The Vessel of Ra

by Catherine Schaff-Stump

  Drusus turned in a circle. “The space does look adequate.”

  “I worry about the ambient magic from the library,” said Lucy.

  “We can’t do this here,” said Carlo. “Octavia knows we are here.”

  “How?” asked Drusus.

  “I told her—she made me,” said Carlo.

  “She controlled you,” said Lucy. “You are part demon. I suspected when Ra could command you; when I felt comfortable around you.”

  Carlo squeezed his fists hard. “She can’t anymore. That’s what matters. She is on her way here. We should make her have to work to find us, to give ourselves a better chance to complete this ritual.”

  Paolo rubbed his chin. “Yes, well, this isn’t the right place for magic in Venice. Sand and light, these are not Venice’s elements. Water is the strongest element in this city.”

  Drusus looked at Paolo sidelong. “We should hold the ritual in a canal?”

  Paolo laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. We should hold it in the swamp.”

  After a brief scramble for the necessary components, Carlo, Lucy, and Paolo rowed the leaky boat outside the city. Drusus hovered nearby until they were out of the city proper, then scouted ahead.

  Lucy bailed water from the boat as Carlo rowed. She wasn’t certain what Paolo’s criteria were for a suitable place to cast magic. Every bit of the swamp and grassy land outside Venice looked as desolate as every other piece of it. Waterfowl glided in the puddles among the grass with placid grace. The fall winds rippled the water with chilly breath and grasses bent in a rhythm, which flowed with the city. There was a green, muddy smell to everything, but Lucy found they were never too far from the city’s rotting stench. The sky was its usual dull gray. Lucy was certain the heavens would open up on them and they would drown above and below.

  “Why here?” Carlo asked. He tied the boat to a tenacious clump of reeds.

  “This is the most solid part.” Paolo ambled out from the boat. “Be careful, Miss Lucia. Even though this part is safe, it is still soupy.”

  Drusus landed nearby, frowning as he sank into the mud. “These shoes will never be the same.”

  “Why don’t you hover?” said Carlo.

  Drusus frowned. Lucy thought it was funny. She stepped into the muck.

  Paolo tapped Carlo on the shoulder. “You come with me. We’ll start laying the circle over there. You two, start here. Be quick about it.” The Borgias slogged their way across the spongy ground.

  Lucy was up to her calves in mud. Ra swept in and waterfowl panicked away, huddling onto small islands, floating in the water. Acqua alta rain returned with a vengeance, leaving them drenched. Should she survive this, one thing she looked forward to was being dry. She hadn’t felt warm since Firenze.

  She understood about Carlo now. How he felt familiar, the comfort she had with him, the familiar feeling of shadow. While Lucy had never been comfortable in her own home, the shadows were more comfort than her family. Carlo was like the quiet shadows. Octavia had taken him, and Lucy was angry with her for controlling him. Drusus made it clear Octavia was coming to kill her. Lucy did not care so much about herself, but how dare Octavia control Carlo! He was a good, noble man, even if he was also a demon. The ground sucked at boots and skirts, and the rain dampened her spirits. Ra soared overhead, back and forth, as though he were anxious and pacing.

  Lucy sprinkled the titania Drusus had brought with him, watching it soak into the water. She didn’t see how anyone would be protected. There was no circle with the soggy ground dissolving the powder. She knew in the end, it would be her and Ra, and no circle. Ra would return to the Abyss after she severed him. Once the ceremony began, he would fight her in earnest to keep from going back. She wondered why he wasn’t trying to stop her now. She guessed Ra didn’t believe she could get rid of him. Then, at the Trial, he would Bind her.

  She wouldn’t let him. She would win. She had to.

  Afterward, she would find a way to free the gods. She didn’t have the right powers, but she also knew the situation was wrong. Octavia wouldn’t care. She wouldn’t understand, but Lucy would have to make her. Binder magic was slavery for both Binders and demons. Magic shouldn’t be used to hold anything against its wishes.

  Drusus closed his part of their attempted circle and stood by her. She had never seen Drusus like this before. His jacket and gloves were discarded, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Water beads glistened off the olive-colored skin at his neck and forearms and his shirt clung to his body. She was conscious of her height, of the paraffin color of a Binder’s skin, how unworthy she was of his trust. His mistake had been being nice to her, being interested in her, then showing up to save her. How could she not find him irresistible? She had always been interested, but she never dreamed he cared. Volunteering to be her Anchor made him very special.

  She wanted to step away from him, but she stayed.

  “Just so you are aware,” said Lucy, “I doubt this circle will work at all.”

  “Maybe it will,” said Drusus. “Earth isn’t the only powerful element. As Borgia said, in Venice, water is everything.”

  “Maybe.” Lucy felt her cheeks heat up. “I wish you would go back to Octavia.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “You have that backward,” said Drusus. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” He smoothed his hair back.

  An ache twisted in her chest. So beautiful, his full lips, his piercing eyes.

  “You don’t know Octavia like I do, Lucy. She’ll come for you. She wants you to have this Trial with Ra and this circumvents it,” he said.

  “Why?” said Lucy. “If she knows I will lose?”

  “She wants to make sure you lose,” said Drusus.

  “You’re wrong. She wants to save me. I want to save her from having to kill me.” She tried to pull a foot from the ground and found her boot was stuck. She shook her head. “How can I cast magic when I can’t even move?”

  “Let me.” Drusus put an arm around her waist and hoisted her into his arms. His smell made her feel what she imagined drunkenness must be like. His warm eyes melted her. “There,” he said. “Now, where do I put you down?”

  Never put me down, Lucy thought. Before she knew what she was doing, she leaned in and kissed him, her lips brushing his cheek.

  Drusus blinked at her. She had never noticed how long his eyelashes were. He pulled her closer and she kissed him again, just a touch. He smiled. “You’re a sweet child.”

  His warm eyes woke her from her dream and she shook herself. “Put me down, Drusus.”

  “Let me find somewhere less wet.”

  “Put me down.”

  Drusus moved her to what she thought might be a more solid clump of grass.

  She had kissed him. A small, innocent kiss, he thought. Like a child’s.

  Ra crossed the sky. You show more and more promise. Shame stabbed her.

  “I have taken advantage of you,” Lucy stammered.

  “It wasn’t that kind of kiss, Lucy.”

  She ducked her head. “I know.” Lucy shielded her eyes with her hands and watched Ra circling overhead. “Leave me alone. Please.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone.”

  “I need you to leave me alone.”

  “Lucy,” he said. “I’m sorry. Did you mean—”

  “No,” she said. “I want to concentrate, to prepare.” All these things she said in a rush, like she could chase him away with her voice. “Talk to Paolo and Carlo about the circle.” Anything. Just get him away.

  Drusus rubbed his eyes. “I am sorry.”

  “Please.”

  “You’re making too much of this,” Drusus said. He slogged away, his jaw set, his eyes stormy.

  Lucy hopscotched from mud mound to mud mound, working her way to the circle’s center. Once she freed Ra, she could never return to Octavia and Drusus. She had always known how she felt, but the line she had just crossed left her
no doubt she could only cause pain there.

  Or worse, they would ignore her like Drusus just had. They would keep her a child. Lucy didn’t know what she would do after Ra.

  Then she did know — Carlo. He was her friend. He felt responsible for her and she felt comfortable with him. For her future, life with Carlo was as good an idea as any she’d had.

  She laughed. Lucy Klaereon considering life after fighting Ra. She had changed.

  She needed to stay away from Drusus. She could not betray Octavia, no matter how dangerous Octavia was. Octavia needed Drusus. What would happen to her without him?

  Balthazar, the efrit, was a red mountain. Family rumor said he was thousands of years old. Octavia’s first reaction upon seeing him was to cry, tears trembling down her face as he led her deep beneath Erasmus’ Temple. She entered the chamber of the angel alone. The giant angel filled the sky with her wings, formed from stars black on white in a negative of the universe. The angel wept and Octavia wept, and neither could do anything, both mirroring each other’s despair.

  When she was with the angel, there was silence. Octavia’s fondest wish had come true. No one was telling her what to do. Not her father, not Khun, not Ra. What should she do? It was her decision, and without anyone’s guidance, she was paralyzed.

  Octavia crossed the desert to Erasmus’ Temple outside of Alexandria. The stones, blazing hot in the sun, were now cold like winter’s kiss. Sand covered the tomb, but Balthazar and the angel he guarded had been waiting for her as they’d waited for countless Klaereons who’d made this journey. Contrary to popular belief, the demon was not the Binder’s curse. Each Binder had to face their own flaws, their own nature, and this would change once the Trial was over.

  Khun told Octavia what she would see, and fear of the giant angel had consumed her, growing with every step as she moved across the desert, across the wadis in the sun. Khun was gone, her enemy now, and this was a journey she had to take alone to Bind him, to make Khun hers to command, like Neith belonged to her father.

  Octavia shook as she looked at the angel, larger than the world, than everything combined. She knew the words from the Trial. The feathers of a fallen angel were used to Bind the demon in darkness. She had to ask for them.

  The angel’s skin shimmered, her hair aflame with lights like the Aurora Borealis, shifting from one color to the next. Music sounded when she opened her mouth. Octavia averted her gaze. She had nothing to say. The being looked right through her and saw all the ways in which she was imperfect. Octavia said nothing. She knew her weakness. She didn’t want to believe her father was wrong, but she was not destined to be the heir of the family. She wasn’t special. Ra didn’t want her. She was ordinary. If she fought Khun and won, there was no duty to tie her to the family. Lucy was destined to take on that responsibility.

  But she was special. Ra did want her over Lucy. She hated the idea that she had been overlooked and Lucy had drawn Ra’s attention. Fighting Khun did not frighten her half so much as looking at this angel who wanted to bleach what she was away, what her father had always told her about her destiny.

  The silence was deafening.

  The angel opened her massive hand. The idea, Octavia had known from Khun, was for her to step into the hand and look the angel in the eye. Caius had been dropped by the angel, which is why he leaned on his walking stick. She saw no reason why the angel should not throw her away.

  “Trust her,” said Balthazar, before she had entered the chamber. “Go to her.”

  Octavia needed no more help. Caius had told her what to do: kill Lucy and take the scroll. Ra told her what to do: take the scroll and be powerful, more powerful than she could imagine. Khun told her what to do: stay with him. What would the angel want? So many voices chased her. The silence could not last.

  “No,” said Octavia. She covered her ears. “Give me the feathers so I can leave this place.”

  Octavia stepped back from the hand. The angel snatched her into her fist and held her up to one shiny eye. In her eye, Octavia saw reflected stars, heavens, universes, dark places. She saw herself and she reached for her reflection, but it was too late to pluck the reflection from the black stars.

  The angel placed her back on the ground with care. Octavia wondered what the angel had seen. Pinfeathers from under the angel’s wings floated to the stone floor, downy like snowflakes. The angel turned her back on Octavia, her feathers now gray and mottled. She stepped outside and dropped the feathers onto the floor. Balthazar retrieved them.

  Grim Balthazar forced the pinfeathers into Octavia’s hands and led her outside the chamber, past the pedestal, which used to hold Solomon’s Scroll and the broken bones of the defeated, who tried to take it before Erasmus, now dust on the stone floor. Octavia wished her father were here to tell her she was still perfect, still special.

  “Your Trial,” boomed Balthazar, “will not go easily. You lack the will to fight, to make your stand. She has no faith in you.”

  “What do you know?” said Octavia. “Khun likes me. He would not let me lose.”

  Balthazar said nothing.

  “I have them,” said Octavia. “The feathers of a fallen angel. I’m ready.”

  “The road before you is paved with lies,” said Balthazar. “Proceed cautiously.”

  “You don’t think I can win. I will win!”

  Balthazar gazed into the sun. Her father had told her the efrit would be like this. Balthazar predicted Caius would not win, but he had, and he had Solomon’s Scroll now. Balthazar was not to be heeded at all, an ancient in the desert who knew nothing of the nineteenth century and its demands.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Venice is a wretched city.” Octavia smoothed out the black shadows swarming around her, fitting her body in a black dress that hugged her curves. Shameless, no doubt, but she was well past caring what people thought. This dress sparkled and lived. Onyx shadow surrounded her neck, dotted her temples. The loose clothes and large sleeves, the current fashion, didn’t matter to a sorceress full of dark magic.

  The magic teeming inside intoxicated her, let her inhibitions go. The Khun she had known before her wedding was nothing like the Khun she had known today, so angry and dark. He and the shadows had obeyed her darkest thoughts, created her true self. There was nothing she couldn’t have and everything she wanted was in her grasp.

  “Venice is romantic,” said Khun. “All those mysterious shadows.” He sat close behind her on the giant bird she had fashioned from the Abyss. Each flap of its wings left behind smoky smudges as they flew over the swamp. Khun’s magic had been enhanced from their encounter as well, and he traced Lucy to the swamps outside Venice when the apothecary proved abandoned. Let the mouse scurry to a hole in the wall. No one could hide from Octavia Klaereon if they were connected to the dark.

  “Shadows are not romantic,” said Octavia. “Mystery is not romantic.”

  His eyes roamed over her. “There is something to be said for the obvious.”

  “I promise you this,” said Octavia. “We are done pretending. You and me, this was meant to be. The rest of these things, the scroll, my marriage, are not necessary.”

  Khun placed a finger on her lips. “You must focus,” he said.

  Octavia nodded. “Lucy is going home and she’ll have her Trial. I will kill her to save her and then I will decide what to do to Father.”

  “Do you care to tell me what you’re planning?”

  “Lucy will lose, but it is not her fault. Father is at fault. Ra cannot walk the Earth, so I must kill Lucy. Drusus is right. I don’t want to, but Father’s manipulated her. There is no alternative. By killing Lucy, I will save her soul. Because I will have to kill her, I will inherit Solomon’s Scroll from Father.

  “Father thinks he can manipulate us, but I see through him. Why would Father give me the scroll? He has no plans to relinquish his power over anything. Father feels he can control you and me. He is wrong. Father and I will have words about what he’s done to us.”

/>   “Is this wise, Octavia? Your father can summon all the demons to fight us.”

  “We are not hiding anymore. We can survive anything Father throws at us. You make me the more powerful magician”—she smiled—“as long as you give me access to your power.”

  Khun wrapped his hands around her waist, pulled her close, and breathed in her ear, “Happy to be of service. I am yours to control.”

  Octavia breathed in his scent. “When this is done,” she said, “when we have taken Father and the scroll, there will be nothing to do except while away the hours however we see fit.”

  “Octavia, I love you.”

  “I don’t love you,” said Octavia. “What I feel is close enough to love that you won’t notice.”

  Octavia turned her attention to the land below. Until now, she had felt chained inside herself. All those voices, all those people playing tug of war for her soul. Khun, even, pretending to serve, always pulling at her. Octavia wanted darkness, no matter how much she tried to resist it. Khun answered her with darkness in return. The voices in her head were happy today, quiet.

  Below, she saw two men not far from a small boat, one dressed in a cloak and the other holding a bag. Carlo Borgia and an old man, probably the grandfather. In miniature below them, closer to the boat, Drusus was holding Lucy. They kissed.

  Octavia’s eyes narrowed. Lust flared to jealousy. Smoke edged her bird, a sharp brimstone tang as her magic sang to life. The bird became clouds around her.

  How dare Lucy try to take Drusus from her! She had not discarded him.

  You can have anything you want.

  Octavia covered her ears with her hands. Ra had stayed quiet for so long, but now her magic was raw. There was nothing she could do to keep his voice out.

  “What’s wrong?” Khun asked.

  “Everything,” said Octavia. She lowered the storm toward her sister as soon as Lucy was alone.

  Carlo surveyed the swampy ground and water. “No magical circle can be maintained here. Nonno, this will not work.”

  “You are the expert on magical circles now? You astound me. Who is the magician here?” Paolo pulled out a triangle wrapped in cloth. He placed it back in the satchel after checking the strings were tied. Whatever it was, it made the hair on Carlo’s neck stand up. “The water is an element natural to the area. It is best to use local magic.” Paolo buckled the bag shut.