The Stone Light

by Kai Meyer

  The front door was open. Dario cast a surprised look at Serafin, but he merely shrugged. It was only after they’d cautiously entered that they saw the reason: The door lock was broken—in fact, it was smashed, splintered like the wood of the oak door, which had been thrown against the wall with such force that the plaster was missing in several places.

  On the alert, Dario peered into the darkness.

  Serafin whispered only one word: “Talamar.”

  He didn’t know what made him so sure. It could just as well have been mummy soldiers who’d forced their way into the house. But he sensed the breath of Lord Light’s slave like a bad smell that fouled the air. Like something that singed the hairs on the back of his neck and made all the roots of his teeth suddenly start aching. The presence of something bad through and through, perhaps even more evil than the power that had sent it here.

  “Talamar,” he said once more, louder this time, more grimly.

  Then he ran, despite Dario’s warning, despite even the darkness that seethed in the entry hall like a black brew in a witch’s kettle. He tore up the stairs, turned off at the second floor, and recoiled when he saw hectic movements flit over the walls to the right and left of him. But it was only his own image that flitted through a tremendous number of mirrors on the walls everywhere.

  Dario was running directly behind him when a deafening shriek sounded. Dario increased his pace, almost pulling past Serafin.

  Who had screamed? Man, woman, or girl? Or maybe something else entirely, not in torment but in shrill, blazing triumph.

  Through the corridors, from all directions at once, came the whisper: “The wish is fulfilled, the magic worked, the agreement kept.”

  The boys turned the corner, straight into the corridor that led to the high double doors of the workshop. Arcimboldo’s shop floor resembled the laboratory of an alchemist in olden days rather than the room of a craftsman. His magic mirrors consisted of silvered glass, magic, and the essence of the Flowing Queen.

  But the caustic vapors that met them now had nothing to do with alchemical substances or magic. They were the breath of damnation, of the black pestilence Talamar. Serafin knew it, felt it with every nerve, with every fiber. His senses cried alarm. His mind screamed to him to turn around.

  But he ran on, raised his saber high, opened his mouth in a scream of rage and helplessness—and flew through the open door into the laboratory, rushed through clouds of acrid smoke and sour steam, stumbled, and came to a stop, hardly able to breathe. And saw.

  Eft lay in a corner, maybe dead, maybe only unconscious. In the pallid fog that filled the room, it wasn’t possible to see if she was still breathing. She wore no mask, but her face was turned away.

  Something was moving in the mist, like a giant spider with four legs. Limbs bent out of line, as if someone had put a rag doll together wrong. A body whose belly faced up, and an upside-down face, the pointed chin facing the top, the malicious eyes at the bottom. Like a human child making a bridge; and yet far removed from any humanity.

  The messenger from Hell was pulling something behind him with one hand, a motionless bundle. A body.

  Junipa.

  Serafin hesitated only a moment to make sure that Dario saw the same thing he did, then dove through the caustic mist at Talamar so fast that Hell’s messenger could scarcely react. Instead of avoiding him, the creature dropped Junipa, raised an arm—in a distorted movement that had nothing in common with anything earthly—and turned away the saber blade with his naked skin, hard as stone, as impervious as the horn shell of an insect. The blade rebounded with a sickening thudding sound, and Serafin was almost thrown to the ground by his own momentum. He caught himself at the last moment, took two steps back, and then stood, legs astride, ready for the next exchange of blows.

  A shrill laugh rang from the creature’s twisted mouth; his eyes searched, explored, discovered the second opponent.

  Dario had learned from Serafin’s mistake. Instead of engaging Talamar on a straight line, he made a step toward the beast, whirled around, sprang to the right, then to the left, and finally leaped clear over his antagonist in an acrobatic jump, turned in the air, and using both hands, drove the saber into the body of Hell’s courier from above.

  Talamar groaned as the tip scratched his skin. He shook himself as if it were an insect sting, spit out a string of staccato sounds, then merely wiped the blade aside. The tip had penetrated scarcely a finger’s breadth, too little to weaken him or seriously wound him at all. Dario snatched the saber back before Talamar could grab it, landed on both feet, staggered briefly, then retrieved his balance and called out to Serafin something that was swallowed up in the creature’s angry bellowing.

  But Serafin understood it anyway.

  Dario now was standing on Talamar’s right side, while Serafin was still on his left. They could take the messenger from Hell in a pincer movement if they managed skillfully. If they dealt fast enough.

  Talamar was quite capable of speaking the language of the Venetians—Serafin had heard it himself—but the sounds that he now uttered hurt Serafin’s ears. It was as if the sounds were something living, sent out to weaken Talamar’s opponents and destroy their concentration.

  Serafin forced himself to be calm. His eyes sought the motionless figure of Junipa, half buried under Talamar’s body, and he believed he saw a metallic flash, a reflection in her eyes. They were open. She was watching him. And yet Junipa could not move, as if Talamar had laid a spell on her. Her limbs were rigid, her muscles frozen. But she was breathing, he now saw very clearly. She was alive. And that was what counted.

  Dario let out a whistle. Serafin looked up, nodded to his companion. And both attacked at the same time, letting the sabers whirl and rain down on Talamar’s armored skin.

  Steel bounced on horn. Without success.

  Talamar screamed again, not in pain, but in rage. Then he went on the counterattack.

  He had recognized Dario as the most dangerous foe, and so he favored him with his first thrust. The claws on Talamar’s fingers, no shorter than a dagger blade and just as sharp, flashed forth and back, darting, whirling blurs, and then Dario cried out, staggered back, and bumped against a workbench. With great presence of mind he threw himself backward, although losing his saber in the process, slithered across the top of the bench, and plunged to cover behind it. Just in time, for Talamar’s claws drove behind him, imprinting five deep scars in the wood.

  Serafin used the moment while the creature was distracted. He didn’t know how to penetrate Talamar’s armored skin, but his instinct told him that he should direct his attacks to the creature’s head. His saber cut through the gray mist, drove the vapors away from Talamar’s features, and for the first time uncovered his entire face. In one tiny instant, almost frozen in time, Serafin saw the steel thorn vine that ran like a band over Talamar’s eyes; saw the individual tendril that had loosened itself from the others and led diagonally across the creature’s mouth.

  Then the blade of the saber struck Talamar’s face—and bounced off again.

  The scream that now came from the creature’s throat sounded agonized and uncontrolled, and for the first time Serafin had the feeling of being dangerous to Talamar in spite of everything, yes, even being able to kill him.

  Instead of retreating and recovering strength for a new attack, Serafin pursued him immediately, thrust the saber forward, felt how he struck resistance—and saw the blade shatter into a thousand splinters.

  Talamar hauled back and dealt a blow that would have killed Serafin had it been better aimed. But though the claws only grazed him, they dug deep scratches into his right cheek. Serafin staggered and clattered to the floor. He fell so hard that it knocked the wind out of him, and when his vision cleared again, Talamar was gone.

  Junipa had also vanished.

  “Serafin?”

  He looked up and saw Dario stand up behind the workbench, gather his saber from the floor, and then stare incredulously at the five deep
gouges in the top of the workbench. It didn’t take much imagination to visualize what would have been left of him if the blow had actually struck him.

  “Here!” Serafin cried, but it sounded like an inarticulate wail, not like a word.

  “Where is he?” Dario staggered over to him. He was supporting himself on his saber like a crutch. His face was contorted in pain and a bruise like an exotic plant bloomed under his left eye.

  “Gone.”

  “Where?”

  Serafin picked himself up before Dario reached him. He was still holding the hilt of the saber in his hand. He stared at it in disbelief, and then carelessly threw it aside. The metal hilt clattered on the wooden floorboards, skittered a ways away, and was then taken up by a hand, which pulled it abruptly from the billows of mist like a hungry animal.

  “Eft!” Serafin bent forward and helped the woman to her feet. “I thought—”

  She didn’t let him finish. “Where’s Arcimboldo?”

  Serafin looked around, saw only Dario, who shrugged, and then he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Eft pushed his hands away and struggled forward, her upper body bent over, and dragged herself through the caustic fog, which was burning in Serafin’s lungs like liquid fire.

  “He must … be here … somewhere.”

  Serafin and Dario again exchanged looks; then they fanned out and searched the interior of the workshop.

  After a short while, they were certain that neither Talamar and Junipa nor Arcimboldo were there. Instead they stumbled on an opening in the floor, with charred edges, jagged, like a star that a child might have drawn on the floor with unskilled fingers.

  For a moment, Serafin thought that the hole led directly to Hell.

  But after his eyes grew used to the darkness, he saw at the bottom of the opening the floor of the story below. He would have jumped down then and there, but Eft held him back.

  “Leave it,” she said. “He’s gone.”

  “And Junipa?”

  “He took her with him.”

  “We have to stop him!”

  She shook her head. “He’s fast. He could be anywhere by now.”

  “But …” Serafin fell silent. Whatever he intended to say was wiped away at one blow. They had failed. Talamar would take Junipa to Lord Light. The girl was lost.

  “Master!” Dario’s voice sounded muffled through the mist, probably from a room nearby, but even at a distance, the despair in his call lost nothing of its intensity.

  Serafin ran, but Eft was even faster. She had a cut on her head, with blood running down to the corners of her mouth, just in front of her ears. Her broad mermaid’s mouth was open a little, and Serafin saw the shine of the rows of sharp teeth inside. But he had no time to think about that.

  He followed her through the mist, through an open door.

  Arcimboldo had kept his magic mirrors in the storeroom. Most were gone—he’d handed them over to Talamar on the last delivery. Only a few still hung on their hooks or leaned against the wall, work ordered by his few Venetian customers.

  The old man was lying facedown on the floor. His left arm was stretched out close to his body, unnaturally turned, as if it had been broken behind his back or dislocated. His right hand clutched a hammer. Nearby lay the remains of a mirror, jagged shards that he’d obviously struck out of the frame himself.

  A question shot through Serafin’s mind, even before the shock of grief. Had Talamar succeeded in getting into the workshop through a magic mirror? And had Arcimboldo destroyed the entrance with the hammer?

  Dario crouched beside his master but didn’t dare to touch him, either out of respect or fear of the truth.

  Eft pushed the boys aside and rolled Arcimboldo onto his back. Then they all looked into his dimmed eyes, half-covered with strands of the wild white hair lying around his head like wet wool.

  With a gentle movement of her hand, Eft closed the old man’s eyes. Her fingers were shaking. She lifted Arcimboldo’s upper body, pressed it close to her, and laid the back of his head carefully in her lap. With trembling hands she pushed his hair back, stroked his cheeks.

  Dario looked up for the first time. Looked into Eft’s face.

  He uttered a gasp, and for a moment it looked as if he would draw away from her. But then he had himself under control again. He gave one quick look at Eft’s legs—no fishtail, Serafin could read in his thoughts—then took the hand of his former master and pressed it firmly.

  Serafin felt out of place. He hadn’t known the magic mirror maker well, but he’d liked him. He would have paid his respects to the dead, but he feared that any gesture would seem shallow and false. The two had so much to be grateful to Arcimboldo for, their grief must be infinitely deeper. He bowed briefly, turned around, and went back to the workshop.

  He didn’t have to wait long before Dario joined him.

  “Eft wants to be alone with him.”

  Serafin nodded. “Yes, of course.”

  “She said we should wait for her.”

  Dario perched on the edge of a table. His gaze was turned inward. It astonished Serafin that Dario wasn’t in more of a hurry to get back to the enclave, in spite of everything; the attack on the Pharaoh still had to take place tonight, and it did not lie in Dario’s power to change this plan.

  “What is she going to do?” Serafin asked.

  “I think she intends to go with us.”

  “To the enclave?”

  Dario nodded.

  Perhaps that wasn’t such a bad idea. Eft was old, over a hundred, he guessed, perhaps even older, but her appearance was that of a woman in her thirties. She was slender and lithe, and it wouldn’t have surprised him if she knew how to handle a blade.

  “You didn’t know it, did you?” Serafin asked.

  “That she’s a mermaid?” Dario shook his head. “No. Of course we wondered why she always wore those masks. She never let anyone see her whole face, only from the nose up. A disease, we thought, or an accident.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows, maybe we also did suspect it a little. Tiziano made a joke about it one time, what if … but no, I didn’t know. Not really.”

  They left the workshop and sat outside in the hall, on the floor, their backs against the wall, Serafin on one side and Dario on the other. Both had their knees drawn up and looked down the corridor. Dario’s saber lay at his feet.

  The quiet was broken by the clicking of a door lock, as Eft locked the workshop from the inside. The last thing Serafin saw was Arcimboldo’s body, which Eft had laid out on a workbench, half-concealed behind the billowing clouds of mist.

  “What’s she doing?”

  Dario looked over at the double doors as if he could see through the wood. “No idea. We have to wait.”

  Serafin nodded his agreement.

  And so they waited.

  One hour. Possibly even two or three.

  They didn’t speak much, but when they talked, there was nothing of the old enmity between them, only respect and something that might someday become friendship.

  But they’d paid a high price for it. Acimboldo was dead, Junipa abducted.

  Much too high a price.

  The thought of having still to invade the Doge’s Palace after all this and carry out an assassination of the Pharaoh was suddenly so unreal, so utterly and completely insane, that Serafin quickly repressed it.

  The corrosive mist had slowly dissipated when the door lock clicked a second time. But now another smell took its place.

  Something was burning. Fire in the workshop!

  Serafin and Dario awakened from their trance and sprang up. Eft came toward them. Something gleamed in her hands. At first Serafin thought it was a blade, but then he made out a mask of silvery mirror glass. Eft pressed it to her as if it were something unspeakably costly, more than only a keepsake that she had taken in remembrance.

  Behind her the workbench was burning.

  A column of black, greasy smoke billowed up, was trapped under the roof, an
d then crept along to the door like the advance front of a swarm of ants.

  “Let’s go,” said Eft.

  The two boys exchanged uncertain looks, then Serafin looked inside the workshop again. The flames dancing around Arcimboldo’s laid-out body concealed the destruction they were wreaking. Something about the profile of the dead man seemed strange to him, as if the face of the old man were now smooth as a ball.

  His eyes traveled again to the silvery mask in Eft’s hand. The features were thin and haggard. The face of an old man.

  “Let’s go,” said the mermaid once again, her free hand pulling the edge of a neckerchief over her mouth until she looked like a robber who was preparing for his last big holdup.

  Dario nodded, and Serafin joined the two of them as they hurried quickly down the corridor. He looked back over his shoulder once more, but now he saw only smoke and flames billowing out into the passage in thick plumes.

  Moments later the three were running along the Canal of the Expelled, away from Arcimboldo’s pyre.

  Flames were now shooting from several windows, and dense smoke spread over the water.

  7 THE PHARAOH

  BEHIND THE GOLDEN DOME OF THE BASILICA OF SAN Marco rose a falcon, larger than any animal on earth, higher than the highest tower, mightier than the statues of the pharaohs at home in Egypt.

  He drew himself up to his full height of more than a hundred man-lengths, with round black eyes and a beak as large as the hull of a boat. His plumage was of pure gold and stood out against the night sky as if it were in flames.

  Horus, the falcon god.

  He unfolded his wings like golden sails and laid them on both sides of the façade of the basilica, around its rich Byzantine carving and ornamentation, around its pediments and windows and reliefs. The tips of the wings met in front of the portals, slipped over one another, until the entire basilica was caught in its embrace, concealed as if behind a curtain of glowing, gleaming lava.

  The falcon god laid claim to what was his.

  He showed everyone who now possessed the power in Venice that the city was now only a part of Egypt, a part of the Empire, a fief of the old gods.