Hobgoblin Night: Mask and Dagger 2 Read online

  PRAISE FOR MASK AND DAGGER

  "A cross between alternate history, fantasy, and romance ... divertingly chases buried treasure, dallies with young noble women in reduced circumstances, and reforms a swashbuckling hero addicted to drugs, all the while pursuing a fairy's revenge. The hero and heroine are delightful, the villains various, and the hints at a history just slightly askew." — School Library Journal

  "Deception and intrigue, magic and metaphysical mystery create a spellbinding tale." — Voya

  "A fantasy of the eighteenth century [that] revels in the weirdness of that specific era. You can find analogues here for the Hell-fire Club and the Freemasons, you can find alchemists and coffee-houses, you can find apothecaries and fairy godmothers out of some salon fairy tale. It’s a brilliant re-imagining of the pre-Romantic era ... stands out through the quality of its sustained imagination." — Black Gate

  "Fresh and appealing, and completely original in concept. Everything I wished for and more. Excellent, excellent, excellent!" — Kate Elliott, author of The Spiritwalker Trilogy

  "Edgerton is a writer whose work is reminiscent at times of many different authors, from Malory to Georgette Heyer, but whose use of such sources results in an original and unique product. " — OUT OF THIS WORLD TRIBUNE

  "I was very, very entertained, enthralled really, by the non-stop action, the 'something wicked this way comes' feeling and the surprising plot developments. In this world, it feels as though ANYTHING could happen." — Miranda Davis, author of The Duke's Tattoo, and The Baron's Betrothal

  HOBGOBLIN NIGHT

  Book Two

  Mask and Dagger

  Teresa Edgerton

  Published by Tickety Boo Press Ltd

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialog are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  The Gnome's Engine © 1991 by Teresa Edgerton, was originally published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  "Rogue's Moon" © 1997 by Teresa Edgerton. First appeared in Highwaymen: Robbers & Rogues, edited by Jennifer Roberson.

  "The Ghost in the Chimney" © 1991 by Teresa Edgerton. First appeared in Midnight Zoo, April 1991.

  "Titania or The Celestial Bed" © 1994 by Teresa Edgerton. First appeared in Weird Tales from Shakespeare, edited by Katharine Kerr.

  This collection (including minor revisions to the original stories) ©2015 by Teresa Edgerton.

  Cover Art by Sarah J Swainger

  Interior Art by Ann Meyer Maglinte ©1991

  Book Design by Big River Press Ltd

  HOBGOBLIN NIGHT

  OF THE STONE SERAMARIAS

  There is a Stone called Seramarias which does not occur in Nature. Its properties are Marvelous, for it neutralizes Poisons, attracts other Gem-stones as a Lodestone attracts Iron, and Gifts the One who wears it with the power of Prophecy.

  Many other Applications, equally Remarkable, have been ascribed: when Soaked in one dram Water and two drams Wine for a period of Seven days—that it may thus Communicate its own Sovereign Virtue—the Stone yields up the Elixir, which if an Honest Man should drink but a Sip each day, his Life shall be Prolonged past its Natural Span. Further Pseudopholus Benedictus hath written: "In the hands of the Philosopher, Seramarias cures all Ills, cools all Wicked Passions, and Elevates the Mind."

  Yet it is also True that for a Greedy Love of the Fire and Lustre of the Stone, men seek Seramarias and thereby lose their Peace.

  From Catalana's Book of Silences: being the Memoirs and Reflections of the Sage, Don Gaspar Eirenius Catalana, translated from the Spagnish by Dr. Thos. Scotus Kelly, Fr. Mezz., M.S.O.

  CHAPTER ONE

  In the nature of a Prologue.

  Even by moonlight, it was evident the crumbling Zar-Wildungen mansion had seen better days. A rambling structure of white stone, caught in a woven net of ivy and flowering vines, the house yet maintained a certain slumberous dignity, as though it existed in a kind of architectural trance, a ponderous sleeping beauty dreaming away the centuries in a prison of leaves and flowers.

  So the ancient building appeared from without: heavy, drowsy, and dull. Inside, grim-faced servants scurried from room to room in the frantic performance of their duties, relaying orders in tense, hurried whispers. The little Duchess, in one of her rare violent rages, had cast the entire household into turmoil.

  Seemingly oblivious to the flurry of activity down below, she paced the floor of her elegant bedchamber, the full skirts of her satin gown rustling with every agitated movement. Her cheeks glowed; her chest rose and fell in short panting breaths. Cast carelessly aside on the floor lay a crumpled piece of paper: the letter which, many hours earlier, had served to ignite her volatile temper.

  "My spies . . ." she raged aloud—though there was no one in the room to hear her but Sebastian the miniature indigo ape, who had taken refuge on the mantelpiece. ". . . my spies are fools and incompetents. Two ignorant and inexperienced girls have defeated them all!"

  She clenched her hands into fierce little fists. A year had passed since those provoking girls had disappeared, a year in which they had successfully eluded the Duchess and all her twoscore spies, a year of false leads and repeated disappointments, like the one today.

  She threw herself down on a dainty loveseat, put a hand to her aching head. As her fury began to abate, a vast, suffocating weariness stole over her, and her eyes filled with sudden tears.

  Only those of fairy blood like her, the Duchess thought, could understand her bitter frustration, her every scheme balked, her rightful vengeance denied her. Only another miserable hybrid like herself could understand what it was to be pulled and harassed by so many conflicting desires. A shudder passed over her delicate frame. From her father, a full-blooded Fee, she had inherited this consuming hunger for vengeance, a constitutional inability to forgive any insult; but a human taint, by way of her mother, robbed her of the fierce, sustaining passion which ought to uphold her now. It disheartened her, instead, with a morbid conviction that when victory over her enemies finally came, it would be a hollow triumph at best.

  "What a wretched creature I am; not one thing or the other," she exclaimed ruefully. "And it is wearisome . . . wearisome beyond all measure."

  As if responding to this quieter mood, the blue ape climbed down from the mantlepiece, loped across the floor, and perched on the back of the loveseat. He gazed down at her with clouded eyes. The Duchess regarded him through her tears. "Poor little Sebastian, poor lonely fellow. If I am a freak, then what are you?"

  "An indigo ape, very rare indeed . . . an undoubted novelty." That was how she explained him to her friends. Only the Duchess (and possibly Sebastian himself) knew that there had never been, and probably never would be, another of his kind. "Do you know, Sebastian? Have you any inkling you are utterly unique . . . or do you live your life in merciful ignorance?" Even she, after so many years, could not be sure how far his comprehension might extend.

  And even if he understood his own condition, she could hardly suppose he could understand hers.

  The Duchess took out a lacy handkerchief and wiped her eyes. Outwardly, she knew, she bore little trace of her mixed heritage. Something less than five feet tall and porcelain fair, she was otherwise so entirely human in appearance that few suspected more than the tiniest hint of fairy blood. But it was a maxim, among those of mixed race, that hybrids who bore the most freakish outward signs of their mongrel heritage inevitably possessed a greater degree of inner harmony, a more placid and sober disposition, while those like the Duchess, who appeared most markedly Man or fay, dwarf or gnome, carried all their turmoil within t
hem.

  The Duchess spread out her handkerchief on her lap to dry. She reached up to stroke Sebastian's long blue hair. He whimpered softly in his throat. The Duchess shook her head mournfully. Though worlds apart, it was plain the two of them shared a common grief. "No," she said, with a sigh. "Ignorant you may well be, but I cannot suppose that you are happy."

  And thinking of Sebastian and all his sorrows, memories of her own vexatious circumstances came flooding back: her intricate scheme of revenge brought to nothing—no, worse! the one insult, unrequited, giving birth to a host of bitter grievances, all of which had to be revenged . . . the defection of her sensitive young lover, Francis Skelbrooke . . . the theft of her magic parchment, of immense antiquity and incalculable worth . . . most painful of all, the child she had wished for, to rear as her own, treacherously denied her. Oh yes, her wrongs were many and all of them serious.

  One white fist clenched and unclenched. "What a price I shall exact when I finally catch up with those young women. How I shall make them pay!"

  CHAPTER TWO

  Wherein the Reader may, perchance, Recognize a number of old Friends.

  The colonial town of Lootie's Bay was a town first built, and mostly inhabited, by dwarves and gnomes. Neat houses of stone and brick stood in precise rows, with little dwarf gardens behind, tidy plots of grass and shrubs and useful herbs, amidst pools and fountains and marble statues. Cobbled streets were broad and straight, with crossings and corners all mathematically correct, for the gnomes cherished a fondness for numbers and geometry, just as the dwarves were devoted to earth, water, and stone.

  A deep-water harbor and a small fishing fleet supported a handful of full-sized Men, but for the most part Lootie's Bay was a town of merchants and artisans: weavers, pewtersmiths, potters, and jewelers; glaziers, joiners, masons, and shipbuilders.

  About two blocks from the seawall, on Hartishorn Lane, stood a neat little shop:

  MAPS AND PHILOSOPHIC INSTRUMENTS

  Sammuel Digby Jonas, Proprietor

  A gnome of immense respectability, Mr. Jonas made his living principally as a lensmaker—as a prodigious pair of gold-rimmed spectacles mounted over his door attested—and by selling charts and navigational instruments to mariners. But he had a penchant for invention which led him to construct fantastical devices for which even he could find no practical use, and he kept a workroom at the back of the shop, where he and his new assistant, a brawny youth who went by the name of Jedidiah Thorn, regularly conducted experiments with prisms and magnets, speculums and glass pumps, microscopes and burning glasses.

  To the town at large, this Jedidiah Thorn presented something of a mystery (though anything less sinister than Mr. Thorn, with his open face and candid brown eyes, could scarcely be imagined). He had arrived in Lootie's Bay just a season past, along with his sister Sera and their cousin Miss Winter. Where he lived before that, or what his occupation, he never revealed, though it was known he brought letters of reference that he presented to the Mayor, Mr. Bullrush . . . references which evidently proved entirely satisfactory, for Mr. Bullrush had recommended him to Mr. Jonas, and the two young ladies now resided in the Bullrush household. Yet had he arrived alone, it would have been difficult to place his rank in society: he dressed like a gentleman, his manners were everything they ought to be, but there was sometimes just a hint of something in his speech . . . His sister, however, was unmistakably a lady.

  As the days dwindled and the year faded, the young Man and the gnome spent more and more time in the back room, apparently engrossed in some philosophic inquiry. Just precisely the nature of that inquiry nobody seemed to know, though there was a general expectation that a monograph must shortly appear, a paper the gnome would read aloud at a meeting of the Glassmakers Guild, and then consign to live burial in the guildhall archives. Such had always been the course of Mr. Jonas's inquiries in the past. Yet no monograph appeared.

  Then one day, late in the season of Fading, a note came 'round to the Bullrush residence, inviting Miss Thorn and Miss Winter to take tea at the shop on Hartishorn Lane, a letter which piqued the curiosity of the recipients, with its calculated air of mystery. Extraordinary revelations, promised the letter (penned in Mr. Jonas's hand), and it ended with a solemn declaration: I know that we may rely on your absolute discretion.

  ***

  The house of Mr. Bullrush the Mayor was an imposing structure of mellow pink brick, three stories high with a slate roof, and a noble portico of imported marble. The schoolroom was located in the attic, and there the Bullrush children and their Vole cousins took daily lessons under the keen eye of Miss Sera Thorn.

  On the afternoon in question, lessons being over, Sera left her young charges to a nursery tea with the babies and nursemaids, and went down to her bedchamber. There she changed into a gown of striped muslin and tied a wide-brimmed straw hat over her glossy brown curls. She scowled at her reflection in the oval looking glass over her dressing table. There was a shade under her dark eyes that spoke of sleepless nights. She was oddly out of sorts these days without knowing why, her nerves so charged that she often started or dropped things for no discernible reason at all—nor had Mr. Jonas's tantalizing letter done anything to lift her spirits or to improve her temper.

  "Extraordinary revelations, indeed!" Sera said under her breath, as she descended to the first floor. "Like as not, it is merely another preposterous mechanism that Jed and Mr. Jonas mean to unveil . . . I do hope that it proves to be nothing more."

  Going down another flight, she met Elsie ascending. "My dear, you aren't even ready!" she said, pausing with one hand on the rail. "I thought you meant to accompany me."

  "No, Sera." Elsie Winter regarded her cousin regretfully. "Madam Bullrush is expecting visitors." Elsie was Madam's paid companion. "All the most formidable dames in the town, and Mr. Tynsdale, that horrid preacher, so of course she asked me to stay and help entertain them. What else could I say but yes?"

  Sera shook her head and continued on her way. She did not envy her cousin her position in the house. Though the role of governess occasionally chafed Sera, it was better by far than serving as companion to a fretful old lady.

  Descending a long flight of shallow marble steps to the street, she headed in the direction of Mr. Jonas's shop. The streets were always crowded at this hour with brisk merchants and craftsmen hurrying home to tea; with bustling dwarf nursemaids and little gnome mothers in high-crowned bonnets, ushering their tiny charges back to the nursery after a stroll in the park. Sera was fond of Lootie's Bay, and sympathized with the impatient New World industry of the inhabitants. But she had to admit that she grew just a bit tired of fragile dwarf knick-knacks and miniature furnishings, of ducking her head whenever she passed through a doorway or walked under a shop sign suspended over the street, and most particularly tired of feeling bigger and gawkier than she had ever felt in her life.

  As Sera crossed the square, she experienced an unnerving sensation that someone followed her. Yet even when a familiar long black shadow loomed up on the cobblestones beside her, Sera did not glance back. She remembered, with a shudder, all the times that she had done so . . . only to discover there was no one on the street to whom such a long thin shadow could possibly belong.

  Scolding herself for allowing her imagination to play spiteful tricks on her, Sera continued on past the Glassmakers guildhall. Such intellectual life as the community might boast centered around the red brick guildhall. Not all who attended meetings there were actually glaziers, glassblowers, or lensmakers, for the Glassmakers Lodge, of all the guilds, was the last repository of the old craft mysteries, the last to celebrate the ancient rituals in full knowledge of their occult significance, and Men and dwarves and gnomes from all walks of life eagerly sought entry into the speculative branch of the Guild. Three times a year they marched through the town in their hierophantic robes and glittering medals, bearing before them the enigmatic symbols of their order and chanting their mysterious creed. The rest of the year they ho
sted genteel little suppers and devoted themselves mainly to charitable works.

  They also kept up a steady correspondence with other, more active, branches on two continents. It was through the good auspices of the Thornburg Glassmakers—and particularly of Jedidiah's patrons, Master Ule and Mr. Owlfeather—that Sera, Jed, and Elsie had been able to sail to the continent of Calliope and escape from their powerful enemies. Though Sera was strongly sensible of the great debt she owed to the Glassmakers, who were as kindly and respectable a collection of gentleman dilettantes as anyone could hope to meet, when she considered their misguided meddling in ancient mysteries, when she recalled how a similar dangerous spirit of inquiry had proved so ruinous to her grandfather, Gottfried Jenk . . . how ardently she wished that Jed had never joined them!

  Arriving at Mr. Jonas's establishment, Sera rang the bell. The door was locked and the shutters latched, giving the normally welcoming shop a close and uncommunicative look. A moment later, Jed opened the door and ushered her inside, through the shop, and into the workroom at the back.

  Sera sat down on the chair Jed offered her, sweeping an eager glance around the room. She had never been in Mr. Jonas's inner sanctum before, and she was naturally curious. Low shelves lined the room, crammed with books and papers and all manner of queer instruments which (alchemist's granddaughter though she was) Sera did not recognize. In the center of the room stood a great engine made of brass and blued steel: a complex thing of gears and pulleys and weights and pendulums; Sera could make neither head nor tail of it, though she remembered that Jed had said something about experiments with perpetual motion. A number of faded maps and diagrams were pinned to the plaster walls above the shelves, and a chart of the heavens had been painted on the ceiling. A window at the back of the room opened on a garden with a fountain.