“I suppose that maybe I am losing my mind through all these difficulties. Perhaps all this internal stress has driven me to the point of hallucination.”
Pomp clears her throat, loudly!
“Ahem!”
He smiles, turns to her and says, simply, “Thank you.”
She wants to show herself, to give definite proof that she’s there, to fully demonstrate her trust in him. But can she? Really? What if it’s all a ruse to bring her out into the open? That smile, is it truly friendly, or merely victorious? And what if he isn’t—dare she say it? she must!—under Mowler’s influence? What if Von Graeb is everything he seems to be? If she shows herself to him now, one more person will know, really know, that she is not only real, but here. That knowledge might draw the hidden Mowler out. Then again, it might endanger Von Graeb. If the sorcerer found out, he would be merciless to Von Graeb, as he was to her and Heraclix. And if she caused Von Graeb’s suffering, she would simply come undone. Even if her appearance didn’t result in a bad situation for Von Graeb, it would definitely change their relationship. Maybe he would laugh at her smallness. Or, perhaps her looks, cute, by all means, but not Lady Adelaide beautiful, by any means. Seeing her would definitely lessen her mystique in his eyes.
But still, she feels she must. She is compelled by some inner need not only to know, but to be known. She had been good so far, hadn’t she, observing on Heraclix’s behalf, but not getting involved? That is, if one can excuse a very minor slip up, likely in Mowler’s presence, in front of the entire ruling class of the Holy Roman Empire? This could be forgotten, couldn’t it?
No, of course not.
Then what does she have to lose, showing herself to one of the few mortals who hadn’t fled or frenzied at her unanticipated appearance? How else can she prove that Von Graeb is a good man, as she thinks he is. And if he is Mowler in disguise, she could escape. She did it once before . . . with Heraclix’s help. But Heraclix is not here now. She must stand on her own, nudge fate like a dice-roll, and step out into the open.
She will do it.
Now.
A knock sounds at the door so swiftly that she isn’t even sure if she has appeared or not.
Either way, Von Graeb doesn’t seem to see her. He turns toward the knocking door.
“Enter!” he says in a firm voice.
The door opens, and Lescher enters, bowing as he walks.
“Milord, Milady Adelaide comes soon with news about the wedding arrangements.”
“What news?”
“Good news, Milord. She should be here within minutes.”
Von Graeb’s eyes light up.
“Excellent. I shall be ready for her arrival.”
As Lescher exits, Von Graeb stoops down to pick up the dice.
Pomp flies out through the closing door. She cannot wait for the Lady Adelaide to arrive, so she flies out to see her.
As soon as she clears the doorway, the moonlight and streetlamps are shut out. Darkness, in the form of a black sack, envelops her.
“I have you!” someone says in an old, familiar voice.
She struggles, but her captor flails the bag at the ground once, twice, battering her before she can react.
In an injured daze, she hears a jar lid open, feels herself being stuffed, still within the bag, into the glass cylinder. The jar lid slithers shut.
CHAPTER 23
“Brethren,” the Raven addressed the Shadow Divan atop their stronghold under the faint light of a moon sliver. “This man, this Heraclix, is in need of our help. Our friend and brother, Agha Al Mahdr has brought him and his young companion to us, seeking our aid. The youth is too young and inexperienced to counsel with us, so he sits below, awaiting word. Agha Al Mahdr has been called out on other business, which needs his attention. We are called upon by our covenants of brotherhood to come to the aid of Heraclix, our brother. Those who consent to give aid, say ‘aye.’”
“Aye!” they said in unison.
“My thanks,” Heraclix said, bowing.
“Your thanks is not needed, friend Heraclix,” the Raven said gravely, “for our aid does not come without a price.”
“Price?” Heraclix said.
“Nothing unreasonable,” said one of the Demon twins.
“Only a little information,” said the other.
“We promise not to harm you,” said Skull-face.
“Or your companion,” added the Veiled One.
“After we have helped you, we will ask a few questions of you is all,” Scaramouche said.
“Nothing that will compromise you,” the Hooded One said.
“We only require your honesty,” Raven said.
Heraclix thought carefully about how he should answer them, what he should be willing to reveal. He hardly knew these people. He didn’t yet know whether or not to trust them. Yet he did feel a faint sense of camaraderie with these acolytes of life and death. It was a connection unexplainable by his short stay here or his hosts’ . . . “hospitality” was not the right word. Perhaps “interest”?
Still, he was hesitant to speak of the glimpses of what may or may not have been his life before rebirth. What if it was all false and his feelings betrayed themselves as only the side effect of some electrochemical reaction? Perhaps he had hallucinated those visions of Hell and before. What if everything he thought or felt regarding those dim shivers of memory were false? What if his memories were a lie?
Worse yet, what if they were true? Could he live not only with the monster he now was, but also with the monster he might have been before waking in Mowler’s cauldron? His greatest fear, he found, was himself.
Still, he felt (again, those untrustworthy feelings!) that he must push forward with some modicum of faith to break through the wall of fear in order to see for himself the unknown become the known. He had no choice but to trust the Shadow Divan and trust himself to them.
“Very well,” Heraclix said. “I shall tell you what I know, as I have seen it.”
“Excellent. But first, we have someone else to question. I think you will find . . . the subject’s comments of great interest.”
The necromancers produced chalk, incense, and candles from beneath their robes. Chanting as they worked, the six created a magic circle, very similar to the one Mowler had created not long before his ostensible demise. This circle was smaller than the one in Mowler’s apartment, however—not even large enough for a medium-sized man to stand in, at least not without being completely rigid and still.
“Please, sit,” the Raven said, pointing to the appropriate spot.
Heraclix sat down and pulled his cowl over his head against the cold night air. He looked at the ground on which he sat.
“Oh, there’s no need to worry,” Skull-face said. “This one is very minor. You won’t need any protection for this.”
Heraclix wasn’t sure that he liked the way “this” sounded.
“A simple matter,” said the Veiled One, taking a seat next to Heraclix. “It will only take a matter of a minute or two in order . . .” The Veiled One stopped suddenly. “Shh!” he ordered the already-silent Heraclix. “Vincenzo is about to begin the summoning.”
Scaramouche had taken a spot on the opposite side of the circle, facing Heraclix. He knelt, raising his hands from the floor of the roof up to the sky, palm up, then back down again palm down. His fingers fluttered like rising smoke followed by falling ash.
Heraclix looked around him to see where the sudden glow around the group had come from. Not the moon, nor the stars. Not the candles nor the incense sticks, though there were many of each. Then he looked around at the circle of telescopes that surrounded them and realized that their eyepieces reflected back the green flow of magical energy. The lenses of the telescopes also glowed brighter and brighter as Scaramouche’s chanting increased in tempo and intensity. The Demon twins, the Hooded One, and Skull-face joined in the ritual, adding their voices to Scaramouche’s. As their voices chimed in and grew louder, the telescopes glow
ed brighter until, at a point when the necromancers were nearly shouting at the un-heeding stars, green beams of light shot forth from the cylinders, piercing the night sky with a bristling array of green glowing beacons.
Then, another light shone. It was red, like the embers of a fire, and grew out in veins from the center of the magic circle, like a tree spreading its roots. The glowing crimson veins pulsed like something alive, then grew out to the edges of the circle, where they stopped spreading horizontally and began growing vertically up and up until a shape—a short, winged shape familiar to Heraclix—took shape. Its lattice wings unfolded before Heraclix’s eyes. The creature apparently had its back to Heraclix, if the golem had properly gauged the orientation of the thing’s bird-like taloned legs.
Heraclix soon understood the reason for the profusion of incense that the Divan was burning. As soon as the faint scent of brimstone wore off, the stench of rotting meat poured forth out of the creature.
“What iz it you want of me?” questioned the devil-fly in a pitiable buzz.
“We will ask the questions, Bozkovitch,” Scaramouche said.
Heraclix barely caught a view of the thing’s immense hooked nose, but noted with a touch of humor the similarity of the face of the interrogator with what he could see of the interrogated.
“How do you know my name?” the devil-fly asked.
“We extracted it from you last time we talked,” Scaramouche said. “And no more questions or we will extract much more from you.”
“Ah, yes. So sorry, my memory izn’t what it uzed to be. My senze of time iz fled.”
“Of course it is. You are a denizen of eternal damnation. Which is precisely why we want to talk to you,” Scaramouche said.
“Thiz iz fine. I am glad to get away from my master for a time. He iz in an ill-humor lately.”
“Is the Lord of Flies ever in a good humor?” asks Scaramouche.
“No. But he iz particularly sore with me, since I alerted him to a recent infiltration of hiz realm. I waz only trying to be helpful, but . . .”
“Infiltration?”
“Yes. To be honest, it iz not my master’z displeazure I am so glad to be away from.”
“No?” Scaramouche asked.
“No. I am glad to be away from the infiltratorz.”
“Why is that?”
“Becauze I knew one of them, in part.”
“In part?”
“Yes, in the eye, particularly.”
“I am confused,” Scaramouche said, but in an attempt to not appear too soft, he snapped, “I do not like to be confused. So explain yourself, and quickly!”
“Az I said, my memory iz not so good anymore.”
“Perhaps if I let information leak to your master that you let information leak to me—”
“I understand!” the devil-fly said.
“And yet, I do not,” said Scaramouche. “What did you mean that you knew of one of the infiltrators in part, in the eye, particularly.”
“One of the visitorz, well, he waz not all himself.”
“Do make yourself clear, or I will be contacting your master. Do I make myself clear?” Scaramouche said.
“Yes sir. You see, it iz hard to explain. This . . . man?” the word dripped with doubt. “He, well, I can’t say he waz one man.”
“There were more than one?”
“Yes, well, one of them. The other waz no man. Az I waz saying, one of them looked like he had been patched together from pieces of other men.”
Raven and the others looked at Heraclix, but the devil-fly, whose back was still to Heraclix, was too focused on Scaramouche to notice.
“And so,” Scaramouche asked, “you knew one of this man’s eyes?”
“In very deed, yes!”
“There are millions of eyes on the faces of men. How could you recognize one eye among so many?”
“Oh, there iz no miztaking it. You see, or perhaps you do not,” the demon said, “that eye, in its former life, in my former life, waz mine!”
“You are sure of this?”
“As sure az I am of the image burned into it.”
“What image is that?” Scaramouche asked.
“The face of the girl that I killed with my own hands.”
Heraclix started to get up, but the Veiled One sitting next to him put a plump hand on the giant’s arm, urging him to refrain from interfering. Heraclix sat back down.
“You never fail to disgust me, Bozkovitch,” Scaramouche said flatly. “And this is the source of your condemnation?”
“Yes, though even in Hell my sinz follow me.”
“What do you mean?” Scaramouche asked.
“Everyone knowz everyone else in Hell. It iz part of the condemnation, to know who iz and who iz not there, alzo condemned. They say absenze makes the heart grow fonder, but it also cauzez great torment to be away from thoze you loved, to be with thoze you hated and who hated you. I learned that one who hated me had come to Hell.”
“And who was that?” Scaramouche asked.
“The father of the girl I had killed.”
“Surely she was innocent. Could a loving father be condemned to Hell?”
“She waz innocent, but he waz far from it. He sought to betray natural law, just az you do,” the devil-fly wagged its finger.
“Your impertinence will be rewarded with further tortures, Bozkovitch,” Scaramouche said flatly.
The devil-fly shrank back a half step.
“Az I waz saying,” it continued, “a man whom I had never met, but who hated me with all the passion he could muster, had come to Hell. I didn’t know where he waz, so I did my best to avoid him, which was a kind of torture itzelf.
“He didn’t find me, at least not then. But another did find me, a man from among the living. He sought my victimz father and questioned me about hiz whereaboutz.”
“In Hell?” Scaramouche asked.
“In Hell. He did not summon, he visited. A rather courteous gesture, I might add, for one practicing the sorcererz’ artz.”
“And why did this man seek the father of your victim?” Scaramouche asked, either missing or ignoring Bozkovitch’s implication.
“He said that he had come to retrieve the man’z soul from Hell, but not to save him. He said that he had a special torment reserved for the father, who had somehow wronged him. Hiz torture waz to be so exquizite and demeaning that it must take place among the living, that even the eyez of Hell would avert their gaze for the shame of it all. He said ‘that man will long to sojourn among the damned. For the punishment I have in mind for him iz more powerful than anything Hell or its minionz can contrive.’”
“And what was this vengeance-hungry sorcerer’s name?” Scaramouche asked.
“Why, of all people, you should know! It waz Mattatheus Mowler!”
Heraclix felt the hair on the nape of his neck rise as a numbing sensation washed over his back, then reached around to curdle his guts.
“Did this sorcerer, Mowler, find his man?”
“Yes. At least I think so. Or I thought so.”
“Don’t speak in riddles, Bozkovitch. You know what happened last time you played games with our time,” Scaramouche said.
Bozkovitch shrank back, holding its arm up in front of its face to shield it from the memory.
“What I mean to say iz, yes. The father’z prezence waz soon gone from Hell. I felt him leave. The sorcerer had found his man. But . . .” It stopped with a sharp gasp, realizing it had made a strategic error.
“But what, Bozkovitch?” Scaramouche said
“But he, the father, not the sorcerer. Ah, it iz all so confuzing.”
“What is?”
Bozkovitch breathed in heavily and exhaled with a buzzing sigh. “Not long ago, az the living reckon, another vizitor came to uz from among the living. An impossible vizitor. A man that never existed az the man he waz. I don’t mean to speak in riddlez. I cannot help it. I am a devil, after all.” It began to sob in a low, throbbing buzz.
<
br /> “Bozkovitch, just tell us what you mean. Who was the visitor? What did he look like?”
“He waz hideous and gigantic. I thought he might be a demon of some importanz. But I sensed that he waz alive, or at least not altogether dead. He waz an abomination, a pasted-together puzzle of men. When I saw him, one thing stood out to me: that eye, my eye, with the Hellish image forever burned into the pupil, the image of that poor, innocent girl that I had killed with my own handz. He had brought her there to me in Hell! I sensed, I knew, that this waz the girl’z father, with flesh of my flesh sewn onto hiz own, like some reminder to both of uz of what had happened in another life. You see why it waz all so confuzing?”
“Bozkovitch!” Scaramouche raised his voice.
“Yes, master.”
“Turn around.”
The devil-fly slowly shuffled around and bowed its head, exposing its shoulder to an anticipated lashing.
The Veiled One reached up and slipped Heraclix’s hood from his head just as Bozkovitch raised its eyes.
“Aaah! No! Not you!” the devil-fly screamed.
Heraclix recognized it as one of the devils he had seen in Hell.
“Send me back!” Bozkovitch begged. “That eye, I cannot look at it! Pleaze send me back!”
“First,” Scaramouche yelled, “you must tell us the name of the man whom Mowler sought to take from Hell. What did Mowler say his name was?”
“It was him!” Bozkovitch shouted, pointing at Heraclix. “He iz the man, he iz the father!”
“His name, Bozkovitch!”
“Ah, Okto something, ah, Octavius! Octavius Heilliger!”
Heraclix’s mind shot back to the memory of his own hand inscribing a book, the book that Pomp had rescued from the ashes of Mowler’s apartment: The Worm. He reached into his pouch and took hold of the book. But the glimpse into his past evaporated with the buzzing, rattling screams of the devil-fly, Bozkovitch, the man who had killed his daughter.
“I did what you asked. Now send me back! Send me back! Send me b—”
The voice was cut off in a puff of brimstone. The circle of candles extinguished all at once as the air exploded in the vacuum where the demon had vanished.
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