protruding from his chest. Ghost and arrow together shimmered like objects seen under rippling water and evaporated.

This was a white arrow, called haya. It was male, the first ghost arrow, and it spun clockwise—deasil—when shot. In her hand was otoya, the female, the second ghost arrow, which spun counterclockwise—widdershins—when shot. To her credit, it did not fall from her hand when she fell.

It is startling how fast a body falls. To Yumiko, it seemed as if the Nephilim was yanked upward like a puppet on an unseen string more swiftly than an ascending rocket. Without losing her grip on the bow shaft or arrow, she twisted the ring sharply, making herself weightless, and shrugged her wings into place. But now she was visible. Her speed of descent slowed, thanks to air resistance, but she was still traveling down.

She could not fold the bow away while it was strung. She slung the bow over her shoulder. A flick of her right wrist slapped her wirepoon pistol into her palm. She fired, but the grapnel rebounded from the slick surface of the marble blocks of the cyclopean masonry of the vast and bottomless chasm down which she fell.

Did she have time for one more shot? She steadied the pistol in both hands and aimed at the Nephilim, hoping to grapple the gossamer bridge on which he stood. The grapnel penetrated the transparent fabric of the bridge, but the tall man knelt and swept his sword. With a high-pitched shock of metallic noise, the wire parted under the blow, leaving the grapnel head behind.

She was falling only as fast as an autumn leaf, but falling she was, and with no way to climb up. No convenient warm updraft was likely to rise from below and give her altitude. She yanked a pair of needle-nosed pliers out of her belt and stared at them. “No climbing claws!” she muttered. “What kind of superheroine ever leaves her climbing claws behind?”

She had only a moment before the Nephilim, the door, and the two small bottles burning like lamps would be too far above her and out of range. She and all her gear were weightless at the moment. She was not sure how this would affect performance. But she had in hand something with a much longer range than the wirepoon pistol.

She kicked her legs so that she was supine in midair, put her feet up, caught the bow shaft between sole and heel, nocked a judo-point arrow, and shot.

This time, she aimed not at the wall or the warrior but at the lamp. A judo-point head is blunt but has hooks to snag the surface it hits. In this case, Yumiko used such a head hoping it would snag the glass it shattered, slowing its speed and doing no harm to the girl inside the bottle.

A moment later, bright as a falling star, a brunette with wings like an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, wearing a brief and sleeveless tunic of matching yellow and black, came speeding down the shaft and landed on the nose of Yumiko’s mask.

7. A Small Boon

“I am Fayline,” she said with a curtsey, fluttering her wings to keep her footing on the nose of the mask of the slowing-falling girl. “Daughter of Lorilla of the band of Zurline of Burzee. You have freed me! Ask of me what boon I may grant.”

“I would like to go back up, please,” said Yumiko.

“Up? Up where?”

“From where I fell.”

“When?”

Yumiko was puzzle. “I do not understand.”

“You want to go up to the spot from which you fell. When did you fall?”

“Just now. A moment ago.”

“Ah! That I can do!” So saying, the fairy girl grew until she was the size of a doll. A frown was on her face. “Or maybe I cannot do. You seem rather gigantic, and you smell like the realm of woe. I cannot turn into a bird any who bears this scent.”

“Appearances can deceive,” said Yumiko. “I am light as a feather at the moment.”

“Ah! Your weight is in the land of the dead! That is a clever place to stow it.”

And she wrapped both arms about the nose of Yumiko’s mask and beat her wings furiously, shedding many sparks and glittering motes as she did. Slowly, but surely, Yumiko’s descent halted. For a moment she hung while Fayline strove. And then the tiny impulse from the girl no larger than a dove prevailed, and Yumiko began drifting upward.

Higher they came. The Nephilim was kneeling on the gossamer, but he had sheathed his terrible sword. The fairy girl tugging on Yumiko’s grinning fox-mask made her clear to see against the backdrop of unrelieved darkness.

Yumiko said, “I think we should avoid him. Follow near the wall and get above him.”

The fairy laughed. “Ah! No! That is not what you asked! The spot from which you fell is even with his toe. There is no bridge there now, of course.”

“You are not willing to carry me a few yards higher than I asked?”

The doll-sized girl wagged a tiny finger. “Tsk! Tsk! You could have used different words if you wanted something different. I thought you wanted me to carry you all the way back to Sarras or the hospital room window where the holy saint put you. This is easier! I would have liked to turn you into a bird if you forgot to ask beforehand to be able to turn back. That would have been funny, too!”

“Funny?” asked Yumiko, incredulous. “What of gratitude? I saved you!”

“I am granting you your boon! You get one! Just one! And as soon as I am done, I can forget all gratitude and the pain and danger I was in and flit away free! You do not think I am cursed with memory, like an elf, do you? My ancestors discovered how to live without regret, here in the land of tears, among the exiled children of Eve. It is like your amnesia!”

“Exiled? From where?”

“Don’t remember, don’t know, don’t care.”

“From Heaven?”

Now the little face crumpled in sudden, sharp sadness, and Fayline cried, “Why did you say that? Why did you say such a terrible thing?”

At this point, Yumiko came back to the spot in midair where the gossamer bridge had been. Fayline flew away without a backward glance, straight up the shaft.

The Nephilim, frowning, stepped to the broken end of the remaining half of the gossamer bridge, measuring the distance to Yumiko with his eyes.

8. Another Small Boon

Through the legs of Batraal the Nephilim, Yumiko saw that the amber doors behind him had been pulled shut.

Yumiko was not used to shooting the bow while weightless. She stiffened her cloak and spread it, and her legs rotated slowly until her spine was pointed at the target. She wanted to keep the line of the shot near her center of mass. She flexed her spine and craned her neck like someone shooting an arrow directly overhead.

The blunt arrow flew sure and true into the other bottle by the door, shattering it. A moment later a glittering fairy girl was hanging in midair before Yumiko’s eyes, and she curtseyed politely. Her wings and tunic were patterned like a Monarch butterfly.

“I am Luel, daughter of Ereol of the band of Ozga the Rose Princess of Oogaboo. Ask of me what boon…”

“Without maiming or slaying me or anyone, immediately open as wide as they are designed to be opened the amber doors there leading to the treasure chamber of Garlot if that is where Elfine daughter of Iolanthe is kept, and keep them open until the moment I say otherwise, to allow me to shoot arrows into more of the bottles currently kept there and free more captives.”

Luel smiled charmingly, clapping her little hands with joy. “That I can do!”

Just then, Batraal gleamed with a firefly swarms of lights, swelled up to twice his size, reached out, and caught Yumiko between his palms. She threw a knife into his nose, which made him laugh, since, at his size, this was smaller than the sting of a bee to him. Then the pellets of tear gas and pepper spray hidden in the slots of the hilt of the knife ignited, and an immense volume of noxious gas erupted directly into all the nasal and throat cavities of his head. When he yelled in pain, tear gas blew from his throat. He jerked his hands toward his burning face, releasing her. Now she was tumbling in an irregular spin, flying toward the black wall with no weight but great momentum.

Luel, still smiling brightly, landed on the back of Yumiko’s glove, clung there, reached out, took the Ring of Mists in both hands, and twisted it sharply. The ring darkened from pewter to cast iron to shining onyx, and the face in the intaglio went from drowsy to sleepy to dead, a corpse face with lips sewn shut.

Yumiko felt eyes on her, many gazes filled with hate. The sensation was far more potent than she had felt it before: she was paralyzed, unable to move.

Luel twisted the ring yet again. The shining onyx ring turned black as soot, and the face collapsed into a skull. The mist around Yumiko was thick and dark, so she lost all sight of the Nephilim, the amber door, the gossamer bridge, the stark and smooth walls. She was nowhere. She could see nothing.

9. Nonbeing

And within the nothing was a deeper nothing, visible like black against gray. The shapes of dead men, their empty eyesockets turned toward her, empty mouths gaping in mirthless hunger, painful hunger, infinite hunger. They envied her for being alive. They wanted life, but never, not for eternity, not ever would the smallest drop of it be theirs. It was a terrible, burning, thirsting envy, a malice beyond madness. They lusted for her life and envied her for having it. There were dozens here, scores, hundreds, reaching out toward her.

Below and behind these dark shapes was a figure even darker, as if darkness could turn from a mere absence of light to a positive force that destroyed light. The ghosts were the size of men and fluttered like bats in the gloom. This one was the size of a tower, or a hill, and the featherless wings that opened from its shoulders were greater than the sails of a mighty ship. They were the wings of the leviathan.

And beyond and beneath this tower of darkness were hills and mountains of shapes vaster and deeper, leviathans wallowing, not in the sea, but the depths of uttermost blackness darker than the bottom of a sea trench and at a pressure even more massive and relentless.

Yumiko heard a voice she had heard before. She had heard this voice in the lowest vaults of Wilcolac’s establishment, where he conducted his black sorceries. It was the voice of Empousa. Yumiko heard it in her mind, not her ear, and her mind went as if deaf with fear. The little vixen we seek is there, plain and clear to see. After her! Upon her! Bring the ring to Wilcolac, damned spirits!

Twittering and screaming like bats, with many a jerking, angular, and ugly movement of flying and falling, tossing their limbs this way and that, the dead by scores and myriads came through the darkness toward her.

Chapter Eight: The Treasure Room

1. Amber Chamber

Then came light.

The world turned solid around her, as firm as a mother’s arms about a baby. Warmth was here, and brightness, and beauty of three dimensions, and the solemn symphony of her living heart, beating a rapid tattoo, proving time was passing once more. Even the beautiful sensation known as sound was here again, coming in the way nature intended, through the ear, not like a needle thrust directly into the brain. But the sound itself was not very pretty. It took her a moment to realize it was the sound of a woman screaming. It took her another to realize it was her own voice.

She leaped to her feet, staggered, stumbled, and fell to her knees. She blinked her eyes free of tears. Where was she? What was happening?

She was surrounded by the gleaming yellow, brown, and gold of slabs and screens of amber of Garlot’s treasure chamber. It was larger than its seemed when seen through the amber doors. The huge crystal cauldron was midmost, but here also were chairs, a writing desk, a book cabinet, all partly or wholly hewn of polished amber. In addition to being a bank vault and an infirmary, this was Garlot’s library or sitting room. There were miniature girls along the shelves and in the chandelier, and also in a lantern on the desk and atop a candlestick. There were too many tiny, glowing, woebegone faces to take in at a glance. She did not see Elfine.

The body of Althjof was inside the cauldron. She saw it through the glassy walls of the cauldron and wished she had not. Althjof was curled like a dead insect, fist raised as if ready to ward off a blow, and the body was slowly rotating as the agitated bubbles boiled over crooked limbs. Each inch of skin was pale, bloated, and blistered with severe burns.

Ither the squire was kneeling at the foot of the cauldron, prodding the snakes that lived in the fire with a fire poker. His back was to Yumiko, but he turned at the sound of her screams.

The bleeding body of Garlot was propped up in a chair at the foot of the amber step ladder leading to the cauldron mouth. His eyes were open, but he was unconscious. The gray cloak was draped over the chair back behind him and had clouds and splotches of red floating through it.

Like a fire arrow, like a shooting star, Luel darted from Yumiko’s trembling hand toward the amber doors of the chamber. The key had been left in the lock. The brightly shining fairy girl thrust her foot into the bow of the key and whirled about it like a ballerina executing a spin. There came a chime of noise when the lock opened.

Luel raised her other foot and placed it between the leaves of the door. There came a spray of sparks, like the tail of a skyrocket, which pushed against the other leaf of the door while sending her shooting backward, and this forced both leaves wide open. Then, laughing and kicking her legs, she broke the key in the lock, so there was no way to turn or fasten it again.

Ither stood and drew his dirk. “Surrender! Yield!” He shouted.

Yumiko said, “I yield. I have no wish to–” but her voice was weak and thin, her head was light, and shadows were pulsing at the edge of her vision, threatening to drive her unconsciousness.

But at the same moment Luel swooped down, swelled from insect size to doll size, picked up the bow and arrow Yumiko had dropped during the moment of darkness, and thrust them into Yumiko’s hands.

Ither, seeing the bow in her hands, roared and leaped. Yumiko was shocked at how swiftly he moved. He slapped the longbow out of her hands and pinned both elbows behind her back with one arm. She squirmed, trying to get her feet under her, to find some leverage. The blades in her shoes popped open, but she was in no position to slice or cut his feet. Blades along her forearms opened, and stiffened, and cut his silk sleeves, but they scraped against the mail sleeves underneath. Now he put the dirk at her throat. She struggled, wild with fear, but the teenage elf held her as easily as a grown man would a child.

Her earlier fight with the human men had deceived her. She was as strong and fast as they were, but she was not as strong and fast as a male of her own race. And the elf was not her race. He was a thoroughbred whereas she was but a half-breed. For the first time, she wondered if the arrogance of the long-lived elves toward the Moths and Cobwebs and other half-humans was justified.

2. Fairy Nicety

Yumiko brought the wirepoon pistol out of its hidden wrist-sheath and shot the barb of the grapnel into and through Ither’s foot, pinning it to the floor. At the same time, she clicked the tongue control inside her mask to deploy the snorkel, which came out of the top of her mask with a rubbery pop of noise and struck him neatly in the eye.

The knife blade scraped against the collar of her suit, but the young squire did not use enough force to penetrate an unexpectedly metal-hard resistance in what had been soft as leather a moment before. She flexed her shoulders, deploying the glider wings into a stiff, metallic shape. Retracting the forearm blades also made her arms suddenly thinner in his grasp. His grip slipped, and she writhed out of it, sleek as an eel.

Across the chamber she somersaulted, but landed in the palm of Batraal son of Barkayal, who had grown to an even larger size, and thrust his hand up to the elbow into the chamber.

He closed his fingers, crushing wings against back and arms against sides. Her legs were kicking in midair below his pinky. Her shoulders were trapped in a shrug in the circle of his forefinger. He put his thumb with menacing gentleness on her crown between the pointy fox ears of her headgear. He need only straighten this thumb to snap her neck.

Luel once again darted across the room, picked up the dropped longbow, and came to where Yumiko’s pinned hands were wiggling and scratching against the thighs of her boots. Luel hovered at her left hip and thrust the bow into Yumiko’s surprised fingers.

Yumiko gasped to Luel, “Help me! Get me out of this!”

Ither was kneeling, yanking at the barb impaling his foot. He gasped to Batraal, “Slay him! Slay Winged Vengeance!”

Batraal said, “Feels kind of soft and slight to be him… I do not think this is Winged Vengeance. For one thing, he looks like a crow. For another, we are alive.”

Luel landed on the nose of her mask and curtseyed. “I have helped you, just as you said! I have neither maimed nor slain you or any; opened the doors specified in the time and fashioned specified, nor can they be locked shut again, and your bow is in your hand. You are allowed to shoot and have my permission. It is no doing of mine that you lack the present ability to act on that permission. No more was asked.” She ticked off each item on her fingers, and when she was done, she clapped her hand with her fingers spread and jumped up and down on the mask nose.

Ither and Batraal continued to argue.

“Smash the other bottles!” gasped Yumiko.

Luel pouted. “I did what you said! You said you wanted to shoot arrows into the bottles with the door open! There is the open door! There are all the bottles with my sisters in them! There is your bow! You said nothing about smashing before. What is wrong with you?”

“Free them! Free Elfine!” cried Yumiko.

“I hate the daughters of Eve!” Luel clenched her fists and clenched her teeth. “They never want what they ask for! Even if you listen carefully, with both ears, and do everything exactly as they say!” Luel gave an energetic dance of frustration on the nose of the mask, as if she were about to kick Yumiko in the eye, and this made Yumiko by reflex jerk back her head, and this snapped the mask open and flung Luel overhead and back out of sight.

Luel circled back like an angry wasp, glowing red like a ruby star. “I did as you said and just as you said! My debt is gone! I have already forgotten you!”

Ither yanked the grapnel out of his shoe, and the bloody metal hook retracted, hissing back into the pistol in Yumiko’s right hand. He took up his knife and came limping across the floor toward where she hung in the Nephilim’s fist.

Yumiko said desperately to Luel, “Wait! I said you had to wait until I specifically said to close the doors again!”

The light surrounding Luel turned a brighter shade of crimson. “You did not! You said I had to make sure they stayed open until you said otherwise. Since I broke the key off in the lock, they will stay open forever up until the moment you say that word and thereafter. I have done all! No changing your mind! No taking back what you said!”

And with that, she dwindled to a mote, a speck, a bright atom, and she was no more to be seen.

Ither came near and flourished his knife. “Flick your thumb, Batraal! We can use the assassin’s head for a hurling ball! Why do you wait?”

A low and solemn voice said, “No. Hold your hand. Slay her not.”

Yumiko craned her neck to turn her head and peer through the crystal sides of the cauldron. Garlot was seated on the far side. He had not moved, but now his open eyes were awake.

3. Vengeance Is a Girl

Ither was now just below her, looking up. “Batraal! Winged Vengeance is a girl! Most unexpected. Look! There is a light caught in her eyes. She is of the lineage of Amaterasu of the Sun. Her face is bright and full of passion. Hold her nearer! Hold her still! I will kiss her.”

Garlot said, “Do not kiss her.”

Ither looked over his shoulder. “But, master, she is so pretty, she must be a Moth. They are said to be sweet on the lips.”

“Would you shame my name, squire? Take no untoward advantage of any lady.”

“But she is a Moth, not a lady! And she stabbed me in the foot.”

“She is the Foxmaiden, who slays the women Winged Vengeance is too proud to slay. She no doubt has a spring-loaded poisoned switchblade hidden under her tongue and will stab through the roof of your mouth into your walnut-sized brain if you molest her. Prepare the hook and winch to fish Althjof out of the cauldron. Batraal, place her in the chair facing me.”

Yumiko was pushed in the chair. The huge hand held her there. The amber substance of the back and the armrests turned to liquid for a moment, and came about her like lariats of glass, and solidified again. A chair leg snared her ankles.

4. The Red Knight

Garlot turned his bloodstained eyes toward her. As he spoke, his words were slow and labored, as if his wound pained him. He never stirred so much as a finger but held completely still as he spoke. “I offer you a trade. You will forgive the discourtesy of my affectionate chair, and I will forgive your trespass into this chamber, where none of your race may come. Do you accept?”

“Yes.”

She spoke without hesitation. She was not sure what penalty or curse normally accompanied any trespasser caught in an elfin treasure chamber. No doubt it was worse than anything she could do to him in retaliation for trapping her in a magic chair. It sounded like a good bargain to her.

He said, “Are you here to free my collection of fairies?”

“Yes.”

“That is unwise. Two of them granted you boons to repay your kindness. Were you satisfied?”

Yumiko said, “Pardon me. I do not know what that question means.”

“Heaven punishes mortals by letting mortal wishes be granted to instruct each fool to know that earthly life has nothing an immortal soul craves. Heaven punishes fairies by letting them recall their old obedience. This is to instruct them in thanksgiving, a source of joy unknown to melancholy elfs.”

“I was not satisfied with the boons they granted. What obedience?”

Garlot said, “In the first days, before the Tree of Life was felled, the sons of Adam were sovereign over nature. Storms grew calm at the command of Cain; Seth trod on scorpions and dragons unhurt; Abel the Just ascended up on high, beyond where eagles fly, and builded him an altar in the clouds. Rumor says Sarras once stood on the same spot in the middle air.”

This seemed to be saying that fairies and elfs originally were made to serve mankind, not to rule them. Yumiko said, “If I command you to release me, will you?”

“Interesting question. In whose name would you ask if you were to ask?”

“In the name of Arthur.”

“He is king no longer. He died.”

“They say he sleeps.”

“Do they? Do they really?” A hint of amusement hid in his voice.

“In the name of Christ then.”

“Even more interesting. Are you baptized? By what right do you call upon that name?”

She stared at his impassive face. His eyes were heavy, his lids were half closed, and he showed no expression, nor did he blink. She found this unnerving. She twisted her wrists and ankles but could not dislodge them.

She said, “I don’t know if I have the right.”

He said, “Then I don’t know what will happen in this place if you call on that name. I hear he killed the Great God Pan, and this was not long after he drove a host of fallen ones out of their house and into a herd of swine, which drowned themselves in the sea. That host, or some horde of evil ones doing work in their name, is in this city. But I notice you do not think to ask me in the name of Erlkoenig, who is my liege and master. Why is that?”

She said, “Erlkoenig did not send you to fight Sir Gilberec the Swan Knight. Would he be displeased to learn?”

“You know much,” he said, and his eyes narrowed slightly. “If he learned you have the Ring of Mists, that might well bring on you more trouble than your current playmates, bandits, cutthroats, and Cobwebs with delusions of grandeur. I offer you another trade. You keep my secret from Erlkoenig, and I keep yours. Do you accept?”

“Yes.”

“You answer with alacrity. Most folk would ponder longer or be wary of unspoken conditions, clauses, or assumptions. Most would ask to consult their lawyers.”

“Elfs have lawyers?”

“Elfs invented lawyers. It is one of the few inventions humans copied from us, rather than the other way around.”

Something moved in the depth of her buried memory at these words and caught her attention. It was as if something important, something forgotten, was hidden behind the idea. “Elfin life is copied from human life? Why is that?”

For the first time, he showed expression. His brows moved upward infinitesimally. “All know why.”

“I do not. Tell me, please.”

“The Sons of Adam were made in the image and likeness of the Creator, and so they are creative, even in their fallen state. Sons of Air are made in the image of Adam, and we copy him.”

“But you copy only the Middle Ages?”

“What do you mean?”

“You have swords and sailing ships, but no atom bombs or moonrockets.”

“Our hearts delight in the forms Man invented when he was at his finest. When holy saints and chivalrous heroes walked the earth, even the lordliest of elfs feared to meddle with them. Arondight could have destroyed us all, but no atom bomb could.”

“Who is Arondight?”

“The blade of Lancelot du Lac, given to England just as Kusanagi was given to Japan and Joyeuse to France. It was struck from his hand by the good fortune of his adultery and his treason to his best loved friend and liege. Praise be to whatever devil tempted him! Do you think these pale and sickly modern men could resist a woman one-tenth as fair as Genevieve? Do you think they would bow the knee to Arthur? Only to gather stones to stone him. Modern man is mostly matter. We are mostly spirit. Only what is deep in dreams is solid to us, and high, fine, and ancient things gather dreams about them which do not die. We do not copy the art and artifacts of dim and dismal days like these, lest our houses look like homes in Hell.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You saw the proud towers in whose shadow we rode to come here. Desolate, arrogant, empty. That is the true appearance of the soul of New York. The spirit of the city is dead, and elfs know the art of walking alive into the dreams where the ghosts of those not yet called to judgment wander.”

Yumiko was a little miffed at his dismissive tone. “What about moonrockets? Merlin never built one of those.”

“Men of this day went to the moon but did not go back. The rockets rot, and the engineers forget their lore. Whereas Arthur did not build half a tower at Camelot, nor fight half a battle at Badon Hill, nor did Saint Patrick drive half the snakes from Ireland. These little men of these little days have conquered more of nature and less of spirit until they have not enough spirit to rule what they conquer. We are long-lived folk, long in foresight and long in memory, and we do not forget. But who are you?”

Yumiko was surprised. “I thought you knew. I am the Foxmaiden.”

5. The Maiden of the Moths

“You are the servant and disciple of Winged Vengeance? He has the last cloak from Sarras, and he flies, not swift and high like a bird, but as a dark angel. If you are she, how can you not know what every child knows?”

“There is much I have forgotten.”

“Are you a Moth?”

“I am. Why do you ask?”

“I was expecting the minion of Winged Vengeance to be a Peaseblossom.”

“Why?”

“Because he is alone. You are alone. Moths flock.”

Yumiko said, “Elfine Moth is in this chamber. You must release her.”

“Must I?”

“Yes.”

“You seem quite certain.”

Yumiko did not know, and had no guess, as to why he had not slain her instantly, but she assumed he wanted something from her he could not gain by force or magic. So she did not answer but merely assumed a relaxed posture, that is, as relaxed as a girl can assume when she is pinned in place. She could cock her head to one side with an air of nonchalance and stare at the ceiling.

He said, “What would you have of me?”

That was an unexpected comment. He must be in a very bad bargaining position, pressed for time, desperate.

She said, “All your prisoners in this chamber released, starting with Elfine Luminiferous Moth.”

“So many fairies in Manhattan? They will cause mischief and madness. It is the high will and command of Erlkoenig that such as these remain in Troynovant, in the Third Hemisphere men never see. By coming here, they trespass. I am in my rights to keep the king’s law. It is finer here than the dungeons of Mommur.”

“As each is freed, she will offer a boon to her savior. Is there no place where they could be free and happy, free of mischief, and Erlkoenig also be happy? We have ten thousand spirits in Japan. We have room.”

“There is a colony in Cottingley, England, and another in Boxerwood, Virginia. Will that do?”

Yumiko said, “Unlike the fairies, you understand the spirit in which I ask.”

“I do not. Sending a Moth to free a Moth—that I understand because you hang together and side with no one. By why do you care about these diminished ones? They will never be grateful. They will not remember. You will gain nothing.”

“Your boy wanted to molest me, and you stopped him. You gained nothing. How is this different?”

His eyes narrowed. “You are a vigilante. You live for vengeance. I am a knight. I live for honor, just as bards live for truth and philosophers live for beauty.”

“You strike men down from behind, unseen. How is this honor?”

Ither was occupied in erecting a large tripod over the cauldron. Batraal had resumed his former size of merely ten feet or so and was steadying the structure with one hand while Ither lashed the beams in place.

Looking down from above, Ither said, “Hoy! What molesting, you saucy half-breed wench? A privilege never forgotten! A single elfin kiss makes all mortal kisses afterward more unbearable than kissing a dog!”

Garlot turned his bloodshot eyes but otherwise did not move. “Silence. The life and death of Althjof hangs in the balance pans on the whim of this Moth lass. If she asks for your head, I will give it to her.”

6. Well Water and Wine

Then, the eyes turned back toward her and grew narrow, as if he winced in pain. “My honor is much stained, for I am a bad knight, and where is the flood of the fountain that can wash the stains from my soul, the blot from my escutcheon? Elfs do not forget.

“But still a knight I am!” he continued, bitterly. “Erlkoenig has no Winged Vengeance to terrify his foes with sudden death swooping from dark clouds. But I am the next best thing. If I am feared rather than honored, then this is drinking well water when the wine is gone. By why free my collection? I am within the law. They are not of your blood.”

“I dare not seek mercy unless I grant mercy.”

Now his eyes narrowed further. “Mercy? What word is this? Who are you?”

“I am the Foxmaiden.”

“Impossible. I saw the body of one her victims. Parts of the body. She does not know that word. You are an imposter.”

“I died and was reborn.”

“Impossible! Neither elf nor necromancer can raise the dead alive again, nor can the proud spirits of Hell, despite their deceptions. No one can do it.”

“The fountain you seek is real. Something washed away my vendettas and oaths. A lady told me.”

“Where is this fountain? Show it to me, and I will believe.”

“I cannot show it. I did not see it.”

“Then how do you know? Ours is a world of deceptions and deceits like hollow Russian dolls, one within the next, and no core, no solid doll at the heart. How do you know?”

“Why should I doubt? Despair is the last deception. It kills the thirst for truth.”

For the first time he showed expression, for now he gritted his teeth in pain and tears came from his eyes.

Yumiko said calmly. “Release me. I command it.”

“In whose name do you ask?”

“Your name! In the name of Garlot, the Red Knight, whose life I saved from certain death twice this day. I will save Althjof if you tell me what to do.”

The arms and legs of the chair relaxed as she spoke that name, and she was free. She stood.

Garlot said, “I offer you a trade…”

She said, “No!”

A spasm shook him. He clutched the pink bandages that wrapped his midriff. He coughed and caught blood from his mouth in his handkerchief. “I offer… in return for…”

“No!” She snapped. “No trade. I will save Althjof. But I do not know what you would have me do. Tell me. Freely I will do it. This is mercy.”

Ither, the squire, swung down from the tripod to the top step of the amber step ladder, shouting in anger. “How dare you speak so to the master, you lowly drudge! His blood is of the highest and most ancient line!”

She turned and scowled coldly at the boy. She could feel her heartbeat in her face of some high emotion, perhaps anger, perhaps fear. “What blood? The blood of servants. In my veins is the blood of Eve, the mother of mankind. Go pick up my bow and hand it to me.”

Ither was startled by the sheer effrontery of it and sputtered. “We are smarter than mortal men, wiser, older, more beautiful. Our memories fade not. We are lucid in sleep! Time and seasons are our servants; plague and pestilence dare never draw nigh to us! We can see hidden things afar off or hidden in the heart! The least of us has written poetry sweeter than Dante, songs bolder than Orpheus! I could put your feet on backward or give you a hedgehog’s head!”

Yumiko drew herself erect and spoke in a voice more stern and regal than his. “It is not for your wit or wisdom or age or any other great gifts that you have the right to rule mankind. You have no such right at all. Those gifts were meant to be placed at his service. The fairies spoke of exile. Where are you from? Where is your home?”

The young elf’s face grew pale as ash. He stammered, and his eyes swam with a strange look of pain and loss.

Garlot said, “Do not torment the boy, Moth girl.” Then, he said, “Ither, fetch her bow as she asks and do her all good service. Do not blame her if she yanks our chains. We forged the fetters ourselves, saying at first how little one mere link more would matter, one mere foot, one mere fathom.”

Ither picked up the white, red, and black great bow and then stared down in surprise. “The spirit in this is ancient! It smells of high Heaven!”

Galen said, “You have not paid mind to your lessons! That is the ghost-slaying bow of Yorimasu. Danger Moth gave it to Pelenore of Listenoise, my half-brother’s half-witted son, who sits in the high seat in Ruddystone, which my sister wishes for me. It was borne up to Sarras and lost to lore.”

“How comes she by it then?” demanded Ither.

“Silence, willful squire! Hand it to her on your knees.” And Garlot said to her, “Shoot the widdershins arrow into the brew. Do not hit my steward. You may stand on the top step if you wish.”

7. The Left-Handed Arrow

Yumiko understood now why Garlot was so solicitous. She took her position, and in one smooth motion, nocked the white arrow, raised the bow high, and drew back the string as she lowered her arms. The string sang, the arrow sped, but it shimmered and vanished after entering the water before it struck the bottom of the cauldron.

Immediately, the fluid seemed brighter, cleaner, clearer, as if a very light film of darkness had been banished.

Had her irreplaceable arrow been so suddenly obliterated, with no trace left? Wondering, she reached over her shoulder, opened the quiver, and felt the feathers of the two white arrows. Unlike her others, these two returned with dreamlike swiftness to her quiver. A more convenient magic for an archer could not be imagined.

Within the cauldron, the fluid thickened about the motionless body, and little white dots, no bigger than snowflakes, fell into Althjof’s torn and boiled skin from every direction. He stirred; he thrashed; he put his head above the water and gagged and gasped for breath. His face was now smooth and youthful, and his long white beard was now short and black and thick, as was the hair of his head. Ither hauled him out of the cauldron with a rope and pulley running through the tripod.

“No worse torture I have ever known!” the now-youthful old steward said, shaking his head gravely. “It was a mercy when all the outer parts of me died, my eyeballs perished, and I saw my disintegrating flesh no more, my nerve endings cooked, and so I felt nothing but boiling water in my lungs. Is it like that for you every time, my lord?”

Garlot said, “A ghost possessed the spirit of the cauldron and silenced its charm so that the elixir of life was merely oil, and the boiling was merely boiling. A clever way to turn the best of medicines into the worse of deathtraps in an instant, with no change in appearance. The unclean spirit was banished back to Hell by this girl, who seems to be dressed as the Foxmaiden of Winged Vengeance but speaks strangely and unlike her. You owe her lauds and thanks.”

The steward bowed. “How may I repay this?”

She said, “Show mercy to the next fifty folk who need mercy.”

He straightened up, looking surprised. “Fifty?”

“Is your life worth fewer? Forty.”

Pride and confusion warred on his face. “Fifty then. But mercy is not in my nature. I am a child of the Svartalfar, a son of darkness and stone and the fire at the earth’s core.”

“My nature changed. Yours may yet.” She turned to Garlot. “Wilcolac the Magician sent the black mice at the command of Lucien Cobweb. The spirit within was called Le Maudit, the Hunter King. Lucien is Thursday of the Supreme Council of Anarchists and your sister’s lover. She is aiding the Anarchists in the hope of weakening Erlkoenig.”

Garlot raised his hand, and a glittering swarm of sparks flew from his fingers.

8. The Sons of Air

The eyes of his three servants, Elf, Nephilim, and Nibelung, all went blank. They were entranced.

Garlot regarded Yumiko narrowly. “You are acute one moment and obtuse the next. You spit out dire secrets without checking the eaves for eavesdroppers. One of these is my sister’s creature, and another is Erlkoenig’s spy. Why does Wilcolac conspire against me? He is famed for being neutral in all disputes and welcoming to all.”

“The club is the headquarters for Thursday, Lord of Werewolves.”

“Why should I believe this tale? How could you possibly know this?”

“Look at my face. Do you have a perfect memory, like other elfs do?”

“I don’t recognize your face.”

“I was the hatcheck girl. I waited on your men when they went into the backroom. They are bad tippers.”

“Ah. One of the magician’s dancing girls? I did not look at your face.”

Yumiko blushed. She said sharply, “Release Elfine and all these imprisoned here.”

Again, a shiver passed through his frame, and again he clutched his side. “Let us set out clearly the terms of the trade…”

“I told you. There is no trade!”

“That is not the way of the elfs. We were strictly instructed by the fallen angels in Hell. They are not blinded by the light; only they see reality clearly. No one is free, no two are equal, and no three can be one! That is their motto. It means all gifts come at a price.”

“What comes at a price is not a gift, but a purchase.”

“The fallen angels say otherwise.”

“If you wish to be damned, follow the damned. But I will not swap with you. Your life has infinite value! So does the freedom of those you pen here.”

“You broke the door of my treasure house. No locksmith will dare mend a lock a fairy has broken, lest he be cursed. Do you owe me nothing for that?”

“I owe you an apology for being a rude trespasser. You have already forgiven me the trespass. I ask for forgiveness for the rudeness.” She bowed.

“Why should I grant it? And do not say for mercy’s sake!”

“I have shown mercy to you.”

“Gilberec Moth is your blood and my foe. How can you show me mercy? It is wrong! My race despises and abuses mortal men, but we despise you half-mortals even more. Am I to be in debt to you? Would you heap coals of fire on my head?”

“You can never repay this debt to me. Only to Heaven.”

“You killed my dwimmerwurm. This was plain murder.”

“I do not know what that is.”

“My eft. The dragon newt that looks like a man. The one who breathed fire.”

“Oh. That one.”

“That one. His name was Pheleg, son of Belphegor. You cannot claim the death was self-defense as he was no threat to you. You cannot claim it was honest combat since you struck without warning while concealed. You cannot claim a duty to defend the Swan Knight since you are no vassal of his, and he clearly did not know you were there.”

She was silent and bowed again.

“Where is your mercy now? You saved my life but took his. What words of Heaven will you speak to shame me now? You are a murderess! I curse you and your mercy! To avenge my loyal eft, I am in my rights to arrest, enchant, or enthrall you or execute you swiftly or slowly. I could put the Ring of Mists on my finger, as a trophy of war, and put the ghost-slaying bow in my arsenal until I find another virgin fierce enough to wield it. What stops me?”

“Honor.”

“So? I am already the least honorable knight in the land. There are tax gatherers and panderers and coiners more honest than I! With a soul so black, what is one more stain?”

“With a soul so black, why add one more stain? But please release my friend and all these others.”

“You did not save me from the Swan Knight for mercy’s sake but because you wanted to follow me here and loot my treasure chamber.”

“But I shot the first black mouse for you. And I shot your steward to prevent you from going into the cauldron and being boiled to death. I did not mean for him to fall in. You have my apology for that. I am sorry.”

He said, “And if that is insufficient?”

She said, “I also saved the life of your steward, the dark dwarf.”

“Ah! But you tell me life is infinite in value, and one cannot be swapped for another. Do you espouse heavenly words only when they suit you?”

She had no answer for that but bowed deeply. “Then I am at your mercy.”

“Again with that word! You are in my power. Do you understand how entirely within my power you are, you silly little girl?”

She answered nothing, and her face was blank. He evidently interpreted this to be insolent boldness on her part, for now he became animated in his gesture and fierce expression, and this set his wound to bleeding.

“I am within my rights, as a keeper of the elfking’s law, to lock you in a cell, or a dream, or a book, or turn you to stone, or chain you to a hearth as a kitchen drudge, or feed you to the Questing Beast inch by inch! Nor is your soul safe. I am within my rights to charm you with chanted spells and make you the willing paramour of my horsegroom, or of his horse and make the unspeakable crimes of Pasiphaë your own!

“And I am not even the most skilled or most terrible of my kind at songs and spells and invocations from the substances of dream.”

Still she had no answer. The longer her silence grew, the louder his anger grew.

“Elf is paramount over Man and Moth alike! The Sons of Air are masters of all Creation! Did you think your toys and weapons would save you? What are your gizmos and gimcracks compared to the high sorceries of the Night World? How did you imagine you could come here? What makes you think I should accept your hateful mercy! If you are dead, what thanksgiving do I owe then? And… And… what do you mean, first black mouse?”

9. The Second Black Mouse

Now she spoke in a soft voice. “Sir, there were two. I assume one ghost was in each of them. The dead mice were in your horse’s belly. Not the little one, the big horse with metal clothing.”

“The word is destrier. His name is Tachebrun. Horse armor is called barding.”

“Did you stable your horse at the Cobbler’s Club at any time? Then that was when Wilcolac introduced the mice into Take—Tacky—I am sorry. I cannot pronounce it. I mean no disrespect. Into your horse.”

“Why two mice? One was to poison the cauldron. What was the other one’s task?” He winced and clutched his side and turned his head. The back of his seat was empty. No garment was thrown over it. “And where did my cloak go? Where is the Cloak of Mists?”

Yumiko smiled and waited.

Garlot turned his bloody eyes back toward her. “What mirth is this? Do you mock me?”

“I smile for sake of the joy which comes from the further mercy I shall show you this day.”

He slumped in his chair wearily. “Speak!”

“Since your men are asleep, I will help you into the cauldron. After all your prisoners are freed and you escort me back to the surface, I will tell you where the cloak is. Even if it is moved or hidden, it cannot escape me.”

“How could you come by such knowledge?”

Her smile grew brighter. “What are the high sorceries of the Night World compared to the science and technology of the modern age? My beloved is a wonder worker. And his spirit was equal to the task of returning to the moon! I mean to save him, and so I mean to emerge from here alive and well. And not all the elfs in the underground realm nor all the omens and fiends of night will dissuade me!”

Garlot spread his hands in surrender and nodded. “You exasperate me into submission. In mercy’s name, I accept your gift of my life. For mercy’s sake, I grant you and all whom you would, liberty and free passage from here, safely. You will find the Day World, where men live, in the same year and day you entered this realm.

“Your terms I accept meekly, with one emendation: I will return Elfine Moth to your hand when you return my stolen cloak into mine. But for the sake of Pheleg, whom you have slain, when we meet next, we meet as enemies. Look to it. Now help me up, please. I am not accustomed to pain.”

Chapter Nine: Fire and Shadow

1. The World is Marred

The promise to return Yumiko to the surface within the same day as her descent was not strictly kept. By the time Sir Garlot, atop his magnificent roan charger Tachebrun, sped like a roaring wind up from the secret gate of Ys-Elfydd, night had fallen. Yumiko’s own sense of time was confused, and she did not see any clocks on banks or hear any church bells. From the look of the streets, it was after midnight, in the small hours of the morning, which, technically, was the next day.

Yumiko was sitting side-saddle behind his high saddle, her arms tightly around his broad shoulders, her cheek against his back, her knuckles white.

Misgivings fluttered in her rapidly beating heart like moths in a dark closet. She did not like that the rump of the steed was too broad for her to sit astride; that Garlot would not permit her yet to see Elfine; and that Garlot had emerged from the cauldron younger and more virile than before, gleaming elixir dripping from his mighty, naked limbs.

He rode now with his helm tied to his saddlebow, and the hairs of his head, blown by the wind, tickled the crown of her head, and his alluring musk tickled her nose. Had she been in a posture peacefully to meditate, she could have cleared her mind from the heated, wild, dreamlike images her close embrace of the villainously handsome elf sent dancing through her.

Instead, the wild ride down the streets of New York was intoxicating, and she yelped and clung more tightly to his warm, strong body each time they overleaped a honking automobile, startled a pedestrian, or jumped from street to stair to elevated track to the roof of a moving bus and to the street again.

Her misgivings increased when they passed fire engines, their sirens wailing and lights flashing, crawling through the intersection. Ahead, the light of leaping fires beat against the knees of the surrounding towers. They turned a corner and raced down the street. As abruptly as if she had opened an oven door, heat beat Yumiko’s face.

Ahead was the Cobbler’s Club. Arms of fire billowed from the second and third story windows, and a nodding cowl of smoke rose above, the billows dark and solid in the light of the surrounding streets and shops. A crowd of onlookers had gathered around the police cars and ambulances. A police officer with a bullhorn bellowed at Garlot as his great steed leaped from the hood of his police cruiser and over the yellow sawhorses forming a barricade.

Garlot looked over his shoulder at Yumiko, raising one eyebrow. “Here? Truly?”

“Here.”

“Your oracle must be mistaken.”

Yumiko tossed her head to lower her mask and called up her inset map. The red dot centered on a window on the fourth floor. Wilcolac’s office. “No mistake. Where is Elfine? I need her help for this.”

He said, “You will remove whatever mark or rune you placed on my cloak, hatcheck girl, ere you return it to me in my hand. Your heart’s desire will be returned to you when mine is to me.”

“Whole and unharmed!”

“Whole, unharmed, unmolested, in her right wits, unenchanted, well and happy and alive. Yes. You have the oath of an oathbreaker.” He scooped her up in one strong arm and, bowing at the waist, lowered her from the saddle.

Her tiptoes were touching the pavement, but he had not yet released his arm from around her, when a hideous scream of terror echoed from overhead, louder than the bellowing of bullhorns, the scream of sirens, the roar of flames. Yumiko looked up.

She recognized Licho by his dark suit and fluttering tie, the dark glasses whose fragments spun off his face into the night air. He was flung off the roof and went plunging down and down, shrieking as he fell, legs kicking in midair. Two arrows, one from either eyesocket, protruded from his skull, and two streamers of blood, like red ribbons, followed after him in the air.

There was a line of Peach Cobbler Girls in top hats, corsets, and silk stockings, quailing and hugging each other, between Yumiko and the spot of pavement Licho struck, so while Yumiko heard the shrill screams of those who saw the grisly impact, she did not see it herself. One of the girls, Anjana, pointed upward and cried, “It’s him!”

There, atop the roof, silhouetted against the flames, his cloak of black feathers streaming in the rushing heat, his elongated mask like that of a plague doctor, or like the beak of a carrion-eating raven, loomed a black and sinister figure.

He had a violin in hand and was playing a wild, mad tune she recognized: the Danse Macabre by Saint-Saens. He was using the back of a short, curved blade as his fiddlestick, with the catgut stretched between the tip and the hilt.

Death at Midnight plays a dance-tune,

Zig, zig, zag on his violin…

The firelight caught a glint of this goggles as he turned his mask, looked down, and met Yumiko’s gaze. There she stood, still on tip-toe, still with her shapely hands on the broad shoulders of Sir Garlot, who still had one arm about her.

Three wolf-shaped monsters on the roof came leaping out of the flames toward the dark figure. The dark figure calmly slung his violin behind him and took his Japanese longbow from his shoulder. Vast black wings opened, and the flames reared back from him, and he was carried smoothly upward into the billowing clouds of ash and smoke, bringing one of his attackers with him. A moment later, whining pathetically, a wolf fell from the cloud, blood gushing from its jaws, struck the corner of the building, and toppled downward, leaving long red streaks against the stones. The other wolves yowled, biting insanely at the arrows now protruding from neck and spine and flanks.

Then, her view of the building roof was blocked, for Garlot had raised his shield overhead with the arm not encircling her. She looked at him. Garlot was smiling down at her. It was the gloating smile of a man who likes having his arm around a pretty girl. Fretfully, she extracted herself from Garlot’s arm and stood on the pavement.

Garlot straightened in the saddle and displayed toward her his shield. A red arrow was protruding from it. “Meant for me, I hope. I would hate to think your famous partnership had been fractured. Now see to your business. If my cloak burns, I will burn your little friend.”

“Are we back to that?” She scowled. “What of mercy? What of thankfulness?”

“What of idle fancies? What of all airy, unreal things? The world is marred! Blame not me, but the ill will of the Maker who foresees all evils and prevents none, slothful in omnipotence! Will you stand idly, doing nothing, like him in whose likeness you boast you are made?”

And from his saddlebag, he drew out a small cylinder of blue glass. In it was Elfine Moth, half crumpled in a ball, dazed or half asleep. The volume was too small to allow her either to sit down or to stand erect. When her prison bottle moved, Elfine stirred and straightened, straining against the glass walls confining her. Seeing Yumiko, her face brightened, and her wings lit up. She pounded against the glass with her little fists. “Ami! I’ve been elf-napped! Save me!”

Garlot drew back his arm as if he were about to cast the bottle into the hottest part of the burning building. “Not all the floors seem lit yet,” he said mildly. “Which is it to be? For you are going into the fire either way, either to retrieve my treasure or yours.”

Instead of answering him, she said to Elfine, “I am coming back for you!” Yumiko shot her wirepoon toward an upper window and was yanked swiftly upward and away.

2. Iach and Iohanna

Yumiko twisted her ring to return her weight just before her boot heels struck the window. She crashed in through the glass. Her supersuit went momentarily stiff and tough to deflect the razor sharp shards, and her foot hit the exact spot in the wooden panels beyond to spring the latch. She fell into the room awkwardly, did a shoulder roll, and came to her feet in time to fetch up against the desk, strike the edge with her belly, and fold in half with a dazed gushing, elongated grunt of air from her mouth.

The room was as she remembered it: red carpeted, wedge shaped, with the two walls receding from each other as they ran from door to desk coated with full-length mirrors. The difference was that it was dark, the room was filled with smoke, the electricity was out, and the only light was a line of fluttering red glowing around the threshold and jambs of the door. The paint on the door was blistering and peeling from the heat.

Light also came from the small man, dressed like a miniature caveman, trapped inside a whiskey bottle lying on its side on the desk. He was floating motionless in the fluid.

A touch of cold traveled down her spine. A voice spoke in her ear. Open the door. I am so alone.

She straightened up in shock. “Who is there?”

Save her.

At the same moment, the little man inside the bottle stirred, and his eyes opened. He saw her and screamed, “Don’t hurt me! He forced me to do it! I would surely have done anyway ’cause it was right funny, but that doesn’t count! I was temporarily insane by reason of permanent drunkenness! You deserved it anyway!”

Yumiko saw shadows break the line of light gleaming under the closed office door. Someone was standing there. She heard the pounding of little fists on the door, a sob, and a voice cursing. Then, “Open this door!”

It was Joan Lantern. She had not made it out of the building.

The little caveman shouted. “Don’t open! She’s insane! Never open doors during a house fire!”

Yumiko saw the button on the desk which unlocked the door. She pushed it. The door swung open. A red glare of leaping flames jumped into the room, and a roar like a beast as oxygen from the room gushed into the anteroom and stoked the flames there.

A woman was staggering in the doorway. She started to fall, but, strangely, impossibly, something unseen caught her and pulled her in. A gust of wind pushed the door shut with a sudden slam. Darkness and smoke were within. Joan took another step, staggered, and fell.

Yumiko leaped over the desk, caught Joan in her arms, and lowered her to the carpet. In the dark, her lenses could not deliver a clear picture of how severe Joan’s burns were. Thinking quickly, Yumiko pushed back her mask (which made the room dark to her), turned up the oxygen gain in her suit, knelt, and put her throat on the nose and mouth of the other woman. Fresh air rushing from the suit played over Joan’s face.

Another tremor seized Yumiko. She shivered with cold.

A voice spoke. Wake! Wake, lest ye die!

The little man cried out, “Don’t let her near me!”

The band of red light from the door threshold was falling across Joan’s face. Joan’s eyes fluttered open. “Jack? Is that you?”

Yumiko said, “Sorry. It’s Sorry Yunomi. Don’t stand up. There is smoke in the room.”

Joan said, “Find the hob! I am so alone. Save him.”

The house hob, at that moment, was gyrating madly inside his bottle so that the sideways whiskey bottle began to roll across the desk. Yumiko, without moving, shot her wirepoon, flicked her wrist, caught the bottle in a loop of the wire, and yanked it to her hand.

“This house hob? Him? Is this who you want to save?” Yumiko asked. “Let’s get you out of here–”

A sudden memory came to her. Sly Jack Crookshank had said he had selected Yumiko to save him because the other girls would have demanded things presumably less to his liking: Joan would have me free her husband.

Yumiko pushed the bottle into Joan’s hands. “Here he is. Make him free your husband.”

With surprising strength, Joan reared up and slammed the bottle into the carpet, smashing it and cutting her hands on the glass. “Free him!”

Yumiko tossed back her head to lower her mask. In her lenses, she could see the little man lying in a puddle of broken glass and rich-smelling whiskey. He coughed in the smoke. But the little man said, “Fie on thee! Queen once, now thrall! Speak to me my own true name! Or else devil a foot I stir at all!”

Yumiko said, “Bakemono is his true name. I know. I named him.”

But Joan said, “Seanglic Coscam, Sly Jack Crookshank, is thy name! Damn your eyes, my boon I claim! My love release from ward and debt! All that he owes this house, forget!”

The little man shrieked like a steam whistle and clutched his face. “Not my eyes! Not my eyes! I grant it! Be free! Jack! Thou art clear and clean of me!”

Yumiko said, “Wait. What is going on? The real Crookshank is gone. You are a copy!”

The smoke in the room suddenly drew back, and frost gathered on all the mirrors. In the middle of a building on fire, the mirrors were turning pale with cold.

Yumiko twisted her ring. She saw a headless body of heroic proportions, painted blue with woad, with designs of owl, lions, and jackals in colored inks painted on his chest, belly, and thighs. A rude loincloth of buckskin hid his loins. In one hand were two javelins with heads of napped flint. But he held his own severed head in the other hand, long of locks and long of mustache. The empty eyes were dripping tears, the neck stump dripping blood. Above the shoulders, where no head was, burned two pearls of luminous fire, and the jagged grin of a disembodied mouth. The links of broken fetters fell from his wrists and ankles. He replaced the head on his neck stump, and now the eerie flares of light shined from the holes of his eyes and from beneath the mustache.

Joan could see this apparition in the mirrors. She rose to her knees. “Iach! Iach Lochrann! My love! Your Joan has not forgotten you! I have been true! A thousand years are gone, and your lady has not wavered!”

He answered nothing. Joan raised her hands. “Beloved! Tell me, O, tell me wither you go! If to Heaven, I will run to the cathedral, break my wand and all my dark oaths, and be baptized! If to Hell, I will curse the Holy Spirit and fling myself from yonder window and be buried at the crossroads as a suicide!”

Now he turned the terrible pale lights of his eyes toward her. “I cursed Heaven and was accursed of Heaven. Now in woe I wander the earth to expunge my evils but also to work thy good. For look! Here is the handmaiden of Saint Barbara, who brings the host to those who die unshriven and unrepentant, or suddenly from thunderbolts, and whose mercy steps into the moment between when the heart stops and the soul flees the body.”

There came a flash of lighting and a thunderclap as loud as a field gun when the ghost spoke the name of Barbara. Crookshank, scrambling along the damp, glass-strewn carpet, screamed and tripped and fainted away.

The shade continued speaking. “When this handmaiden presents the destined cup, be contrite ye then. Forswear the Dark Lord and all his trumperies and hollow pomp. His promises are lies. Seek me no more by the unlawful ways of necromancy, nor sell yourself again as slave to a magician. He will be here soon.”

“Tell me what to do!”

“As yet, you have no soul to save. That, and all other ills, will be undone and mended. Aid the handmaiden once she has her mother’s cup, and by her repentant prayers and yours, gain you the grace of kindly Heaven. I linger in this formless limbo of unlife to speak these words of hope. The living waters that issue in a flood from the foot of the throne of the Kingdom of Light rise and rise to welcome you. You have forgotten how to thirst for them.”

Joan said, “For me? For me alone? Or for us both?”

The ghost said, “It is not for you to know what Heaven wills but to rejoice in it.”

“If not for us both, then I curse Heaven! Your embrace I want, not some pale Nazarene! Your wife am I, not his!”

“Wife of mine no longer: greater joy awaits than connubial.”

Crookshank stirred and came awake, croaking, “The living should not heed the words of the dead! Ignore him! Seek your good only in yourself!”

“Seek ye the greater joy and gain all, and more than you dared ask. Foreswear to seek lesser joy, lest ye lose all.” The ghost grew in size and filled the room. The inaudible voice was like a trumpet inside their skulls. “Rare indeed is granted the gift to speak from the beyond to one’s living love, albeit we all crave this with our dusty hearts. Will you not hear what I have said? Will you not save the soul I love more than mine own, my dear Iohanna?”

The ghost vanished. The heat returned, and the smoke closed in. At that same moment, the beam from a spotlight shined through the window Yumiko had broken open and splashed across the ceiling, blindingly bright. Joan saw Yumiko in the mirror, saw the black, bat-winged suit and ginning fox mask, and screamed in terror.

Yumiko twisted the ring to make herself visible. “Joan! I am a friend!” Of course, once the dark figure materialized just next to her, Joan screamed yet again.

A loud voice, amplified through a bullhorn, called up. Joan, moving more swiftly than any woman of the Day World, dove over the desk and out the window. Yumiko leaped after her, snatching at her legs. Her fingers closed on nothing. Yumiko grabbed the jambs of the broken window lest her momentum carry her out into midair.

Looking down, she saw Joan, bewildered, land in the net the firemen were holding.

Crookshank was standing on Yumiko’s shoulder, leaning casually against her ear. “Faith! An odd thing, that. Certain death to leap from so high a window, save in one and one hour only: when the building is all afire. That is an irony, eh?”

3. The Rule of Debts

Yumiko snatched him up into her hand.

“Not this again!” he groaned. “By the eyeball of Balor, woman, you do have lively reflexes, don’t you? Are you part rattlesnake? ’Twould explain much.”

Yumiko said, “Why are you back here?”

“I live here. This is the house I mind. Just because you lit it afire don’t mean I leave my post. We are not all like you, after all. By the bye, where is that grail you are supposed to be looking after? Shouldn’t you have taken up your mommy’s work by now?”

Yumiko shook him until his teeth rattled. “Why are you back here?”

“Ah! Agh! I never left, you stupid bint. Willy knew you from the moment you walked in, wiggling your hot hips like a slattern! The Captain, he wanted to torture you straight off, but Willy, he likes tricks and sleights and subtleties. That is the way magic is. It never works on you until you have been told. That is why the elfs tell the magicians so much of the dark lore, and the magicians in Hollywood and New York put these things in stories and books. The vampire bite can’t bite unless you hear about them as a child. Why else would we not use the Black Spell to sponge all memory of us away? Why would we let anyone remember the name of Jack o’ Lantern? He is as old as the Picts, older than Caesar.” Crookshank shivered and looked around nervously. “Don’t mind me! Go back to what you were doing!”

She narrowed her eyes and shook him again. “So you told me how it works. Because you had to.”

“Don’t you wish you had a memory like an elf? Now, can you bring to mind the exact wording I said? No, no, you cannot. Poor thing.”

He put his little hands on her finger and thumb and pushed them open. She strained, but in vain.

The tiny creature, less than nine inches tall, now twisted her thumb so painfully, she was forced down to one knee, wincing. He threw back his head and laughed. “Girly, did you think to overmaster me? I let you grab me. I wanted it. Your hands are soft and fair, and feeling you caress my body lights up my love-lamp. And when I anger you, how brightly you blush! How your bosom heaves! Your eyes, how they flash! Every time you changed clothes, I watched you! Do you really, truly think a half-blood Daughter of Eve can outsmart a true-blood Son of Air and Old Night? Pshew and Pshaw! I let you start this fire because I mean to build this house back bigger and finer than before after Wilcolac returns from the Tithing Ground with all the bounty the devils will pay for the soul of your Poor Tom Moth. He thought he could outwit Rotwang, poor Tom, who had him outwitted nine ways from Saturday! Heh, heh. Get it? That is sort of a joke.”

“I did not light this fire.”

“You or your master. What does it matter? He has only stopped the last shipment of wolves from going out. There are nine hundred in the City of Corpses! Numbers enough to raise havoc even if the Black Spell will not be broken. It will warp and weaken, and then men will still go mad! And then your boy goes to the Tithing Ground!”

“Where is that?”

Crookshank released her thumb and hopped up onto the broken window jamb, looking down at her. “Hah! Hah! If I knew, I would tell you, for then you’d be damned certain to be certain damned. None can find that dark soil save he who walks through the Devil’s own door!”

Yumiko rose to her feet, scowling, troubled.

He cawed. “And now are you here to steal back what Willy has rightfully stolen? The Cloak of Mists is hidden, and in my house, as long as I am here, I ordain that you will not find it. You will never find it!”

Just at that moment, the signal from the tracer hidden in the cloak stopped. On another channel the two tracers hidden in the crates downstairs also stopped. It was not hard to guess why. The electronics were not designed to pass through a furnace level of heat unharmed.

Crookshank laughed, a sound like that of jackals yapping. “What now, serving wench? You have lost all, and I have won! All! All, I have won!”

“Not all,” she said, “Not what you want most from me.”

“Eh? What’s that?”

Yumiko opened her hand and unzipped her suit front, showing her cleavage. She said, “You have conquered me and won my heart! Take your reward!”

Crookshank was taken by surprise. He clung to her wrist, eyes goggling. “Wait. Is this some trick you ply on a poor old house hob?”

She pouted as alluringly as she could and began to tug the fastening back up. “Well, if you don’t want me… and after I saved myself for you!”

The little man leaped with great alacrity toward her décolletage, but she was quick enough to get the fastener shut. He clung like a miniature monkey to the bosom of her suit, trying to find the hidden fastener. She turned the ring on her finger four times widdershins. She turned weightless, invisible, and insubstantial, and found herself in a realm of utter darkness. The black shadows of the dead, twittering like bats, began to rise up from below. But at her elbow was a blue shadow.

4. The Rule of Deaths

Yumiko said, “Jack, is that you? Help me.”

“In whose name do you ask?”

“Saint Barbara! In the name of Saint Barbara. You and I both died unforgiven. We are in her keeping.”

The blue shadow reached out with a hand and plucked the little figure of Crookshank off her bosom. Crookshank screamed until black shadows gathered and hardened around him. Then the little man’s screaming, wailing, and cursing grew dim and faint, as if they came from far off, but he never ceased nor paused to breathe.

The ghost said, “I will help you.”

He pointed with the two javelins in his hand at the fluttering, shrieking shapes of hungry shadows rising up from below. They flew in jerky, ungainly motions to reach them, but they could not grow closer, for adverse winds drove them back.

The ghost asked, “Does any memory of my kingdom remain on Earth? Is any word spoken of fair Dal Riata? Do the druids yet revere the kingly names recorded on the Drosten Stone?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is Iach son of Uradech, Iach the Strong, remembered only for the carved gourd his foes propped atop his headless corpse to mock it? I won the hand of the Queen of the Shee of Cornwell in nine great wars, answering the nine riddles of the salmon, and wrestling the nine runes of the wind gods from the nine worlds. Ere Brutus, ere Eochaid, ere Gann, or Sengann, I ruled and reigned. Are none of my deeds recalled?

She said, “I don’t know. My memory is lost.”

“It is in the land of the dead.”

“May I have it back?”

The ghost said, “The dead have no art to raise the dead.”

“Who can?”

“You know better than I, Daughter of Dandrenor. Nor may I keep this imp of evil here with us if you cannot name his crime.”

“Well… I am not sure how exactly he did it, but he put me in his debt. He told me the rule. In magic, if you owe someone, he will find you again. And I saw later how fairies and elfs are so quick to repay a good turn with a boon. But the boon I thought I was giving him—I thought I was freeing him from Wilcolac—did not exist because he was no slave, no serf. He was the senior partner. He was the one who runs the house. Wilcolac only lives there. Did someone follow me? Did I betray Winged Vengeance? Will my debt to him continue and let him find me later?”

“That ring you bear was given to you that you may lead those who are called to come into the land of ghosts. But your time is not yet. Dark powers are hunting you. Each time you use the ring to enter the darkness, you grow clearer to their dark sight.”

“You did not answer my question!”

“Nor you mine. What is his crime?”

Then, she remembered what she had been told of the purpose of the Cobbler’s Club. “Lust. It that enough to condemn him?”

“It is enough, for now.”

“I am not innocent. I mean, I helped him. I dressed up and danced and… I did not think there was any harm in it. What is wrong with a girl attracting the eyes of men?”

“Whose eyes?”

“I don’t understand.”

“For whose eyes did Heaven shape your charms? For yourself? For a crowd? For pay? Or for the one other for whom you are intended?”

“Crookshank’s crime was not against me, was it? It was against Tom.”

“This imp is larger here than in your world, for here he is a mighty spirit, but it is given me to exact from the living a term of service sevenfold as harsh and long as I served. I was his watchdog and spy. Now the hounds of Hell will take him for their sport, and I shall take his eyes. He will await the judgment here.”

“Await? Isn’t this Hell?”

“This is Earth!” The cold voice of the ghost held, for once, a note of surprise.

“How can this be Earth?”

“It is a dark part of Earth, deep in the Mists. Here we shadows who have not yet crossed the dark river linger for a season. Do not return to this dark place without the Father Dominic. Next time, I cannot be at hand to protect you.”

And he reached and took her hand and twisted the ring clockwise until it turned white.

“But I do not know any Father Dominic!” She said. But there was no one there but a dark room, filled with smoke, and the wash of bright searchlights illuminating the broken window.

Yumiko remembered the final boast of Crookshank. His curse that she would never find the cloak had been strangely worded. As long as I am here.

He was not here now.

She brought up the last known position of the tracer. The cloak had not been moving. The red dot floated on the mirrored panels of the wall to her left. Or, rather, it floated behind them.

Yumiko found the mock orange bloom decorating the mirrored panes four and a half feet above a decorative acacia bloom on the floor and touched both.

A mirrored pane slid back and then whined and jammed. She took out the hacksaw she had so recently acquired and made short work of cutting through the sliding hinges holding the panel in place. The panel fell with a crash and broke. Beyond was the secret passage she had seen before. On a hook right at hand was the tenebrous and supernal Cloak of Mists.

5. Elfine, at Last!

One moment later, Yumiko was swooping through the night air weightlessly to where Sir Garlot stood next to a dazed and blank-eyed police captain. This captain was shooing others away with stiff gestures and stiff words. “Mounted police business! Move along!”

Two moments later, she had the bottle with Elfine in her hand, and Sir Garlot was trotting away. Whatever words of cold farewell he spoke, she did not hear. Yumiko touched the blue glass to one of her red iron arrowheads, and the substance, which was not glass after all, popped like a bubble rather than shattered like glass. Elfine grew up to normal size as fast as she fell out of the bottle, so her wondering eyes, bright with joy, were the same level above the ground before and after she resumed her full size. Her wings vanished. She was wearing her green bodice and short shirt with her pom-pom slippers.

And then in the next moment, the two girls were crying and hugging. Yumiko had her mask raised. Both were talking at once, and when Yumiko fell silent, Elfine spoke enough for two.

But once Sir Garlot had left, whatever influence he had over the eyes and minds of mortal men left also, and so now firemen were pulling the two girls back from the scene, medical technicians were handing them bottles of salty juice and telling them to drink up to stave off dehydration, and a bewildered police captain demanded to know what was going on.

“I have got three corpses, one of them a nurse, hanging from lampposts at the intersection. They have little notes on their chests. Notes written in blood! And they are pinned there by arrows in their hearts. Even weirder, there are two large dogs hanged by the neck and dangling out of upper-story windows of the building. Who the heck hangs a dog? We cannot get in because of the fire, and all the evidence is burning away! What can you tell me about this?”

Yumiko said, “I do not think I can tell you anything about it, officer!” and then, to her horror, a giggle rose in her throat and erupted from her giddy, happy face, and there was nothing she could do about it but cover her mouth with both hands.

6. You Remind Me of the Babe

The police officer said, “Everyone here saw you fly up to the window and fly back down. You shoved one of the survivors out the window. She says you are the one who lit off the explosions in the basement. And what about all this gardening? Yards and yards of lavender flowers spread all over all the doors, and garlic and onions are on the windows.”

Elfine said helpfully, “That is wolfsbane, Mr. Copper Flatfoot Man!”

The officer glowered at Elfine and then glowered even more forcefully at Yumiko. “What kind of outfit is that? What is with the cape? Why did you bring a bunch of dogs up on the roof? What about all those people you shot? I have two witnesses who say it was you!”

Yumiko said, “Not I! It was my master.”

“Your what now? People saw you! Up there! A moment ago!

“I am a fox,” said Yumiko. “He is a crow!”

Elfine said, “Let me explain it to him.”

Yumiko, bubbling with laughter, could not speak, but gestured to Elfine, inviting her to explain it.

“Officer, I am a fairy detective from fairyland. But sometime I do crimes here, too. I come from across a sea that you cannot see, but I was seized by ne’er-do-wells, and I was held in a well by ruffians who roughed me up and made me unwell because, well, I well knew where their new base was. I got shipped around and around in a crate until I ended up in Willy’s basement… It was a basement base. But I do not mean the elf knight who nicked me! He netted me with a net! His base is base under a baseball diamond. All these things are all around you, yet you are blind to them. Blind as a blind cop who cannot see! See?”

The officer said, “See what?”

“See you! You cannot see anything, practically, because your brain is stupid because it is covered in mist. You must have missed seeing whatever the mystical mist is misting, mustn’t you? It musses your eyes. You men are as helpless as babies! You remind me of the babe!”

He said, “What babe?”

Elfine clapped her hands and cheered. “The babe with the power! What power? The power of hoodoo! Who do? You do! Do what? You remind me of the babe!” She leaned close and whispered to the police officer. “That is something human beings say. Shirley Temple said it to Jareth the Goblin King. It is from a movie about Bobby Socks. And bachelors. One of them did not have a mate. Either it was the sock or the bachelor. I learned about it from human school when I was studying humans. You are an endangered species.”

Yumiko, by that time, was laughing too hard, too elated by joy, to care or to warn Elfine.

And so a few moments after that, both girls were locked in the back of a police cruiser with their hands cuffed behind their backs.

7. Moths in Chains

Elfine was still talking. “Yumiko Moth? What kind of name is that? You solved the mystery without me! The Case of the Confused Crimefightress is over and done! You should have waited! I wrote down notes and everything!”

Yumiko said, “I still have to find the City of Corpses. Unfortunately, that man that the police are shooting at is my old master, and I think he just burned up all my leads. And I have to find the Tithing Ground, but no one knows where it is, except someone who has been there before or walked through the Devil’s door, whatever that is.”

“My nose itches.” Elfine said, “I know where the City of Corpses is. It is a necropolis, a graveyard. That is just a fancy word for it.”

“They are hiding werewolves in a graveyard? Nine hundred of them?”

“Where else?”

“Which graveyard?”

“Cavalry Cemetery in Queens. There are stairs that lead down. The entrance is hidden beneath a mausoleum. It had a dome with a statue of Saint Joseph on the top. I think a man buried his son there. I saw them go in with their crates. I would have to show you.”

“Then we have to go.”

Elfine said, “I’d love to, but look!” She turned her back to Yumiko and wiggled and jerked her hands in her handcuffs, so that the links tinkled. “These are made of iron. I cannot shrink. I mean, I can a little bit by ducking my head and hunching up, but that does not really count.”

“I will handle it.”

“And I don’t have any magic for escaping. I could not get away from Sir Garlot either. The world won’t bend the rules for me for escapes and things like that. It is not my genre.”

Yumiko said, “I said I will handle it. Thank you.”

“Do you have magic now? You seem more sure of yourself that you did three weeks ago.”

“This is my genre.”

Yumiko waited until the police cruiser was stopped at a stoplight. She leaned back and tapped with the toe of her boot on the glass separating the front seat from the back. “Pardon me, officer. May I?”

The officer who was not behind the wheel turned and slid open a small clear slot. “What is it, miss? I am not taking you for ice cream shakes, so stop asking.”

Yumiko said, “Thank you for the hospitality. We enjoyed ourselves, but it is time to go.”

But the officer did not answer. The slot was narrow, but it was large enough for one of the hypodermic arrowheads from her utility belt, fitted with an ampoule of tranquilizer, to be shot from the magnetic accelerator in her derringer and to pass neatly through to strike the officer in his neck. It was a difficult shot, with her gun hand pinned behind her back, but she was flexible enough to twist and bring her hand around her hip. The other officer turned, startled, and so was at a bad angle, therefore Yumiko had to ricochet the second dart, this one blown from her helmet snorkel as if from a blowpipe, off the rear-view mirror to strike him at an exposed part of his neck.

She left both pairs of handcuffs lying neatly on the back seat of the cruiser but took her hypodermic darts and made sure the rear doors were once more locked from the outside before departing. The light turned green, and the shouting and honking behind the motionless police cruiser began. The two girls skipped across the crowded sidewalk in the confusion and hurried away from the scene.

Yumiko was surprised to hear birds twittering and to see the pink light of dawn striking the eastern faces of the gray towers high above. What had seemed at most an hour spent in the elf-mound of Is-Elfydd had been twelve hours or more. Yumiko felt grateful it had not been longer.

Chapter Ten: The Lass from Elfland

1. Tailors and Giants

The two girls walked, or rode the train or bus, for fifty-eight minutes all told. They spoke as they went.

During the first leg on the train, Yumiko told of the events since Elfine’s kidnapping: how Yumiko had been drawn into a trap by Lucien Cobweb the Wolflord at Catoblepas warehouse but had been saved by two boys named Gilberec and Matthias Moth; how Yumiko had taken a job as a dancer for Wilcolac Cobweb at the Cobbler’s Club, but this was yet another trap, one intended to discover the hiding place of Winged Vengeance; how she had put a bugging device on the collie dog of Gilberec Moth, now revealed to be a servant of King Arthur and acting in his name. Tracing that bug had led her into a trap the dog set; how she had interfered in the duel between Gil and Garlot so that Garlot would lead her back to his treasure vault, unsuspecting. But her footsteps had betrayed her, and once again she had been detected and trapped.

Yumiko was quite glum by the end of this recitation, and she rested her head wearily against the window of the train, watching the light of the streets underfoot go by.

Elfine put an arm about her and gave her a hug. “Don’t worry! Just because you are a failure at everything you try does not necessarily mean you will fail!”

Without moving her head, Yumiko slid her eyes toward the other girl’s cheerful face. “Technically, I think it does mean that.”

“No!” insisted Elfine, squeezing her tightly. “You don’t understand how these things works.”

“How do they work?”

“When the giant fights the little tailor, the giant trusts in his own strength. But the little tailor always wins in the end. He does not trust himself. He knows he is not strong enough. He asks for help.”

“From his friends?”

“What friends can help against a giant? Don’t be silly. From angels!”

“What?”

“Terrible angels shaped like wheels within wheels, and storms and staring eyes and swords of fire turning in each direction! And when the little tailor wins, he gives thanks because he is not all puffed up with pride like a giant. Giants do not know how to be thankful.”

Yumiko murmured, “Thanksgiving is a source of joy unknown to melancholy elfs.”

“Don’t fret! All your horrible, embarrassing, clumsy failures are in the past!” Elfine bounced up and down on the seat. “You saved me! You’ll save What’s-his-name!”

“Tomorrow Moth.”

Elfine tilted her head and stopped bouncing. “Wait. I know him. The son of Dr. Rocket. He is my third cousin four times removed. He ignited the Mount Sinabung eruption in Sumatra. Are you sure you want to save him? He is kind of dangerous.”

“Dangerous or not, I know he was going to ask me to marry him. But I do not know if he actually did or not. I cannot remember!”

Elfine put her hands to her mouth and bit her nails. “I cannot stand the suspense! When do we find out if he did? Can I be your maid of honor?”

Yumiko smiled and patted her on the knee. “Yes.”

“Oh! What colors should we have? If the bridesmaids have winter complexions like yours, they should wear icy tones rather than pastels. Are you going to invite any elfin relations to the wedding? It had better be a Unitarian ceremony because they cannot go into churchyards. Also, don’t serve ham at the reception.”

“Ham?” asked Yumiko, wondering if she had missed a comment.

“There is an ancient race that lives among Christian and Paynim that often hides their lineage. They were told the secret name of God, and for this reason all other races hold them in jealousy and suspicion, and every few years mobs rise up in fury and butcher them without cause. And they cannot eat ham.”

Yumiko said, “Let us save the bridegroom first before planning the reception.”

“Why? He is not going to have any say in the matter.”

Yumiko said, “Because there is another thing to discuss first. You say the City of Corpses is in Queens. How do you know? And why were the Anarchists after you? For that matter, why did you come here?”

“Here on the elevated train? To make the bus connection at Lexington.”

“Here in the Daylight World.”

2. The Book of Ayre

Elfine told her story:

“Before his exile to Troynovant, my father once took me aloft in a hot-air balloon at the summer fair in Cranston, which is nigh to the northernmost lighthouse on the Isle of Man. He showed me a book he had brought aloft with him, a precious book that could only be read on holy mountains or at high altitudes, far above the Mists of Everness, for the ink was starlight, and each page glowed and shined. It was a very old book, for the last chapters were written in Greek, and before that, in Mycenaean, Voynich script, runes, and hieroglyphs, and the oldest parts were plates showing the dancing men of the cave painting script of Bhimbetka.

“He had me trace the letters and repeat the staves. Now, all the older elf generations suffer no loss of memory, and so they never inscribe words and letters save to cast a spell. This spell was to imprint into my memory words neither age, nor chants, nor drugs, nor mists, nor time could ever make fade.”

And Elfine sang these words:

“The great creator made his creations with a love of creation. But none can make who is not made free. Freeborn were born each tongue and tribe and nation. Creation is marred by marring order, balance, harmony; but none can love who loves not freely.

“Justice miscarries, and mercy goes astray when love, true love, has not its proper say.

“Free are we to know life and bliss; free to know death and woe; free to ascend to the joys endless, free to fall into darkness below. The lonely soul, alone, lacks power to fly. The lonely soul, alone, has power to die.

“Truly alone is none; even the One who is One alone is Three in One.”

Yumiko said, “I don’t understand.”

Elfine said, “Ayre Moth saw what happened to my ninety-nine sisters. Father did not want that to happen to me.”

“What happened?”

“I told you this part. Did you forget? To swear the oath of fealty all Twilight swears to Night, which renders rebellion impossible. But some Moths have found a way not to swear. That is why I want to find my cousins. To find out how they did it.”

3. Aboard the Ironclad

“Do you want to know how I smuggled my way into New York? I was quite clever about it. After father was exiled to Troynovant, he brought his library with him, and I read detective stories from the human world. Humans cannot simply enchant one another to get what they want, so they commit crime and they fight crime in ways the elfs don’t know to watch for.

“My opportunity came when Erlkoenig had returned to Troynovant for the Wintertide Court. Snow buried the fields and roads in honor of his coming, and all the trees and towertops were white and bright with ice beneath the moon. The whole city was alarmed with the rumor that one of the ancient vampires of the Northbrood was at large. The Northbrood can drain a man’s life as a basilisk can, merely with the fell light of his eyes, drinking not a drop of blood. It was Monday of the Anarchists, the Lord of Vampires.

“He was gathering barghests and cooshee and other hounds of elfland and offering to turn them into werewolves, to give them the bodies to wear of humans who were kinslayers.

“Tongues wagged, and rumors flew when the Winterking did not ask his own champion, or any of his own knights, to hunt down the Vampire Lord. Instead, the Winterking called upon Sir Bertolac the Golden, the Summer Champion, to hunt through the city and the coasts round about to discover the vampire’s nest, or the hideout and smuggler’s cove of the werewolves. It was thought that Erlkoenig did not wish to involve his own knights either because he did not trust them to be willing to overcome the Vampire Lord or, worse, did not trust that they were able. Nothing would darken their repute if Alberec’s knight failed.

“But the Summer Knight did not use proper modern police methods. He just did not read pulp magazines, I guess, or get a proper modern education like mine.

“Well, I could work undercover where he could not! It was not hard for me to find a pack of whist hounds of the low and villainous sort, scofflaws and scoundrels. I kept pulling the tails of the horses of the knights or men-at-arms following Sir Bertolac, trying to get their steeds to buck them into the mud, or dropping beehives dripping with honey onto their helmets. One knight chased me right into the den of some bad hounds. And when those bad hounds got into dog fights with other packs, I went with whichever of the two was worse! So I wormed my way deeper and deeper into the dog underground.”

Yumiko said, “So easily?”

“It was not easy. It took a long time. But I am close enough to fairy blood to pass for one. No one knows I have a memory. No one bothered to watch his mouth around me. So I soon heard where and when the Vampire Lord was recruiting his dogs. I do not need to give off light when I am small: I just do that to show lightheartedness, which helps with levity.

“I followed the first dog, and lost track of him, and then a second, and lost him also, but the third led me into a cave south of the city where there were a dock and rowboats waiting.

“With them were shabti, the men of clay brought to life by Egyptian magic. They can neither speak nor think nor betray. With muffled oars and smothered lamps, they rowed out into the bay. Below us in the deep was a giant manta ray, coated from wingtip to wingtip, mouth to tail, in armor. And it had a narwhal horn or lance it used to tear holes in ships.

“But it was not armor. This was a machine, large as any galleon or schooner, and there was nothing like it in the Night World. Its horn was no tooth but a ramming prow.

“I knew the Day Men had submersible vessels, but none like this. It was a thing of Twilight. It may make me sound bad, but my heart leaped when I saw it. I had always been told that I was second best, a dim copy of an elf. And here was something the elf world did not have.

“It was neither a motor vessel of the Day nor a magical galleon of the Night. It was a magical motor vessel. It was ours.

“The iron was scary, but I was able to keep away from it. Most of the ship was made of wood or copper or brass. Once I was aboard, I made friends with some rats living in the hold, and the rat’s nests were in the wooden decks, not the iron hull. Not friends, exactly. I helped the rats pilfer food, and they did not eat me. They helped me. I could tell when someone was coming long before I saw or heard anything because the rats would get all stiff and quivery.

“This ship was the biggest machine I had ever seen, and the sound of turning wheels and terrible energies was always in the air. The decks were lit with gaslight. I crept along corners during the dog watch, looking.

“I saw the great brass wheel the helmsman used to steer and the two ports like eyes in the conning tower that showed the black waters streaming by overhead.

“I saw the smaller, eight-man submarine gunboats like remoras clinging to the sides of the ship, inside half-shells that could be pumped full of water or air to allow them to come and go at will.

“I saw the galley and the workrooms and engines, the bunks for the men, the quarters for the officers.

“Once I crept into the captain’s cabin, and I saw Monday, the Vampire Lord, in his high-collared black cloak and wide-brimmed black hat, playing Mozart’s Requiem on the pipe organ. He was playing Dies Irae. Sadness was in his terrible eyes, and he did not hear me, and turn, and look at me, and kill me. After that, I stuck to the rat’s nest.

“Under the sea is the perfect place for him to hide. You would think more vampires would take advantage of it. There is no sunlight in the deep, not way down below the continental shelf, and even if the air bottles failed, he would be safe.

“Once we fought with a great squid. The ship rammed the monster and ran it through with our prow, but it wrapped the hull with its tentacles, and the hullplates groaned. We shocked it with lightning from the ram, but it did not let go. We blew all ballast and rose to the surface into a tempest, dragging it up with us, and all its phosphorescent skin turned red with anger. The captain, a fierce, red-faced man with an iron hand named Saturday, sent out stout sailors with harpoons to battle the beast. The ship’s mast was struck by lightning, and this recharged the weapons enough to slay the beast. The great corpse was lashed to the starboard side of the ship. During the watches that followed, we sailed on the surface while the corpse was flayed and butchered. The sailors had to drive the sharks away.

“Another time, we were pursued by a tall, strange vessel that showed no running lights, flew no flag, and moved without sail or screw or wheel. We dove, but she sank and followed us. Down and down into a crevasse in the sea we went and lost sight of her.

“We put in for a week at Back Cup Island, where they have a dock and shipyard hidden in the crater lake of a dead volcano cone. We took on water and supplies, including pineapples, and men let the dogs out six at a time to be exercised. But I was not discovered.

“How the ironclad submersible got around the Great Wall of Mist between the Third and Second Hemisphere, I do not know. Maybe we dived under it while we were sailing under the ice cap.

“All I know is that one day, there was a lot of noise and banging and carrying on. The sailors were cursing like sailors. I could smell fresh air. So I hid in a crate and waited for it to be unloaded.

“I peeked out and saw we had made port. I saw the man ordering the shabti around. He was tall and dressed like a pharaoh, in white linen, wearing a gold death-mask to hide his face, and a pschent covered his hair. He had both men of clay and of wood to serve him, and he ordered them with gestures of the flail or the crosier he had in his hands. His mask spoke for him, but he never spoke. Men called him Wednesday of the Anarchists, or Lord of Mummies.

“The whole vast dockyard and kennel warehouse were underground, but I flew up through a vent. Guess where? Bedloe’s Island.”

Yumiko said, “I am afraid I do not know where that is.”

“It is the one the Statue of Liberty is on.”

The first shipment point was LIs. It was not a Roman numeral for fifty-one. It was an abbreviation for Liberty Island. Yumiko was startled, “How can this be? There are tourists. The island—how big is it?”

“Fourteen acres. But they could have had mermaids help them hollow out the caves beneath, in which case it might be bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside. And if you have a base buried in the bedrock below the river, what does it matter how big the island is above it?”

“But the tourists! And the police! How can you run a smuggler’s shipyard right under the toes of a famous monument?”

“What makes you think the police do not all work for the Anarchists? The tourists could all be actors or wax dummies just pretending to be tourists. All their bases have to be in famous spots. In case they are discovered. It makes it harder for the elfs to erase all memory of the place from everyone’s mind.”

Yumiko remembered Ruff saying the same thing about organizing a duel on the Brooklyn Bridge. “It seems insolent. A monument to liberty hiding anarchists.”

Elfine shrugged. “If you ask them, the Anarchists will say they like liberty, all the liberty, and nothing but liberty.”

“What happened next?”

“There is not much more to tell. I hid in a crate with a whist hound with red ears named Shuck. We talked, or, actually, I played dumb, and he talked. He seemed to think eating a man and taking his place, his memories and so on, would be great.

“The human involved—if Shuck was right—apparently thought he was going to get werewolf powers, something he could take on and off like a cloak, and no one told him that he was just going to be possessed by a dark spirit and be the horse carrying a rider.

“Our crate was hauled in the back of a truck to an underground place full of dead rats that smelled horrible. Then, two days went by while some men took Shuck out of the box and did horrible things to him. I think the men were Cobwebs.

“I flew out once or twice and looked around, but there was evil, powerful evil, all over the place, and the doors were locked without even a keyhole for me to slip thorough. I was hungry.

“So I just hid in the crate, and then on the next day, Shuck was shoved back in. He was kind of dazed and not talkative. Men moved the crate to a truck and then to the cemetery.

“I got out of the truck before it actually passed the gate and went onto holy ground. I was still curious, though, so after a bath and a meal made of bird’s eggs, I went back to the cemetery gate. I could see them on the hilltop in the distance. They were still unloading. I waited for the same truck to go back out through the gate. This time I just followed it from the air, or I hung on to the antenna and let it pull me.

“It went to a place that dogs like Shuck might like: gambling and swearing and lots of drinking hard liquor. I kind of liked it because it had humans and half-bloods and elfs all in the same place, just laughing and losing money and dancing. Everyone was getting along! It was just what I had heard America was like.

“I poked around, and I fiddled with the roulette wheel so it would spin better, and then I talked to the house hob and paid my respects.

“He gave me an idea on a nice place to stay while I was in the city since he said I could pass for a human, too. I asked him about the underwater ship, and he said its name was Nautilus. He seemed really interested, and I told him all about her. I asked him about my cousins, and he said they would be coming by the Friday after next, so why shouldn’t I stick around?

“But I said, no, I did not want to do that. And then a pumpkin and some evil men tried to catch me to make me stick around.

“And I almost got away, but I did not. I ran outside, but one of them snared me. And then you came down out of the night sky wrapped in the American flag to save me!”

4. The Angels Stopped Coming

They walked from the train station to the bus stop. Yumiko wore her black trench coat with the collar turned up and the cowl tucked away. She hid her mask in a cloak pocket, which she turned into a sash and wore about her waist. She bought a green poncho from a street vendor selling umbrellas and rain hats and gave it to Elfine in the hope that the blonde half-fairy would be less conspicuous. Elfine declared that she loved her gift and ran excitedly down the sidewalk, flapping her arms to make the poncho fabric flutter.

They took the bus across the Queensboro Bridge past Sunnyside to Flushing. Yumiko found seats in the back, hoping to avoid attention. Elfine swung from one hand-strap to the next and led the bus driver and passengers in singing a rousing chorus of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and then “We Are off to See the Wizard”.

The girls got off at Roosevelt and 51st in Flushing. Elfine waved goodbye to the bus driver and to every passenger whose child had recently lost a tooth, whose names, for some reason, she knew.

They walked for ten minutes or so. The immense green slopes of the cemetery were visible in the near distance, dotted with headstones, obelisks, monuments, and mausoleums. The skyline of famous buildings rose across the water, looking ominously like a larger version of the same scene.

“No skipping when we enter the graveyard,” warned Yumiko. “And no singing show tunes! I was surprised you did not get knifed by the big boy in the ball cap. The BAM shaved into his skull is his gang sign.”

“He had a nice baritone! Katie Casey was baseball mad! Had the fever and had it bad! Besides, even the worst man was once a baby, and every baby can see the fairies who come to dance around his crib.”

Yumiko glanced at Elfine sidelong. “Why do fairies dance around cribs?”

“Newborns tell us news of the paradise in whose gardens they were so recently formed. But then they grow up, lose the second sight, forget paradise, and forget us.” Elfine sighed wistfully and pouted. “The world is so sad! Men would be happier if you could just remember things.”

“There is little hope of that, in my case,” said Yumiko without expression. “But I will gather up what broken fragments of my life as I may and save my love.” She shrugged, smiled at Elfine, and spoke again. “Strange that you say ‘us’ and ‘you.’ You talk as if you are a fairy and I am a human, but we are both Moths. Both half-and-half.”

Elfine scowled and stamped her foot. “And the other fairies in Garlot’s bottles never let me forget it! They teased me! They were so mean! Just because I am not as dainty and fine as they are! And they were always surprised to see me the next morning, and so they said the same mean things again! For three weeks!”

Yumiko nodded and put a gentle hand on the other girl’s shoulder. “I never got over finding out that I am not full-blooded Japanese. I must resign myself to the shame.”

“Shame?”

“Of being a mongrel. Of having mixed blood.”

Elfine giggled and clapped her hands. “But you don’t have to worry about that any more! This is America! We are in America. Here, it does not matter what you were born. It only matters what you make of yourself. That is why I came. My Dad says it is insane for elfs to boast about being pure-bloods, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Considering where they come from. The Night Folk, before the Great Flood, could change their appearance, size, and hue, so you could not tell who was what except by how he acted. Back then, there was no big difference between elfs and efts and pooka and sprites, except one looked after men, and the others looked after fires or fauna or flowers.”

“What happened?”

“The world got old and wicked. Elfs got weary. The ancient privileges diminished, dried up, and died off. The angels stopped coming.”

Elfine pouted sadly as she skipped along, kicking a pebble down the sidewalk as she went.

She continued, “The Night People are generally now stuck in one or two shapes or sizes. You see? Leprechauns are shoemakers; fire-breathing efts are fighting-men; banshees are washerwomen and corpse-dressers; and Nibelungs are blacksmiths. The different shapes were once only their work clothes, but now they are stuck in them. And their children take after them. Some of the older ones, like Nimue or Malen or Morgan, can still do the old tricks.”

Yumiko was puzzled. “Are elfs and fairies the same race or different races?”

“Same race but different jobs. Different genres. I guess we are different races now, but we did not use to be. Elfs can get tiny, and I can get big like this, and we look a lot alike, but the fairies never agreed to the deal, so we never have to pay the tithe.”

“Tithe? Is this the same tithe?”

Elfine nodded energetically but then said, “Same as what?”

“Tell me about this deal.”

“Once upon a time, the proud, dread, and darkest Prince of the Fallen Angels, whose name it is dangerous to say, convinced the fairies that the waters of Lethe, the River of Oblivion, would sponge their memories of our old home away, so they could be happy again.

“Instead, the fairies forget everything, and now they are too happy.

“But the Queen of Heaven took pity on the fairies and sent guardian angels streaming down from windows in Heaven, with crowns of light and swords of fire. You cannot see them because you would turn to ashes if you did, but sometimes they whisper things to the fairies, things no one knows, which is why fairies sometimes know things for no reason. It is to make up for everything they forgot. So that is the difference. Elfs do not have anyone to watch over them. So they get in trouble.”

“But what was this deal?”

“I told you about this before. You don’t remember? Maybe I skipped the details. The first High King of the Elfs, Asagrim son of Aer, was taken to a tall mountain and promised all the fair kingdoms of the Earth spread below if he would bow and worship the Prince of Darkness. As a sign whereof, every seven years, the elfs give over one tenth of their produce and profits and the firstborn of their flocks, and their firstborn sons are made to pass through fire.”

Yumiko’s face went blank and then went pale. Her steps became slow and mechanical. Elfine, skipping along, wrapped up in the telling of her tale, continued heedlessly:

“Asagrim, who was childless, agreed at once. But then he fell in love with a daughter of the North Star, and was wed, and had a child, and did not want to give him up, and so he asked if a willing victim could be substituted in the child’s stead: and this was done. Asagrim went to live in Tartarus in his son’s place, and Uther was raised to the throne of the High King. Uther refused to pay the tithe, and the Prince of Darkness cursed him and hurled him from the throne, and no one knows his whereabouts to this day.”

Yumiko’s steps grew slower. Her eyes had an unfocused look. Elfine, dancing on ahead, continued speaking.

“The Night world feared the Darkness and did a wicked thing. The son of Uther, when still a babe in swaddling, was placed in a coracle and abandoned to the mercy of the sea. Wave after wave, each mightier than the last, carried him away from the shores of Elfland, until a ninth wave slowly rose and plunged, roaring, and all the wave was flame. At the crest of the ninth wave, seen by the sharp-eyed against the rising sun, the babe arose, stood on his legs, and raised his hand in a sign that he would one day return. And so he was borne away toward mortal lands. The second born was Alberec, who came to the throne of the High King in his stead. You are probably wondering what the name of the firstborn is…?”

5. The End of All Tales

Yumiko halted. She swayed. She sat down heavily on the small strip of green grass between the sidewalk and the wall of rough, unhewn stones. She sat with her back to the wall, facing the four noisy lanes of traffic passing by on the boulevard.

Elfine now looked over her shoulder, eyes wide and mouth quirked to one side. She turned and scampered back and gazed down silently. The raven-tressed girl was seated in her black trench coat, head bowed, arms wrapped about her knees, huddled into a frail, dark shape.

Elfine pouted, as if annoyed her friend had not been listening to her tale.

Yumiko spoke in a dull voice. She sounded much like one who has been struck in the head by a mallet and is still numb in the tongue. “The people tithed to Tartarus. You said they are taken alive. They are not simply killed? Sacrificed?”

Elfine said, “Killing them would allow the baptized people to escape.”

“You said it had to be a willing victim.” Now she did look up, a terrible, tiny ember of hope in the desolation of her blank eyes.

Elfine rolled her eyes and cocked her head, staring fretfully at the clouds. “Well, what counts as a sign of willingness is open to interpretation. Proserpine is a girl who was starving and ate some pomegranate seeds, and eating the food of the dead counts as accepting their hospitality. Or signing a contract in blood saying you will serve a familiar spirit for seven days in return for seven years of his service if one of those seven days is the day the familiar spirit is due to go back down below. Or if a damned magician disguises himself as a man’s wife, and the man agrees to go in her place, thinking he is saving her. Or they get him drunk, or enchant him, or tell him it is temporary. It is all very tricky and unfair. Not every legal system is as fair as what they have in Merry Old England.”

As Elfine spoke, the ember of hope faded and died.

Elfine squatted down next to her friend, and put her arm around her shoulders, and stroked her hair, and said, “There, there, it will be all right.”

Yumiko said, “My fiancé is going to be taken alive to Hell. He may have been taken already. How are you so sure it will be all right?”

Elfine said, “All tales have happy endings.”

“That is not true. What about Romeo and Juliet?”

“Only the middle part is sad. Juliet was condemned by Minos to be whirled about on dark winds in the Second Circle for centuries, and Romeo was turned into a bleeding tree in the Seventh Circle. And they forgot how to pray. But the prayers of Laurence and John reached Saint Lucia. The Prince went down to Hell and brought up Adam and Moses and Elias and John the Baptist. When the Prince was weary from fighting demons, he rested in the shade of a tree, and this was the tree where Romeo was, and Romeo asked not for himself to be saved from damnation, but for Juliet. Romeo said it was his suicide that drove Juliet beyond grief, which means her death was his to blame, so that he is a murderer, not she a suicide. And then again, when he was weary from battling demons and devils, the Prince stepped into the blowing winds to cool his brow, and Juliet came whirling down and asked that Romeo be forgiven for his suicide since it was mistake, not malice, which drove him to it.

“And all the peoples of their families and city who would have died before their time had the feud continued came to the Prince and prayed, saying that the deaths of these two lovers was not suicide, but sacrifice, from which the peace that blessed fair Verona was born.

“Perhaps for these reasons, or perhaps for a reason known only to him, the Prince had compassion and took the foolish lovers by the hand. Not without travail, he led them up the cornices of Mount Purgatory and gave them the opportunity for salutary repentance. And the angels were amazed with the Prince, for one and all said suicide was unforgivable. But the Prince commanded Heaven and Earth to pray for those who have taken their own lives.

“As for the lovers, together they entered eternity. Romeo is within the star Castor and Juliet within Alhena, and they dance together in the constellation of the Twins, clothed in brightness, on the azure floor of Heaven.”

Yumiko scowled. “That is not part of the story.”

“Mortals only ever tell a small part of any story because they only see a small part of the world: the part on this hither shore, where evil reigns, time rots, and death rules all. On the thither shore is more to tell and the true end.”

Yumiko calmed herself and controlled her breathing. She murmured in Japanese, “Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world: a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream; a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.”

These were the words of the Enlightened One from the Diamond Sutra. But Yumiko did not want to find the windless peace of Nirvana, the peace of non-self-being, if it meant surrendering her beloved, whose living face she had yet to see.

Yumiko was confused. It seemed to her then that Joan the Wad, who was willing to defy Heaven or Hell or both at once, whatever the cost, to be with her lost love, was more enlightened than any girl who failed to defy Nirvana to be with hers. She was certainly spunkier.

Was love merely one more illusion in a world of illusion? It seemed to Yumiko then, at that moment, like the fundamental and infinite truth of all truths was love.

But then a voice spoke. Don’t listen. Elfine is lying. There is more to all stories, much more. But it is worse, not better. Far worse. Beyond the grave are sorrow, pain, and emptiness without end.

Yumiko leaped to her feet, and this startled Elfine, who erupted into a conflagration of sparks and shrank to the size of a dragonfly, leaving her poncho on the sidewalk.

Yumiko shrugged out of her coat so that she could draw her weapons. She stood with a kunai, a heavy throwing knife, in one hand and her kodachi, a shortsword, in the other.

All tales ending happily? Don’t make me laugh. All songs end in lamentations. All end in endless screams. There is no pleasure, no feast, no wine, no warmth, no light, and nobody forever.

For this was the voice of Kuckunniwi, the Cheyenne.

Beyond life is death. Beyond death, pain. Pain, hunger, cold, darkness, loneliness.

6. Saint Calixtus’s Gate

The Cheyenne must have seen her at the Cobbler’s Club during the fire and followed her here. She had, after all, taken no steps to shake any pursuit. Yumiko’s eyes darted up, left, right. But where was he? Where was the voice coming from?

Some children in a station wagon on the boulevard, seeing her in her skintight black suit with knife and shortsword drawn, waved and cheered as their vehicle went by. Yumiko saw that the stone wall had a corner. She ducked around it.

Here, the wall was interrupted by a tall wrought-iron gate. A long avenue stretched before her, bordered by trees, into green slope after green slope thick with headstones, obelisks, winged statues, monuments, and mausoleums like windowless and miniature palaces. At first, she saw no people. Perhaps visiting hours had not yet begun, for the gate was shut.

She saw no sign of the Cheyenne, but he must be near. It was difficult at her full weight and with her hands full, but Yumiko lithely jumped, kicked off the gate posts, helped herself with a second kick against the crossbars, and sailed upside down over the top of the gate, her head, shoulders, hips, and thighs clearing the ornamental top spikes by inches. She clenched the knife between her teeth and took a bar in her free hand to slow her fall. She slid and somersaulted to an easy landing on the grass beyond, coming to her feet in a crouch.

Next to the wall, at an angle which had been invisible from the gate, near a marble statue of a fireman, was an immense red warhorse, wearing barding. A riding horse, slenderer and smaller, was with it. Both were cropping the grass. A third horse, this one laden with burdens, including long lances, stood near. With them was a white donkey. A collie dog with a white vest and a raccoon mask around its eyes was trotting proudly back and forth around the horses, barking loudly.

Standing between her and the horses, with their backs to her, were two youths among the stones, talking in low tones. One was broad and tall and dressed in white linen with a blue surcoat, and a sword was at his side, hilts glittering with diamonds. The other was thin and long haired, wearing rimless glasses that gave him an owlish look. He was dressed in a white tunic and scapular with a black hood and cloak. It was the Swan Knight’s Son and the Blackfriar’s novice. Gilberec and Matthias Moth.

Both fell silent in mid-sentence, turned, and looked at her.

Yumiko looked back, as startled as they.

For a moment no one spoke. Gilberec eyed the blade in her hand and the knife in her mouth. He made no move to draw his sword. “So are you a ninja? Or a pirate?”

Chapter Eleven: The House of the Dead

1. Four Cousins and a Dog

Yumiko took the knife out from between her teeth. This kunai had a hoop in the pommel, into which she thrust her forefinger, and she began to flick her wrist to spin the knife blade. The motion formed a blurred disk of metal. “We’ve met,” she said.

Matthias stared at her face. He said in a voice of slow surprise, “Is that you? You are the dancing girl who waited on us in the Cobbler’s Club.”

Gil said, “That girl was a redhead.”

Matthias said, “Not the one who brought the caviar. She came in later and brought drinks. The one who stood in the corner and would not sit down.”

Gil said, “The girl who is not Sorry. The one you saw floating through the mist on Leap Day.” Gil said to her, “The last time we met you stepped on my foot.”

Yumiko was a little surprised and glanced at the collie dog. “We’ve met since. You did not see me.”

Matthias said slowly, “Gil. The shadow says this is the Foxmaiden.”

“What makes him think so?”

Matthias looked meditative, as if he were listening to an inaudible voice. After a moment, he said, “In life, he was a bouncer at the nightclub where she was a dancer.”

Gil said to him, “I told you she works for the magician.”

Matthias said, “And I told you not to judge in haste. His job was to follow her when she went out to report to Winged Vengeance. They had penetrated her disguise.”

Gil crossed his arms and scowled down at her. “So you really are the Foxmaiden? Now you are showing your face? I did not see you last time we met. Here.” And he stepped over to the pack animal, drew out her two boomerangs, and tossed them into the grass at her feet. “Are these yours?”

She nodded. “They are mine.”

Gil said, “I am happy, Miss, to hear whatever explanation you want to give. If you were a boy, I would break you in half.”

Yumiko said, “I did it to save my friend, Elfine.” Yumiko waved her hand behind her, as if to beckon the other girl to present herself.

Elfine, from behind her, called out, “Hi there! Wait a minute! I remember how to do this!”

Yumiko glanced over her shoulder. Elfine, full sized and dressed only in her green bodice and skirt, was pushed up against the gate, one arm through the bars, waving.

“I am the daughter of Iolanthe daughter of Ellyllon, and Ayre Moth son of sun-bright Pururavas. Ayre is the founder of the Manx branch of the family. He is legally considered a mortal even though he is as long lived as an immortal. Ayre’s mother was Urvashi, who was born in this wise: Indra of the Thunders saw Nara-narayana meditating and sent a curse in the form of two apsara to distract him, lest his meditation unlock the enlightenment Adam lost and regain mastery over nature and the elements! Instead, Nara-narayana struck his thigh, and Urvashi came forth, and danced, and distracted the two of them, and they were put to shame. My name is Elfine.”

Gilberec said, “I am the son of the Swan Knight and Ygraine of the Riddles. She is the daughter of Pellinore of Listenoise and Danaë of Arcadia. Of the Swan Knight, I can say no more. I am Sir Gilberec, vassal of Arthur.”

Matthias said, “How do you do? I am the son of Carabosse the Maleficent and Malthus Moth. Malthus is the son of Mabon the Enchanter, son of Parlan, son of Phanes. Mabon is brother to Malagigi. I am Matthias.”

The two boys looked at Yumiko, expectantly. Gil glanced at her sword and spinning knife and crouched stance and sighed in annoyance.

Matthias said, “If you wish to introduce yourself, please feel free. I don’t know your real name.”

The collie dog trotted up and sat down between Gil and Matthias and barked happily. This was Ruff, without his hat.

Gil said, “Is your name really Yummy Cutie?”

Yumiko frowned terribly at the dog. “Tell him to stop that! My name is Yumiko!”

Through the bars, Elfine said helpfully, “She is the daughter of Dandrenor the Grail Queen and Danger Moth! Danger Moth is the son of Bold Moth and is the brother of Fearless and Reckless, names they earned while searching for their missing mother, Kasumi-himi no Mikoto, who was struck three times by her husband, once for disobedience, once for weeping at a feast, once for laughing at a funeral. This broke the promise Bold Moth had given her, and so she returned to the hidden world. Reckless descended into Hell and became a necromancer and exorcist; Fearless circumnavigated the globe, slew giants in Patagonia, and earned a fortune in trade; and Danger, in the company of Cyrano Moth, ascended to Heaven in an engine shaped like a locust and impelled by gunpowder. There, he met Dandrenor. By the way, I have been looking for you.”

The two boys looked thunderstruck and exchanged a glance, a shrug, and a wordless roll of the eyes.

Gil said to Yumiko, “So you are a cousin of ours? After all this time? You sure do not act it. Moths are supposed to help each other.”

Matthias said, “I certainly would not have guessed. You are something of a figure of mystery to us.”

Yumiko was not sure how to answer this, so she turned and said over her shoulder, “Why don’t you shrink down and come through the bars?”

Elfine said, “I think this is holy ground. I– I am not sure I can come in. I may not be welcome.”

Yumiko said, “Please, you must! I don’t know what we are looking for!”

Gil said to Matthias, “Matt, go see to that, please.”

Matthias nodded and went back to the gate.

2. A Requirement of Knighthood

Gil stood with his arms folded and his legs spread, his head tilted forward, as unselfconsciously as a prince. He bent his gray-green eyes upon Yumiko and said, “The relics of the departed are underfoot, awaiting resurrection. It is an ill place to draw a weapon. Put yours away. It would grieve me to put my hands on you.”

Yumiko straightened up and sheathed her weapons. She rubbed the palms of her gloves against her thighs nervously, but, of course, no sweat was wiped from her hands.

Gil said, “Come over here, please.”

She took a few steps and bowed nervously.

He said, “I am not going to hurt you. I would never strike a woman. But I would like an explanation. Sir Garlot is a wicked and faithless knight, and victory over him was put into my hands. Yet you shot him with arrows and blinded and nauseated me and my horse, Rabicane, with smoke.” The red war steed neighed and prodded Gil in the shoulder with his nose. Gil said, “This greatly offended his pride since he was sure he could outrun and overtake Tachebrun, and for many a year, he wished to make the attempt.”

Yumiko cast her eyes down, “Elfine was his prisoner. I needed Garlot to be wounded but survive the fight so that he would return to his treasure house, where his cauldron can heal his wounds. Malen the Red, his sister, told me he kept his fairy girls imprisoned there.”

Gilberec said, “We are first cousins, you and I. My mother is your mother’s sister. Why didn’t you come to me?”

She looked up. “What do you mean?”

“Once I defeated him, I could have demanded the release of your friend, or all his prisoners, without any tricks, or cheats, or deceptions. To be allowed to ransom one’s life is a requirement of knighthood, in honor of the one whose red blood ransomed us. Why not ask me for help?”

Yumiko was taken by surprise by this suggestion. “I– I don’t know. It never occurred to me. I was alone. I had no one to trust. I thought you might arrest Elfine for smuggling. She’s a lovable rogue. I don’t know you.”

Gil’s eyes widened slightly. Now it was his turn to be surprised. “Of course you know me! You were there when I threw your master out the window of that rooftop restaurant where we met for tea when he shot his mouth off. We’ve talked at least twice, maybe four times. You know I would not lie to you.”

Yumiko said, “I don’t remember that. I don’t remember anything!”

The collie barked and wagged his tail.

Gil said, “Why are you here? In this cemetery?”

Yumiko said, “This is the City of Corpses the magician shipped all the werewolves to once they were prepared. He is not neutral at all, but the sworn servant of Lucien Cobweb, who is Thursday of the Anarchists.”

“Who told you that?”

“A ghost named Le Maudit. I shot him.” Yumiko said, “Where is the Cheyenne? I heard his voice. And where is Elfine?” For neither she nor Matthias were in sight at that moment.

The dog barked. Gil said, “The Cheyenne is dead, and Elfine is around the building at the water fountain. Are you looking for Tom?”

“Yes.”

“You think he is here?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Who told you he was here?”

Yumiko said, “The house hob of the Cobbler’s Club, named Sly Jack Crookshank. He was the one actually running the house. Or was. It is burned now. The magician was just a front.”

Gil shook his head, “A tiny sprite that lives in a whiskey bottle? I am afraid he’s been deceiving you, cousin. How did the Cobbler’s Club burn down?”

“I– I don’t know.”

“You remember that I can hear it in your voice when you shade the truth?”

“I mean I do not know for certain, but I think it was Winged Vengeance.”

The muscles in Gil’s jaw twitched as he silently ground his teeth. “What, again? He has to go and destroy all our leads? All our evidence? What is his problem? Whose side is he on?”

Elfine came flying out from behind the corner of the gatehouse, circled Yumiko like a dragonfly, landed, and swelled up to full size. Matthias came into view and quickly trotted over. Matthias was smiling, “We hit the jackpot, Gil!”

3. Breaking Fast

Matthias stood grinning, and Gil said, “Out with it. What jackpot?”

Matthias gave Elfine an affectionate pat on the head. “Our cousin from Troynovant here knows where the Nautilus docks. That must have been why the Anarchist asked Garlot to catch her.”

Gil said, “Where?”

Elfine said, “Bedloe Island.”

Gil said, “Where is that?” But the dog barked, and Gil said, “You mean Liberty Island? Where the Statue of Liberty stands?” And the dog barked again, and Gil said in a ponderous tone of voice, “You mean where the statue stands called Liberty Enlightening the World but no one knows that except for some know-it-all dog because everyone else in the world calls it the Statue of Liberty? That island?”

Elfine hopped up and down and clapped her hands. “That is the one! It is made of copper. So it is elf-friendly. We can come to America too and be free. May I?”

Gil said, “May you what?”

Elfine said, “Be free! My daddy said you knew the secret. That is you! That is you two! You are called the Last Crusade. Are there only the two of you?”

The dog barked and raced in a circle and barked again. Gil said, “No, we are not called Super Action Team Swan. And there are three of us. Four, if you count Ruff.”

Yumiko said, “Tom is the other member. He is here in the cemetery. You have to show us where.”

Elfine pointed. “It is up the hill a ways.”

Gil said to Elfine, “I cannot make you an American if that is what you are asking. There is an ordeal all must pass. A trial by paperwork and years of waiting. If you are asking to join the Last Crusade, that is not in my hands either. The Man in the Black Room selects us. Frankly, I am not sure if any willing volunteer is turned away. Nothing but a willingness to serve is required. Your aid now will display the willingness is present.”

Elfine said, “I’d be happy to help! As long as I do not have to drive a long stick like that through people’s bodies.” She pointed at Gil’s lance. “It looks messy and horrible.”

“It is not a thing any girl should see,” Gil agreed. He turned to Matthias, “Release the ghost and send him on to his reward. We have no more need of him.” He turned again. “Matthias will require a little time to complete his work. Have you ladies had breakfast yet?”

Yumiko could not even remember the last time she ate. Was it during her shopping expedition with Malen? She had not ordered any room service in that hot-sheet motel, but she had stopped for a croissant and green tea at an open air café the morning before the duel on the Brooklyn Bridge. Which had been noon yesterday.

Yumiko said, “Actually, thank you. I am a little hungry. And Elfine has been kept in a bottle.”

Elfine said, “Garlot’s vassals fed us gruel, bean curd and yogurt, salads and salty tea, and made us exercise and do ballet twice a day. And then there was choir practice. As prison life goes, it was not so bad. We were kept in trim like fighting cocks.”

Gilberec opened his saddlebags and drew out a brightly colored cardboard box. “I have some cold tacos from Taco Hut left over here and half a two-liter bottle of warm root beer that’s gone flat. There is no cup, so you’ll have to drink out of the bottle.”

Elfine wrinkled her nose. “Boys eat such interesting things for breakfast!”

Yumiko bowed. “We are very grateful for your generosity.”

Elfine looked nervous when Gilberec handed her the box and the bottle. He knelt, crossed himself, and clasped his hands over the fast food. “Bless us, Lord, and these, thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty. Through Christ, Our Lord, Amen.” And he made the sign of the cross a second time. Elfine heaved a sigh of relief and laughed nervously.

“I suppose it did work!” she said. “But I don’t feel any differently.”

Gil handed her a cold taco. “The more mortal food you eat, the better you will be able to allow memories of past wrongs done you to fade, and the less things like music and the motions of the planets will influence your thinking. You will find yourself able to decide to do or not to do things that are now fixed in your character. If you start eating ambrosia and nectar again, however, you will return to a more dreamlike state.”

Elfine wrinkled her nose again. “So eating a taco will make me more human? Who designed this world and its crazy rules?”

Gil said, “The designer is the same one who bids us eat his flesh and drink his blood every Sabbath, that we may consumed by him. The freedom you seek is found there. Looking for freedom in any other place puts you under the Black Spell. The fair enchantments of the elfs or the ugly malice of the devils will fix fetters on you.”

Elfine said, “How are you immune from the oath that binds all of the Twilight folk?”

Gil said, “I swore to Arthur. That oath prevents Erlkoenig from demanding my fealty.”

Yumiko said, “Where is the Cheyenne? I heard his voice.”

Gil looked impressed. “You have good ears. He is in the land of the dead. As we would be if Matt has not seen him hovering near the booby trap that killed him. It turns out the rats in the city did know where Winged Vengeance was hiding—or one of his hiding places, at least. An abandoned factory in Harlem. The Cheyenne saw you going into the chimney and, much later, coming out.”

Yumiko said, “I think I heard his motorcycle. Following me.”

“Then he was sloppy. He could have kept his distance. He had a dowsing rod given to him by Sly Jack Crookshank that was pointed at you. The Cheyenne tried to break into the factory after you left. He found an upper door one can only reach from the roof of a neighboring building. This door opened into what looked like an elevator. But when he stepped in and pushed the button, it electrocuted him, and the trapdoor in the floor opened and sent his body sliding down a long chute and into a dumpster filled with liquid filth sitting in a vacant lot on the other side of the building. We were not fooled by that trap, but we almost stepped onto the catwalk and would have blown ourselves up with limpet mines. The ghost warned us in time. Warned Matt. I cannot see him.”

Yumiko said, “Where is this divining rod now?”

“We buried it with the Cheyenne.”

“You buried him?”

“You sound surprised. You think we were going to leave a dead man lying in a garbage dumpster filled with sewage?”

Matt came walking back at that moment, looking weary. He doffed his eyeglasses and rubbed the tail of his tunic over the lenses with thumb and forefinger. “Well, his shadow is no longer cast on Earth, but unless our good cousin Elfine can help us, I am not sure where the entrance to the underground installation is. The Cheyenne mentioned the name, but with so many headstones here…”

Elfine pointed at a tall dome, perhaps the largest one in sight, dominating a nearby hill, rising like a smooth white mountain above the peaks and crags of obelisks and memorials. “That one there. The Johansson Mausoleum. That huge monument one on the hill there, with the marble dome and the statue of Saint Joseph on top.”

Gil thanked her, and took the reins of his palfrey, and walked through the headstones rapidly toward where Elfine had pointed. Matt, who had been eating a taco, now strode after. The dog barked at the white mule, which only slowly stirred into motion. The red war steed trotted along at Gil’s shoulder without being led. Yumiko followed.

Elfine skipped from headstone to headstone, chatting merrily. “It says Johansson. I thought maybe a man name Johan buried his son there. And there is a statue of Saint Joseph. He is the man who carries Baby Jesus. Have you heard about him? He was a humble carpenter, but his ancestors were kings.”

Gil did not break his stride but answered and said, “His story is well known among mortal men. He breathed his last on Earth with the Virgin to one side of him and the Christ to the other, so all men wish to have such good company at death. To Saint Joseph I often pray since I wish my own father, whoever he is, to have Heaven’s favor and protection.”

Matthias said, “Before we go in, let us commend ourselves to his powerful intercession. Those whom Saint Joseph watches shall never die a sudden death, nor shall they be drowned, nor shall poison take effect on them, neither shall they fall into the hands of the enemy, nor be burned in any fire, nor overpowered in battle.”

They came to the mausoleum. A dolomite dome rested on the intersection of four pavilions whose ornate entablatures in turn were held up by Corinthian columns. The pediment and frieze were decorated with grape and ivy leaf patterns. The entrance porch held great bronze doors molded with grape trellises. Beneath the architrave and between the columns on each face were three evenly spaced windows, each with a lattice of bars. The bronze doors stood open. A low ramp of wood covered the stairs. The doors and the ramp were large enough to admit a small truck.

In they went.

4. A Prayer before Battle

Within was cool and gloomy. The ceiling of the dome was a mosaic of colored glass showing Hercules battling Cerberus. Two archways opened up to the left and right into deep recesses, where angels in niches stood peering over sarcophagi with brass plates inset into the walls. A barred grate of heavy bars, shaped like curled acanthus leaves, blocked a third archway. A dark stair beyond led steeply down. At the top of the stair was a block and tackle for lowering weights. Mats had been placed on the marble pavement to protect it unsuccessfully from scars and scuffs caused by moving heavy bulks, no doubt crates.

The collie dog sniffed at the barred grate blocking the dark stair leading down and made a low growl. Gil said, “This is the place. They are here.”

Elfine, craning her neck and staring upward, said, “How can they be here, where it is so quiet and pretty? This is holy ground, isn’t it?”

Gil answered Elfine, “To hide. Elfs of purer blood cannot approach sacred things to desecrate them. The Cobwebs are half-mortal men, as we are.”

Matt said, “In the holiest Church the most wicked evils will be found. Devils do not war with lukewarm believers, but with the saints.”

Elfine got on her knees next to the door, put her nose to the locked grating as well, and sniffed. She said, “There must be another exit. Men or Cobwebs carrying werewolves in crates might go in or out this way, but not werewolves walking on their own feet. Besides, even a groundhog is wise enough to have a second escape exit out of a burrow.”

Hoofbeats muffled by the mats laid here, Rabicane the war steed came stomping into the mausoleum. Sir Gilberec took the gleaming breastplate, leggings and helm of his armor from the saddlebag, and began to dress himself in his armor. His armor was cunningly fashioned to be donned by one man, without the need for a squire.

Matthias prayed aloud to the Trinity and asked for the intercession of Good Saint Anne to aid his prayers, and Saint Cyprian of Antioch, and the Cure de Ars. Elfine stared at him in wonder, every now and again asking who these people were and how good their hearing was. Matthias answered her questions with a smile. Gilberec asked him also to pray to Saint George, Martin of Tours, Joan of Arc, and Demetrius of Thessalonica.

Yumiko plucked on Matt’s cloak hem. “If you please,” she asked. Then, she stopped, overcome by a mingled sense of caution and humility. The eyes of Matthias within the circles of the lenses of his spectacles were mild. “Yes, cousin?”

“Is it possible for the dead to come again to life?”

He nodded and crossed himself. “If not, then all we believe and know is folly, and all in which we hope is vain. But not by any art of men or occult practice of devils can the thing be done, nor by elfin glamour, or any kind act of nature.”

“Then how?”

“All mortal things are condemned to pass away. Mother Nature is the royal headsman. Only the pardon of the king can suspend or reverse her death warrant.”

“I saw a bright lady. She was dressed in white with a red cloak. A great sword was in her hand, but she also held a lily and a palm leaf. And she offered me a cup. In it was not wine, but a golden fire.”

Matthias said, “Did you see her with your eye?”

“In a dream. I think I was dead. I woke up in the hospital.”

“The white robe and the white lily are her virginity, the red mantle and the palm are her martyrdom. She was slain by the sword for her faith. It might be any number of saints.”

“A ghost called me the handmaiden of Barbara.”

Matthias nodded. “If your vision was of Barbara, the cup she held was the host. Saint Barbara visits those who are struck dead suddenly—killed by lightning—and offers them last rites and a last chance to confess and repent. Between the moment the lightning leaves the cloud and before it falls to the earth is time enough.”

Yumiko stared at Elfine and then looked back at Matthias. “What did you do to her? She was unwilling to step on holy ground before and could not say prayers or hear them said.”

Matthias said, “I baptized her. Normally, it is done by a priest, in a proper rite, with godparents at hand, and after due instruction. But in an emergency, in the middle of mortal peril, any layman can baptize any willing soul. If done in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the sacrament is valid no matter who performs it.”

Yumiko felt a shock of emotion run through her. She had been alone since the moment she woke, alone and lonely with none to help her, no ally, no friend. Now, the very day she had freed Elfine, Elfine had joined this, whatever this was.

Yumiko knew it was unfair for her to feel jealous, but the feeling persisted. Elfine had exited the world and entered a rich mansion, and now the mansion door was closed, and Yumiko was on the wrong side.

Yumiko remembered hearing Gil’s ringing words to Wilcolac. Arthur serves truth and justice, and I serve him. Those words had lodged in her heart. In a world of greedy beggars and crass liars, the urge to serve a high and noble cause was mystical, magnetic, and irresistible.

Yumiko had seen the wicked power of Malen fail only once. She had seen an attempt to corrupt a willing victim into a werewolf also fail. What was this power that stood against the Black Spell and prevailed?

The bright lady, Saint Barbara, granted Yumiko new life and freed her of her old oaths and hatreds. The bright lady served the same high and holy name whom Arthur and his men served. Yumiko’s own mother, Dandrenor, had died in this service, slain by the enemy. This enemy had not ceased to hunt and harass and deceive Yumiko since the first hour she woke in the hospital.

Elfine had just joined.

And Tom was with them. What more did she need to know?

Yumiko dropped to her knees. “Then you must do this for me.”

Matthias looked troubled. “Now, wait. Elfine had no need of instruction because she knew all the Church teaching at least as nursery tales. And there were other, ah, circumstances…”

Gil said, “Father Dominic appeared to him in a dream last night and told him he would do it today. Baptize Elfine, I mean. We did not know her name, but we were actually expecting someone to show up.”

Yumiko said, “Tom is down there! And a great host of monsters and evil dogs. I may die in the attempt. Will this not aid and strengthen me?”

Matthias said, “Well, cousin, it is not magic. The baptism is new life, spiritual life, that calls an end to all mortal things. When this is done, you are no longer of this mortal world. You cannot get it because it is useful or to get something from it.”

Gil stepped over to his palfrey and drew out one of the lances stowed on the creature’s back. He was splendid in his shining armor and had his proud helm tucked under one arm. A coif of links covered his head and neck. He said, “You will be in no danger, Cousin. You and Elfine shall stay here.”

5. Knight and Ninja-Girl

Elfine heaved a sigh of relief. “I’ll watch the horses.”

Yumiko raised an eyebrow. “Why am I staying here?”

“I have enough trouble trying to protect an unarmed novice and a crazy dog,” said Gil. Rabicane the war steed snorted proudly, and the dog barked leaped up to Gil, putting his paws on his surcoat. Gil gently pushed the dog down, telling him, “Yes, very useful. Could not do a thing without you.”

Yumiko said, “What has your spirit-dog told you of me?”

Gil said, “You put a bug on him, and he set a trap for you…” (Ruff barked.) “… he set a trap for you because he is a smart dog…” (Ruff barked again.) “… a very smart dog. He decided to trust you and tell you where my duel with Garlot was, and then he was sorry he did that because you threw a boomerang and hit me in the head.”

Yumiko said, “Nothing else?”

Matthias spoke up, “I know that in recent months, you had been following Tom around. I know you have been keeping an eye on him. He is a reckless boy, and you saved his life at least once.”

Gil looked surprised. “Saved whose life? When was that?”

Matt said, “When we went upstate to hunt down the giant rat of Lake Carlopa. Remember that Tom went to Shopton that night? He was searching for radiation traces of a hypothetical matter-amplifier he thought might be causing the problem. He ended up chasing a water-breathing ape in a motorboat.”

Gil said, “Wait. Was Tom in the motorboat chasing an ape? Or was the ape in the motorboat with Tom chasing him? And why do Tom’s stories still always sound crazy to me, when I fight monsters from Elfland for a living?”

“The ape was piloting. Tom was chasing him with those ridiculous rocket-propelled water-skis that snap out of his boots.”

Gil said, “Better than those rocket-propelled, telescoping stilts that snap out of his kneepads.”

“Anyway, he told me his shoes exploded. This girl pulled up in a black speedboat running without lights. Her boat had a prow shaped like a crow and crow-wings as part of the hull design. She hauled him out of the water and gave him mouth to mouth.”

Gil scowled. “And what happened to the water-breathing ape?”

Matt said, “You can ask Tom when you see him.”

Gil looked at her. “Why were you up around Lake Carlopa?”

Elfine clapped her hands. “Oh! Do you really have a crowboat? And a crowmobile? What about a crowcopter?”

Yumiko answered both of them. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything. But you cannot stop me from going down into the City of Corpses to find Tom.”

Gil said, “I could certainly try, Cousin. Tell me, please, what you would do if you were stuffed you into one of those coffins with the lid wedged shut or tied to a tree by your hair or something?”

Elfine was scandalized. “Knights don’t treat ladies that way!”

Gil to her, “Ladies do not need to be. Ladies do not put themselves into harm’s way without regard for who must pull them out again.”

Matthias said. “It’s true. Knights are allowed to manhandle ninja-girls.”

Yumiko said, “It is said that you can hear the truth in anyone’s voice. You will not stop me. I have the means to escape all traps and to elude any guard set over me. Nothing you do short of death will stop me.”

Gil frowned.

Matthias said, “She is boasting, right?”

Gil said, “No boast. She is telling the truth.”

“A means to escape all traps?”

Gil said, “The magician told us. She has the Ring of Mists. One of the Thirteen Treasures of Lyonesse. And I, for one, am not going to try to pull it off her finger by force.”

Matthias said, “No doubt that is wise. Imagine what your sword would do to someone who tried to take it from you by force.”

Gil said, “So how do we stop her from following us?”

Ruff chose that moment to romp around at Yumiko’s feet, to leap up, and to lick her in the face. She ineffectually tried to fend him off while simultaneous rubbing the wet off her cheeks.

Matthias said wryly, “You could always have your vicious dog stand guard over her, with orders to rip out her throat if she moves. That will work.”

Gil said, “Are you going to make jokes, or are you going to be serious?”

Matthias said, “Both at once. Serious is not the opposite of funny. Unfunny is the opposite of funny. A little levity will ensure we do not act in haste or anger.”

Gil raised his eyebrow higher. “Anger? I think that, considering she murdered a witness to whom I promised safe conduct just last winter and, just yesterday, threw a metal boomerang into my face and spirited away a villainous and recreant knight out of my hand, I am displaying remarkable courtesy. I called her ‘miss’ and said ‘please’ and everything.”

Matt said, “There is something really odd going on here.”

Gil said, “What? That Winged Vengeance or his sidekick has shown up yet again on a case we are working on to mess things up? That is beginning to seem kind of routine by now.”

Matthias said, “But why should she care what happens to Tom?”

Yumiko decided it was time to ready herself. She removed her sash and snapped it so that it transformed into a cape. From the flat inner pocket in the cape lining she drew her mask and put her trench coat away. She then connected the cape to her shoulder clips and felt the fabric move of its own accord as the struts of the (at the moment, unextended and unseen) wings connected to the parachute harness hidden beneath the suit. She drew her cowl and donned her mask and shrugged her baton into her hand. A flick of the wrist extended the baton to his longbow length, and she bent and strung it.

She said, “I have vowed a vow. Nothing will deter me.”

Ruff barked. Gil glanced at the dog and then stared at Yumiko. “Merry Christmas! You’re right.”

Matthias said, “What did he say?”

Gil said, “The thing she just did with her cape. The trick longbow. Tom built that. It looks like his handiwork anyway. Smart metal. Like the rocket skis in his boots.”

Matthias said to Yumiko, “Please tell us what is going on. What, exactly, is your interest in Tom?”

Yumiko said, “He is my fiancé. I think. I love him and he loves me.”

Gilberec and Matthias stared in silence, flabbergasted. Matthias shrugged, as if silently to ask if she were telling the truth. Gil slowly and gravely nodded, a look of astonishment growing ever larger on his face as he did so.

Eventually, Matthias took off his glasses and rubbed his nose. “Of course. I should have known. It was obvious. It all fits.”

Gil stood stock still. He looked at Matt. He sputtered for a moment. Finally, he found words again. “It was not obvious. It is not obvious now. How was it obvious? Nothing fits!”

Matt said, “Everything. The way he talked whenever she came up. The way he was acting weird, even for him. He was in love with her.”

Gil said, “What? How can you tell the way he acted was any different from the way he normally acted? Weird was normal for him!” He turned toward the dog. “Ruff! You must have known this. Why didn’t you tell me?”

The dogs ear’s drooped, and his eyes grew large and wet with doglike emotion. He put his head down on his paws and whimpered.

Gil said, “That is no excuse! Well, wait a moment. I suppose it is an excuse.” He sighed and knelt and petted the dog between the ears. “It’s okay. Good dog.”

Ruff thwacked his tail once, mollified.

Yumiko slid her mask back on her head and peered down. “What did he say?”

Gil said, “Ruff is showing you and Tom that he can be trusted. He did not spill Tom’s secrets to me, nor yours.” Ruff barked again. “He says you are a sneaky fox, and so you have a lot of trust issues.”

“Uh…” Yumiko took her gaze off his face and looked sidewise at nothing in particular.

Gil was still on his knees petting his dog. He looked up at Yumiko. “So how long has this been going on? You and Tom?”

Yumiko said, “I don’t know. I have no memory. I lost all my memories in the mist. An old entry in my diary said that Tom’s experiments show there is no cure for mist poisoning. Do you understand now why I must find him, and save him?”

Gil stood. He was tall and broad, and he gleamed like cold fire in his silvery armor. “I understand Tom would shoot me if I got his girlfriend killed. And you are my first cousin.”

Matthias said, “No, she has to come with us. Or, rather, we have to go with her.”

Gil looked skeptical. He did not speak but his expression spoke volumes.

“Think through everything we know now, Gil. We asked your mother about the Ring of Mists—what it does and who is looking for it—and we have already figured out most of what her answer meant. Tom brought Yumiko with him to break into the Glass Tower after stealing Rotwang’s Iron Mole machine. So she has the ring, and you know she did not steal it from Tom. I am assuming he pushed it onto her finger.”

Gil said, “You mean Tom planned this.”

Matthias said, “He certainly had something in mind. What do we know about the Tower of Glass? What do we know about the Crows of the Dismal Fell? Why did Tom not simply slip an arm around his ninja girlfriend, walk through the walls unseen, and float out of there like a ghost? Because, save for seven, no man comes back from Caer Sidi. The only way out was deeper in. He put the ring on her finger and stayed behind. Why?”

Gil said, “Out of chivalry.”

“Chivalry is your thing. His is quick thinking. What was he thinking?”

Yumiko answered, “That if he and I were separated, I would come looking for him. But if there was something I was supposed to do, some way to save him, I don’t recall. I don’t remember a thing. He could not have known I would lose my memory.”

Matthias said to her, “Tom is crazy smart. You said he was experimenting on mist effects, studying them. He knew overexposure caused amnesia. So maybe he did know.” Matthias turned to Ruff and said, “What do you think?”

Ruff barked.

Matthias adjusted his glasses on his nose. “See? Even your dog agrees with me.”

Gil said, “You don’t know what he said.”

Matthias said, “I cannot understand dog talk. That does not mean it is not obvious he agrees with me. Ruff is a good judge of character. Besides, you do not have to protect her. No one is going to lay a hand on her because no one will lay an eye on her. I might have to help her, but not you.”

Ruff wagged his tail. He barked again. Gil looked weary and stared at the heavy metal grating over the stairs leading down into darkness. “My own dog turned against me!”

Matthias said, “Okay, so I don’t know. What did he say?”

Gil gestured solemnly toward the heavy bars covering the stairhead. “Ruff pointed out that Yummy Cutie is the only one who can pick the lock to open the gate.”

6. Two Boons

Yumiko said cheerfully, “I have but two demands! Two boons you must grant me ere I unlock that gate! First, you, Gilberec Moth! Never call me Yummy Cutie again!”

Gil raised his hands as if in surrender. “Granted.”

Yumiko said, “And you! Matthias Moth!”

He said, “Yes?”

Once more she sank to her knees before him.

Matthias said, “I have explained that it is not a thing done lightly, or for gain, or for any reason other than the deepest. Even the bond of marriage is less than this, for Christ’s word is a sword that can and will sever friendships, families, nations.”

She said, “I have seen the power of your Christ. I have seen the elfs quail in fear at his name. His is the power that brought me back from death. I do not despise the teachings of the Buddha, the World-Enlightened One, but they do not comfort me. They do not feed me. To what else should I give my life? To vengeance? To vendetta? That is a nightmare. I wish to wake.”

Matthias said, “You are joining a host that marches with a war banner raised. Scorn, suffering, and martyrdom are what we gain in this life. Our sign is the dead tree on which the world crucified and cursed him. The Black Spell will be redoubled against you and all who are under its sway. Your pay is hate and scorn from all who love the world. Do you understand?”

“I am the daughter of Danger Moth, who slew the Monster Centipede of Seta-no-Karashi, and of Dandrenor of the Grail, who kept her watch faithfully unto death and thereby saved the Cup of Christ from stain. The blood of gods and true samurai flows in my veins. I know what is being asked of me.”

Matthias nodded. “Very well.” To Elfine, Matthias said, “Take that cup from my mule’s saddlebag, and go fill it up with water from the fountain. Come back here. You are going to be her godmother and be responsible for her moral instruction.”

Elfine smiled brightly. “I always wanted to be a fairy godmother!”

To Yumiko, Matthias said, “Do you renounce the Devil and all his works, the pomp and vanity of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh?”

Chapter Twelve: The Devil’s Own Door

1. The Underground World

The pack horse, riding horse, and mule were left behind.

The weight of the earth seemed to grow ever more massive and oppressive above them. Ruff was in front, sniffing. Gilberec tramped down the dark stair, flight after flight of them, as the air grew still and stale. Rabicane was surefooted on the stairs as a goat on a crag and moved with remarkable silence for a beast so large and covered with mail and plate.

Gilberec carried no light and seemed to need none. Yumiko had her flashlight, but it was tuned to ultraviolet.

Matthias was in the rear, with a silver lantern burning holy oil in one hand and an aspergilium of holy water in the other. This was a silver instrument, shaped something like a miniature mace, designed to sprinkle holy water from a reservoir in the handle though a perforated orb at the tip. A clamshell cowl covered the orb at the moment to prevent drips.

A time came when Gil froze, Rabicane neighed in alarm, and Ruff growled, his ears flat. Gil said, “Matt, I think there is something here on the stairs. Ahead of me.”

Matthias said, “It is someone who needs our help. He says that he was pulled out of his grave from underneath, through the bottom of the coffin, and that the wolves are mauling and despoiling his body.”

Gil said, “Ask him to lead the way.”

Yumiko twisted the ring on her finger. The dark stair grew darker, and the lines of perspective of the flights leading down no longer seemed to converge correctly, as if the geometry were somehow askew. Standing on the stair was a young man in a coat and tie. It was not until he turned that Yumiko saw the massive wounds tearing him nearly in half. His entrails spilled out his back and dragged along on the ground behind him.

Nauseated, she turned her head. Behind her, on the stairs leading up and up out of sight, were packs of dogs. These dogs looked like shadows, with lamps for eyes, and made no more noise than a fog bank rolling over the countryside as they walked.

Yumiko twisted the ring on her finger back to white. The dead man and the shadow dogs were no more to be seen. She whispered to Matthias, “What is behind us? There is something following us down the stairs.”

Matthias said, “These are the shadows of all the dogs who ever killed a carrion-eater that despoiled a man’s corpse or dug up a coffin. They are called the Hounds of Saint Anthony the Anchorite. He is the patron of gravediggers. He often fought demons that assumed the shapes of beasts of the desert. May he help us now!”

“Did you call them?”

Matthias laughed. “Not I! I am but the student. My Master, Father Dominic, sends them with his blessing because the enemy has been foolish enough to despoil holy ground. Without their help, we would stand no chance.”

The stairs emptied into a cave. The floor was uneven, and still pools stood in certain places, glinting in the light of Matt’s lantern. Great mouths and vents opened to their left and right, with pits and slopes in further caves rising or falling. But underfoot was stone, and here and there marks in the surface where heavy weights had been hauled. In places a line of boards or pallets or ramps had been laid to allow workmen to pull loads over uneven rock.

The cave led to a series of tunnels. There was no clear path there as the wooden boards now forked and forked again. Apparently, many workmen had been busy for a long while hauling crates from several entry points into this underground world.

They came across a chimney in the roof worming upward. Directly beneath was a broken coffin, which had apparently been pulled down from its resting place. The labyrinth path swerved here, and came to a second chimney, and a third, all with crawling channels leading upward to the broken bottoms of despoiled graves. There were many more forks and tunnels leading left and right to other fresh graves.

It was a labyrinth. They would have soon been lost, but Matthias calmly pointed out the turns as the ghost told him.

They came suddenly on another flight of stairs, leading down and down through a wide gap into a great open space. The walls to either side opened wide, and the stairs grew broad. The roof was left behind. Below was a cavern akin in size and shape to the one Yumiko had seen in Is-Elfydd.

2. Mists and Magic

Yumiko gasped at the size of the cavern and at the width of the buried valley it held. As they began to descend the stairs into it, Matt said, “You are probably wondering how such large, empty places could be below Queens without the roof collapsing or the river seeping in. All these caves were carved out by the sea long ago at the command of the mermaids, and they are only partway resting in our world.”

She said, “I was not wondering. I assumed it was magic.”

He said, “It is magic indeed, but magic is bound by rules as iron hard as the rules of physics or ethics but hidden from the eyes of men. Do not think these things happen for no reason or as in a dream.”

Yumiko said, “I meant I thought it was magic as in my ring, which can reduce mass.”

He said, “Very much like your ring or Gil’s sword.”

“His sword? It does not seem anything like my ring.”

Matthias smiled. “They work on the same principle.”

“What principle?”

“That the Creator made both seen and unseen, and it cannot be unmade. Matter or energy can be combined or changed in form but neither created nor destroyed. Sins can be atoned by another in your place but not merely wished into nothingness. Where do your visual elements go when you turn invisible? Or where does your mass go when you turn weightless? Is it destroyed?”

Yumiko decided that Matthias had the spirit of a schoolteacher. She said, “It goes into a realm of mist. Nothing is destroyed.”

Matthias said, “So it is with Dyrnwen. The sword makes visible and palpable the unseen fire of the spirit, for the blade glows more brightly the nobler the hand who wields it. The blade pulls fire out of that world into this.”

Yumiko was doubtful. “I have seen no fires in the mists.”

“Then you have seen only the lower parts, where sad ghosts linger. There are high places there. Bright beings dwell in them.”

3. The Infernal Lake

Down they went. A reddish glow, dancing and rippling, could be dimly seen in the distance, and the tall black shadows of some intervening columns of stone blocked their view.

Like a furnace under bellows, the red light suddenly turned orange and bright and leaped upward. Before them was a wide circular cave, interrupted with many columns where stalagmites and stalactites had grown together. Midmost in the cave was a lake of burning black fluid. Fires danced and smoldered here and there across the surface, which was boiling. From this the light came.

The lake was large, interrupted by many stalagmites that rose like islands in the black fluid. A shoreline of pebbles and black sand reached to the left and right in a great circle around the lake.

At the far side of the lake, opposite them, were a dozen or more pavilions with banners. Only one of them had a lamp inside, casting a glow through the silk tent walls. The rest were dark. An area to the left of the pavilions had been fenced off as a corral wide enough to hold a dozen horses but empty now save for palfreys.

Beyond the pavilion, set in to the wall of the cave, was a tall door. Yumiko had seen this door, or one like it, not long ago. It was as big and broad as a gate in a castle wall, peaked at the top, with massive hinges and hasps. The doorknob, even from a distance in the bad light, gleamed and glittered like a ruby larger than a softball, winking with red fire.

There were two arrow slits piercing the cave wall, one to either side of the door. Bright light shined through the slits. The horizontal slit was near the bottom of the vertical slit, which gave them the aspect of upside-down crosses.

Before the pavilion was a trestle table. Human skeletons red with blood and gnawed remnants of haunches of meat were piled on the table, amid many black candles.

Between the feast table and the fiery lakeshore was a narrow space of sand and rock, where many hulking, furry, lupine shapes lounged. One or two stirred, or paced, or lashed a tail or flicked an ear, but most were still and silent, as if torpid with sleep after much feasting. In the flickering shadows of the stone columns, it was hard to estimate the numbers, but it was easily over two hundred.

To either side of this shore where the werewolves were gathered stood a tall line of Egyptian statues in stiff postures. Each was twice the height of a tall man. They wore narrow beards and carven headdresses or miters or crowns either bulbous or peaked, and hieroglyphs were incised down torso and leg. The stone hands held wooden flails or curved bronze swords like sickles.

Firelight glittered balefully in the blank eyesockets of the statues, and Yumiko understood that these were alive and malign.

4. The Watchman

Down the final flight of stairs went Ruff, Gil, the warhorse, Yumiko, and Matthias. The column of agitated flame dancing across the infernal lake died down, and the orange light returned to a sullen and scattered red glow. The great cavern was lost into shadows. The light from the fiery lake was visible in patches. The lamp from the one occupied pavilion, the candles on the grisly feast table, and the glowing arrow slits near the tall door were as dim as stars on a foggy night.

The stairway passed between two tall stalagmites rising like boar tusks from the uneven floor. Yumiko saw a heat signature coming from one of the stalagmites. She raised her bow and shot. The shaft slid hissing through the air to the right of Gil, who flinched in surprise, raising his shield. A man wearing a wolfskin cloak, many gold necklaces, and an expensive pair of running shoes, now swayed into view. His chest was painted blue with woad. A Tommy gun was in his hand. An arrow was protruding from his neck. He fell to the ground with a sigh.

Ruff inched forward and sniffed. Gil bent down and pulled out the arrow. He stared at the hypodermic needle in the tip. “What is this?”

“Tranquilizer,” answered Yumiko. “I am trying not to kill as many people.”

Gil said, “Well, Cousin, you and I do not think alike. You rob him of his chance to fight me. I cannot slay a sleeping man, nor is it wise to leave him alive behind me.”

Yumiko pointed with her bowstaff at the ram horn the guard wore on a strap about his shoulder. “I did not want him to give the alarm.”

“I am not come like a thief in the night.” Gil took up the guard’s ram horn in his hand. Gil had a lance strapped to his steed. He took the lance and sprang lightly into the saddle. “What does our guide say? Is this the place?”

Matthias looked at a point in midair where nothing was visible, and said, “Yes. But there were more wolves here before, and a magician, and a cavalry of strange knights. He says that the dark door appeared as the Lord of Wolves performed the black mass and feasted on raw human flesh. He calls it the Devil’s Own Door.”

Yumiko said, “I saw that door inside a magic shop on Park Avenue and Lexington. A hob in a bottle told me its name. The Tithing Ground is beyond it.”

Ruff barked. Gil said, “Ruff says this is their way out. The wolves are going to use it to go up into the city.”

Matthias said, “It is a moon-door. In the same way a mermaid pouch makes more space fit into a narrow volume than should, a moon-door remove the space between two points.”

Gil said, “I used to have one leading to my attic. Why haven’t they used it yet?”

Yumiko said, “Can a moon-door point at different targets?”

Gil said, “My attic door would follow us from house to house across country, so, yes, I guess they can open into more than one spot.”

Yumiko said to Matthias, “Ask the ghost who passed through that door last?”

Matthias said, “Our guide says that thirteen strange knights came, and one was posted here to guard the door, but that nonetheless thirteen went through the door.”

Gil said, “Thirteen minus one does not equal thirteen.”

Matthias said, “In elfish math, it does.”

Yumiko said, “The thirteenth man was Tom. They disguised him. Tom went through that door. The wolves are waiting here because that door, at this moment, does not open up into the magic shop. The door opens up on to the Tithing Ground! Today and now Tom is being tithed!”

Gil said, “Then you have to get to the door, Cousin. Hurry! I will lure or drive the Red Knight away from the door. I go right; you left. Go!”

Now Gil turned to Matthias, and leaned down from his saddle. “If I do not make it back alive, here is a letter to give my mother, and here is one for Nerea.” Ruff barked. “And tell the Green Knight to tell his dog that Ruff died bravely, too. Follow her. She may need your help.”

Yumiko sprinted off down the dark sands. Matthias made the sign of the cross and ran off after the girl in black.

Gil saluted them with his lance and rode the other way down across the black sand at the edge of the fiery lake, going counterclockwise, blowing a blast that rang and echoed from the unseen cave roofs above.

5. The Wolf Pack

Gil now threw the ram horn away and readied his lance and shield. Rabicane trotted, then galloped, and then charged.

Not scores but hundreds of the round, humped shadows gathered around the feet of all the stalagmites or resting on the black sand now stirred, and stood, and reared up, eyes blazing. Hundreds more of the lupine shapes, eyes glinting, began to appear between the columns near the cave wall, where folds of rock or tricks of shadows held dens and tunnels driven back into the stone.

Howls, terrible howls, split the air and smote the ear.

There were werewolves gathered on the sand before her, but Yumiko twisted the ring, rendering herself unseen. These wolves, one and all, hearing the horn call and seeing the armed and armored knight on his huge steed running along the far shore, dashed into the fiery waters. They were licked by flames, but their werewolf fur was unburnt and unhurt.

Yumiko was terrified, certain he would be killed. She glanced back, wondering where Matthias was. She saw the Hounds of Saint Anthony, a great and invisible host of shadows, pouring down the stair and across the black sand, following Gilberec. It was like seeing a black cloud of some gas heavier than air rolling out from a spigot and spreading to fill a volume. Some hounds ran on the cave’s black sand, some through the cave’s black air.

Gilberec encountered the first wolf and impaled him neatly on his spear. The monster did not die, but snapped at the wooden haft with his teeth, yowling and yammering. Gil yanked the bloody spearhead free and plunged it in again, but the monster, undaunted, pressed forward, snapping. Gil with Herculean strength hoisted the spear up, hauling the living animal aloft, overhead, and sent it spinning and screaming from the tip of his lance and into the lake of fire.

Two and three and a dozen wolves were leaping upon Gil in the next moment, but Rabicane jumped over them and trampled them with mighty hooves while the spear of Gilberec darted left and right, as swift and deadly as the horn of a unicorn in wild wrath.

Splashing through the red mud, Gilberec reached a spot where the beach was narrow, and only three or four could come at him at a time. But the werewolves were not afraid of fire and were not burned by the boiling lake, and so half a hundred came swimming and wading and splashing through the black and boiling liquid, surrounding him.

His spear lodged between the jaws of a dreadful wolf and was lost to his grasp. Now he drew his fair white-hilted sword, born in the forges of elfs. The blade, which burst into flame, white hot, was as bright as the flames from thirty torches. The wolves yowled, dazed and maddened by the light.

Ruff climbed to the top of a stalagmite. He had donned his green hat and green gloves, so now he had hands like a human. Tail wagging, tongue lolling, he lifted up the Tommy gun the watchman had dropped and opened fire. A roaring, shattering staccato of thunder gushed from the gun. The werewolves were annoyed, as if by bee stings, but the bullets were not silver and hurt them not.

Yumiko ran on. There were no wolves between her and the dark door. But a line of tall and impassive statues stood along the wall to her left, and she saw their bleak eyes moving, following her.

Ahead, standing before the door itself, was a knight in red, fully armored, and on his horse, his lance above him, pennant dangling. His helm was lighter than what he had worn to joust, but his shield and coat were the same. The heraldry on the shield she knew well: Sable, a dolphin uriant embowed Gules dented Or. This was Sir Garlot. On his back, writhing and blowing in unearthly winds, was his great Cloak of Mists.

She hid behind a stalagmite, fearing that his cloak gave him the power to see her. But his helm was turned the other way, where the armies of werewolves were chased by and retreating from the Swan Knight. Smoke and fire came from the wounds of many wolves, and dozens had fallen. Scores and hundreds more remained, and more and more poured up out of openings and crevasses in floor and walls.

The dogs of Anthony the Anchorite descended like a crashing wave. The wolves near Gil now twisted, and shuddered, and screamed in madness. Yumiko could see the shadowy dogs pulling the dark wolf-shaped spirits out of the spines of the possessed men or yanking them out of their throats. A dozen of them and then a score, two score, more, suddenly turned from wolf creatures into naked men wearing wolf pelts or wolf cloaks.

Their eyes were dazed and bestial, and their mouths were spitting foam and shouting wordless shouts. The dreadful intelligence of the werewolves was gone, the power which allowed them to assume the shape and strength of wolves was gone, and their immunity to wounds and fear was gone.

The ones Ruff had previously shot now fell down dead, slain by the self same bullet wounds the werewolves had ignored, but, to which mere human flesh was not immune. The hundred or so wading through the burning lake had all their human flesh turn red and black in the surly fires. They screamed and floundered, inhaling flame directly into their lungs. When those near the shore, coated with the boiling and burning fluid, ran out onto the sand, the sticky black fluid clung to them, and flames lashed out at the hair and skin of those they stumbled through.

Had they been able to coordinate, to rush at Gilberec with their hands, or to pick up stones from the cavern floor and hurl them, their numbers would have surely prevailed.

But a human being running on all fours, naked, armed only with the puny fingernails and puny teeth of a human being, was no match for a fully armed and armored knight on horseback no matter their numbers. And these were not all young and athletic men either but included many thin and weak and sickly who yearned for the potent bodies of wolf monsters.

As for the true werewolves, those dread spirits forced to relinquish their human hosts, Yumiko could see the terrible battling in the middle of the air. She heard the snarls of dogs and the howls of wolves.

Spirit was fighting spirit, and shadow was fighting shadow. She could see the shapes reflected in the smoke above the burning lake or reflected in the leaping shadows dancing across the crags and cracks of the walls and cave roof. It was horrible.

The great sword of Gilberec rose and fell, and burning men in wolf cloaks ran in circles, their blood catching on fire, fire billowing from their mouths and spurting from their eyesockets. The beach was narrow. Many fell into the lake of fire, and, as they did so, flames from the disturbed surface shot into the air. First one, and then many columns of fire rose up, roaring and blisteringly hot from the black surface. The heat began to crack the pillars holding up the cave roof.

Yumiko frowned up at the cave roof, for little streamers of dust were beginning to sift down through the dark air.

Now a great chunk of roof came whistling down through the air and struck the lake. An immense gush of fire, yellow mingled with white, rose up from the splash.

6. The Red Knight’s Squire

In that light, Yumiko saw Sir Garlot drive his spurs into his steed. At his shoulder was his squire, the one who had wanted to kiss her. They were only twenty or so yards ahead, and the fires from the burning lake and the glory of Gilberec’s bright sword lit the whole scene bright as day, sending black shadows leaping across the rough and broken ground and walls.

The squire raised his trumpet to his lips and blew. The men in wolf pelts shrieked in reply and drew back from Gilberec, some crowding near the cave wall, others crowding and whimpering near the shore line. This left an empty lane between the two crowds.

Into that lane now came Sir Garlot, riding atop Tachebrun. Seeing Gilberec had no spear in hand, Garlot cast his spear aside and drew his sword. The two men saluted each other by flourishing their blades.

Yumiko ran toward the dark door, furious at herself for having paused. But the squire was still in the way. She shot an arrow at him, but the hypodermic head did not penetrate his coat of rings. The youth drew his dirk but could not see his attacker. She whirled a boomerang toward his head, catching him in the throat and meanwhile spun a weighted chain from her kusarigama around his knees. She yanked, he fell, and now she was able to impale his exposed calf with a throwing knife carrying a hypodermic of tranquilizer clamped at its point.

Now she saw a strange thing. The stone statues had seemed not to move, but now more than one was positioned in front of an opening or cleft in the wall, preventing the yowling werewolves behind them from entering. Several statues had dead werewolves at their feet, with blood upon their hands or flails or their crooked, sickle-shaped swords. All this was hidden in the mists. Had she not been in the mists herself, she would not have seen it.

Whatever it meant, there was no time to ponder mysteries. Yumiko reached out her hand toward the red crystal knob. Before her hand touched it, the arrow slits to either side blazed brightly, and the door groaned and began to open.

7. The Northbrood

Two figures were standing at the door arch. A cold as fierce as a curtain of iron thorns fell across her. They were slender, pale, and narrow-faced figures with long black hair falling past their shoulders. Both wore low-crowned and wide-brimmed black hats and long black cloaks. Beneath the cloaks, their narrow feet were naked.

With one slow and coordinated motion, both raised their heads. She saw their mouths with pale lips.

Both smiled. Their fangs were like the fangs of serpents and unfolded from their upper jaws as their dreadful smiles widened.

With nightmarish slowness, both took a silent step forward. They were drawn forward more quickly than a single slow footstep could account for, or perhaps the shadows about them were growing in size, or perhaps perspective and distance were collapsing.

Their eyes were like distant stars, and a cold like that of the arctic midnight reached from those eyes directly into her heart. A wave of weakness burned away her willpower and ate up her strength like fire among dry leaves. She knelt; she fell. With her last strength, she twisted the ring on her hand from iron to pewter to silver to argent. White starlight spilled from her hand. The two cold figures raised their hands, squinting, and hissed in annoyance.

Yumiko heard Elfine’s shrill cry in the near distance behind her. This was the last sound she expected, and her reaction was one of terror for her unarmed friend. “There she is! There!”

Then, she heard the voice of Matthias, calm and even toned. “Kyrie eleison. God, our Lord, King of Ages, All-powerful and Almighty, you who in Babylon changed into dew the furnace flames and protected and saved the three holy children…”

Matthias stepped into her view. In one hand he held high the silver lantern. In the other was the aspergilium. The silver lantern suddenly blazed brighter, and he flicked his wrist to close the hood. The hood of the lantern was perforated with the image of a cross. A beam of light shaped like a cross fell across first one of the pallid men and then the other.

Matthias raised his ringing voice above their thin, shrill, and wretched screams. “We beseech you to make powerless, banish, and drive out every diabolic power, presence, and machination; every evil influence, malefice, or evil eye, and all evil actions…”

The two pale men screamed and tried to flee. Both raised their arms. Shadows gathered and spread from armpit to elbow and down their sides to their thighs, and they assumed the forms and features of two gigantic black bats. With a swirling gust of wind, they clawed their way into the air.

“…Burn all these evils in Hell, that they may never again touch me or any other creature in the entire world…”

Large creatures could not take off swiftly. Matthias flicked his aspergilium, and drops of holy water fell across their wings and brought them crashing to the floor. Where the drops touched, shadow and substance, flesh and bone, were torn apart, and sizzling white flames shot up.

“…where they will be bound by Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Gabriel, Saint Raphael, our guardian angels, and where they will be crushed under the heel of the Immaculate Virgin Mary…”

Both bat creatures changed their heads back to human heads and began speaking in effeminate voices, blaspheming, cursing, threatening, squealing. Matthias flicked his wrist to send tiny and gentle sprinkles of water across their cheeks, which made their screaming faces collapse inward, their skulls implode, and their heads evaporate into black ash. The batlike bodies shrank, burning, legs and wings bent at crooked angles.

A suction force reach up through the floor dragged them below and out of sight.

“The Lord is my salvation,” said Matthias solemnly. “Whom shall I fear?”

8. The Living Creatures

Yumiko had risen to her knees. Elfine landed on her shoulder.

“What are you doing here?” Yumiko was angry.

“I got bored.” Elfine rolled her eyes. “The horses are fine.”

“But–”

Elfine tugged Yumiko’s hair braid to try to pull her upright, “Save Gil!”

Yumiko got her feet under her, stood, and turned her head. On the black sand halfway around the circumference of the lake from their current position, Sir Garlot was exchanging blows with Sir Gilberec, but the gray vapor from Garlot’s cloak rose up, and Garlot was visible only as a shadow of motion seen from the corner of the eye or not at all.

The sickly, twisted men in wolf coats, and the werewolves as yet untouched by the shadow dogs, who stood in two columns watching the combat, were cheering, jeering, and mocking Gil with howls and curses.

Gilberec swung again and again at the unseen foe, but his blade cut through rock, or cut through air, or glanced from an unseen shield. He could not parry what he could not see. In half a dozen places, his bright armor was pierced, and crimson blood stained his silver surcoat, leggings, sleeves, and saddle. Yumiko could see that Garlot was now behind Gilberec and had taken his sword in two hands, readying to strike at the other knight’s unshielded back.

Yumiko saw that the starlight her argent ring shed could not reach so far. Even if she entered the black world of the ghosts, she could not reach Gil before Garlot’s blow fell. And she had been warned not to enter that world again.

In desperation, she twisted the ring deasil one more time. The metal changed from argent to a brilliant alloy of solidified brightness, an ethereal metal with no name on Earth. The angel face in the intaglio turned into an archangel. The starlight gathered and grew bright and brighter until it seemed the noonday sun was on her finger.

The scene changed. She saw no wolves. The men who stood looking on all now were handsome, bright, and beautiful, but foul raiments, rags, and tatters of filth clung to them, as if they swam in sewage. Maggots and loathsome insects covered their beautiful faces.

A titanic living creature now stood behind Gilberec. A second was behind Elfine and a third loomed over Matthias. The three living creatures were armed with spears and great round shields the hue of a beryl stone. Their flesh burned as brightly as brass seen in a furnace. Each had four faces, as of a man, a bull, a lion, and an eagle, which could turn in any direction. They had six wings, two folded over their bodies as cloaks, two entwined about their midriffs like skirts, and two spread and displayed. Their feet were round hooves cloven like a bull’s hoof. Their whole bodies and backs and hands and wings were full of eyes.

Energy like burning coals or balled lightning moved up and down and among the living creatures and shot from their countless eyes, and the fires were bright, and out of the fires came bolts of lightning.

These creatures were not merely tall, but they seemed to reach upward into infinity so that nebulae and gathered galaxies formed crowns around their fourfold heads. How it was that their bodies were within this tiny underground chamber, which could not have held even the smallest finger of arms longer than the arms of spiral galaxies, was something her eyes could not tell her. Her thoughts scattered like startled fish, unable to see what she was seeing.

The flares of light also issued from behind her. She turned. A fourth living creature was standing over her, and she was in the shadow of its shield. The countless eyes of its wings and body and terrible fourfold faces regarded her with gazes of all-consuming fire.

Yumiko screamed in utmost terror at this apparition. She threw herself on the ground.

One of the lightning bolts issuing from the countless eyes now reached down and smote Yumiko in the head. To her surprise, she did not die, but instead had a clear and sudden thought. She yanked the ring off her finger.

The four-faced living creatures vanished.

As before, the ring kept the same aspect and shape as when on her finger, so the bright sunlight continued to pour forth.

Elfine must have had the same inspiration occur to her at the same moment, for before Yumiko even opened her mouth to speak, Elfine had taken the ring in her two doll-sized hands. The brightness from the ring touched the brightness shed by Elfine’s wings and ignited them. Her speed became like the speed of an arrow, a comet, a thought. Between Gilberec and the descending sword she flew, carrying the ring, leaving a streak of dazzling light in her wake. The mists of Garlot’s cloak were no more. Gilberec saw, and turned, and blocked the cowardly blow, and then he laughed a great laugh. Garlot uttered a moan of fear. Elfine hovered above Gil, far out of any reach, and drew circles and loops and figure eights in the air.

Elfine danced and laughed at the sight of Sir Garlot unable to vanish or escape. She banged the ring against her hip like a pretend tambourine, danced or wore it like a glowing crown, at other times spun it about her waist like a hula hoop, and shimmied in midair, changing her size to match.

As one, the Egyptian statues ground into motion. They fell upon the werewolves from behind with flail and sword, and methodically, silently, began to kill and maim them and to hurl the huge wolflike bodies into the central lake. The fury of the lake grew, and flames erupted, and more debris fell from the ceiling. The wolves, in a madness of wrath, attacked the statues, breaking stone fingers and toppling one of them, which then stood up again, face impassive.

“I don’t understand what is happening!” exclaimed Yumiko.

Matthias pulled her to her feet. “Tom is beyond that door. Do you understand that?”

In they ran.

9. The Tithing Ground

They found themselves not in the back of the magic shop but in a strange landscape. The sky above was starless and black as a midnight sea beneath storm clouds, and the air was heavy and oppressive. A full moon, silver and huge, hung above the scene. But this was not the moon as it looked when seen from Earth’s surface. One small ocean like the eye of a Cyclopes was in one quarter of the pale face.

Yumiko wondered if this were the far side always turned away from Earth. Tom would surely know.

She and Matthias stood in a land of silvery dust, fine as fine ash, and here and there rose square-sided columns. These looked like headless Egyptian obelisks—or perhaps something older than Egypt. In one place the columns stood in pairs, and a crosspiece or capstone made them into tall and narrow structures like gates. Yumiko thought they looked like the torii of a Shinto shrine but cruder, simpler.

Matthias was climbing as quickly as he could up the sliding, sandy slope of the nearest silvery ash heap, coughing. Yumiko sealed her mask and followed him, wishing she had her ring with her. Her lighter footfalls stirred up less dust.

He pointed. The fine dust was making him cough, and he did not speak. Yumiko looked. From this vantage, she could see that each flat-topped obelisk was carved into a weeping mask that stared forever upward toward the black heaven, mouth open in despair. The capstones of the dolmens were placed directly atop these masks; the brow or the chin was visible from beneath the capstones.

Yumiko saw that the dolmens formed a line, as if the stones marked a straight path half hidden beneath the silver sands. In the distance, perhaps a mile away, perhaps two, she saw a line of slim steeds and cloaked figures riding, with little lamps like fireflies—or serving fairies—hanging near their heads and keeping pace.

Behind the horsemen came loping three score werewolves, with caparisons of linen thrown across their backs, trotting in order. The wolf paws kicked up silvery dust, and their paw prints reached behind them in a line. The hoofs of the steed stirred up no dust and left no tracks, and by this, Yumiko understood these were elfin steeds.

She could see them sharp and clear against the black sky as they crossed a rise. She counted. There were thirteen horsemen.

Yumiko began to run down the slippery hill of silvery ash and kicked up a blinding cloud. With each step, the soft ashy surface sucked on her feet and clutched her ankles. She halted before she toppled downslope.

Matthias came stepping and sliding after her. He coughed and said, “This ground is not meant for anything as heavy and clumsy as man or Moth.”

Yumiko said, “I left my ring behind to save Gil. How do we catch them?”

At that moment, from beyond the distant hills, came a sound of bright and haunting trumpets. It was the horn call of the elfs.

It was answered by a shrill, thin wail, rising and falling, of an inhuman voice. The lingering cry contained no words but was filled with bitter hatred, pain, and malice. It was the voice of Hell.

“They greet each other,” said Yumiko. “Have you some power to carry us across the mile between? Across these dunes?”

Matthias was rubbing his thumb against his fingers. She saw a trickle of the silver ash falling. He said, “This substance is human dreams and hopes, ground into powder. This is a realm of dreams, but we are not in the part where human dreams reach. The kings who ruled before Adam are trapped in this place.”

She said, “How can that help?”

“The laws are different here.” He took off his glasses and put them carefully in a pocket. “I can assume my true form without harm. I will be naked, but it should not embarrass you.” Then, he lowered his hood and spread his arms, pulling his cloak up like wings. Shadows gathered around him, and his body shivered and shrank.

A moment later a batlike creature made of solidified darkness shook itself free from Matthias’s cloak. It was larger than a condor, larger than a pterodactyl. A fearful coldness came from the black creature. The dust in the air about its nostrils and mouth was not disturbed by any breathing. It was not alive.

Yumiko stepped back. “You are a vampire!”

The big-eared bat skull shrank, and stretched, and formed Matt’s head. “Well, yes and no. It is sort of an interesting case, really…”

But the sight of the shadows around him, altering his form, suddenly brought a buried memory to the surface. It was not something she remembered with her mind, but there was a tingling in her fingers and toes, almost as if her flesh and blood were trying to remember something.

He said, “Don’t be afraid…”

She wrapped her arms around him, wings and all, and hugged the monstrous shadow form to her bosom.

“…or, um, on second thought, perhaps you should be more afraid than this.”

“Turn back into a boy and then back into your spirit form.”

“I’d be naked.”

“Quick! As quickly as you can! I have to feel what it feels like.”

The bat creature gave a shrug. “Okay. This is what confession is for.”

The shadows dispersed from him. For a moment, she was holding a tall and naked young man in her arms. His unfocused eyes were averted, staring upward. The black shadows again swirled around him.

She could feel what was happening. She felt his human flesh sinking and rotating into another direction, another type of reality. His spirit, which was a higher condition of being, swelled outward, came to the surface, and solidified.

She held him tightly so that he had to strain and push to bring his batlike form into solidity. And she let her own flesh get pushed by the strange pressure in the opposite direction, the opposite condition.

Her suit and mask were tighter than his and took her a longer moment to grip the collar with her snapping jaws to twist and win free. The grinning fox mask lay in the silver ash, staring up.

The vampire Matthias swirled his batwings of darkness and shadow around him and cocked his head to one side.

The white vixen was larger than any natural fox, and a white pearl hovered near her in the air. More by instinct than memory, she rolled the pearl over her shed suit and mask and watched them be pulled inside.

“You don’t seem surprised,” said the she-fox.

He said, “Well, I lost a bet with a dog. That will show me.”

She said, “Should I try to carry your gear? What can you do without it?”

“Drink life, smother joy, strangle laughter. Nothing good. But my gear might blast your fox-spirit pearl if you touch it. Make for the cavalcade as fast as you can! I only fly slowly in this form, so do not wait for me.”

“I do not really have a plan,” she admitted.

“Plans are overrated,” said Matt. “Faith is sure. Did you think your will, or mine, arranged all this? Go! You will know what to do when the time comes. And may Saint Herve guide you!”

The ash was now firm underfoot. Like the elf steeds, she left no footprints as she ran. With labored and pumping strokes the bat-winged monster pulled itself into the dark air and flopped after her. She soon outdistanced him.

The sound of many small silver bells chiming came over the dunes.

Chapter Thirteen: The Gem of Memory

1. The Cavalcade

She topped the rise and saw where the dunes and hills of silver ashes petered out, got lower, and came to an end. The landscape beyond was a level plain of broken slabs and flakes that looked like salt flats, if salt were black rather than white or shattered mirror of black glass.

Beneath the spiderwebby and broken surface were dim skull-shaped shadows, half visible beneath the bright moon, of giants trapped below the surface like flies in amber.

In three places along the horizon the unearthly flatness of the landscape was broken by the silhouette of a giant hand or arm half-pushed out of the glassy surface, fingers half closed as if still clawing for freedom, each finger taller than a skyscraper.

Nearer, a great well had been carved down into the glass, reaching down past the lips and fangs and into the throat of the huge, half-seen, motionless form. Two vast eyes like lakes of jelly quivered under the surface.

In a semicircle about this well stood twelve hooded figures, each three times the size of a man.

A tongue of silver ash reached out toward this well and nearly touched it. Above this tongue or walkway of ash, the final dolmen in the long line rose.

The elfin cavalcade was even now trotting quite silently down the line of dolmens leading here. One square gateway of stone the thirteen steeds passed by and then another. They approached the final dolmen.

Beneath that final dolmen, but standing on the dark glass, not the bright sand, was a thirteenth hooded figure. Even from a distance, Yumiko recognized her. One of the feet beneath the robe was a leg of bronze. The other was the hoof of a donkey. Issuing from the hood were the heads of the serpents woven about her head as a crown. It was Empousa of Tartarus.

Yumiko raced across the silver sands. She could not feel her paws, nor did she breathe any breath, so great was her speed. No dust was kicked into the air behind her.

Then she was between the last two dolmens. The last dolmen was black stones, and the dolmen before it, a few yards away, was dark red. Only a few grains of silver were scattered on the dark, glassy, cracked surface underfoot. Her tongue lolled; she panted.

The elfin lords on their beautiful steeds were riding toward her. On the other side, behind her, the veiled and hooded face of Empousa was lifting up, and dark eyes that flashed with regal pride gazed silently down on the little white she-fox.

The elfin lords were passing beneath the red dolmen. Each wore a bright cloak of green, woven with patterns of leaves from different trees and plants. The cloaks were voluminous and fell across the flanks and withers of the steeds. These were much like horses but with the hooves of deer and tails of lions.

The steeds were caparisoned in bright lozenges or diamonds of silver against black, green against gold, or green against silver. Four of the riders held standards emblazoned with heraldry. The steeds wore no barding, except, oddly, on their skulls. The chanfron covering each mount’s head was engraved and etched to look like a fanciful human face: ragged beggar or crowned king, jester in coxcomb or veiled priestess, soldier in helm or poet in laurels. Each hooded rider likewise wore a mask engraved to be a fanciful equine face, as a horse, unicorn, or hippogriff.

The first rider in the line, seeing the white vixen before him, reined and halted. His cloak was birch leaf, and his mask was a destrier. “By wood and welkin, what sly diversion have we here? Phadrig Og, what say you?” The voice was musical lilt, a man’s brogue.

The second rider bore aloft a standard of a gold harp on a sable field. His cloak was rowan leaf, and his mask was a hippocamp, with gills at the equine cheeks and fins for ears. He reined his steed and bent his masked head toward the first rider. “Noble Majesty, no doubt some ill-wisher seeks to hinder the payment of the tithe. Let us blast the intruder with nine deadly songs and ride on.”

Yumiko looked back and forth along the line of riders. Which one was Tom? When she found him, how could she free him?

The third rider came forward, and the first two were forced to fall back and make way. He wore the mask of Sleipnir, or some mythic horse with four ears, and his cloak was the leaf of the ash tree. There was no eyehole on the right of his mask. Within the left-hand eyehole, his eye glinted a greenish gold. “King Brian, tell your vassal to stay his voice! We ride not now on Elfin ground, and the mouth of Hell is but a pace away. In this place, no weapon of silver nor weapon of song may be raised. Puck! What is this creature?”

A fourth rider carried a banner of a she-lion of gold on a green field. His cloak was alder leaf, and his mask was the face of a jenny. A male voice, his tones sly and wicked, came trippingly forth. “The gleam of starlight dances in the vixen’s fur and the scent of Sarras fallen. But see how the passing seconds and minutes pass through the creature’s eyes. No highborn elf is this, but a filthy half-breed. The blood of Eve the Accursed muddies her veins. Some Moth or Cobweb, this.”

Yumiko opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. She lowered her head warily and looked back and forth, whiskered nose twitching. She thought it better not to speak, not in this place, not if no one here knew who or what she was.

Now came a fifth rider, masked as a unicorn, whose robe was willow leaf. A regal feminine voice seeped from her mask. “Trample her. That is neither drawing a weapon nor singing a rune.”

The sixth rider was also a woman. She was masked as a hippogriff with a beak of gold, and her cloak was hawthorn. Her banner displayed a white tree of seven branches on a green field. “Queen Ethne, the eyes of Empousa glint strangely at us. It may be unsightly to shed blood so near the Hellmouth. It would be like spilling wine into the sand a pace away from a man parched with thirst.”

Yumiko now grinned. Six riders had spoken. Six had not. It was likely Tom was among those six. She held perfectly still, eyes darting, hoping the others would speak. Whoever did not speak was Tom.

Empousa now raised and lowered her brass leg. The glassy ground boomed like a hollow drum.

The seventh rider was masked as Pegasus, and his cloak was oak leaf. Streaks of crooked shadows shaped like the tines of antlers passed through the hood of his cloak without touching it and spread over his broad shoulders. In cold and ringing tones he spoke. “Silence, Fand! Silence, all of you, on peril of your lives! The beauty of elfin voice reminds the dark angels of old sorrows. Let us not try their patience lest the tribute increase. Lucien! Attend me!”

The foremost wolf of the pack now came forward, crouching and whining. He was large as a pony and silver like an Arctic wolf.

The horned and masked rider said, “Your voice is not fair enough to offend the dukes and counts of Hell. Speak. Who is this? Why is she here?”

The wolf said, “Imperial Majesty, this is the Foxmaiden, the sidekick of the vigilante who pesters the Anarchists, your enemies, who of late have caused commotion in your realm. She is here to hinder the tithing.”

The horned rider now leaned from the saddle and breathed. A plume of cold air issued from the mouth of his Pegasus mask and smote Yumiko.

At once the cold penetrated her flesh and touched her heart. Her spirit form slipped away, and now she was a girl sprawled on her knees and forearms on the black ice. A trifle of fox fur clung to her breasts and hips, no larger than a bathing suit. Her black hair, unbraided, spilled down to the left across her neck and shoulder and arm onto the icy surface like a shining river delta. Her warm fur was gone, and she was shivering with cold and fear, but her dark eyes blazed brightly.

2. The Finding

The horned rider glared down at her. His eyes were like distant stars. “Speaks he the truth, little Foxmaiden? Are you here to hinder the tithe?”

She stood up. “Lucien Cobweb does not speak the whole truth. Under the name Thursday, he is a member of the Supreme Anarchist’s Council. He conspires with Malen the Red and Empousa of Hell to undermine and overthrow your rule.”

A gasp came from one of the riders behind. It was a woman’s voice. Her cloak was patterned with vine leaves. Her mask was of a hayagriva, a blue-furred and gold-crowned yaksha, known to roam the jungles and mountains of India. Something in the tone of voice, or the set of the shoulders, told Yumiko this was Malen Ruddgochren herself.

Yumiko spread her arms wide. “I am here for my one, true love, Tomorrow Rocket Moth. I returned from the dead for him. He will go back to the lands of the living with me.”

The horned rider in the Pegasus mask said, “There is no man here who will answer to that name. That name is quenched in the wine of oblivion and lost in the woven songs of Elfland. His face, his form, his fame, are now as elfs decree. He is not yours, but ours.”

The elfin lords and ladies now removed their masks. The faces beneath the hoods were none she knew. Yumiko blinked, and all the faces changed. No one she looked at directly changed, but when she turned her head, whatever face she was not looking at, male and female swapped appearance with one another; old and young; dark and pale; man and elf. Some faces turned into skulls or masses of warts. Some turned to the visages of hawks or hounds. One hood held nothing but the stars of Ursa Majoris.

The silvery, heartless laughter of the elfs now chimed in the air. Whispering voices seeming to come from overhead or underfoot or from behind her head or inside her stomach, taunting her. “Riddle me this!” “Love thou me, or another?” “Which is he?” “Pick me!” “Come to my arms!” “My kiss will slay you!” “Foxmaiden, I am your love!” “Know you me not?” “Poor Tom’s a-cold!”

The mockery fell silent when Empousa again raised her brass leg and stomped it against the ringing ground. This time, vast voices from underground moaned in pain.

The elfin lords and ladies donned their masks again, and the horned rider raised his hand and gave the signal to ride on. The slender steeds in their bright caparisons began to pass by Yumiko to the left and right.

Yumiko, half-naked and cold, stood with her fists clenched. She had no weapons, no magic ring, and no idea what to do. If eyes and ears could be trusted, there were five yet who had not spoken. But could they be trusted?

Of the remaining five, one held a banner where a black wolf reared on a white field, and, behind him, two riders were slender and sat sidesaddle. Yumiko doubted that the proud elfs would disguise Tom as one of their standard-bearers or one of their ladies.

The second to last rider wore a kelpie mask and was cloaked in hazel leaf. The last rider in line wore the mask of a backahast wreathed with seaweed and was cloaked in the leaf of an elder tree. He seemed stouter than the others, less graceful in his posture. Surely the last position would be the position of least honor in the cavalcade?

Yumiko grabbed the stirrup of the last rider as he rode by, and clung. “Tom! Tom! Is that you?”

“Sorry! Get away from me! Haven’t you done enough?” The man in the backahast mask kicked her.

An elf would not apologize. He was calling her by the name he knew because he could not pronounce Sayuri. The voice was altered in timber and accent, perhaps by magic, but his words were his.

The one in the backahast mask was Wilcolac.

Spurned by the kick, the girl rolled rather than fell, bounced to her feet, and leaped nimbly onto the back of the steed before him in line, the one in the kelpie mask. She pulled aside the mask and pulled down the hood. Here were the round and cruel features of Wilcolac the magician. Every nuance of expression, the look in his eyes, the shape of each hair on his head told her eyes that this was Wilcolac. But she was not looking at his face. She remembered what she had overheard: The fragment of the celestial cerulean dangles about his neck. Lucien had been afraid to remove it.

Yumiko dug her fingers into the collar of the stranger’s cloak.

Her fingers found a slender chain, such as a woman might wear. She yanked. The pendant was a bit of blue-white crystal shaped like a teardrop, glowing with a clear and piercing inner light that brought tears of wonder to her eyes.

It was he. It was Tom. She had found him.

3. The Last Gate

A clamor rang in her ears. The cavalcade was crossing under the final dolmen, the final gateway of black stone. The first eight passed beneath, led by the man masked as a destrier, with the hippocamp bringing up the rear.

The surface underfoot was broken black glass. Yumiko could see the reverse image of herself, her black hair almost like a hooded cloak falling to her hips, with both pale arms about the mantled figure atop his handsome steed. She had her arms around a man who looked like Wilcolac. In the mirror reflection, he looked like Tom.

The star at his throat was much brighter in the reflection. Thunderstruck, Yumiko recognized it.

Keep to yourself this memento of your mother’s love, for the Grail light is in it. Keep it with you, lest the fumes of Earth confuse and confound you. Keep it in memory of me.

It was the same pendant her mother in the last hour on her last day had bestowed on her. The light from the pendant seemed to pierce like a lance straight into Yumiko to her core. A great smoggy darkness of confusion and forgetfulness began to stir and quake and break.

All riders save the last two had passed the final dolmen. But here stood Empousa, who raised her hand. The steed beneath Yumiko faltered, fell, and died. Yumiko wrestled the man she held out of the saddle and fell to the ground with him. She had acted in time: no part of him was trapped under the dead horse.

Empousa spoke. Her voice was inside Yumiko’s head as well as outside. As the outward shout of the hag’s hellish voice hurt her ear, so too did the force of the silent words burn inside her skull. “Who dares bring this pure and sinless virgin to the very lip of Hell?”

The shout of Empousa was painful to the others there as well, for all the elf lords shrieked or flinched, and many clutched their brows.

The real Wilcolac in a false voice now spoke from behind the backahast mask. “Surely she has committed some sin! No one serves in my nightclub who has not. I see to that!”

Yumiko said, “I have been baptized this very day.”

Wilcolac said, “Perhaps the form was incorrect!”

Yumiko raised her voice, “I was baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost! Get away from me, you things of Hell!”

At the sound of these names, even though her high-pitched, girlish voice seemed very small and frail in the wide and starless landscape of cracked black glass and dunes of silver ash, the thirteen gigantic figures fell groveling as if deafened by thunderbolts. The dukes of Hell were shrieking and howling, cursing and uttering blasphemies.

Empousa recovered first, rose up, and spoke. “Do you mock us, loathsome Lords of Elfland? Wish you to have the kingdoms of the world be dashed from your pretty hands? We have prepared kingdoms of pain here in our realm to receive you instead!”

Now it was the turn of the elf lords to wince and cry, for the shout of Empousa was pain. Yumiko clung more fiercely to her man and clenched her teeth.

The horned rider wearing the Pegasus mask spoke in solemn tones. “Dread and divine Empousa, the Sons of Air and Daughters of Night approach in solemn fear to render the tithe and tribute due the august and infernal realm and your great sultan.”

Empousa inclined her head with regal nod, and the snakes woven in her crown hissed and shook their rattles.

The horned rider turned and said, “The tithed one must step over the final threshold of his own will. That is the bargain. See to it.”

The rider in the hayagriva mask addressed the rider in the backahast mask and said bitterly, “You should have let me kill her, as I asked, you stupid little magician. You know who goes in the mouth if your puppet does not.” She did not disguise her voice. It was Malen.

The rider masked as a backahast dismounted. Mask or no, his bouncing, energetic walk was the walk of Wilcolac. He went to where Yumiko clung fiercely to the motionless man. Wilcolac said, “Thrall! Stand up! Cast that girl from your arms! Walk through the last gate!”

The empty-eyed young man obeyed and rose. His movements were slow and clumsy. With a potent twist of his arms, he shoved the half-naked girl roughly to the broken glass of the ground. She whirled in midair and landed in her feet in a crouch. With ponderous steps, he strode forward. She pounced. Yumiko found it easy enough to throw the blank-eyed youth over her hip to the ground, and drop, and grasp him in a tight hold.

The chain at his neck glittered and flashed. She saw into the depth of the stone. A wisp of clinging fog lost its grip and rolled away, revealing a lost memory.

4. Darkness and Light

The recollection took no time to unfold into her memory.

He told her words to say something important, some phrase she was supposed to utter if the elf threatened to kill her. But his voice, his words, were still mingled in forgetfulness. It was on the tip of her tongue, almost clear.

She and Tom were standing in a corridor of transparent glass. The maze reached several levels above and below them, and, far above, clearly visible through the intervening yet transparent floors, was the circle of stone forming the foundations of the tower above. The tower itself was invisible. Only the spiral of unsleeping watching things, the hideous masks of the guards, and the dark, winged shapes at the crown betrayed the outline of the tower.

At the same moment he was done telling her the words, the Anarchists found the turn leading into the dead-end corridor where Tom and Yumiko stood. With a roar, they rushed forward.

Tom took the ring, knelt, and put it on her finger. “Marry me. Be my bride. I promise you, we will live through this! And when you see me again and you see this pendant, you will remember.”

He twisted the ring sharply on her finger as he spoke, turning it once, twice, thrice. “Now envision a safe place! Your thought will carry you there. Distance means nothing. Concentrate! You will see ghosts. Stop for nothing. Do not speak to them. Do not listen to their promises. Go!”

The ring darkened from silver to pewter to iron to obsidian. With the fourth twist, she could not longer see him. She was in another world, a cosmos of darkness.

Had he heard her answer? Had she said it in time?

How her eyes could see, she did not know. The darkness was visible. How she moved, she did not know. The wind was palpable and bore her weight aloft. The black shapes of ghosts she expected, and she knew her longbow would protect her.

But a darker shape, as massive as a sunken continent returning to the surface of the sea, she had not expected to be here, in this ghost world. Yumiko fled the vast fallen angel on the dark winds of the unlit cosmos like an autumn leaf before a hurricane.

Then, a hideous voice from below her called out in mocking tones. She looked. The fallen angel held up the shrieking soul in its palm, a torn and tormented figure that danced and trembled. She ceased fleeing, but stood in midair and peered.

For she knew him. In life, it had been Guynglaff Cobweb, Lord Tuesday of the Supreme Council of Anarchists, Master of the Abominable Snowmen. His apelike face had been one of the many Winged Vengeance demanded she memorize. Who had killed him?

For here he was, dead, a small speck of darkness screaming in the vast and scarred palm of a spirit older and darker that loomed in the black world. But her arrows could abolish ghosts and curse them never to return to Earth. Dead was Lord Tuesday, but she could harm him yet.

Prudence told her to flee; love of vengeance told her to slay. Hatred drove out fear. She drew her bow and dove like a falcon.

The peak of the hood of the fallen angel was larger than a mountain. Past it she fell, deep and deeper. The hand holding Lord Tuesday was like a black lake fed by five rivers. The fallen angel, without a word, and not even smiling, cast back his hood when she came close and revealed his face.

She recalled the horror of the shock, and the blood gushing from her eyes and ears, and the constricting, white-hot, branching pains shooting through her chest as her heart burst. She recalled desperately trying to mouth the words Tom had told her to say, but there was no air in her lungs. The words! What were they?

She found herself in a blinding light that did not blind her. It was a dozen times brighter than sunlight, but restful to her eyes, filling her with golden warmth… A bright lady was coming closer to her in the midst of this light, reaching out…

5. The Runes of Deceit

She wound her legs around his midriff and locked her ankles. His breath was driven from his body; he gasped like a sleeper in a nightmare, but he did not change expressions. Her elbow was behind his head, driving it forward, and her arms were locked around his elbows. Despite his greater strength, he had no leverage to rise.

The horned rider glared down at the young man and woman rolling and writhing on the glassy ground at his steed’s hoofs. In a dry voice, he said, “These antics detract from the dignity of the day. If we are tardy by one tenth part of one second beyond the time agreed for tender of payment, our kingdoms and our children suffer. Make haste.”

Yumiko, while pinning the arms of the man she held, saw a playing card tucked into the fold of his fancy cuff. She pulled it out with her teeth and crossed her eyes to stare at it. It was the joker. Angular letters had been written all about the margin of the card.

The last time she had seen such a card, it had carried runes of finding, meant to expose someone in hiding. Could not the same magic be used to hide someone?

Yumiko tossed her head and spat the card away. It fell to the glassy surface. The man she held shrank, losing weight and age, and his face melted and reformed. He no longer looked like Wilcolac. Instead, here was a freckle-cheeked young man with startling blue eyes and a mop of uncombed red hair atop.

The sight was like the blast of many trumpets heralding a victory parade in Yumiko’s heart. Heat and cold pulsed through her veins. Her world spun. This face was at the center of it. She knew each freckle. She knew him.

His eyes were blank and dull: he was as if asleep.

With a cry of anger, Wilcolac drew a long dagger with a curving, snakelike blade. He knelt, clawing frantically, picked up the playing card, rose, and came toward her.

Yumiko caught sight of the gem glittering on the necklace, the one she gave Tom in the desperate hour when they parted. The light again flared into her, parting an inner darkness. She remembered giving the pendant to Tom. And she remembered more.

6. The Glass Maze

The floor, ceiling, and walls of the labyrinth were as clear as air. Only the splatters of blood, torn corpses, and shattered weapons showed where the halls and stairs were. To their left were the mighty doors of silver, set with many runes and charms. Tom’s laser-howitzer had burned away the hinges on one side, just enough for Yumiko to use her wirepoon grapnel to snag and drag the ring to them. But the hinges were alive and groaning and growing back together, and the doors were pulling themselves back in place after having maliciously fallen onto the laser-howitzer and shattering its delicate lenses.

The hordes of attackers, men in dark suits, werewolves, vampires, men possessed by ghosts, and statues large and small seemed nearby but were kept from them by the glass walls.

“Listen,” said Tom. “No time to explain. Give me your pendant. Lord Saturday means to send me alive to Hell. These creatures will have to take me alive and keep me alive. Come find me. I won’t look the same, and I won’t be the same, but anything wearing this pendant is me. Your passage through the mist will make you forget, but if my calculations are right, you cannot forget this pendant. You can use the ring instantly to find me again at any time, merely by concentrating on the sight of the pendant. They will not dare take it. When you find me, just grab me and hold on. As long as you hold me, I am safe. No matter what, do not let go. No matter what they turn me into, do not let go. Say my real name to me to wake me up. Now, can you do that?”

“I swear,” she said softly.

“And if they threaten to kill or hurt you, say these words…”

7. Quills

Wilcolac reached down, and took Yumiko by the hair, and drew back her head at a painful angle, exposing her throat.

But she called out the words Tom had told her. “In Christ’s name I dedicate the blood I shed to mingle with his. My death I give to the glory of the Holy Ghost. To the Father, I commend my spirit!”

It was the same thing she had said to the demon in the midst of the dark world before she died. She wondered what it meant.

A great wail came out of the gathered dukes and counts of Hell.

The horned rider said, “Stop! Touch her not!”

Wilcolac hesitated.

The horned rider said, “The spot where a martyr dies is holy, and her bones would blast us. The anger of our hosts who summon us here would be without limit. She must release him of her own volition.”

Wilcolac stepped back. He said, “My lord, I can change his face and name. This august company can do more. Lady Malen, if you would?”

The voice of Malen came from behind the mask of the hayagriva. “Thrall! Be thou a porcupine! When she releases you, cross the threshold and be damned!”

Immediately, Tom’s body, cloak, garb, and all darkened, shrank, and changed, and a new form swelled into being in Yumiko’s tightly straining arms and legs. The porcupine was twice or thrice normal size and writhed and turned and snapped at her. Barbed quills, sharp as needles, entered her tender flesh in a hundred places. Her every instinct told her to open her arms and to fling the monster from her.

But he did not claw and drag himself over the threshold. Those were not his instructions. Yumiko tightened her grip, driving the terrible barbs into herself. She was slick with blood.

She cried, “Tom! Tom Moth! Tomorrow Rocket Moth! Wake! Wake! Hear your name and wake!”

The creature thrashed. Barbs struck her in the face and pierced her cheek. With immense pain, she continued to cry out his name. He did not wake.

The pendant had not changed. The fine chain was still around the neck of the porcupine, glittering. The elf magic left it untouched. The piercing light from the teardrop smote her again.

8. Ballroom

Yumiko on her featherless batwings dropped silently down from the shadowy ceiling of the ballroom. Seven men in formal suits and ties lay toppled among the broken tables and overturned chairs near the punch bowl. Arrows had pierced gunhands, necks, lungs, and hearts.

She turned one of them over. It was her target. With a cleaver she cut off the hand, wrapping it in plastic and stowing it in her pouch. Winged Vengeance could check the fingerprints later to confirm the kill.

The sound of the elevator chiming interrupted her thought. She moved quickly, overturned a table, knelt behind it, and nocked a red arrow. She had a second arrow in hand with a different head in case what came through the door was man, not elf.

It was neither elf nor man, precisely. It was a youth with an unruly head of bright red hair, whistling a merry tune and skipping. He wore a lab coat over his clothes and a pair of goggles over his eyes. He had a yo-yo in his hand, which he spun to the left and then to the right and then back again. The yo-yo was beeping, and little lights at the hub winked.

He hopped over one of the dead bodies, paused, looked down, and clucked his tongue.

Yumiko drew back. In his dim light, no one would spy her. The red-haired youth looked up, smiled at her, and waved. “Yoo-hoo! Ollie, ollie, oxenfree!”

She stood and drew her bowstring to her cheek.

“No shooting,” he said, “My doctor says puncture wounds are bad for me. Is that arrowhead made of a ferromagnetic alloy by any chance? If so, fire away. I’ll be invulnerable.”

Yumiko gritted her teeth. “What is that?”

“Ferromagnetic. The kind of magnetism displayed by iron and associated with parallel magnetic alignment of neighboring atoms.”

“And if my arrowhead is not? Not ferro—what you said.”

He smiled sadly. “Well, I will be less than invulnerable. Say cheese!”

“Why should I say–” but then she was blinking in blindness, for a silent eruption of white light had emerged from his belt buckle. She heard a whistling snap of noise pass just before her nose, but when she tried to backflip out of the way, her hand tugged her bow. The bow was snagged on something and did not move.

She blinked the floating spots free and focused her eyes away from where she was looking, so she could see the scene with her side vision.

The youth was now seated atop the table next to her. His legs were crossed at the knee, and his foot was pointed at her. Out from his boot, a length of thin white metal had extended. It was about as big around as a walking stick. It reached from his leg to her bowstaff, passed between her bowstaff and bowstring, and then had embedded its tip in the floor. She could still move the bow and draw it, and she could point an arrow at any target anywhere in the room, except for the spot where he sat.

“You are annoying!” she cried.

“Yes,” he said.

“And very annoying!”

“Yes,” he said.

“And, and, uh–!”

“Fun. Unpredictable. Persistent. Smart. I always get the desired result in the end.”

Beneath her mask, she scowled. The last of the blue dots floated out of her vision. She spoke in a quieter voice. “How did you follow me?”

“The first time we met, I decided I simply had to see you again. So I whipped up a harmless radioactive isotope my Geiger yo-yo here could detect and tagged you with it the second time we met. Varying the antennae length helps me triangulate.” He did an around-the-world and a walk-the-dog, and then pulled the yo-yo back to his hand, and tucked it away in a pouch at his belt.

“How did you follow me just now? I disabled the elevator,” she said.

“I re-enabled it. And improved it a bit. Now it can shoot through the ceiling. I can take you for a ride. Kind of a short ride, sort of a parabola, but it will be fun. Want to come?” He looked down at the floor. “You have to stop killing people by the way. Someone from the heavenly city of Sarras should have better manners.”

She said, “How do you know who I am?”

He said, “Your ninja outfit is not airtight, and you leave clues and traces where you go, especially if you get wounded. A drop of blood contains your whole genetic code. You are my first cousin, four times removed, counting through my father Vidric, but counting through my mother, Dr. Rocket, you are my second cousin once removed. I am…”

“Tomorrow Moth. The boy who flew to the moon. Everyone knows your name.”

“Boy, then. I’ve grown. I don’t know yours. Name, I mean.”

“My father is Danger son of Bold. My mother is Dandrenor daughter of Pellinore. I am Yumiko Ume-no-Mikoto Moth.”

“Take off your mask,” he said.

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “I can see through it anyway with my X-ray goggles.”

He must have been fibbing about his goggles having X-rays because he stammered and stared when she removed the Noh-play fox mask she wore, shook her hair free, and looked up at him.

“Wow,” he mused. “You really are yummy cute!”

“Yumiko.”

“How about that elevator ride? I want to see if the disintegration bomb timer will work properly and blow the roof before we hit.” He twitched his foot, and the length of metal hindering her bowstring now retracted and slid into a sheath hidden in his boot. He hopped to his feet. “Shall we?”

She said, “How can you hide a twenty-foot pole in your boot?”

“You mean my gyro-stilts? If you have lived your life in the clouds, you probably do not know about mermaid pouches. There is a lot you can do with space compression that the mermaids never dreamed of. Including storing compression energy more efficiently than any spring. Speaking of which, your outfit is really pretty clumsy and unclassy.”

“W– what?”

“You could do better. What say we go to my flying lab and kick around a few designs?” He stepped closer and grinned an alarming grin.

It was too close. She threw a knife at his leg, but an invisible force made it wobble and spin away harmlessly. But the smoke pellets she flung in his face were not deflected. Evidently, they were not ferromagnetic.

She left him coughing in a cloud, and leaped out the window, and so escaped. That ended their first date.

9. Venom

Yumiko did not release the porcupine. The twelve figures now departed from their positions surrounding the mouth in the black ice and began walking slowly forward toward the black dolmen.

Wilcolac was trembling, but so very slightly that it could only been seen in how the reflections of the firefly lights above this head shifted and shook in the curving blade surface. He said, “King Brian, if you would?”

The Irish brogue issued from the mask of the destrier. “Who am I to discomfort a fair maiden, poor wee thing but half an elf? Lady Nimue is crueler than me. Let her do the deed.”

“With pleasure, Your Majesty,” came a smooth voice from behind the mask of Embarr, a steed famed for running on water as well as on land. She threw back her cloak, whose leaves were those of the water reed. She called, “Thrall! Be thou a serpent to constrict and bite, and let thy tooth be deadlier than an asp! When she unhands you, cross the threshold and be damned!”

Immediately, the porcupine became a great serpent of no type seen on Earth, larger than a boa constrictor, but hooded like a cobra. Yumiko seized it by the throat before it could sink fangs into her neck, and she forced the great head back, but powerful coils now wound around her punctured, bleeding body and began to crush her bones. Fangs sank into her wrist. The pain was like a scalding burn traveling up her arm. Dizzy black spots crowded her vision. Her finger grew swollen. Her forearm was turning blue. The coils of the snake clamped her tighter than a vice. She could drawn no breath. Her eyes grew dim.

She could only whisper and croak his name, again and again. He did not wake.

But she could still see the pendant glancing and gleaming around the serpent’s throat. And she did not let go.

10. Theater

Yumiko swung from rooftop to rooftop using her kusarigama. Whenever the hook did not catch properly, she fell and snapped out her batwings. She glided to the top of a lower building.

A rushing gush of noise thundered from the dark sky. Down from the low-hanging clouds, riding three narrow columns of exhaust that issued from his winged backpack, dropped Tom Moth, grinning. His roaring backpack grew muted, whined, and fell silent. He dropped lightly to the roof. He was wearing goggles and a heavy leather flight jacket, with the wool collar turned up.

“Let’s go around again,” he said. “Race you to the top of the Flatiron Building!”

She did not answer but threw a handful of pellets at him. The wings of his backpack tilted, and a blast issued from the vents at the tip of either wing. The jet exhaust dispersed her smoky attack handily.

“Stop following me!” she cried.

She swung and soared again. He rocketed past her underneath, his face turned upward, and his arms and legs imitated a slow backstroke. He was waiting on the rooftop where she landed. He was lounging in a Morris chair.

“Where did you get a chair?” she asked.

He stood up. “Aw. I was sure could you figure this one out.” He stood, and folded the chair into a segment as small as a handkerchief, and stowed it among the many pouches and holsters of his belt. “It is smart metal. An alloy made with the folding space folded directly into it. I could do this to any of your gear. Here!”

And he tossed her what seemed a small pistol. She thought about shooting him, but instead pointed it at a chimney pot, and pulled the trigger. It was a wire-harpoon gun.

After a moment or two of playing with it, she said, “How did you make the retraction spindle so small, so powerful, so silent?”

He said, “Same as my stilts. I use the force of the compressed space when it unfolds to drive it. In this case, the space fold is torsion-wise. Wound rather than compressed. You can have it along with the parachute harness that goes with it. On one condition!”

Her longing for so useful a device warred with her suspicions. “What condition?”

“Go out on a date with me.”

She said, “I am not going into your lab! You would strap me to a slab and do terrible things!”

“Don’t give me any ideas. We will go some place public, with a crowd. To see a motion picture.”

She frowned. She would have to return to the sanctum and find something nicer to wear. “What kind of motion picture?”

“It’s science fiction. All the best films are science fiction!”

Later, seated in a darkened theater with a soda in one hand and a bag of popcorn in the other, Yumiko decided she did not really like science-fiction films. There were too many explosions, for one thing, and the space princess ended up doing all the work and saving the spaceman. Why bother keeping him around? The swordfighter’s stance was wrong. And why did the magic swirling space vortex bring only one character back from the dead? It dishonored his self sacrifice. Yumiko did not like stories where the heroine had to do the rescuing or where characters did not stay properly dead.

Yumiko also did not like the taste of the soda pop. It was so sweet it almost tasted metallic.

Tom leaned close to her to explain some plot point or to say why the alien first officer could not fall in love with the pretty ship’s nurse. He put his arm across her shoulder as he did, and his breath was in her ear. When he straightened up again, he left his arm in place. Under her lashes, Yumiko looked sidelong at his profile. In the gloom, the flickering light from the screen played across his face.

She took another sip of the metallic soda, relaxed, snuggled back into her chair, and put her head on the young man’s shoulder. She did not like science-fiction films. But she decided she really liked going to see science-fiction films.

Chapter Fourteen: Who Speaks Words in Elfinland

1. Shock

The horned rider said, “Do not permit her to die in this place.” Nimue raised her hand again, and the fiery pain of the venom in Yumiko’s blood flooded her arms and legs but avoided her chest and heart. Still Yumiko clung.

The twelve hooded giants had gathered, six to one side of the final threshold and six to the other. Empousa stood midmost, one step beyond the dolmen. Ten of the riders reined their nervous steeds. Five were to Empousa’s right and five to her left, with the tall dukes and counts of Hell looming over the elfin lords and ladies. The wolves that had come with the elfin cavalcade were still on this side of the threshold, glaring down at Yumiko with yellow eyes.

Yumiko could hear Wilcolac’s teeth chattering. “My lord, if you would be so kind…”

But the horned rider said, “Am I less than Brian? Maeve. Do this work. Time is short. Something swift.”

One of the figures riding sidesaddle wore the mask of Aethon, one of the horses of the chariot of the sun, and an arabesque of curling flames surrounded the eyeholes and nostrils of her mask. Her cloak was the leaf of the ivy. She now spoke. “Thrall! Be thou an eel, and sting her with shocks. When she lets you go, go over the threshold and be damned.”

The creature was larger than any eel on Earth. These pains, if anything, were even worse. She felt her heart stop and start again. Her lungs could not inflate. Yumiko was forced to hold the slippery body with hands and feet and grip it with her teeth, lest it escape her.

Her vision faded in and out. But she saw the gem of memory winking.

2. The Lakeshore

The two of them sat by the shore of Lake Carlopa in upstate New York, far from any eyes to see. Yumiko was feeding the ducks by throwing them breadcrumbs. Tom was feeding the ducks by throwing a slice of bread in the air and using an energy instrument to blast it into freshly toasted crumbs that rained down like fluffy brown snow. The instrument was a wand with stops or keys something like those on a flute. He did this one-handed since the instrument could also emit a suction ray to pick up the next slice of bread and a pressure ray to hurl it high. For once, she could see his eyes, which were the most remarkable shade of blue.

His other arm was preoccupied by being wound around her shoulders. Beneath a light robe, she was wearing the skintight supersuit he had designed and redesigned.

Allegedly, they were here to test the latest improvements to the breathing gear and the automatic air quality sensor.

But for now, they fed the ducks.

She admitted how hard her life had been after her father’s death, when she was taken up into the clouds. “Mine was the only bow in the city, the only weapon of any kind. I knew it grieved my mother that I practiced every day and neglected all she wished to teach me. I thought I was honoring my father. And yet would he have wanted me to vex her so? He still loved her.”

Yumiko spoke of her mother’s passing. “…She did not abandon her post for him. For me. For death. How angry I was when she died! She left me! Again! And now I am ashamed. Where is the respect and obedience I owe her? To hunt down her killers is all I can do.”

Tom had a similar story. His parents were still alive, but only in a way. “When I returned to the cabin, everything Winged Vengeance told me in the dream had now come to pass in the real world. They were both simply sitting in their chairs at the kitchen table, mouths open, staring at a lantern that had gone out. They could speak, and react, and everything seemed normal.

“But it was not. The spark of genius was gone from my mother, the zeal and drive from my father. They could no longer hear music except as sound vibrations. They could not change their habits or make complex decisions.

“They had no memory of me.

“They had no love for me, a little boy they regarded as an intruder. They threw me out of the house and electrified the door. Every day for a month, I tried to break in. Through the windows, at night, I could see them going through the routines of their former lives like clockwork.

“I kept myself alive by doing odd jobs for the neighbors, repairing lawnmowers and electronics. I used the money to buy rice. I did not have a pot to cook it in, so I folded a leaf into a crude cup, filled it with water, and used that to cook. I used the plastic bag and the water to make a magnifying glass to start a cooking fire, but this only worked on sunny days.

“Eventually, relatives found me. Halloway and Lightningrod Moth were brothers who ran a traveling carnival. They would follow the Cobweb & Dark Pandaemonium Shadow Show around the country, trying to undo the aftermath of Mr. Dark’s eccentric pranks and cruelties and disfigurations. So at age seven, I ran off to join the circus. I would be there to this day if I had not set the circus train on fire. A lurch of the caboose where they let me keep my chemistry set broke my bottle of yellow phosphorous and exposed it to air.

“I vowed to find a way to restore my parents.”

She did not weep when she told her story, but she did when he told his. Afterward, as if it were the most natural and right thing in the world, he pulled her close, and leaned over, and kissed her.

Perhaps it was the most natural and right thing in the world. It certainly felt like it.

3. Fire

The voice of Empousa echoed in the minds of all present. “The time is come. Present the tithe, or be forfeit.”

The horned rider said, “Wilcolac Cobweb, I hereby in law and solemn oath take and adopt you as my firstborn son. Step over the threshold and be damned.”

Wilcolac fell to his knees. “My lord, Erlkoenig, I beg you…”

Erlkoenig nodded his horned head. “Call me father, dear son. Mine own father once worked my salvation by substitutionary atonement. I accept you as my personal savior, little magician. You wanted to have magic arts akin to ours. Now pay the price. Do your legs fail you? Your father can amend them.”

Erlkoenig raised his hand, and an unseen force pulled Wilcolac upright. His legs moved like stiff boards, unbending, and marched him toward the threshold. Wilcolac still had control of his arms and hands, however, and so he bent and slashed at the muscles and sinews of his legs, trying desperately to cease their mechanical motion. The elfin lords and ladies laughed and applauded this display.

Wilcolac stumbled and fell to the black mirrored surface, which clanged under him. Blood flowed down both legs. Hurriedly, he scooped up his blood with his fingers and drew some angular marks on the black glass with it. “Thrall! Become a fiery salamander! I call upon Chaos, and Old Night, older than any created thing, older then the Devil, to hear my words and aid my work!”

And words in a language Yumiko did not know, which her ears seemed not to be able properly to hear, gushed from the throat of Wilcolac. Red phlegm also gushed out, for to utter these words tore his tongue and his lungs.

Wilcolac’s magic made a deeper change to the form she clutched, for now the creature went beyond nature and was worse than all that had come before.

The eel in her hands grew longer, became covered in red diamond-sharp scales, and then burst into flame. This was not the small lizard creature called salamander but the otherworldly monster of fire for whom it was named. The flames were blue hot at its scales and yellow and red in concentric blankets around it. Yumiko was clinging fiercely to the hottest part of the creature.

Wilcolac screamed, “Cross the threshold before me! Crush that Sorry girl, and cast her aside, but you must cross the threshold first!”

The fiery and sinuous body of the monster also had all the strength of a constricting snake. It felt like red-hot chains wrapping her bare flesh. The flames hurt worse than any electric shock. The scales were hard and barbed like the skin of a shark. Many scales darted out thin jets of blue-white fire more painful than quills. The venom of the jaws ignited once inside her bloodstream, burning along her veins the cord of a fuse.

The wounds were shocking, terrible. She felt bones break and ligaments tear.

The burning ate her flesh. The venom ate her bloodstream. If she lived, she would be maimed for life, unable to walk, unable to move. She knew she was not dead only because of some magic charm or force of will from Erlkoenig, who wished her to die elsewhere, not here. Every fiber of her being screamed that she should let go.

But Yumiko, in the midst of the flames, could still see the glint of light at the salamander’s throat.

4. The Dark Sanctum

It was Nyctalope’s habit to speak with her in pitch blackness. His eyes allowed him still to see her. She had taken to the habit of keeping her mask on during these interviews. It amused her that the lens system Tom had built into the Noh mask allowed her to mimic her brother’s power of sight.

His real name was Yakanshiryoku Peaseblossom. He was the son of Sarutahiko Peaseblossom, Dandrenor’s first husband. But in Western lands, he called himself Nyctalope. He was the Eyes of the Night.

This time, she was almost sorry she could see him. The sinister crow-mask with its long, metallic beak and headdress of sharp feathers had been pushed back, and his eyes were weary, his handsome face careworn. He leaned on the staff of his bow, staring down at where she knelt. His shoulders sagged. The black-fletched arrow reaching over his shoulders seemed somehow less ominous. She imagined he might fall to the floor if she kicked the bowstaff out of his grasp.

He said, “I worry that I can trust you. Is not your oath an oath of iron? I have forbidden you to see this boy! He is not to be trusted! He is apprentice and intern to the mad inventor, Rotwang Cobweb. I have received messages from two of my agents. Henry Arnaud has traced Anarchist money into Rotwang’s coffers, and Fritz the Janitor sends me a report from the Nineteenth Precinct. Officer Don Damiano traced the disappearance of a blind hobo from the local shelter to an abandoned mine owned by one of Rotwang’s dummy corporations.”

Yumiko said, “There are four dozen abducted blind men working in the mine. They are given an electrical apparatus that allows them to see some objects and not others, and they work on Rotwang’s construction project. He is building an Iron Mole to dig underneath the barrier to arrive in the Third Hemisphere in an unprotected spot.”

The look on his face, when he thought she could not see his face, was very rewarding to her. He said slowly, “So you knew the boy was a spy, and you are practicing counterespionage on him?”

“I know he is good and kind… if quite annoying. And brilliant! He is deceiving Rotwang, letting the inventor complete the machine. He has already made spare keys and vacuum tubes needed to regulate and guide the atomic engine.”

Nyctalope Peaseblossom shook his head sadly, wearily. But no weariness was betrayed in his voice. Had she been unable to see, his mood would have remained hidden.

“There was once a man in a dark room whom I served loyally. For his sake I joined what he called the Last Crusade, the final effort needed to overthrow the reign and realm of darkness on this Earth. I never saw that man, never learned his true name, but I loved him then. Now I curse him in my heart each day. I and all my brothers in arms in that crusade were ordered where an ambuscade waited. We were wiped out….”

Yumiko said, “What did the man in the dark room do wrong?”

“He did then what you do now. He trusted too easily. Rotwang Cobweb was a member of the crusade. I objected to the others that he could not be trusted. I was ignored. He betrayed us, and the enemy was waiting. I alone was taken alive and brought to the Tithing Ground. By the sheerest mischance I escaped: I had a gem Mother gave me they could not remove, and it spoiled their ritual. I turned my back to the world and donned my wings, though they had turned dark from all my dark deeds. Back to Sarras I flew, but there was no comfort there. Do you see the error of trusting?”

Yumiko said, “But he trusted me!”

“Who? Rotwang?”

“No. Tom. He told me his real name is Sylvester. Tomorrow Moth is a name he uses for publicity, for his engineering company, and the children’s books written by Appleton Moth about his adventures. You see, he did not want to be called Sly Moth.”

5. Substitution

Yumiko was burned and wounded inside and out, bones broken, limbs swollen, blood poisoned. Her arms and legs had no more power to move and could grip nothing. The salamander was writhing free. Her voice made a gargling, scratchy, horrid sound. “Sylvester! Sylvester Moth! Sly Moth!”

She shouted it. Despite the pain in every part of her lungs, throat, tongue, and lips, she shouted the name.

He heard. Somehow, somewhere, he heard. As quickly as in a dream, the salamander changed into the redheaded young man. He cried out in grief and horror at the condition of the girl he held in his arms.

She stared in wonder. He whispered, “Don’t worry, darling. I know what is going on. I won’t let them hurt you anymore.” Tom’s eyes glinted dangerously as he crouched over the wounded girl, glaring at their enemies all around.

The pain had not made Yumiko cry. But her relief at those words, her feminine joy at hearing a male voice, a confident and dangerous male voice, assuring her that he knew what to do, was overwhelming. She could hear the love in his voice. And so, despite the danger all around her, she suddenly felt safe.

Empousa raised her hand, glaring at Erlkoenig imperiously. No word need be said. Time was up.

Erlkoenig gestured to the huge arctic wolf. “Lucien! Drag that sad magician over the threshold and be done with this charade.”

The werewolf grinned. “Gladly!” And he stepped, and lowered his terrible jaws, and gripped Wilcolac by the neck, and backed up across the threshold, pulling the chubby magician after him across the broken glass.

Once the white wolf had his rear paws over the threshold but before his head or the burden he dragged crossed it, Wilcolac twisted sharply in the monster’s jaws and drove the snake-shaped dagger he had never released up and into the back of the neck of the wolf.

The wolf howled in wrath and staggered back. All four paws were over the threshold. Lucien turned and turned again, snapping, but the knife was impaled into his mane too near his skull for him to turn and grip it. Red blood spread over the white fur.

Yumiko saw that the playing card, the joker, was not in Wilcolac’s hand. It was pinned by the knife blade to the wolf’s neck and coated with blood.

And then Lucien turned into Wilcolac Cobweb. There he was, romping on all fours, dressed in a military coat and fur hat like what Lucien was wont to wear. And his voice did not sound very much like that of Wilcolac, but it did match his pitch and accent a bit.

The Wilcolac who was face down on the last few bits of silver sand, on this side of the threshold, bloody in both legs and bleeding from hand and neck, spoke without looking up. “Lady Empousa. I present the tithe. There is Wilcolac son of Erlkoenig, the king’s firstborn son.”

“It is not acceptable.” Empousa said, “We cannot touch him.”

“Damn it!” screamed Lucien. He looked like a man, but he was still on hands and knees, turning and twisting like an animal, trying to bite at the protruding knife hilt. “Someone pull this damn thing out of my damned neck! God damn it! Damn me, but that hurts!”

“Now, it is acceptable.” Empousa said, “With his own mouth, he has said it.”

Yumiko saw Erlkoenig and the other masked riders turn their hoods away. The Dukes of Hell drew themselves up and cast their cloaks aside. Vast beings, winged and many-limbed and many-headed with many staring eyes, began to rise in their places. But these were scarred and maimed, faces and limbs burned by lightning bolts and hellfire, the magnificent and majestic glory which once had been theirs was turned to horror. Their scarred and scabrous wings were larger than thunderclouds. In some impossible way the eye could not see or the mind not comprehend, the dread living beings were larger than the landscape on which they stood and seemed ever to grow larger. Their fingers elongated dreadfully, reaching down to where Lucien cursed and kicked, for he had not yet noticed his peril.

The yawning mouth in the glassy ground behind them now gave forth a peal of horrific noise. Yells, screams, laughter roared out of the underground places. The ground shook. Cracks formed in the glass surface, and fires burst like bombs, sending jets of flame leaping into the sky.

Yumiko closed her eyes, unwilling to see more. She heard the sound of Lucien struggling and cursing, screaming in earnest now. It grew shrill, panicky, hopeless. The sound traveled a little ways away and then downward, echoing off the sides of the well as he was dragged below. It mingled with the laughing and shrieking and sobbing from underground and the roar of the fires. His voice turned into a long, thin, endless wail. It was the scream of a being who is not allowed the moment of rest a creature that must pause to breathe can find between sobs.

She heard crackling noises, as if glass slabs were moving. The heat and roar of the flames was cut off abruptly. The horrid clamor from underfoot fell silent. She heard the grinding of immense teeth breaking through the glass well which held the giant throat open. The mouth shut. Then came earthquakes, clamors, vibrations, and crashes. Still Yumiko did not look, but, from the sound, she knew the face of the giant whose esophagus was being used as the door to Tartarus was being pulled farther down underground, and the strange black mirrored substance of the surface was being piled in the wake of that subsidence into the pit thus formed.

The noise of a mighty wind came and lasted for many minutes. Then, it died into a whisper and faded.

An eerie hush fell over the landscape.

6. The Tear of the Grail Queen

She felt Tom wrap his cloak gingerly about her.

Malen said, “Wolves! Fall upon these two and tear them to shreds.”

But Erlkoenig said, “Heap no more wrath upon yourself, traitress. For your treachery, in seven year’s time, you will come here again. The Moths must be saved alive for my interrogators to question.”

She heard Tom call out, “In my hand is the tear of the Grail Queen, bathed in the light of the most holy Sangreal. She is alive in Heaven, a martyr, and I call upon her, upon the cup she watched, and upon he whose cup it is. In his name I ask you to gaze at this crystal and recall the bliss of Heaven you so rashly and ignobly forsook. Look! See how the light shines!”

Through her closed lids, Yumiko saw the light grow bright and brighter.

She heard the gasps and cries from the company gathered there: Brian sobbed, and Puck swore. Ethne, Malen, and the other women hissed.

Other years and seasons now floated up as if from the bottom of the sea, rising like sunken continents restored to their own places. Her childhood, girlhood, and youth. Much of it was sad or silly, and many things she regretted.

But the pain in her body began to fade. Perhaps it was shock. Perhaps the flames had burned her nerve endings away. Either way, death was near.

She heard Erlkoenig’s voice. “Very well, young inventor. The elfin lords depart. We of the Night World have no dealings with the light you bear. But the wolves are not so awed by lost things as are we nor as delicate to avoid Christian blood. May they slay you for this insolence.”

7. Rest

With great pain, Yumiko willed her eyes to open. There was Tom, bending over her. Oddly, she saw hanging in the air over his head the glowing white pearl that had appeared when she assumed her spirit form as a fox.

Of the elf lords, she saw no sign. The only remaining sign of the black landscape was a single huge hand thrust up into the air from the ground, motionless. Even as she watched, a wind blew dunes to cover it over. The silver sand now stretched to each horizon. The black glass was buried. The whole was elfin domain again, with no well, salt flat, or valley openly beholden to hell.

As for the werewolves, Yumiko saw they were running in circles, leaping and snapping, attempting to pull down a great black batlike form. Pools of blood were splattered all along the silver ash.

Whenever one wolf would leave the chase and turn, and run at Tom or Yumiko, the batlike form would swoop, and gather the running monster into his wings, and tear at his throat. Then, the bat would fold itself into the wound and enter the wolf body, whereupon the wolf would turn and rend its brothers, falling upon them with tooth and claw until it was torn apart. Whereupon the batlike shape would pull itself out of the maw of the dying beast and flap its way heavily into the dark air again.

The wolves never seemed to understand what was happening, for they never ran at Tom in pairs or as a pack. Or perhaps they enjoyed the sport, not minding who killed whom. Or perhaps they saw how desperately the vast bat struggled since the circling and leaping pack came ever closer to where Tom cradled Yumiko in his arms.

Whatever force had been holding her death at arm’s length was gone. A floating numbness was creeping into her. It was nice to feel weightless again. There was not the least trace of fear in her: only sadness.

Yumiko whispered. “Tom. Don’t cry. I am happy. To see you. One, last…” But pain closed her throat, and she spoke no more.

Yumiko could not focus clearly on Tom’s face. He was saying something, earnestly and urgently, but the words faded into and out of existence.

Now it was time to rest. Yumiko wanted to explain to Tom that she was happy, very happy. She need only sink down now into the softness of nothingness awaiting her and enjoy the rest. Sweet rest.

She closed her eyes and let her head drop back.

8. Red Wine

She could not rest. Something was bothering her. Had Tom heard her answer? Had she spoken it in time?

Yumiko pried her eyes open again. She croaked and could not speak. She was very thirsty. The silver ash was everywhere. It was choking her.

She saw a little dot of light in the dark heaven, like a firefly. Down it darted rapidly. Here was Elfine, still carrying the white ring. Elfine called out in horror when she saw Yumiko’s wounds and burns.

The nine-inch-high girl landed near Yumiko’s motionless, limp left hand. This was the hand that was not swollen. Without a word, Elfine thrust the ring on Yumiko’s finger and twisted it. Starlight, and then sunlight, burst forth.

Four vast and terrifying living creatures were then looming over them, larger than galaxies, light years tall, but somehow compressed by some impossible quirk of perspective to became visible to the eye. Now their wings were entirely folded, their bodies cloaked, and three of the faces out of four were not seen. The remaining face was like the face of a man, bright as the sun. To stare directly at it was to go blind.

A half dozen of the braver werewolves turned, yammering, and ran toward the nearest of the four living creatures. They approached the huge ox hooves of the creature’s feet, which were glowing like ingots in a forge. Fire came from the many eyes in the feathers of its wings, and lightning came from the fires, and the six brave wolves were whirled into the air and lit ablaze. The wolves were destroyed so swiftly that no yelp escaped. They were consumed so utterly that no scrap of fur or splinter of bone remained.

The others wolves, not as brave, then ran away, yammering. It was in vain. Fires from Heaven fell down among them. As when a candle flame is blown out and leaves no trace, they were gone.

Now from underneath the eagle feathers of the wings, one of the living creatures raised a hand and spread its fingers. In the light shed from the living creatures, the heaps and dunes of ash suddenly faded away and were no more, and the dark surface beneath grew bright as ice, and all the cracks were mended. The white light from the mirror surface became like flame, but the flickering flames were albino grass and gentle white reeds and pale brush. The standing stones and obelisks turned into trees of many fair shapes, oak and ash and hawthorn, slender birch and many types of fruit trees, but each one white as snow. The dolmens became trellises for white rose or pale grape. The eyes in the wings of the living creatures flew up into the dark and empty heavens, taking fixed positions, and becoming stars.

Tom, staring upward, slack-jawed, uttered softly, “By Schroedinger’s cat! What the heck was that? What happened?”

Elfine tugged on the ring on Yumiko’s finger. She said to Tom, “It is stuck! Turn the ring! Or else the priest vampire boy cannot get near us.”

Tom said to Elfine, “And just who are you?”

Tom took Yumiko’s hand in his. The light from the ring dimmed, turning from sunlight to starlight to metal. The band went from brilliant to argent to white. The archangelic face became angelic and then a visage of an open-eyed woman. The vast beings looming over them shedding lightning bolts disappeared from view.

The pale colors in the landscape turned to green grass, brown trunks, wooden trellises, and flowers with as many hues as the rainbow.

“What were those things?” asked Tom. “Where did they go?”

Elfine tilted her head and rolled her eyes. “I think they are still here. They are always here. They are angels. If you look at them wrong, you die.”

Tom said, “Those things are what? I thought angels wore dresses and played harps and looked like King Vultan of Mongo, but girlier. If those bad boys are around all the time, why don’t they help us? In battles?”

The batlike shape landed heavily on the white grass near Tom and Yumiko. The head of Matthias replaced the triangular batlike skull. “They do. But only the eyes of faith can see the result.”

Elfine said, “Or a magic ring!”

Tom said, “She’s dying. Can you do anything?”

“Fear not,” said Matthias. “I can. We are in the dream realm. It is a very old and solid part, and we are physically present, but all of this around us is dream stuff nonetheless. Find me a cup.”

Elfine picked up a white acorn cap and grew suddenly to her full size, expanding the acorn cap with her. “Will this do?”

Tom said to Elfine, “Just who are you again?”

Elfine had dimples when she smiled. “I am going to be the maid of honor at your wedding!”

Matthias opened his mouth, and fangs as long as switchblades unfolded from his upper jaw. He shook his wings, and they became human arms. He tore open his wrist with a vicious slash, and squeezed his fist, and poured his living blood into the white cup.

“This would not be lawful on Earth,” said Matthias. “I hope it is allowed here.”

Yumiko murmured. “Yes. Tell him. I said. Yes. I do.”

Matthias said soothingly to her, “Do not worry. Once I was a vampire, who drank life from others. But now I can draw upon those selfsame evils as a source of strength. You see, holy unction cures it. Vampirism is just a disease, a spiritual plague rather than a physical one… and…”

But Tom said, “That is not what she is asking about.” He bent his head lower. “What is it, darling?” But Yumiko was too weak to answer.

Matthias said a prayer over the cup, and made the sign of the cross over it three times, and presented it to her. “Hold her head up. Let her drink.”

Yumiko was very thirsty but did not want to drink blood. The idea was nauseating. However, the cup at her lip smelled of red wine. It was cool and refreshing on her tongue and went like warm and cozy fire down her throat. She was surprised the nerves and muscles in her lips and mouth were hale enough to sip and taste and swallow.

She stretched her limbs and sat up. Her flesh was pink and whole, and her bones unbroken, and not even the smallest cut or bruise marred her. The hair on her head was not burned, nor was there even the smell of smoke. Yumiko laughed in breathless joy and cast her arms around Tom, who looked surprised to the point of shock.

Matthias, meanwhile, smiled, started to speak, turned pale, fainted, and fell. The batlike form was entirely gone: he lay naked on the grass.

Chapter Fifteen: Ne’er Sees More His Own Country

1. The Waking World

Tom turned toward Matthias, startled. Yumiko stood and drew the green cloak embroidered with holly leaves around her. Elfine said to her, “Welcome back! Say! Is this really the dream realm? What happens if the people dreaming about this section of landscape wake up?”

Yumiko said sharply, “Where is Wilcolac?”

Wilcolac’s voice came from all directions at once. “I am here. I have cast a word of power from myself like a falcon from my wrist to wake those very beings and restore me to my place.”

And Yumiko looked and realized that she could see him. The fat man was still wounded, bleeding from mouth and nose and from both legs. The long green cloak still draped his portly form. Beneath he was dressed in eighteenth-century formal gentleman’s wear, complete with cravat and waistcoat. He was seated on a headstone, swaying, grimacing, and the blood from his wounds had stained the marble pink in places. From somewhere, for he had not had it before, he had summoned his walking stick. He leaned on it wearily, murmuring words to it. Perhaps it murmured back.

All around was the Cavalry Cemetery of Queens. Yumiko squinted and blinked, for the day was dazzling bright. The morning sun was still near the horizon, which surprised her. It felt like many hours had passed. But, from the look of things, the cemetery was not yet open for business. The dolomite dome of the Johansson Mausoleum rose from the crest of the hill above. Headstones and statues were crowded around.

Yumiko looked left and right. Matthias was nowhere in sight. Nor was Elfine.

Yumiko moved toward Wilcolac. The voluminous green cloak fluttered about her with the agitation of her walk. “You tried to toss my beloved into Hell to save your own wretched soul.”

Tom stepped forward, put his arms around Yumiko, and whispered, “There, there! It is bad form to take vengeance on my evildoers until after you say hello to me!” He bent his lips near hers.

But then he saw Wilcolac watching. Instead of kissing the girl, Tom turned and squinted at the magician. “Wait a minute. I know you. You are the club owner. Of that place Rotwang used to take me when he wanted to get cross-eyed. The Crummy Club. Right?”

Wilcolac smiled sourly. “Cobbler’s Club. Winged Vengeance has burned me out, but the dim vigilante seems not to know how modern society works. My insurance is well paid and covers acts of arson, and since my friends control the insurance industry as well as the legal profession, I foresee no difficulties.”

Yumiko had tilted her head back and parted her lips, but when no kiss was forthcoming, she twisted a bit in Tom’s arms, just enough to express annoyance, but did not pull free.

She turned her head to scowl at Wilcolac. “But your master is dead. Thursday.”

Wilcolac said, “Alive. But burning slowly in Hell. Forever. As I sit and contemplate my future, I am trying to reckon the ways in which this disadvantages me, if any.”

Yumiko said, “You serve him. You must be loyal.”

“Must I? Lord Thursday forced me out of a comfortable neutrality and friendship with all sides. Excitement and calamity became a daily routine. He invited his dreadful girlfriend into my place, whom I hope is rotting in an elfin jail in Troynovant, or languishing in an enchanted sleep, or trapped in the shape of a sapling.”

Wilcolac smiled at her and continued. “Spare him no pity. It was at his behest I took you into my service, but I saved you from him. He wanted to torture the location of the vigilante’s lair out of you. I knew we could find it with a little psychological pressure, an obvious tail for you to spot and shake and a smoother tail for you not to, and a little patience. The Cheyenne sent me the signal to indicate you led him to your master’s hidden lair, or else I would not have given Garlot the go-ahead to duel with Gilberec. I assume the foolish young knight is dead…”

Yumiko was surprised when Tom released her and stepped away. A cheer from his throat interrupted Wilcolac’s speech. The red-haired youth was jumping, waving both arms overhead, and hallooing.

Through the forest of headstones came a jingle of spurs and a clatter of armor. Gilberec atop Rabicane came into view trotting down the slope, leading his riding horse, his pack horse, and Matthias’s white mule. The truncheon of a broken lance was in his hand, and his shield was dented. Ruff the dog came running pell-mell down the slope, barking excitedly, then he ran back up the slope toward Gil, barked more, and ran down the slope again.

2. A Noble Offer

Wilcolac looked up at the young knight approaching. “And to think, Lucien called me foolish when I told him it was likely Arthur’s blessing was on the boy.”

Yumiko could not resist an arch smile. “I know. I heard. I had you bugged.”

He gasped in surprise and coughed in pain. He wiped blood from his mouth onto a handkerchief. “Resourceful. But you were a creature strictly of fifteenth-century samurai weapons and ninja tricks, or so I heard. When did you enter the electronic age?”

Yumiko smiled again, eager to boast about Tom and his cleverness, but Wilcolac did not wait for her answer. “No matter! The affair is done. You have no more business with me. My ties to the Anarchists are cut. If anything, I am grateful to you. And I am glad, very glad, Lord Thursday is in the inferno, luxuriating in each one of the punishments laid out for me.”

Yumiko said sharply, “That is disgusting! To let another suffer in your place!”

He smiled a crooked smile. “So says a young woman baptized just today. How droll of you.”

Gil arrived, doffing his helmet and tucking it under one arm. His silver hair in the sunlight looked as metallic as his breastplate. He looked down from his seat in his saddle to the wounded man.

He spoke without preamble. “Wilcolac Cobweb, do you wish to escape from the Anarchists? Another Thursday will be appointed in time, or another Lord of Anarchy will see that you were useful once. You did not have the strength to oppose them then. Join us. Serve Arthur! My sword will protect you.”

“And you make me this most noble offer… why?

“To save your mortal life and perhaps your immortal soul,” said Gilberec grimly.

“Oh? And not because you wish my particular talents to serve your cause rather than theirs?”

“Quite the opposite,” said Gil. “You must forswear all magic, break your wand, release your familiar spirits, and cast any books of hidden secrets into the sea.”

Wilcolac smiled. “And give up show biz?”

Gil scowled.

Wilcolac waved his hand in the air as if to shoo away a fly. “No, my lad, I have made many grisly sacrifices to win what I have won, and many a dreadful secret I have unearthed, things known to no others. And now I have been to the maw of Hell itself during the tithing of the elfin kings. My reputation among the other practitioners in the field will soar!”

Yumiko said, “Your hob, Crookshank, is gone. Your ghost, Jack-o’-Lantern, is gone. I killed one and freed the other. Joan the Wad said she was going to be baptized.”

Wilcolac’s smile became a little stiff. He said to Tom, “You know, young inventor, while you were languishing in the grip of the pharmaceuticals and enchantments I plied you with, your girlfriend was dancing for tips at my club. Truly sleazy and uncouth old men would tuck grimy bills of high denominations into all sorts of intimate crevasses. She was not entirely naked.”

Tom said, “Schroedinger’s inconsistent cat! You are so going to die now!”

“Am I?” smirked Wilcolac. He squinted up at Gilberec. “Well, Sir Knight. Your ears are keen. Did I speak any untrue thing?”

Gil’s face darkened. The look of steel in his eyes was not pleasant to see. He threw down his truncheon at the magician’s feet. “As easily as that spear was broken, your enemies will break you.”

“Fortunate for me that I find myself in better company then, is it not?” Wilcolac spoke on in an airy and carefree tone. His smile was smug. “Will you kindhearted young folk with your foolish high ideals be content to watch me bleed and die, or will you call an ambulance for me?”

Tom said, “We may need to call an ambulance for Matthias in any case.”

Gil said, “Why? What happened? Where is he?”

As if summoned by his name, out from between two angelic statues, leaning on the five-foot-tall form of Elfine, Matthias came walking into view.

3. Anti-vampirism

He was dressed once more in his Dominican habit of white beneath a black hooded cape. His steps were slow and unstable.

As he drew near, Gil said, “Have you checked yourself for wounds?”

Matthias said, “I am well.”

Gil said, “What happened?”

Matthias said, “Nothing unlawful.”

Gil scowled. “A vampire trick. Those are not good for you.”

Matt said, “A vampire drinks blood and drains the life of another. I gave of myself that another might drink and shared the life within me.” He smiled sadly. “It sounds mildly blasphemous when I put it that way, I know, but the grace of Heaven allows some of us, in some small way, to participate in the work of Christ even though we all participate in the sin of Adam. I can do nothing of myself.”

“Spare us yet another theology lecture!” Tom said, “What happened?”

Matt raised an eyebrow. “You were there. You saw.”

Tom said, “I mean, just now. You vanished.”

“The magician’s spell, for which I suppose I am grateful, deposited me back in the waking world near my things. Elfine found me and Yumiko’s pearl.”

Elfine brought the pearl over. Yumiko twisted it in her hands and was able to shove it in the same imaginary direction her vixen body had come out from. The pearl vanished, and her suit, boots, gloves, and other gear solidified into her hands. The green cloak was so voluminous, and the smart material so plaint and convenient, that she was able to draw on the suit without any loss of modesty, as if in a tent. The boots and gloves followed a moment later. The mask vanished into the pocket of her cape because she had no time to brush and braid her hair.

Matthias hobbled closer. “Thank you, Magician, for bringing us so neatly back to Earth. But there are things you may not bring on holy ground.”

“Now, wait a moment…” Wilcolac started to say.

Matthias raised the little silver crucifix dangling from his rosary and said a blessing. The black walking stick in Wilcolac’s hand moaned, vibrated, jumped, and then exploded into a mess of splinters. The larger fragments began to turn red and give of little wisps of blue smoke.

“How dare you!” Wilcolac was red faced with fury.

Matthias said, “When I was in your house, I said nothing to disaccommodate you. But now you are here. This ground is consecrated. I am no knight, who sheathes his sword on the Sabbath, or in parley, or when peace is made. You are forever at war with Heaven, Necromancer. You are the slave of those who just this hour sought your life and soul. You have escaped from Hell by less than inches, less than seconds, and your life will lead you back there. Escape from them. Choose life, not death. Save yourself.”

Wilcolac heaved himself painfully to his feet. “Never,” said the magician with finality.

“Schroedinger’s unprintably uncertain and acausal cat! You are so going to die,” declared Tom, glaring steadfastly into Wilcolac’s condescending smirk.

Wilcolac stiffened, gargled, swayed. The life went from his eyes. His body fell backward across the headstone, quite dead.

4. The Eyes of Night

Gil glared disapprovingly at Tom.

“Not me! I did not do anything!” Tom protested. “You think I can cuss someone to death? With a cat?”

The body slid off the headstone and turned toward them as it struck the grass. Now all could see where a red arrow was imbedded in the top of his skull up to the fletching. The arrowhead and shaft protruded a foot out below the chin. Death had been instantaneous.

Ruff barked. All looked up.

Dark against the bright morning sky, passing from cloud to cloak, slid a dark shape on wide wings, black as a crow and silent as an owl. The longbow was visible as a thin horn issuing from his head, reaching in the direction of flight.

The distant figure was sideways to them, one wing foreshortened and hard to see. He reached both arms above his head, almost as if in a swan dive, before drawing them sharply but smoothly down and apart, which was the Japanese style of archery.

This time they heard the whisper of the arrow fly. The second arrow struck the fallen body square in the chest, passing through the heart and pinning the corpse to the ground. There was a scrap of paper bound around the shaft. A little wind pried the paper open and set it to flutter. Yumiko could see some of the words listed: black magic, abduction, murder, rigged gambling, purveying lewdness…

Gil made a fist and raised it at the wide-winged black shape as it dove smoothly into a cloud bank and was lost to view. “Another lawless slaying. No trial, no mercy, no hope. Why does he mar our work?”

Yumiko said, “I can answer that.”

Gil looked down. “Will he be in the factory if we go back?”

“I doubt he will connect the moon-door to that threshold again now that it has served its purpose.”

Gil looked puzzled.

Tom said, “She means thresholds. Winged Vengeance stole Rotwang Cobweb’s irreplaceable moon-door right out of the wreckage of the Iron Mole. So it acts like the door to your attic, Gil, or the gate to Mommur. Sometimes the entrance is in one place, sometimes in another. But the attic, city, or room is not actually behind the door.”

Gil said, “No, I knew that, I was wondering what purpose.”

Yumiko said, “I assume the factory was meant to kill whoever Wilcolac had tailing me. Nyctalope must have suspected you would find the ghost and force it to bring you here; otherwise, he would not have been hiding in the clouds overhead, waiting for you to bring any surviving Anarchists out from the Tithing Ground. He knew where it was, for he escaped from there.”

Tom said, “He and I should form a club.”

Yumiko said, “He is not one for joining clubs.”

Gil said to her, “You said you could tell us why he hinders us.”

“The hindrance is not deliberate. He acts as he does because of who he is.”

“Who is he?”

“He is Nyctalope Peaseblossom.”

Gil said, “He was in the previous Last Crusade. But I was told they all died.”

Tom said, “Should have been called the Not Quite the Totally Last Crusade.”

Yumiko said to Gil, “Two lived. The other was Rotwang Cobweb, who is an Anarchist.”

Tom said, “Lord Saturday, the Master of Revenants. He told me before he gave me to the Werewolf guy, Lord Thursday. We should discuss with the Man in the Black Room why he never told us that the man for whom I was interning, and was later hired to spy on, was an ex-member of the same crusade I served.”

Gil said, “Don’t interrupt. You and I will discuss your private expeditions into danger zones with unvetted allies later.”

Tom said, “Unvetted? She’s my second cousin once removed!”

Gil ignored him and turned to Yumiko. “You were saying, Cousin?”

“I was speaking of Nyctalope. Your fight he condones—indeed he fights it himself—but he trusts neither the Man in the Black Room nor any living being.”

Gil said, “Where is his sanctuary? The Magician tricked us into looking for it, and we were nearly killed by the deadfalls.”

“It cannot be found,” said Yumiko, “He carries the eight-sided chamber on his person.”

Elfine said, “Is he allowed to do that? It is not fair if detectives cannot find villains!”

Yumiko said, “He is no villain. A dark mermaid helped him. I do not know which one. It takes up nearly no space. Anyone who steps into the sanctuary is actually in his pouch. That was the destination I had in mind when I tried to use the Ring of Mists to return from the Third Hemisphere.”

She sighed and said half to herself, “How am I going to get all my outfits out of my closet? And get my diary?”

She turned to Elfine, “Which reminds me, I now remember something. Damiano was the name of the police officer who brought me to the hospital. He is also one of the agents of Winged Vengeance. When I arrived unconscious in the eight-sided chamber, Nyctalope had his agent put me in the hospital.”

Elfine said, “With all your weapons and supersuit and such?”

Yumiko said, “All redesigned by Tom. Nyctalope did not trust them. He thought I was a trap as well.” She pouted. “As it turned out, he was right. I led an enemy to his door.”

Matthias said, “Why didn’t he bring you to one of the Moth houses? We have one in every city. You could have found help there.”

“He is not a Moth. He is solitary.”

Elfine said angrily, “He could have parked you some place safer than a hospital were werewolves could find you! And a goat man!”

Yumiko said, “He did not know the Ring of Mists was on my finger and that its scent calls ghosts when the band is black. Euhemerus Cobweb, the Lord of Ghosts, had no trouble finding me.”

5. Experimental Results

Yumiko turned to Tom. “I can report the experiment in intercontinental teleportation was a total failure. The dark part of the world of mists—the part the lost ghosts haunt—is watched and guarded just as well as the upper parts. The mist barrier between here and the Third Hemisphere is impenetrable.”

Tom said, “You told me the ghosts could not stop you. That is why you were the logical choice to go.”

“The demons stopped me.”

“They should not be able to come up in the mist that high. It is not their layer. Insubstantial beings exist at a higher strata than non-dimensional beings”

“I dove down.”

Tom looked shocked. “What? But why? What could possess you to do that?”

Yumiko said sadly, “What possesses anyone who dives into the arms of a demon? A flaw in me made me so crave some trifle in the demon’s hand that I fell willingly onto his palm. He but closed his fingers. But I have learned a hard lesson.”

She reached down and shut the eyes of the dead man. “Many things have gathered to convince me that reckless slaughter betrays my mother’s memory and does not avenge her or honor her.”

6. The Announcement

Yumiko turned to the others. “I have an announcement. Saint Barbara told me to tell you that when eternal day breaks, twilight is no more. Then will all the deeds of the Twilight Folk be laid bare and judged. She said that this hour is at hand.”

A look of astonishment and joy overcame the face of Matthias. His eyes behind his spectacle lenses seemed large. Now they seemed larger still. He called to Gil, “Did you hear that? Did you hear?”

Gil said warily, “It might not mean what you think it means.”

Matthias said to Yumiko, “Was there anything else? Did the saint say anything about the Grail?”

Yumiko said, “No. Nothing about that. She only told me not to let my beloved be drawn into darkness.” She put her arm around Tom and smiled up at him.

Matthias said to Gil, “It means we are destined to succeed!”

Gil said, “Or those who come after us, inspired by our brave deaths, will succeed. Or it means the Second Advent is nigh and has nothing to do with the Black Spell at all.”

Elfine said, “What are you talking about?”

Gil said, “The Last Crusade. We are not crusading against the paynims or to free the Holy Land. We will free all the lands. We will break the Black Spell.”

Tom said, “Which reminds me. I also have an announcement.”

Yumiko’s face lit up. Elfine clapped.

Tom threw out his chest. “I have figured out how to enter the Third Hemisphere, recover the Grail, drive back the Mists of Everness, and save Mankind from the domination of the elves!”

Yumiko’s face fell. Tom looked at her, startled. “What? What is it?”

Yumiko bowed. “Nothing of importance. I just thought–”

“She just thinks you are an idiot!” said Elfine.

Tom said, “And who are you, again, exactly?”

Elfine grinned. “A lovable rogue girl detective.”

Tom said, “Wait. Does that mean you detect the girls of lovable rogues, or that you are a rogue girl who detects, or…”

“All of that, of course!”

Matthias said, “Elfine knows where the Nautilus docks. So you see what our next step will be.”

Gil said, “Before that, the next step is getting this body properly buried and our reports squared away with the Man in the Black Room.”

Yumiko said, “And I must meet him.”

Gil said, “Oh?”

Yumiko said, “If I am to become a member in good standing with the Last Crusade.”

Gil looked skeptical. “Well, Cousin, I am not sure how to put this, but you do not make a very good first impression, and there are some real drawbacks in your history.”

Matthias said, “And there are drawbacks in our histories as well. That is why we are so eager to give anyone a chance to turn over a new leaf. Also…” He turned to Gil. “Tom will insist she come.”

Tom said, “I will?”

Matthias said, “Because of your big announcement!”

Elfine jumped up and down and clapped again. “Announce it now! Announce! Announce! Pronounce the announcement!”

Gil said, “What announcement?”

Tom said, “Yeah, what announcement? That I figured out a way past the–”

Elfine shook her head and gestured meaningfully towards a silent Yumiko. Tom looked quizzically at her. Finally, a look of enlightenment came to his face, but was immediately transformed into an expression of sheepish embarrassment.

Tom cleared his throat. “I would like to announce… Well, wait a minute. I am not sure if I can. I wanted to ask… that is to propose… Wait a minute.”

And he got down on one knee.

“Yes,” said Yumiko before he could say anything. “I do. I accept.”

Tom stammered. “But you don’t even know what I–”

“I do,” said Yumiko. She raised her hand and displayed the ring on her finger. “You already asked. I accept. I am yours.”

“I mean, I am asking you to be my–”

“Yes,” said Yumiko. She smiled shyly, and bowed politely, and took his hand, and urged him to his feet. “My answer to you is yes.”

Tom stood and sputtered. “I mean… what I… uh–”

Ruff barked impatiently. Gil sighed and shook his head, “You said it, boy.”

Ruff barked again. Gil laughed and translated. “Shut your trap, Tom, and kiss her already.”

Here ends TITHE TO TARTARUS

Which Concludes the Tale of the Dark Avenger’s Sidekick

The Tale of Moth and Cobweb continues in

MAD SCIENTIST’S INTERN

Science Fiction

Awake in the Night Land by John C. Wright

City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis by John C. Wright

Somewhither: A Tale of the Unwithering Realm by John C. Wright

The Corroding Empire 1: Corrosion by Johan Kalsi

Back From the Dead by Rolf Nelson

Hyperspace Demons by Jonathan Moeller

Mutiny in Space by Rod Walker

Alien Game by Rod Walker

Young Man's War by Rod Walker

QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day

QUANTUM MORTIS Gravity Kills by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day

QUANTUM MORTIS A Mind Programmed by Jeff Sutton, Jean Sutton, and Vox Day

Victoria: A Novel of Fourth Generation War by Thomas Hobbes

Fantasy

One Bright Star to Guide Them by John C. Wright

The Book of Feasts & Seasons by John C. Wright

Iron Chamber of Memory by John C. Wright

Moth & Cobweb 1: Swan Knight's Son by John C. Wright

Moth & Cobweb 2: Feast of the Elfs by John C. Wright

Moth & Cobweb 3: Swan Knight's Sword by John C. Wright

Moth & Cobweb 4: Daughter of Danger by John C. Wright

Moth & Cobweb 5: City of Corpses by John C. Wright

Moth & Cobweb 6: Tithe to Tartarus by John C. Wright

Arts of Dark and Light 0: Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy by Vox Day

Arts of Dark and Light 1: A Throne of Bones by Vox Day

Arts of Dark and Light 2: A Sea of Skulls by Vox Day

A Magic Broken by Vox Day

The Wardog's Coin by Vox Day

The Last Witchking by Vox Day

The Altar of Hate by Vox Day

The War in Heaven by Vox Day

The World in Shadow by Vox Day

The Wrath of Angels by Vox Day

Military Science Fiction

There Will Be War Vol. I ed. Jerry Pournelle

There Will Be War Vol. II ed. Jerry Pournelle

There Will Be War Vol. III ed. Jerry Pournelle

There Will Be War Vol. IV ed. Jerry Pournelle

There Will Be War Vol. V ed. Jerry Pournelle

There Will Be War Vol. VI ed. Jerry Pournelle

There Will Be War Vol. IX ed. Jerry Pournelle

There Will Be War Vol. X ed. Jerry Pournelle

Plague Wars 0: The Eden Plague by David VanDyke

Plague Wars 1: Reaper's Run by David VanDyke

Plague Wars 2: Skull's Shadows by David VanDyke

Galactic Liberation 1: Starship Liberator by David VanDyke and B.V. Larson

Galactic Liberation 2: Battleship Indomitable by David VanDyke and B.V. Larson

Riding the Red Horse Vol. 1 ed. Tom Kratman and Vox Day

Fiction

An Equation of Almost Infinite Complexity by J. Mulrooney

Hitler in Hell by Martin van Creveld

Loki's Child by Fenris Wulf

The Ames Archives 1: Brings the Lightning by Peter Grant

The Ames Archives 2: Rocky Mountain Retribution by Peter Grant

The Missionaries by Owen Stanley

The Promethean by Owen Stanley

Non-Fiction

4th Generation Warfare Handbook by William S. Lind and LtCol Gregory A. Thiele, USMC

A History of Strategy: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind by Martin van Creveld

Equality: The Impossible Quest by Martin van Creveld

Clio & Me: An Intellectual Autobiography by Martin van Creveld

Four Generations of Modern War by William S. Lind

On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009 by William S. Lind

MAGA Mindset: Making YOU and America Great Again by Mike Cernovich

The Nine Laws by Ivan Throne

Appendix N: A Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons by Jeffro Johnson

Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth by John C. Wright

Astronomy and Astrophysics by Dr. Sarah Salviander

Compost Everything: The Good Guide to Extreme Composting by David the Good

Grow or Die: The Good Guide to Survival Gardening by David the Good

Push the Zone: The Good Guide to Growing Tropical Plants Beyond the Tropics by David the Good

SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police by Vox Day

Collected Columns, Vol. I: Innocence & Intellect, 2001—2005 by Vox Day

Collected Columns, Vol. II: Conceit & Crisis, 2006—2009 by Vox Day

Collected Columns, Vol. III: Failure & Freedom, 2010—2012 by Vox Day

Cuckservative: How “Conservatives” Betrayed America by John Red Eagle and Vox Day

On the Existence of Gods by Dominic Saltarelli and Vox Day

On the Question of Free Trade by James D. Miller and Vox Day

Do We Need God To Be Good? by C.R. Hallpike

The LawDog Files by LawDog

The LawDog Files: African Adventures by LawDog

Table of Contents

Cover

Awake in the Night Land

Young Man's War

Castalia House