The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,73

sorcerer, Dee.’

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

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

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

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

And he replied, ‘I will.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘It lives?’ the spy asked.

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

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

‘It will.’

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER THIRTY

NIGHT HAD FALLEN, and the sea bellowed its fury. Iron waves hammered the Tempest as it crashed towards the rocky fangs protruding from the swell. Wrenched back and forth in the grip of turbulent currents, the galleon seemed caught in a battle it was impossible to win. ‘Hold fast to the course,’