Frank Tuttle - The Banshee's walk

Milton looked quickly across the paintings arrayed behind us. “Are those…?”

“Essences,” said the alarkin. “Soon to be restored.”

Milton nodded. “Well. We’re at your mercy, Esteemed One,” he said. “Might I inquire as to your plans for us?”

“Plans?” The alarkin seemed bemused. “I have no plans for you, sorcerer. Other than to return you to your proper place, once the worst of the fires are out.”

The Corpsemaster lifted an eyebrow.

“I think what my sorcerous companion is trying to ask is this,” I said. “Do you mean to go stomping about the Regency, re-establishing a reign of terror, crushing all and sundry beneath your mighty heels?”

Hisvin nearly choked.

The voice laughed.

“Ten thousand years ago, perhaps. But now? Let me show you a thing.”

We moved.

Only for an instant. But the alarkin and the Corpsemaster and I, we went somewhere. We became-other people. For the briefest of instants, I led another life, one so alien and strange I cannot even begin to describe it.

And then again. We moved. The world changed.

And again, and again, each wonder brighter and stranger and more delicious than the last.

And then we were back by a sunlit marble fountain where the breeze smelled of honeysuckles and the sun shone down untroubled and bright.

“What care I for your world, sorcerer? What need have I of lordship over it?”

The Corpsemaster had no answer. Nor did I.

Buttercup dived into my arms, dripping and giggling, her cloak of starlight and spider silk wrapped around her.

“I had forgotten her, her kind,” said the alarkin. “I free her now. She is in your care now, Finder. Do not displease me by failing in this.”

And the alarkin spoke a strange word, and Buttercup laughed and hugged me.

“Pardon me, but the ones above?” asked the Corpsemaster. I’d never heard sincere, polite deference from one of her rank before, but I was careful to hide my grin. “I found myself overwhelmed. Without my defenses, they will still seek to loot your resting place.”

The voice seemed to ponder this. The chattering of the golden fish took on a decidedly worried tone.

An ornate stone table appeared before Milton and I. Upon it was a plain wooden wand.

“Dissuade them” said the alarkin. “Protect my creatures. This should suffice.”

Hisvin reached out and took up the wand.

He closed his eyes. I assume he was engaging in some form of sorcerous exploration of the wand.

When he opened them, he was smiling.

“I believe it shall indeed suffice,” he said. Then he looked at me, winked, and when he spoke again, his voice was that of a woman.

“You have my gratitude, Finder,” she said. “I shall never forget. Upon that, you may always rest assured.”

And then he-she-bowed to me, turned and bowed to the fountain, and vanished.

I gaped. The alarkin laughed, and Buttercup giggled with her.

“We have a few moments,” said the alarkin. “I will return you to your time and place when the conflict above is resolved. Please, sit.”

A chair appeared behind me. It was an exact replica of the chair I keep behind my desk. When I sat, it even squeaked as that one did, and the seat was warm. I surmised Three Leg Cat was even now glaring angrily about my office wondering where his resting place had gone.

“Thank you.” Buttercup curled up in my lap. I briefly considered asking for Darla to be freed from her canvas, but decided not to press my luck.

“Your dreams,” I said. “They’ve been quite an inspiration.”

I felt something smile, way up in the sky.

“I am pleased that is so. Perhaps this will atone for my previous acts of-how did you phrase it, Finder? Stomping about in a reign of terror, crushing kingdoms under my heels?”

I cringed.

The alarkin laughed. When it did so, the butterflies all took flight. I smiled.

“I was so young. So intoxicated with power.” A breeze rose up, and I felt a shrug. “So long ago.”

I just nodded. Thunder rolled, distant and not threatening.

“It is done. You may return, now. Take care of Buttercup. She will be lost in your world without you and yours.”

I patted Buttercup’s hair. She yawned and rubbed her eyes wearily.

“We will. That’s a promise.”

“Good. Farewell, Finder. Trouble me no more. I shall return to my slumber, and my dreams.”

“Good night, Your Majesty,” I said. I’d never used such a title before without sarcasm. “And thanks.”

Buttercup went limp in my arms, fast asleep.

And then, without any fuss, we were back where we’d come from.

The House was gone. All of it, except the floor under our feet. The mighty slate and timber walls, the arching rooftops, the tiny windows, the red-painted door-gone.

Gone, but laid about us in every direction, in splinters and stones and heaps of smoking gravel.

Darla gasped. Mama shouted. Evis knocked me on my ass, sending Buttercup spilling and me scrambling and cursing.

They started diving and running and shouting at once. It didn’t last long, because the blast never came, the roof never fell, the walls never collapsed-there was nothing but silence and the odd wraithlike waft of drifting white smoke.

The trees had even been uprooted whole and cast aside, in a huge circle a couple of acres across, all around us.

House Werewilk was simply no more.

Darla caught my hand and hauled me to my feet and wrapped me up in a wordless hug. I could see and hear people beginning to talk, to turn around, to stare around them, eyes wide with wonder and confusion.

Only Mama Hog seemed unaffected by the sudden quiet.. She calmly stuffed her dried birds back in her bag and casually picked up a shiny silver spoon mixed in with the debris. “Reckon anybody wants this?” she said.

Evis laughed. Gertriss laughed. I think Darla and I did too, while Mama shrugged and dropped the spoon in her bag as well.

Milton Werewilk came ambling out of a cloud of fast-vanishing smoke. His hands were empty. He fought to hide a smile.

Somewhere in the distance, one of the monstrous uprooted trees came crashing back down to earth.

Singh appeared, scurrying out of the lawn, his clothes burned nearly off, blood running down his chest. Nevertheless, he managed to reach Milton’s side, and guide him toward us, leaning on his charge as he came.

Evis saw, turned toward me.

“I assume you struck a deal.”

“I got lucky,” I said. “But yes. We were spared.”

“You spoke to it?”

I nodded. “Less said the better.”

“Hisvin?”

“Alive, I think. Out there somewhere.”

Evis frowned. “Damn,” he said, quietly. “I was hoping maybe that little problem might have solved itself.”

“It’s not a problem anymore. Don’t ask. Just trust.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Nope.” Singh and Milton lurched up. I wondered if the Corpsemaster was in Milton’s body, or whether she’d hurried on home after the ruckus was done.

There was no animation in Milton’s eyes. But I knew that meant nothing. The Corpsemaster isn’t seen, unless she wants to be seen.

I shuddered.

“The Lady?” said Singh. “The others?”

“The tunnels,” I replied. I looked about the shattered House, realized we’d be better off trying to force open a door from the cornfield. “Scatter. Round up the ones that aren’t injured. We need to get your people out.”

“Sir?” He looked at me as if I sprouted wings. I realized he had no idea what he’d just been through, and he wasn’t dealing with the shock very well.

“Magic,” I said. “It was a spell. It’s done. Get a move on. Lank’s down there, somewhere.”

“Right, right.” He started shouting and yanking at elbows. I held Darla close and gave Gertriss a big wink. She caught Buttercup up and cradled the sleeping banshee in her arms.