The whirring shuffle of mechanical bodies awoke us in the dead of night. The Beatifics were standing about the rim of the tent. Those with weapons held them tightly in jointed fists. Sala’s green flamed danced at the top of her staff.
“What is it?” Harmona said. We rubbed sleep from our soft opticals, stood and wrapped wet cloaks about ourselves. The fire was still alive, but it had burned low. The rain had stopped. A strange silence lay across the swampland. A trio of yellow moons dominated the sky, perfectly placed among swirling constellations of stars. The marsh pools were mirrors of moonlight.
“What is it?” I repeated Harmona’s question. Brix and Chancey were too frightened to speak.
Hangdog turned his opticals toward us for a moment. He wore a face of gray metal with painted crimson lips. “Phantoms,” he said. “Wild ones. Stay in the tent.”
We peered beyond the shoulders of the Beatifics as they stood like sentinels about the tent. Spectral shapes flickered between the willows. They glided slowly through the trees without leaving so much as a ripple in the pools. Harmona pressed herself against my back, clutched my shoulders. I wrapped my fingers around the hilt of my poniard, knowing it would be useless against these ghosts. Brix and Chancey came close to us. I heard Chancey’s teeth chattering.
“These are no moaning fizzleshades,” said Hangdog. “They’re dangerous.”
The luminous spirits of dead men surrounded our camp. Each one resembled the body that had once carried it through the living world. They had shed those fleshy skins long ago — as Harmona, Brix, Chancey and myself would soon shed our own. Yet our brains and spirits would find homes in finely sculpted mechanical bodies. The brains of these men had decayed long ago with the rest of their forgotten flesh. I imagined their rotted remains lying under the swamp, fodder for legions of worms and insects. Nothing left of them but moldy bones and creeping phantoms.
Some of the ghosts wore antique armor, split and dented in the battles that had killed them. Some wore great bronze helms decorated with winged dragons or devilish horns. Their skinless skull-faces were like those of unmasked Beatifics, but these were pitted bone hung with shards of dessicated flesh. Beatific skulls were smooth, silver, creations of perfect beauty. There was no beauty in the faces of these restless dead.
“What do you want?” Sala North asked. She raised her bright staff high, bathing the phantoms in her green light.
The ghosts only stared at us. They encircled the camp as the Beatifics had encircled the tent. The fire suddenly died, as if someone had poured water on it.
“Leave us!” Sala shouted. The phantoms ignored her. I could not tell if they meant us harm. They might fly forward at any moment to drain our living souls, feast on our essence as the vampires of the Organic Age used to feast on blood. But they only stared.
“They’ll fade when the sun rises,” said Albertus, settling the butt of his rifle in the mud between his feet. “No bodiless spirit can withstand the daylight.”
“How long until dawn?” Hangdog asked.
Albertus shrugged. “No idea.”
“We just had to take the Lesser Thoroughfare,” Specious complained again.
Sala called for quiet. The voices stopped. In the silence a rumbling sound grew closer. A pattern of repeating thunder. Hooves beating against the muddy road. It grew louder as we listened.
Harmona held her breath. Her body trembled against mine. I felt the heat of her skin even through our damp clothing. In that moment of cold terror I cherished her perfect warmth.
“It’s the highwayman,” she whispered. “The Surgeon.” I thought she might weep, but she was too scared even for tears. So was I.
“But how?” said Chancey. “He doesn’t haunt this road.”
“Apparently now he does,” said Brix. I almost laughed at his flippancy in the face of doom. A whimper-like sound was all I could manage. My stomach tightened with fright. I wondered if the Beatifics felt any fear at all. Did fear manifest from the brain or from the body? If the former were true, then the Rude Mechanicals could certainly know terror. They stood tall and dauntless all around us, staring at the black road ahead. If they were as frightened as we Organics, none of them showed it.
A rider on a dark steed rode out of the shadows. The horse was a construct of black metal, gleaming sharply in the humid air. Its opticals were slits of crimson, the light of twin flames. Steam billowed from its snout, and its jointed legs beat steel hooves against the earth, slamming the road with violent speed. Its pace decreased as the rider approached our camp.
In the saddle the Surgeon sat tall and grim. A wide-brimmed hat kept his face in shadow, but his opticals gleamed silver through that patch of darkness. His cloak flapped like a pair of gargoyle wings, settling slowly about his shoulders as the horse slowed. The phantoms parted before him, and the steaming horse walked closer to us.
“We know who you are,” Sala North said. She held the flaming staff between herself and the rider.
“Then you know what I want,” said the highwayman. His voice was cold, slicing through the air like a blade.
“We are an acting troupe, not a merchant caravan,” said Sala. “We have no wealth to give you. Go and rob someone else.”
The highwayman laughed, but there was no joy in it.
“I know who you are too, Sala North,” he said. “And what you are.” His steed stepped closer, and Sala’s light turned the black leather of his garb to glimmering shades of green.
His gloved hand reached up to remove the scarf that hid his lower face. A naked silver skull gleamed at us. “You are like me,” he said. “A victim of the Potentates. A slave of the Urbille.” I wondered why he wore no sculpted face. Why defy this basic custom of Beatific society? Perhaps it was part of his rebellion against the established order.
“We are nobody’s slaves!” Albertus said. He aimed his rifle, but Sala reached out and forced its barrel toward the ground.
The highwayman had not yet drawn the sword that hung at his belt. I saw a long-handled pistol there too, and another holstered on his right thigh. They were not modern Urbille guns, but relics of some distant Affinity. I could not guess at their power, but we had all heard the tales of his deadly blade.
“I say again, we have no money,” Sala told him. “Leave us in peace.”
The highwayman slid from his horse and stood facing our leader. He was close enough now that she might reach out and smite him with her weapon, or send a flash of emerald fire to scorch him. She did neither. A strange respect existed between them. Had they known each other in some previous incarnation? What had Sala not told us about this uncanny outlaw? One hand hovered above the pommel of his sword.
“If I draw this blade, someone here will die,” said the highwayman.
“I’ll burn you to ash,” said Sala.
The highwayman nodded. “You might. But not before I kill at least half your troupe. These hungry phantoms obey the spell of my will. Best to meet my demands. Do so and you can be on your way.”
Sala’s voice broke the ensuing silence.
“What do you want then? Tell us.”
The Surgeon’s opticals looked beyond the ring of Beatifics. He looked at us now, the pale Organics standing next to the dead fire.
“The Organics must come with me,” he said.
“Never,” said Sala. The green fire blazed from her staff.
Quicker than any of our opticals could follow, the highwayman swept his blade from its sheathe, a flash of silver moonlight. A high-pitched tone rang through the night. Sala’s head rolled from her shoulders and fell into the mud. The long blade slid back into its scabbard with a hiss. Sala’s body fell forward, and the flame of her staff extinguished itself.